Trying Sphere with the simulator

Every Sphere connector contains a simulator: software NVRs that behave like Dahua NVRs behind the same driver interface. They sign in, describe themselves and their cameras, stream video over RTSP, answer PTZ commands, raise motion alarms and hold recordings. Live view, playback, PTZ and alarms work end to end with them, which makes them the way to try, demonstrate and train on Sphere before an NVR is there.

What you get

Each simulated NVR has:

Model	Entrosity Sphere simulator (Dahua-compatible NVR), serial SIM-…, firmware sim-1.0
Cameras	4 channels, Camera 1 to Camera 4, main and sub streams in H.264 (a still grey picture, 320 × 240)
PTZ	Channel 1 is a PTZ camera: it accepts every PTZ command (the picture does not move)
Alarms	A VideoMotion alarm about once a minute, on each channel in turn: it starts, and stops 5 seconds later
Recordings	One continuous recording per hour for the last 24 hours, on every channel

Every host:port you give a simulated NVR is its own NVR, so you can add as many as you like. Any user name signs in; the password wrong is refused, to show a sign-in failure.

The simulated NVRs do not report a time zone, so Test warns about it: set the NVR's time zone in Sphere if you want to see recording times converted.

Set up a trial

The simulator runs only when the connector is started with --dev, which the Windows service is not. On the connector computer:

1. Install and enroll a connector on any Windows computer, following Connectors. It does not need to reach any NVR.

2. Stop the service and run the connector in the foreground with the simulator, in an elevated command prompt:

   sc stop SphereConnector
   "C:\Program Files\Entrosity Sphere Connector\sphere-connector.exe" run --dev

   The console shows simulated NVRs available (driver "simulator"). Keep the window open for the trial; Ctrl+C stops it, and sc start SphereConnector brings the service back.

3. In Sphere, add an NVR on that connector (Getting started) with Driver Simulated NVR (trial), any Address and HTTP port (for example sim1 and 80), any user name and any password but wrong.

4. Within seconds the NVR is Online with four cameras. Continue with Getting started.

Developers run the same with make dev in entrosity-sphere-connector (Sphere connector).

Things to try

Try	You see
In Live view, choose 4 tiles and click the four cameras	Four live tiles of the grey picture (main streams)
Open camera 1	Its main stream, and the PTZ panel
Hold a direction, Store here preset 1, Go to it	Each command succeeds (nothing moves)
Open camera 2, tick Show PTZ controls and move it	An error: the camera has no PTZ (unsupported)
Open Alarms and wait a minute	Motion detected starts and ends on the next camera; acknowledge it
In Playback, tick one or more cameras and keep today	Continuous recordings for every hour of the last 24 hours
Click the timeline	The same picture, from the chosen time
Under Sign-in, set the password to wrong	The NVR turns Auth failed; the right password brings it back
Optimise for live view on the NVR's page (tenant admins), with 1 s	4 changed, 0 already fine, 0 not changed (the simulated sub streams run at 25 fps with a keyframe every 50 frames); a second time, 0 changed, 4 already fine, 0 not changed
Disconnect the NVR	Its streams stop and no more alarms arrive; Connect resumes
Stop the connector with Ctrl+C	The connector goes Offline and the NVR Unknown; after run --dev again, they come back

Limits and settings

• The simulated NVRs live in the connector's memory; they exist only while it runs with --dev. On a connector running without --dev, the jobs of NVRs with driver simulator fail with unknown_driver.
• The simulator's RTSP server listens on 127.0.0.1:9554; SPHERE_SIM_ADDR changes the address.
• --dev adds the simulator; the dahua driver keeps working, so real and simulated NVRs can share a connector.

See also Sphere connector.