5.4.1 Viewing-Only Clarification

cstout
cstout
in SecuritySpy

Hi all,

I've been using SS for a very long time now and have greatly relied on (and enjoyed the benefit of) having my non-recording Mac be a second set of eyes open in a window while I work. Now that this wonderful feature has been killed off, I'm curious about the wording of the statement in the notification pop-up after upgrading to 5.4.1.

The part I need clarification on is this sentence here, "Now, viewing live video from any device that isn't another instance of SecuritySpy - for example, connecting directly to an IP camera - is not allowed." (My emphasis added.)

This reads as if I'll still be able to view my cameras normally as long as I'm connected to a licensed SecuritySpy server. Well, I cleared out all my direct IP connections and added my local SecuritySpy server and still got the "trial period expired" message.

So...is this a bug or a feature?

Comments

  • cstout
    cstout
    edited March 2022

    Well, I think it's a bug I was seeing. I had to open my settings and save it twice. The first save showed two cameras from the other server and the second save showed the rest of them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    With all due respect, I'm not thrilled by this direction and the increase in CPU load this puts on the server to be an unnecessary man in the middle. VTEncoderXPCService, which normally isn't running in my case, is now running at 65% in CPU. I am, however, grateful that you have allowed the previous release to continue functioning normally and I understand why this decision was made. Thank you for your continued work in improving SecuritySpy!

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited March 2022

    Your interpretation of the statement is correct: you can still use un unlicensed instance of SecuritySpy to view video from another (licensed) server instance of SecuritySpy, this functionality won't go away, as we want to provide this as a perk to SecuritySpy customers. What we don't want to do is give away the software for free to non-SecuritySpy customers, and with the release of our new ViewCam software for live IP camera viewing, it doesn't make business sense to continue to give away basically this same functionality in SecuritySpy for free. Thank you understanding.

    If you still want to use this second instance of SecuritySpy to view live video directly from IP cameras, you can either use ViewCam, or purchase a 1-camera license of SecuritySpy. With a 1-camera license of SecuritySpy, you can add as many additional cameras as you like, which will operate in view-only mode.

    I'm not sure why your transition wasn't so smooth - sorry about this. To clarify, this strangeness you saw with having to save the settings twice - was this in ViewCam, or in SecuritySpy?

  • Ben
    Ben

    Upon further testing, I think I see what the problem you saw could have been: when you change the camera settings of a camera that is currently offline, you may have to wait up to 30 seconds for that camera to subsequently connect using the new settings. So this could have looked like your settings did not take effect for a while after you changed them. I will make sure to change this behaviour so that cameras will reconnect immediately after any settings changes. Do you think this could explain what you were seeing? Thanks.

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