Remote Camera Configuration

[laps]

Thanks Philip for ZM.

Greetings,

I am trying to configure a remote camera. All my settings work with local video.
I was successfull in configuring a NetCam (192.168.0.5:80/netcam.jpg). I can not get the remote settings to work with the following parameters. Remote Host Name = 192.168.0.5 Remote Host Port = 8081 Remote Host Path = /. My net camera works in the browser with http://192.168.0.5:8081. I would appreciate if someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks.

[tech_fixer]

What brand is your network camera? is it Axis, Linksys, D-Link, StarDot Tech?

Regards,
Jose Rodriguez

[laps]

Hi,

I have a StarDot Netcam. My browser gets the image just with plain (192.168.0.5:8081) But to get any output in ZM I have to add (/netcam.jpg) to the Remote Host Path field and that makes things very slow. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[tech_fixer]

Luis,
You are correct on the network path to retrieve the image. That is the same path the Java applet from StarDot uses.

Now, on the speed problem, I will asume you are on a LAN, so bandwith won't be an issue. Do keep in mind that the bigger the image, the lower the refresh rate. In my experience I can get a 6 frame-per-second stream using 320x240 images.

First, check that the ZoneMinder settings for your camera are consistent with the speed you want. Also, make sure you are using the "high bandwith" or "medium bandwith" mode at the top of the ZM console. If all else fails, in the Netcam's configuration screens, on the "Applet/Web" tab, adjust the "delay" parameter to a lower value. A 100ms delay will give you a nice 6 frame-per-second stream. Read below for the text straight from their manual.

Regards,
Jose Rodriguez

"Delay :
The Java applet will delay for this amount of time before attempting to fetch another live image. The time is measured in milliseconds (1000 ms = 1 second). The value of this field should not be less than one half the time it takes NetCam to produce an image.
Here are suggested times for different image resolutions:
640x480 = 1000 ms
320x240 = 500 ms
160x120 = 250 ms"

[laps]

Hi Jose,

The settings for the Stardot work great, thanks. Do you have any advice on how to configure zm to get the video feed directly of the url port (192.168.1.5:8081)? For example, video from Camserv. Bandwith is not a problem.


Thanks,
Luis.

[tech_fixer]

Remember that ZM does not really capture video, but instead it captures still images in sequence. These still images are then used to compose a vide stream, which is what you see on ZM's moitor screens.

Now, camserv does not produce still JPEG images. It produces a MJPEG (multipart-JPEG) video stream, which is the same kind of video ZM produces. The video you see on your Netcam web page is actually still images (netcam.jpg) that a java applet grabs and then turns into a MJPEG stream, just like ZoneMinder.

So, don't think that you are getting less performance just because you are not doing things the way the vendor actually tells you how to do.

Regards,
Jose Rodriguez

[laps]

Hi,

I think ZM is great and I am not complaining about performance because I am very happy with it. All I wanted was to try to tweak it to capture the MJPEG format and I did not know that it was not possible. I also would like to thank you again for all your help and to Philip for a great product.

Regards,
Luis.

[tech_fixer]

Im sorry if the last line of my post seemed kind of rude. It was not meant that way. I just meant that you are getting pretty much the most performance you'll be able to get.

And yeah, it would be nice if ZM could capture a MJPEG stream, since streams often incur in less overhead and save bandwith, and could result in better video quality.

Regards,
Jose Rodriguez

[zoneminder]

I would love to be able to extract frames from an MJPEG stream. I'm just not sure how to do it yet!

If anyone knows of a library that can accomplish this then please let me know. I'm not sure writing an MJPEG decoder fropm scratch would be all that easy.

Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure what MJPEG is, how is it different from MPEG?

Cheers,

Phil,

[tech_fixer]

Phillip,
I believe the MJPEG tools can extract images from MJPEG movie files, but haven't tried it yet.

Anyway, here are the links:
MJPEG Tools:
http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/

MJPEG Howto:
https://sourceforge.net/docman/display_ ... up_id=5776

From the howto:
********************
6.4 Separate images

>mkdir jpg; lavtrans -o jpg/image%05d.jpg -f i stream.avi

First create the directory "jpg". Then lavtrans will create single JPG images in the jpg directory from the stream.avi file. The files will be named: image00000.jpg, image00001.jpg ....

The jpg images created contain the whole picture. But if you have recorded at full size the images are stored interlaced. Usually the picture viewers show only the first field in the jpg file.

If you want to have the image in a single file you can use that version

> lav2yuv -f 1 stream.avi | y4mtoppm -L >file.pnm

If you want to split the fields into single files use that:

> lav2yuv -f 5 ../stream.avi | y4mtoppm | pnmsplit - image%d.pnm

Maybe interesting if you need sample images and do not want to play around with grabbing a single image.
********************

Regards,
Jose Rodriguez

[laps]

Thanks Jose, cool info...