Video streaming into OMI

Hi Trond, for camera streaming, I would recommend using an open source NVR like Zoneminder or any other web based local NVR. Then use OMI web browser feature ( via OMI app or .NET control ) to access the server. I would advise against using the cameras own web server as well.

There are couple of things to consider even if OMI supported ONVIF and RTSP.

1) ONVIF or RTSP won't work on multiple OMI clients, so if you need to see on 2 devices it will prove dfficult as OMI is a Client visualisation not a server that can have clients connect to it

2) Loading on the cameras, just like PLCs and any other devices, if we start communicating multiple clients directly to it, it would increase loading on the devices and cause instability

3) Wont store any content: If i had cameras, I sure would love to record and playback, with NVR and using URL and namespaces within OMI you can get an integrated control

Took me a long time to understand why AVEVA would'nt support/ develop this, once i understood the details it makes sense

Hi Trond, for camera streaming, I would recommend using an open source NVR like Zoneminder or any other web based local NVR. Then use OMI web browser feature ( via OMI app or .NET control ) to access the server. I would advise against using the cameras own web server as well.

There are couple of things to consider even if OMI supported ONVIF and RTSP.

1) ONVIF or RTSP won't work on multiple OMI clients, so if you need to see on 2 devices it will prove dfficult as OMI is a Client visualisation not a server that can have clients connect to it

2) Loading on the cameras, just like PLCs and any other devices, if we start communicating multiple clients directly to it, it would increase loading on the devices and cause instability

3) Wont store any content: If i had cameras, I sure would love to record and playback, with NVR and using URL and namespaces within OMI you can get an integrated control

Took me a long time to understand why AVEVA would'nt support/ develop this, once i understood the details it makes sense

Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts about this topic Rainer. I'm a colleague of Trond, the topic starter.

In this case I assume we will have a professional NVR recording and managing the 50+ video streams.
We just want to have the ability to connect to the streams via RTSP and display any of them in OMI.

With help from Azhar at AVEVA Select we have found a third party OMI app that might solve some of this.
"Longwatch OMI App" from the company IVC looks promising. It seems to support live & saved video with controls. It also allows for PTZ controls. Have anyone tested this?

I will reach out to the company and ask for a demo license. Looking forward to testing it.

Hi Espen, I have used Longwatch OMI App , if you have a NVR why can’t you use that within OMI as a web control ?

Longwatch is amazing and has historical playback but you need a Longwatch server and it’s licensed separately. It’s licensed based on number of cameras and users. They do support other vendor cameras but they have the best integration with their own cameras , I would check support for your cameras installed.

Great to hear that you have good experience with Longwatch. We could use as a web control as you suggest, but in my experience that it is just a wrapper/work-around that is more difficult to maintain over time. Ideally I would like a native app that implements support for RTSP/ONVIF directly. We need a stable solution that provides flexibility and good performance. Maybe a Longwatch server is a way to achieve this?

Longwatch is a stable solution but essentially it’s a NVR inside with direct OMI integration. So you may need to switch to Longwatch or have both in parallel to achieve a stable solution. 

Any decent NVR which has web based system ( which is every other NVR ) can achieve integration with OMI using its web and namespace methods. It’s not a wrapper or a work around but an actual solution which can be customised to your needs.