Improvement request: Bandwidth management & Home Assistant parsing data

[Patrice3122]

Hi,

Firstly, thank you for your wonderful product, which I’ve been using for the last decade. I am currently expanding my home security with indoor and outdoor cameras. My cameras are wireless, connected either directly to my router or through CPLs for remote building cameras. Most of my challenges are related to bandwidth management.

1. Record URL Option

The "Record URL" option is only available when selecting the Raw Record Stream encoder.
MKV files produced cannot be played in Home Assistant, while Encode or Adaptive options produce MP4 files (supported by Home Assistant).

Suggestion: Allow the Record URL option with other recording methods (Encode/Adaptive).

2. Resolution and Bandwidth Management

For recordings, default 640×360 resolution is too low; I prefer 2304×1296.
Currently, to produce an MP4 file at 2304×1296, the high resolution must be used for the live URL, which overloads my network during the day. Night or away usage is less of an issue.
Current workaround: duplicate cameras with different settings and switch low-res/high-res based on profiles using Home Assistant to change the profile on specific time.

Suggestion: Integrate camera settings into profile management to allow controlling bandwidth and recording quality without duplicating cameras.

3. Custom Profile Parsing

Pre-built profiles (Home, Night, Away) parse correctly to Home Assistant.
Disabled or custom profiles are parsed as armed_away.
My security settings do not assign any arm/disarm profile.

Question: How can we prevent armed_away from being used as the default value for third-party environments?

Thanks for considering these suggestions. I hope this feedback helps improve usability for users managing multiple cameras and network bandwidth.

[ispysoftware]

Hello,

1. the live URL is always decoded so it can be displayed or run motion detection on it - the record URL is not decoded at all it's just saved as a raw data file (mkv) - to encode it instead it'd first need to be decoded at which point you might as well use it as the live option otherwise you're decoding live and record which is pretty redundant.

What you can do is add an action on recording end to call ffmpeg.exe with a command to convert the mkv file into an mp4 file which will be playable in HA.

2. interesting idea i'll have a think about it

3. Unfortunately HA only has those 3 profiles (at least it only had those when I wrote the HA integration) - if you can add more profile options into HA then the integration would need to be updated to pass them through to Agent.

[Patrice3122]

Hi,

Thank you for your quick answer.

1. ffmpeg.exe is for Microsoft users.

2. Would it be possible to have a checkbox below the recording method selection, such as “Use Record URL”? This would likely make my initial request redundant.

3. From what I can see, the integration currently maps Agent DVR profiles to three states: Home (profile: Home), Night (profile: Night), and Away (any other profile). Exposing the underlying Agent DVR profile value could greatly improve interoperability between systems.

[ispysoftware]

hello the ffmpeg.exe is available on all OSes - it's just called ffmpeg on linux/ osx (without the extension). It's not really going to help converting it after recording though - you might as well just use the high res URL as the live URL and encode directly from that and leave the record URL blank. If you have the live and record endpoints running at the same time that makes your bandwidth issue worse not better. " Exposing the underlying Agent DVR profile value could greatly improve interoperability between systems." I'm not really sure what you mean - the home assistant alarm panel has those 3 states hard coded into it - it's not getting the options from Agent DVR (unfortunately) - at least it wasn't when I wrote the plugin. Agent uses those 3 states by default because they matched HA's hard coded list of options.

…

On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 4:55 AM Breizh3122 ***@***.***> wrote: *Patrice3122* left a comment (ispysoftware/iSpy#309) <#309 (comment)> Hi, Thank you for your quick answer. 1. ffmpeg.exe is for Microsoft users. 2. Would it be possible to have a checkbox below the recording method selection, such as “Use Record URL”? This would likely make my initial request redundant. 3. From what I can see, the integration currently maps Agent DVR profiles to three states: Home (profile: Home), Night (profile: Night), and Away (any other profile). Exposing the underlying Agent DVR profile value could greatly improve interoperability between systems. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#309 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAGDKXIRSJYMDG2EFRSB7534IE2LDAVCNFSM6AAAAACR5MQTIKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTOOBWGY2DKNJXGA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>