i just saw https://www.home-assistant.io/components/stream/
and ran the suggested command: sudo apt-get install -y python-dev pkg-config libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libavresample-dev libavfilter-dev
now i get another funky error: Invalid config for [stream]: expected a dictionary for dictionary value @ data[‘stream’]. Got [OrderedDict([(‘platform’, ‘generic’), (‘still_image_url’, ‘http://192.168.1.149/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/101/picture’), (‘name’, ‘front_camera’), (‘stream_source’, ‘rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/Streaming/Channels/101/’), (‘username’, ‘admin’), (‘password’, ‘my_pass’), (‘verify_ssl’, False), (‘authentication’, ‘basic’)])]. (See /home/tung/.homeassistant/configuration.yaml, line 150). Please check the docs at https://home-assistant.io/components/stream/
finally was able to see the cameras when i config the camera itself to output MJPEG on the substream. BUT now the NVR that is directly connected to the TV cannot see the substream. meaning i cannot see all 8 cameras at the same time on the TV. if i want to see something, i have to double click on a camera to enlarge it. can only see 1 camera at a time ouch