Adding a PTZ Camera to Sighthound?

[tcesario]

I am considering the addition of an IP POE PTZ camera to my security camera/Sighthound setup. It won't be as clean as I'd like since SH doesn't support PTZ controls, but I think it is doable. I'll have to use a separate camera app on my phone/iPad or a web interface on my computer to get the PTZ controls. I wasn't sure I could use a single camera in two apps simultaneously like this, but initial tests don't show a problem. With SH running, I'm able to login to any camera through a browser, for example, to see the video stream without disrupting SH. I'll have to open my firewall to let the PTZ camera stream outside my network (like I had to do for the Mac Mini running the SH app). 99% of the time, the PTZ camera would be parked in a known spot so my Sighthound rules would operate as expected. When I get a SH alert I want to investigate, I can launch my second camera app to move/zoom the PTZ at will (and since SH is configured to 24H record this PTZ camera), I'll have a recorded video feed of whatever I do (which is good). I'm not sure how the SH rules will like this camera movement...perhaps I'll be peppered with additional notifications during this time, but it won't be often so I'm not too concerned about that. When I'm done, I'll park the PTZ back to "home" and SH will continue as normal. Has anybody done something like this or see any potential issues?

Thanks,
Tony

[Semper Vaporo]

I now have two cameras with remote Pan and Tilt features and do use those features periodically. Yes, it can cause a slew of alerts to be issued, depending on the particular rules and which direction I pan or tilt. But otherwise it works without a problem.

Unless the camera has "Optical Zoom", a "Zoom" feature will not affect the SightHound image... "Digital Zoom" is usually a locally implemented feature (in the browser software) that just makes the individual pixels get bigger in the image the app is displaying (producing a fuzzy 'pixelated' image), so the SightHound data-stream/image is not affected at all.

Do be aware that you will actually be using two different data streams from the camera. If you are using WiFi with the camera you are doubling the bandwidth in use during the time the remote app is displaying video. Won't be a problem unless you are running many WiFi connected cameras and/or other data intensive WiFi dependent programs (gaming, etc.).