Support for Foscam FI8918W IP Camera

Voting for Foscam support as well... :)

Yes, Voting for Foscam support. Is there any way to view the feed from the camera, even if the PTZ is not supported? I have several of these cameras already, and the ReadyNAS Pro, and I bought the Surveillance program, and I'm trying to get this system to work. So, I've spent the money and didn't check the compatibility list well and now I'm looking for a "fix" to this issue. I'll probably end up buying a bunch of new cameras, but I'd like to avoid that expense if I can.

Well, this is a real bummer. We're camera shopping for our nursery (and planning to use cameras also for nanny-cam) and was hoping to leverage this capability with my ReadyNAS. But so far the best-rated camera is Foscam... and yet no support. :(

Also a little nervous, looking back through the forum, at how little activity there has been with the development on this. Still beta and we're almost in February of 2013? This sort of trend seems a lot like some other third party cooperations that fizzled in the past, and makes me a little leery of trying this out. Can anyone comment on this specifically? Does the 1.2 beta feel fully baked and I shouldn't worry?

Been doing some more research, and there *is* a path to supporting the very newest Foscam model, the FI9821W (though the critical factor is H.264 support, so the FI9820W is supported too), using the newly released DVBLink IPTV module. Seems that IPTV, for them, includes H.264 streams from cameras. :D So I'm leaning now toward doing that for my needs instead of waiting around for full support with the Surveillance add-on.

Also, I did encounter the (apparently now defunct) Kmotion add-on in these forums as well. No new build since late 2011 and the download location given on it's add-on thread doesn't still contain the software. So I guess you're SOL if you might want to try it and didn't already purchase a license.

Oh! I almost forgot the best part. Foscam's model numbering is extremely confusing. But they carry both MJPEG cameras (like the FI8910W and FI8918W) and H.264 (including the mendtioned FI9821W, but *also* the FI8608W. I mention the 8608 because it's the closest analog to the 8910 in the H.264 lineup. It does have some functional differences, though, which may be important to consider if you're looking for a supported path for using Foscam with ReadyNAS sooner than pigs fly. See the Foscam (US) FAQ.

The main differences between the FI8910W and the FI8608W have to do with the video compression. The FI8608W comes with newer H.264 video compression for smoother video and smaller file sizes, which means you will be able to store many more pictures and video with this camera compared to many of the other models that run on older MJPEG compression. One more unique feature is that the FI8608W comes with an integrated SD card slot for local internal storage on the camera itself. An SD card can be browsed remotely as well through the web interface. The FI8608W does have few limitations however, such as the inability to stream live video on a webpage using an HTTP URL, which the MJPEG cameras are able to do. This is due to the FI8608W and other H.264 compression cameras adopting a new software framework, which does not utilize this feature. This is subject to being added in the future as a firmware update.

support say product manger told that foscam insignifigant camera vendor, not will support

Then the product manager is not the sharpest tool in their shed. You can tell them I said that. :)

Seriously folks. This isn't rocket science. And this is a seriously old issue. The latest cameras support both MJPEG and H.264. So what exactly is the issue?

No now how too call product manager

btaroli wrote:

Been doing some more research, and there *is* a path to supporting the very newest Foscam model, the FI9821W (though the critical factor is H.264 support, so the FI9820W is supported too), using the newly released DVBLink IPTV module. Seems that IPTV, for them, includes H.264 streams from cameras. :D So I'm leaning now toward doing that for my needs instead of waiting around for full support with the Surveillance add-on.

For anyone who had tried H.264 from a Foscam camera with DVBLink IPTV, you probably experienced problems. I sure did with the FI9821W. Turns out that the issue was that the Foscam required digest (not basic, clear-text) authentication and DVBLogic hadn't yet implemented that for the IPTV module. It's not GA yet, but as of build 8706 of the IPTV module, this is WORKING. As of this morning I am successfully able to record from my 9821's! It may take a brief time for DVBLogic to put out a regular update release that incorporates the changes from this debug build, but just wanted to let folks know there had been some movement here. DVBLogic gets huge praise for this, as they actively work with customers to address these sorts of issues!

Is this product dead now? Would be nice if we could just add simple stream urls like IPADDRESS/videostream.cgi?user=admin&pwd=psd that we know work :?

If you're referring to ReadyNAS Surveillance, I can tell you it shows up for ROS6, so I don't think they'd consider it dead. Does it support Foscam? To my knowledge, no. But DVBLink does! :D Quite well in fact.