FYI for others - also doesn’t work on Edge/Windows 10.
Hi Digidude,
Thanks so much for this guide. Brilliant, works on mobile app and Google chrome first time no setup issues.
Cheers
FYI for any other Swann camera users out there. I was having a problem with
rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/ch03/0
But found that changing to the “/1” feed works:
rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/ch03/1
Hope this helps someone out there.
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Is there a Swann integration? I have the RTSP streams working. But would like to access and integrate the more advanced features of my Swann NVR like détection and face recognition etc.
I did get my cameras to work with Frigate, but I would like to access the Swann NVR natively via an integration.
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I think that someone would have to reverse engineer the protocols that Swann uses (I’m pretty sure the dvrs are just rebranded from what I’ve heard. Don’t know the brand exactly however.) Like I’ve looked into it but its outside of my abilities at the moment. I’ll do some digging
I’ve got a breakthrough!!! My Swann dvr (DVR8-4580V) is rebranded Raysharp and I found an api that works! What model is your NVR @AlohaFlyer ?
Update: It’s looking a lot harder than I thought but, it seems possible.
Did anyone have issues with loading the stream,
I have just setup HA for the first time, so total newbie here. I have added my cameras which were real easy to add :), I get the picture image on the dashboard but when I try to load the stream I get an error "Error with media stream contents (bufferIncompatibleCodecsError).
Seems to be a transcoding error of sorts but being so new, I have no idea what to do with this information.
I have added the HA app to my phone and I can see the stream fine in the overview but it does not work on any of my dashboards
Any help would be great 
I didn’t have errors like you describe. I’d suggest using VLC to open the stream first and see if that works.
My older Swann DVR works fine with the ffmpeg integration. I Recently set up a new Swan DVR and it seems they’ve updated the harware. With the new one I get this error when I start the stream:
“Error with media stream contents (bufferAppendError)”
or some times this one:
“(bufferIncompatibleCodecsError)”.
It will still take snapshots and display the picture in lovelace just fine. I’m hoping it can be fixed by changing some option in my config.yaml. I’ll post an update when I know more
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I hope your problem.
I have same problem with 8 cams.
There must be a simple solution. Still images are displaying in the frontend which makes me think some setting with the ffmpeg integration needs to be adjusted. When I have a free minute I’ll try setting them up with the ip_camera integration and see if the stream works
I have the same problem, with Chrome and Firefox, but not in Safari!!!
Hi. I have same message on a windows pc using firefox. In my case it’s because my cameras are using HEVC codecs (h265) and windows doesn’t support it out of the box.
So this might be your case as well.
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Hey did you have any progress on this? Currently don’t have the hardware to do motion detection through frigate but would love to leverage existing swann motion detection alert and use them as triggers in home assistant
Sadly I got bad news🥲. Of course swann disabled it lol. I tried all the endpoints I could and I’m pretty sure they outright disabled it. I can send you the documentation so you can have a look if you want? I’m using frigate (albeit with my cpu since corals are impossible to get) and it’s been working well for me. There’s a dvr info endpoint that you can call and it will tell you if motion is currently detected but home assistant has to constantly call the endpoint.
Aah damn, no worries, thanks for looking into it. Yes can you send me the docs please. Yeah but running frigate on a pi with 4 cameras is probably too much haha.
Here they are. What kind of Swann DVR/NVR do you have. Specifically what year? Newer ones are made by an OEM named Raysharp but the some of the older ones are made by Hikvision. The docs are in Chinese and sometimes hard to understand because google translate lol.
I put them in this GitHub repository. They’ll be uploaded in a few, just have to setup the repository. I also put the sdk in there so that can be picked apart possibly.
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Ok, I just uploaded them all so go have a field day lol!
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I had an older model Swann DVR (srdvr-84500h). The Hikvison directories worked for me:
rtsp://[User]:[Password]@x.x.x.x:554/Streaming/Channels/[C]0[S]
[C] is camera channel
[S] is Main Stream “1” or Sub Stream “2”
camera:
- platform: ffmpeg
name: CCTV Front Door
input: rtsp://user:[email protected]:554/Streaming/Channels/101
Hope this helps those with older models.
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