I might violate your top “ideal solution” checkmark, but I have a raspberry pi running Motion Project (https://motion-project.github.io) on site and it makes an easily viewable webpage-stream. My Rpi4 can handle 2-3 video streams, with motion detect-video-save, periodic snapshot, etc. etc.
Not for the feint of heart, but it is the way I solved a very similar problem. I’m using random mixed brand of IP Cams, whatever was cheap at the time.
For what it’s worth, NFS in my experience is also faster. I had a very similar use case (but QNAP instead of Sinology) and switched everything over to NFS and saw performance gain. Little things like previewing IP Camera security footage would feel slow on SMB, but snappier on NFS. I’d gotten over the user thing, but the speed is why I switched.
I did eventually wipe QNAP’s software in favor of stock Debian – but the prevailing wisdom seems to say Sinology’s OS is pretty good.
Thanks Bot!! that was awesome.