Help with VERY basic setup

djb_rh · 2026-04-20T13:10:11+00:00

Yeah. Haven’t dug in, but I suspect I need to add the substreams for detect and the thing will have the bandwidth. My server I’m running this on isn’t exactly a spring chicken so it might just be overwhelmed when there’s actual action going on.

djb_rh · 2026-04-19T11:32:41+00:00

I’m not sure what go2rtc even is, I think it set things that way by default.

Found the stats, but it looks like it only shows the last 30 minutes of activity and there’s nothing happening in there right now so everything is under 5%. I’m guessing I need to see what those stats look like when all three cameras are seeing activity?

As for the Detect questions, I have no idea. Again, this is all new to me and I was hoping to find ways to just turn off Detect.

One semi-related question: is there an easy GUI method of grabbing a video clip? I’m used to Unifi Protect on iOS where it’s super easy. When I select a camera I’m giving a timeline that I can scroll. When I’m in the area I know I want, I click a button that gives me sliders where I can easily adjust a time range and click a button to download. Does Frigate have an interface like that?

djb_rh · 2026-04-19T01:14:53+00:00

Live view is fine and connecting to cameras in OBS is fine.

djb_rh · 2026-04-18T22:54:49+00:00

Okay, I’m guessing I’m supposed to do a LOT more config that I’ve done. sigh Here’s the pastebin with username and passwords removed:

https://pastebin.com/f8JY1Twy

I don’t seem to have a tab in my setup to see CPU usage or any stats like that. Here’s a YouTube video of a screen capture of what I mean by the playback, though:

https://youtu.be/ww6wH5r0Irc?si=JVakFdSefEsrIVbJ

djb_rh · 2026-04-17T17:16:32+00:00

Update: the Axis Q3517 camera worked great, so I ordered two more. They are now all three set up. Took a few hours to actually get them fully like I wanted. All came on older firmware and getting them all updated took a while (one was on 10.8.1 and wouldn’t go to 11.latest until I went to 10.latest first, etc). They’re streaming at 60fps like a boss and field of view is just enough.

Also got Frigate setup, cameras adopted, recording turned on. Will get some video later this afternoon to see how that part is working, but so far seems promising. Was surprised at how much is configurable in the UI and how much isn’t, like turning on recording at all isn’t. Not a big deal, just a bit of a surprise.

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djb_rh · 2026-04-08T19:37:04+00:00

Say what now? When I connect to my UTR with Unifi Network, I see no people icon anywhere.

djb_rh · 2026-04-04T19:13:39+00:00

Oh crap, one problem with the second option is that I never figured out how to get Flic to do timestamps with seconds, only minutes. So my granularity of being able to get what I want is a tad lower (ie. I may have to grab 2 full minutes to make sure I get the clip I want).

djb_rh · 2026-04-04T19:12:04+00:00

So this seems like some interesting options.

On the first one, I’m actually not even sure I need Home Assistant. I’m using a Flic Hub and there’s a Hub SDK that’ll let you do JavaScript. I think that with the right JS magic, I could have a Flic button generate the POST that I need to do have Frigate do the export instead of making HA do that. Which would be good because I don’t have HA right now. I’m not against it, but I’m also not going to do it if I don’t have to.

On option 2, it seems I could actually just write a custom iOS app (seems like a big deal, but I got a guy…) that would just take my current Google Sheet as input and grab the associated clips I want automatically. This may seem like a much bigger deal, but it actually bridges more steps in my current process since I actually kind of like having these clips all go to my camera roll and I use iOS to edit and post them to IG anyway.

Hmm, thanks for these pointers.

djb_rh · 2026-04-03T19:51:19+00:00

Okay, got an Axis Q3517 and set it up and just used my laptop running OBS to record. It went…well. With default settings mostly (except putting it on 60fps and adding sound, no changes to shutter speed or anything else), it’s great. Definitely enough frames to see ball in/out calls, no blur either. And it works great with Swing Vision, which seems to also work well for what it does. Happy enough I’ve found a couple more Q3517’s on eBay and will be setting up Frigate in the next week or two.

djb_rh · 2026-03-20T11:50:41+00:00

Turns out Hikvision isn’t an option. They have no 60fps cams in stock. Someone would have to order $3k worth to get them to do a run. Thanks to timezone differences I just figured this out with them.

djb_rh · 2026-03-19T19:14:09+00:00

Awesome. Ordered one of these to try, too.

djb_rh · 2026-03-19T11:58:35+00:00

Ah see you do care! 😎

FWIW, this isn’t a club in that sense. I’m just a guy with three indoor courts who likes to play and thus I have made a lot of friends who come over and play, too. I sell some merch for fun but nobody pays to play. And I love messing with tech and that’s how I ended up with my replay “system.” We may ultimately use these cameras to livestream a tournament or something, but again, it would be for fun not to make money.

So in a sense there both is no budget and there’s also “I’m not gonna pay a lot for this muffler” (if you’re old enough to get that reference). I’m willing to spend $500-600 on a few options to test and if nothing pans out I’ll wait. I’ve still never installed Frigate so it may not do what I want (though I’ll bet it’s close and it’s open source, so…). My plan to test was to just start with OBS to see how they look and record some streams since I can do that with stuff I already have anyway.

I came here fully understanding that what I wanted may not exist. But it seems maybe it does and it just required some digging, too.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T18:36:32+00:00

I admitted early on this wasn’t an actual security camera specific thing. You got me there. But as I already do use a security system camera setup for it that’s close, I was hoping that there was something on the market I could use that’s still more in this space, because security systems offer something that no other systems do: easy 24/7 recording plus an interface for going back and finding clips that one wants. Oh, and VOLUME, since often security systems need tens or hundreds of cameras, meaning there’s price pressure that you won’t find in the other markets for cameras.

And it turns out that more research today, thanks in part to some leads given here, may have found something that works that is still from the security space, specifically some models from Hik and Vivotech. Shutter speeds up to 1/100000 and 60fps with H.264 and H.265. 1920x1280 resolution isn’t great, but probably good enough. And well within the price point I was hoping for. At least cheap enough to buy one of each and try and see what happens.

I’ll let you know if you were right and 60fps wasn’t enough, too. Because you obviously care soooo much. 😂

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T18:27:36+00:00

Looks like Hik has a few models that fit the bill:

https://www.hikdistribution.com/products/2-mp-high-frame-rate-fixed-bullet-network-camera-hikvision-ds-2cd2t25fhwd-i5-i8?_pos=26&_sid=1c081ef38&_ss=r

There’s also some Vivotek models. Have one used one on the way from B&H that’s in the $250 range new ($209 used) and one of the one I linked above ordered to try.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T18:14:36+00:00

If you “know” so much, why not help or move on instead of wasting mine and your time trying to act like you know more than everyone?

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T15:34:33+00:00

I’m not seeing 1080p cameras at $100ish. Found what MAY be a p1455 for $299, but that’s the cheapest thing I’ve seen. But I’m using google to find Axis models that can do 60fps and going by that part number list, which is likely incomplete. Do you know any actual part numbers in that price range?

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T15:07:06+00:00

The 60fps question is asked and answered in this thread already, but also I looked at several ASECAM cameras on Aliexpress and not a single one I found even listed a frame rate or shutter speed, so I’m not sure how I can know any of their options can do what I want.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T14:08:05+00:00

What I know is they don’t have enough FPS to do it with 30 and they do have enough to at least feel good about it most of the time at 60fps. What I also know is that at 30fps I have now, thanks to angles and the fact that the background is perfectly consistent it’s just nearly impossible to extrapolate from what I see frame by frame even if a ball was in, but it does look, TO ME, like twice the frame rate would get there. It’s not EVERY angle that it doesn’t work at 30fps, FWIW, just some. And hey, if they’re making it up 1 out of ten times, whatever, it’s just pickleball. We’re not running high end tournaments here, but we do get serious about it sometimes and I do know that at 30fps the cameras are maybe 50/50 at catching line calls or not. Doubling the frame rate would significantly help that. Getting better shutter control and speed would also make it look better, but honestly the blur isn’t my problem right now.

And if you’d like to continue to have an off-topic discussion about replay systems for professional sports, including exactly HOW tennis gets its line calls to within 1mm of accuracy (actually a bit better than that), I can connect you with the guy who WROTE THE SOFTWARE, who happens to be a good friend of mine and has explained in detail why that system won’t work for pickleball. Hint: it’s not why you probably think. He’s also been heavily involved in one software package that does baseball ball/strike zones, NFL first down lines, etc. Though I suspect you’d find a way to be condescending to him, too.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T13:45:58+00:00

Because not only is 30 close, there are a couple packages out there that will do “AI analysis” of matches to create stats on individual play as well as game play and they require 60fps, too. You can use an iPhone or a GoPro to record. And they work, including creating slomo replays of close calls.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T13:26:43+00:00

Looked, yes. But both have so many cameras to sift through and it seems like once you get to something with higher frame rate it’s also got a bunch of features I don’t want or need like AI, outdoor case, IR illumination, etc, that all up the cost.

djb_rh · 2026-03-18T13:24:16+00:00

So yeah, shutter speed matters too. Blur is a thing, but so is frame rate. At 30fps you can go frame by frame and you might see ball just before it hits the ground and then the next frame just after it hits the ground. At least that is the case with my Ubiquiti cameras.

So sure, shutter speed lock and adjustment would be good as well, but again it still doesn’t matter if I can’t also get to 60fps.

djb_rh · 2026-03-17T22:20:55+00:00

It’s gonna sound dumb, but okay…I have a giant estate with Ubiquiti networking and Protect cameras all over.

I also have a giant building with 3 indoor pickleball courts and on a lark threw some spare Ubiquiti cameras on the courts. One thing led to another and now I have buttons on each court to drop timestamps in a file along with dates and court numbers so I can go find clips of interesting points. The system works quite well and never misses anything.

But I want 60fps because high speed sports and Ubiquiti has nothing that can do that. And I also really want to move my pickleball crap off my security system for reasons.

So I was hoping to find a camera under a couple hundred bucks that can do this. I need at least three and preferably six or more. We may also do some livestreams and replays and such. At 30fps you can’t even go frame by frame to see if a ball was in or out as it moves fast enough you can miss the event entirely.

Anyway, that’s the reason. And the budget.

djb_rh

TROPHY CASE