Most cost effective way of adding a monitor to an NVR (Hikvision brand)

June 8, 2016 3:15 AM

So this might be testing the boundaries of what AskMe is for, but I'm aware there are some hugely techie people here...but this is quite specific! We have a Hikvision NVR which is brilliant, and which we have linked up to a HDMI monitor and then over the network an RTSP substream from the NVR feeds an instance of VLC in another location. Now we want to add another substream location with the least cost and equipment possible...

Basically the VLC substream is viewed on a Mac Mini running Bootcamp which means it's using a lot of power and a lot of equipment. I'd ideally like to "just" have some kind of network monitor capable of RTSP (if such a thing exists) organising the second substream. I've heard of people installing a UG802 Mini PC behind a monitor and this is probably my best bet at the moment - any other bright ideas? Thanks so much.

posted by dance to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Seems like the C.H.I.P or raspberry pi etc woukd be a perfect solution. I've used the pi personally to view an rtsp so i can confirm you can do that....
posted by chasles at 5:29 AM on June 8, 2016

Seconding the raspberry pi for this. Super cheap, low power, and it has a huge ecosystem so you'll often find instructions online for doing just what you want. Here's a forum post describing how to auto-play an RTSP stream with a raspberry pi and the OSMC media center software.
posted by pocams at 6:20 AM on June 8, 2016

Thirding the Pi!
posted by quinndexter at 1:53 AM on June 9, 2016