CCTV camera selection

[jitz]

Hi:

I am looking for cctv cameras that give me position control
as apposed to generic Pan/tilt/zoom.

I would like to command the pan angle and let the camera
move to that setting. Ideally the same for tilt.
Zoom, would be nice to control zoom 0-100% etc.

Setpoints are not really doing the trick for me...

Does anyone know of such beasts??

Thanks in advance
Jitz

[zoneminder]

Your best bet would be IP based PTZ cameras. They usually let you describe the camera angle in terms or x/y coordinates among other systems.

The Sony VISCA based analog PTZ cams are also pretty flexible however they tend to occur in conferencing systems rather than security. But you can pick them up relatively cheap, though they normally have a limited PT range.

[jitz]

What kind of response times can you get on controlling th IP camera's.
We will be tracking an object that can be moving upwards of 10m/s
30feet/sec.
-Any good IP vendors you can recommend??

Do the the IP cameras give you let say 100ms type response times or
better???

Where can I find info on the Sony VISCA protocol.
-I am assuming rs485 half-duplex??
-can you get ack's from the command's

I have been surfing, mostly google, for CCTV, but there is so much noise
out there it is hard to find position control. I now most of the industry is
happy with generic PTZ. We need a little more than that.

Thanks
Jitz

PS: I have zoneminder installed on a FC5 box talking to standard PTZ's
but I am unable to change the baud settings. I use gtkterm to set
2K4 and then things work. By default the serial is 9K6. Not a biggy
but if you have any ideas would be nice.

Cheers

[zoneminder]

I have never done any profiling of PTZ response times I'm afraid. I would imagine IP cams will be slower than analog ones. It's hard to say whether the pan speeds would be fast enough also, as 10m/s at 10m is a lot quicker than at 500m obviously. I think the Axis PTZ cams I have seen do pan pretty quick and they allow you to set the pan speed pretty well.

However, it may well be that for your scenario using Sony VISCA based cams may be your best option as it is serial based and offers a range of options for control including relative motion as well as absolute. As I mentioned, the cams can be had quite cheap ex-conference equipment but aren't generally suitable for normal outdoor use. If you want the cams for some specialised application and can afford to build a custom housing for outdoor use then that should not be a problem. I have the spec somewhere but it may be in hard copy only so I may have to see if I can scan it. You can get an idea from the zmcontrol-visca.pl script int he meantime though.

I can't really help on your serial problem though, I assume permissions etc on the device are ok? The script should set the baud rate when it opens the port.

[jameswilson]

Bosch do a dome that will do target tracking maybe that will help

[Flash_]

Currently panned the gadspot about.

Response was between 1 and 10 seconds. But that is on the other side of the internet.

On the lan it's ~1s, which is still quite latent if you're tracking a target.

[jitz]

Thanks for all the info. Still haven't found my silver bullet

VISCA is nice but limited to seven cameras from what I have read. Also
RS232 mostly. Would need rs485. probably can do a converter. Not sure
on the web what info is dated and which is recent. Noise, so much noise
when you google for CCTV stuff.

We have four Xavee PTZ cameras for prototying. Looking at the docs for these, they support several protocols....
SAMSUNG, B01, NEON, Sanachi, Pelco, Longcomity...Panansonic, to name a few.

I need to know how to go about getting details on these protocols to see if one of them will meet my needs. We will still have to replace the camera's with other model. We get 15deg/sec which just barely meets our 30ft/sec at 20 feet tracking but that hopefully is a smaller excercise.

So, Does someone out there have an inside on how to go about getting info on these protocols or are they mostly locked up in the proprietarty
vault??

IP cameras: Can be controlled directly via tcp/ip ( not web based, No )
could use a port for control and another for video feed???. Would that
make response faster if browser was taken out of the picture. I haven't
worked with one to date so not sure how to use one if I am not interested
in a browser frontend to it.

Thanks
Jitz

[zoneminder]

Just about all those protocols are wrapped up in proprietary land. The only one that I have been able to get is Pelco, not from want of trying though. That is quite a basic protocol and only allows you to control panning and tilting by speed. There is no relative or absolute motion. Also the speed is sometimes (but not always) related to the zoom level. So at a higher degree of zoom it will take the same time to pan across a screen but the anguler velocity will be much less to compensate for the higher magnification. By contrast cheap cameras sometimes do not have this compensation.

With IP cams you would open one connection for the feed, and another for the control. They are on the same port though so you do not need to worry about the complexity there. However as I don't know if any cameras support Keep-Alive you may have to open up a new connection for each instructon which may add a half second or so to the response times.

[jameswilson]

Phil, i have sent you bbv protocol and i probably could get others if you let me know what which your after, but faik none of the 485 ones feedpack position info

[zoneminder]

Oh, of course I have that one as well I forgot about that. The others would be nice but I would probably have to be careful about what gets released based on them if they are proprietary.

[jameswilson]

you obvioulsy have something your after? i tell them what i want it for. I have other protocols here but have had to sign an nda so i cant give you them!

[jitz]

Hi:

I am looking more into the Sony family. Found some docs on the internet for both IP protocol and visca protocol.
The SNC-RZ25 is looking friendly.
-It allows IP interface ( can use in future )
-It allows VISCA rs232 ( can use today )
-It allows JPEG/MPEG streaming ( can use in future )
-It allows analog Video out ( can use today )
-It allows TCP/IP over serail port as well ( need to learn more )
-I guess it give me VISCA with an upgrade path

Thanks for your help to date. I am not done searching but this one has definately become a candidate. I have protocol api docs on
RZ30, SNCCS3, SNC-DF40, SNC-DF70, SNC-P1, SNCRZ30, SNCZ20


James:
Not sure which protocol I need because I don't know the details of the
protocol. I am looking for something that gives me position control. pan to absolute angle or relative angle.

[jameswilson]

jitz sorry that wasnt at you mate was asking Phil. Closed source API's are difficult to get hold of but most are openish, but as its pretty specialised its not so easy to get hold of. Like i said i dont know of a common security based full duples 485 protocol what you need is full duplex so you can trell it where to and ask it where it is

[jitz]

Hi guys:

I have been investigating the perl serial port stuff some more and am
somewhat convinced that there may be a problem with the api regarding
FC5.

I tryed changing the baudrate in both
zmcontrol-pelco-p.pl ( org 4K8 )
zmcontrol-pelco-d.pl ( org 9K6 )

It just stays at the system default ( 9K6 ). If I change the PTZ camera's
to run a 9K6 communication works. If I change the baud rate to anything else
it fails
-IE change camera to 4K8 and zmcontol to 4K8 ( no work )
change camera to 9k6 and works.

I got the Perl::Serial from Dries but I don't know how to go about resolving the issue.
- I have changed ttyS0 to be rw by all ( 777 )

Any ideas???
-I can work around it, but would be nice to resolve


Thanks
Jitz

[zoneminder]

I don't think this is a general problem as I run my cameras at 2.4k anyway. I assume you have tried a simple test script with just the serial bits in it? Can you change the port speed with stty or minicom etc?