PoE cams auto-switching from H.264 to H.265

[MSix]

I have several different models of 4K PoE cams. All have the same general web UI. I've tried setting the Main Stream to H.265 and the sub-streams to H.264. I want H.265 for recording to Surveillance Station, but I need H.264 so the stream works in Homekit. If I change my cams to work this way, the settings hold for hours and the streams work fine in Homekit. But the following day all streams are back to H.265.

I assume since you can choose different encodings for the main and sub-streams that doing so is not a problem with Amcrest per se. However, Surveillance Station will not let you choose different encoding types for different streams. It's either H.264 or H.265 for all streams. Could Surveillance Station be switching my sub-streams back to H.265?

[Revo2Maxx]

So if I had to guess what is going on, While you are on 1 device and setup for h.265 then you go back to the other device and it is setup as H.264 that is because you setup in the other for 265. What you can do is have main stream working on H.265 and sub working in h.264 and or the other way around. However what can't happen is that 2 devices or software and a device work the same stream at different encoding types. Like lets say you have 1 IP camera connected to 4 DVR/NVRs. You make a change in 1 of the devices now all the devices will change to that mode, If say then someone looking at another recorder changes it back to the other mode now all the recorders make that change and it keeps going this way.

So if you are able to disable one of the streams in SS and setup the ones you want to use for Homekit in h.264 that should work as long as you don't re enable it in SS. Yes if SS is only able to run in 1 method then SS is making the change.

[MSix]

That's probably it. I could set SS to only look at the Main Stream (Stream 1) and set that to H.265 in the camera settings. Then point Homekit to the H.264 streams. I use the lower res steams in SS for live viewing to keep the bandwidth use down and then switch to the higher res view on a specific camera if i want to zoom in on something. But maybe giving SS access to just the H.265 stream will work out ok even for live viewing.

Thanks for the advice.

[MSix]

Well that sort of work, but not entirely. The SS client on my Mac handled it well, and Homekit handled it. But DS Cam, which is the SS app for mobile devices and tablets, couldn't take the hi res H.265 feed. Since the H.264 was working ok with everything, I'll leave it at that and see how much disk space it uses up.

[Revo2Maxx]

To be honest if the footage isn't in an area that requires 100% record time I would setup the cameras for Motion or IVS if that is what your cameras are able to do, then that will free up a lot of disk space. I mean most of my devices are setup for IVS, or Motion and only a select few that have Audio enabled are setup full time to record on Sub channel. This is lower grade footage but really only using it for full time audio incase there is something that is said outside of view of the camera before an event happens that will be recorded in the Main stream. On one of my devices with 4tb has over 6 months of footage with that type of setup.. IF your cameras have H.264H I would setup using that and see if your SS will work with that I am thinking it will. Also make sure that Schedule isn't setup for full time image capture. No need to take up space on a snap shot every second that also fills up the HDDs fast...