I am using the Channels supplied image for the Raspberry pi 4. It is running great so far.
I saw some users had integrated a surveillance camera into the channels app on a channel.
The camera I have is an IP camera that is not connected to any NVR or software except the smartphone App.
Can I integrate that camera into channels app?
Thank You
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Maybe. What make model camera.
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It's pretty simple but you will need to do a bit of investigation to get your particular camera working. Here's a link that should get you started:
https://community.getchannels.com/search?q=camera%20custom%20channel
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REOlink rlc 420
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I went to a link that lets you generate an rtsp link, but in the generator tool it asks for channel and I left it at the default of 0 The resulting code was rtsp://admin:[email protected]/h264Preview_01_sub
So I selected Mpeg and modified a sample text that I saw and came up with this. (Camera name is Camera1)
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="Camera 1" channel-number="8002" tvg-name="Camera 1" tvc-guide-title="Camera 1 view" tvc-guide-description="Live view from Camera 1" tvc-stream-vcodec="h264" tvc-stream-acodec="aac" ",Camera 1
rtsp://admin:[email protected]/h264Preview_01_sub
It Saved with no error, but not sure if it is working. Should it just add to guide under channel 8002 ? Assuming all else is OK ? Update: I see the channel in the guide. But when I try to view it says Tuner not available.
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Update 2: Reviewed the log and saw it was not authenticating. I couldn't find the username and password, so I plugged the Ip into the browser and Reolink popped up with login screen. Tried admin admin, no good, so I tried my goto Pw and it logged in. So now armed with that info, I only changed the password in the text and Bingo. It came up in the Channels APP. And with audio to boot! nice Very Cool.
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OK, so this is good having it as a channel in my guide, but there is no way to record. I know I need software to do that, so if I wan4 ?
ted to run a surveilance software on the RP- 4, Is the RP-4 powerful enough to handle the load with channels and another software running? Is it even possible with the Channels Image installed on the RP-
RP image not meant to enable install of other stuff. Only exception is docker is preinstalled so lightweight containers can run as long as their base images have arm support. But in my past experience surveillance backends are typically pretty beefy I suspect you would have issues.
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Manual recordings have been discussed in this forum. Seems I’ve seen some hacky solutions but can’t seem to find them now.
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Yes and no. To schedule recordings from the Channels interface, there needs to be guide info associated with the feed. In the case of your cameras, you would need to manually generate XMLTV files to match with your cameras indicating the segments of time that you would like your possible recordings to be. (I.e., you would need to create a channel element for each camera, and then a separate programme element for each camera and time period. Also, you cannot simply say "the programme element should repeat every 30 minutes"; instead you would need distinct programme elements for every 30 minute segment of time for every camera.) This could be handled by a script that generates new files every X hours, but that is an exercise left up to the user.
The second option is to manually run your own scripts that essentially do the same thing as generating the XMLTV data: every X hours schedule recordings to happen on the cameras for durations of Y minutes.
In short, Channels is a DVR for linear television content. It is not a NVR for surveillance cameras. If you are looking to simplify your devices, I would suggest you look into a Synology NAS. Channels DVR runs quite well on those devices, and they can also run Synology's own Surveillance Station software, which is an NVR specifically for IP cameras. (It also supports Reolink's cameras natively. However, by default the standard NAS devices only come with licenses to record 2 IP cameras; additional licenses for additional cameras can be purchased for ~$50/camera.) Of course, that is only one solution: there are many others, such as ZoneMinder or even Reolink's own NVR hardware which is competitively priced—although I have no idea about its quality.
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Yeah. Agree. Channels is not a NVR. However, given that integrating RSTP streams is publicly promoted, some limited recording capability would be nice, just in case you see something you want to save. Otherwise, why bring it into a DVR at all? That’s why I pulled my cameras into Channels and then deleted the setup a week later as pointless. My two cents.
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So you can setup a stream of your cameras—or if you're savvy enough, a 4-up that you've created by piping your cameras through Ffmpeg or similar—and quickly view them from within a single interface. If I was anxiously awaiting a package, I could tune my front porch camera, and then quickly return back to my program by double-pressing the Play to resume my program when I saw no package was present. Repeat at the next commercial break, until the package was seen.
(Of course, HomeKit integration has made this unnecessary in our household. Instead of needing a channel dedicated to a camera, I can hold the Siri button on the remote and say, "Show front door camera", and a PIP window with a live feed of my front door camera appears superimposed over Channels' video player.)
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Yep. Exactly. Pointless. There are more elegant solutions available if all you want to do is view. Some limited recording could change my mind — or PIP. 
Hopefully the Android folks find it useful.
Great replies. I am learned a lot and not only about this topic. I just saw that double clicking the play button is a last channel recall, that was making me nuts on my Firestick that has limited buttons. Thanks for that. Since I have the Firestick 4k Max and investigating this topic, i decided to check and see if there was a firestick app that would handle this, and there are several, one free. I haven't learned enough to know where recordings would be saved, but I am guessing a Network connected drive. So If I decide to use Firestick as my TV set top box, for lack of a better term, then that would make more sense. I know how to do it with a dedicated NVR and all the network that is involved and I even have a DVR for analog cameras, but I have not committed to a whole house camea system yet and wireless technology is advancing rapidly, so rather than run a bunch of network wiring, I am looking to simplify and go wireless. But it is handy to have the camera feed as a channel even if I can't record.
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How in the world did I not know that? Schweet!
It occurs to me that one could simply use a software that is designed to trigger on something happening in an IP Camera feed and that makes a recording. I have used Sighthound and am currently trying Blue Iris to record activities captured from my cameras. It should be simple then to have Channels Import those videos. At that point one could watch those captured videos at one's leisure. Would that be an appropriate compromise?
This isn’t how custom channels work.
Read up in the documentation: