24/7 (airquotes) reef livestream

[AlexMorsePremium]

I've been streaming my tank for a while. Just upgraded to a better camera that can handle HD for the most part. Still working on better software for it, and multiple angles, but it's been pretty reliable for a few weeks now and wanted to show off.

I'll be updating this thread with what the hardware/software is and what I'm changing as I do.

For now the stream is at https://www.youtube.com/alexmorse/live

It goes down briefly and occasionally gets stuttery/pixelated due to software issues, but has been getting more stable and maintaining a pretty high bitrate.

The negative side is you can see my hair algae.

[APK]

Very cool! Those perculas like being on camera. Will be waiting for the details on how you do this.

Thanks.

Tom B.

[AlexMorsePremium]

I've gone through several iterations, and I'm sure I'll continue to figure out improvements.

The basic set up is some number of ip cameras (something that supports RTSP protocol) combined with a computer running Open Broadcaster Software https://obsproject.com/ The software is for all major platforms, but it's pretty buggy. Still, it does a good job and has way more capabilities than I'm using it for.

Initially I had an older iPhone that I never managed to craigslist, propped beside the tank, streaming straight to youtube (there's several free apps for that). That worked ok. I wasn't very happy with the view I could get so I started 3d printing some brackets to hold the phone at different angles on the side of the tank. That got me a better view, but the video quality was pretty lacking.

I added an android phone to the other side of the tank, this is when I found the OBS software, and it let me have both cameras going. I'd usually put one as a Picture in Picture style small view in the corner. Super cool, but the video quality was still pretty bad.

Most recently I bought an IP security cam (Hikvision DS-2CD2042WD-I), and have it wired directly to my PC. This thing is quite a bit bigger, so I have had to get more clever with mounting it, but it provides a wider angle of view, much higher quality.

I'm still experimenting with placement before I make some sort of "permanent" bracket.

The cam has an night mode with IR LEDs. I had to cut off part of the casing for it to sit relatively flush against the tank's glass to make that work. It's pretty eerie actually: