Ezviz cloud streaming (for real this time)

[LethalEthan]

Hello everyone, I recently saw issue #174 and saw that people are just as interested in getting the camera streams as I am. I've been looking into this for quite a while and I made a PoC to show the research and work I've done so far. It's not a 100% implementation and not everything is worked out and the code is a lil shoddy, but it does work and I am hoping that this will spur on more development and getting more hands on. My ultimate goal is to make a library in go and other languages to facilitate getting the camera streams, it would also be relevant here as the more modern models have their ports locked down. I have made a repo to showcase and to hopefully kickstart more development into this, there are many interesting things to read up on and if you have any questions feel free to ask them. In #174 it is said that the stream is over WebSocket, I haven't seen this to be the case what could be possible is that they were looking into the developer platform which can do HLS/DASH streaming too it may also have support for developers to initiate and recieve streams over WebSocket but the official applications do not use WebSockets in my network analysis and instead use a semi-custom protocol over TCP or UDP. I am interested in getting this working and getting the camera streams on home assistant as I am sure you and many others are, so I am bringing this here to see if we can all get together and hopefully get a good implementation. Currently it just gets the stream and spits out the data in console including the decoded RTP headers, the decoding of audio and video is more complicated and I am still looking into this. I am willing to help and answer any questions, I also have discord too if that's better for communication.

[midavideltu]

Thanks @LethalEthan for sharing your work. I would like to add that Google Home app now can stream all ezviz cameras (wired and with battery): I was wondering if this could help in "decoding" (or sniffing) the live stream for HA.

[LethalEthan]

@midavideltu No problem it has been interesting working on this. I also use the google home app and I assume it's a different API as I don't think Google would want to implement different protocols and standards for every camera company. What I believe happens is EZVIZ has an API just for google home to then relay the VTM stream in a way that google home supports (likely standard RTSP or a stream over https using DASH/HLS), that's also probably why it doesn't support streaming when video encryption is enabled, google home can't provide the password and keys as the custom protocol isn't supported. If we can analyze the traffic and hopefully it being unencrypted it could gives us more insight on what the stream looks like so we can see if we're decoding right. I've recently pushed a change to identify some H.265 encoding and I will write up some information on the codecs.

[i-m-d]

will this work with HP2 ?

Thank you @LethalEthan

[LethalEthan]

@i-m-d It works with the HP3 Doorbell, I do not have the HP2 myself so I cannot test. We have the data stream but decoding the actual stream into audio and video is still needing work. I am able to get some video output albeit corrupted as there is likely some additional codec modifications, so its not fully functional yet which is why I made this issue to see if anyone can help out. If you can test it yourself and see if any data flows or if any errors occur that would help. And remember redact/don't post any sensitive information for example: Serial numbers, account information, tokens, keys or anything that looks dangerous.

[LethalEthan]

Hey everyone, just a quick update. I got MPEG-PS streams working, what this means is most old/FHD devices work. My next steps are to work on RTP streams which looks to be used on modern/2k+ EZVIZ devices (i.e. CB5, HP3, AOV variants), however this does look to be more complicated and it will take more time to implement with the tools and time that I have. Decoding of RTP headers is done, but the payload looks to be using a custom codec on some devices which I'm attempting to create a decoder for.

Most legacy devices work as most use MPEG-PS in my limited sample size which is: CB3, CB2, CP1 and likely more. Devices such as C3TN, H3, C6/C/N, H6c, TY1, C3W may work. If anyone would like to test their own devices and create an issue in my repo or say in discord and state what model it is and if it uses RTP/MPEG-PS that would greatly help, so I can look into this further and map out compatibility.

After RTP is done or if it takes longer than I expect to implement, I'll clean up the code and focus on making it more reliable and create a re-streamer so it can be hooked into Home assistant or any other application. I'll also try work on a python implementation so it can be directly added to this plugin. There is still lots to do, but so far so good.

[i-m-d]

@LethalEthan can i try some code in my HP2 ?

[LethalEthan]

@i-m-d Yes, you can try it. Please let me know if you have any issues and what stream type it is.

[LethalEthan]

I have just pushed initial RTP h.265 support, h.264 is still WIP. This should at least support most modern EZVIZ cameras now. After running, a stream.mp4 will be made that should let you see if it decoded correctly. RTP audio is also still WIP. Please let me know if you test and what models you use and if it worked or didn't (please remember encryption has not yet been implemented, but it is on the to-do list after we have a good foundation)

[0qaz9wsx]

@i-m-d Yes, you can try it. Please let me know if you have any issues and what stream type it is.

Hi, first of all thanks @LethalEthan for your work.
I have an EzViz CP2 (same device as HP2), it is a peephole door viewer without audio, without RTSP, without recording... ...without :-)
I compiled LE-EZVIZ-VS.
It works! I got the stream (Transport is MPEG-PS).

VLC Codec information of output file:
Codec: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265)(hevc)
Type: Video
Video resolution: 1920x1080
Buffer dimension: 1920x1088
Frame rate: 29.970030
Decodec format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV (l420)
Orientation: Top left
Chroma location: Left

[lumitesi]

Tested today with an HP2. And got exactly the same results as @0qaz9wsx.
I can add some more info:

• Type: CS-HP2-R100-6E2WB-GR
• Device Version: V5.4.0 build 250918
  I'm glad to help in any testing needed.

[LethalEthan]

@0qaz9wsx @lumitesi Thank you so much for confirming, I have been pretty busy lately with work but I am still looking into the end to end encryption. If you have any other devices please create an issue on my repo or post a message on my discord and I'll add it to the compatibility chart. I am also glad that you can record on the CP2 now, in the future I will be creating a re-streamer so it can tied in with home assistant and other systems. I want E2EE finished first otherwise streams can be potentially hijacked which isn't great but it will take some time until it's figured out.