PTZ where to begin

josepy · Post by **josepy** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:24 am

Ignorance is not always bliss

So I purchased a PTZ cam, its connected to my computer via a RS232/485 converter. I have ptz control enabled so I see the control tab on the source dialog for the camera. The camera supports pelco-d among other protocols. I am able to view the camera thru ZM and I know that the camera is functioning correctly as it has a hand held control to move it left/right/up/down etc.

I want to begin to configure and test its control capabilities via ZM. Its here I am drawing a blank. I note that the control scripts are installed under /usr/local/bin, more specifically the pelco-d script zmcontrol-pelco-d.pl. I assume I should be able to use perl to execute the script and test the control capabilities of the camera ... but I don't know where to begin!

Any advise on where to begin testing and how to proceed from there would be Greatly Appreciated

Joe

josepy · Post by **josepy** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:48 pm

So I got it working

This is the camera I purchased http://direct.stores.yahoo.net/acpa142vaou.html Just over $200 US on sale.

And I hooked it up to my computer with a RS232 -> 485 Converter from http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?m ... lgodgQyf4Q

Then to give credit where credit is due, I found some key information on this post http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... f5f3b813dc
Many thanks for this great post.

The key to getting the camera functioning was getting the tty set correctly

stty -F /dev/ttyS0 cs8 -cstopb ignbrk -ixoff -ixon -isig speed 2400

Once that was done I was able to control it via the pelco-d script as follows:

./zmcontrol-pelco-d.pl --device=/dev/ttyS0 --address=1 --speed=2400 --command=move_con_left
./zmcontrol-pelco-d.pl --device=/dev/ttyS0 --address=1 --speed=2400 --command=move_con_right

and

./zmcontrol-pelco-d.pl --device=/dev/ttyS0 --address=1 --speed=2400 --command=move_stop

Finally just a bit of configuration under ZM and its now working with ZM!

I haven't had much time to play with it, but wanted to share what I had found

Now to get the PTZ functionality on my BlackBerry

Joe

Post by **zoneminder** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:14 pm

Good, I'm glad to hear you got it working.

The good/bad news is that the control scripts all changed in 1.23.x so the format of your commands will be slightly different. The good/good news is that it improves PTZ performance a great deal and reduces lag massively.

Post by **cordel** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:23 pm

I'll be working to get support in for Blackberry in both 1.22.3 and 1.23.x very soon

Yet another crackberry addict

josepy · Post by **josepy** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:34 pm

Hey Phil, didn't turn out to be too hard once I found the post I cited. I'll probably drag my feet on the upgrade, finally getting things working the way I want.

Cordel,
I posted a bit back and have the xhtml interface working on my BlackBerry

Sweet! Even the video download once I tweeked the scripts a bit. I though I might try to do the xhtml to do control on my PT(!z) camera, but maybe you will beat me too it. Right now I can just ssh (from my BB) to my server and move the camera with a couple of scripts.

I'll be watching for your posts

Cheers

Joe

Post by **cordel** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:44 pm

What do you use for ssh on your BB?
I have been using MidpSSH, it works but I'm sure there is something better.

josepy · Post by **josepy** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:10 am

yep, I'm using MidpSSH also. Seems to work fine, and suits my needs.

Joe