Linksys WVC54G - How to.

[Flash_]

*** Please read my second post below - early confidence in getting this to work was misplaced. ***

Wireless Linksys Colour Audio IP Camera Model WVC54G

Cheap and nasty wireless IP camera that "only works with Internet Explorer as it uses ActiveX". To be honest I wouldn't recommend this camera for ZM but if like me you've already got one, you can make it work.

How to get it to work with Zonemanager:

Warning: Some kludges and undocumented calls and you can wave bye-bye to having audio. Any damage not my fault!
This disables the MPEG4 feed as this camera is incapable of feeding multiple types without being reset. It can't even send normal jpegs! It also only feeds ONE client ONE stream so ensure nothing else is connected to it before continuing.


1. Turn it into mjpeg mode:
http://camera.ip:port/adm/file.cgi?h_videotype=mjpeg&todo=save
This turns off the mpeg4 stream and replaces it with an mjpeg one. This allowed firefox and other browsers to see the video stream by default - BUT NO AUDIO!
You can turn it back to mpeg4 with:
http://camera.ip:port/adm/file.cgi?h_videotype=mpeg4&todo=save
This also changes the Setup options for the camera and allows you to change the resolution and so-forth. I believe this is the original firmware for an earlier version without audio. The MPEG4 stream appears to be a horrible hack.

2. Point your webbrowser to: http://camera.ip:port/ and click view video - should be streaming mjpeg and you don't get the "only in ie" warning if you view video in another browser.
Verify it's working.

3. Verify mjpeg stream is active directly: http://camera.ip:port/img/mjpeg.jpg - if your browser supports mjpeg it should come through fine. FPS is a little below a better camera.

4. Setup a new monitor in zm. Defaults:
Source:
Remote host name: 10.0.0.100 (The ip of the camera)
Remote host port: 80 (The port of the remote camera - 80 always works for the Linksys, plus you can have another)
Remote host path: /img/mjpeg.jpg
Remote Image Coopurs: 24-bit colour
Capture Width: 640 (Unless you changed it in the linksys prefs)
Camera Height: 480 (ditto)
Orientation: Normal.

Now should work ok for all aspects of ZM. Hope this helps anyone struggling to get this camera playing nicely.

[sidis]

Sorry!!

I have proven this config with WVC54G, but It not work properly:

Remote host name: (The ip of the camera)
Remote host port: 80
Remote host path: /img/mjpeg.jpg
Remote Image Coopurs: 24-bit colour
Capture Width: 640
Camera Height: 480
Orientation: Normal

I'm trying ZoneMinder 1.22.0 and WVC54g firmware v1.12, but I continue without I am not able to make work zm + WVC54G

Can anybody help me?

[jameswilson]

log events can you put up?

[cordel]

Hi sidis,
I'm affraid your going to have to be a little more proactive in discribing the what the problem is in order for anyone to be able to help you. All we can do with your discription now is agree that it may not work properly.

Check your logs and post any snip of info that looks related. You should be able to find something in zmdc.log or your messages log.

Regards,
Corey

[sidis]

After I configure WVC54G cam, as I describe above, I try to view captured images in 'monitor mode'. The 'Watch' window show the jpeg icon instead of the captured images, and other times it show a static image.

With 'Modect mode', it happens the same.


The content of 'zmdc.log':
.....
.....
Starting pending process, zmc -m 3
'zmc -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:35:12
'zmc -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:35:13, pid = 13733
'zmc -m 3' died at 06/01/18 10:35:13, signal 10
'zmwatch.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:26, pid = 3644, valid
'zmaudit.pl -d 900 -y' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3637, valid
'zmfilter.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3632, valid
'zma -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:35:49
'zmc -d /dev/video0' pending at 06/01/18 10:37:18
'zmc -m 2' pending at 06/01/18 10:42:21
'zmc -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:36:33
Starting pending process, zma -m 3
'zma -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:35:49
'zma -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:35:49, pid = 13811
'zma -m 3' crashed at 06/01/18 10:35:49, exit status 255
Starting pending process, zmc -m 3
'zmc -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:36:33
'zmc -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:36:33, pid = 13887
'zmc -m 3' died at 06/01/18 10:36:33, signal 10
Starting pending process, zma -m 3
'zma -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:37:09
'zma -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:37:09, pid = 13911
'zma -m 3' crashed at 06/01/18 10:37:09, exit status 255
Starting pending process, zmc -d /dev/video0
'zmc -d /dev/video0' started at 06/01/18 10:37:18
'zmc -d /dev/video0' starting at 06/01/18 10:37:18, pid = 13919
'zmc -d /dev/video0' crashed at 06/01/18 10:37:18, exit status 255
Starting pending process, zmc -m 3
'zmc -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:39:13
'zmc -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:39:13, pid = 13990
'zmc -m 3' died at 06/01/18 10:39:13, signal 10
Starting pending process, zma -m 3
'zma -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:39:49, pid = 14013
'zma -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:39:49
'zma -m 3' crashed at 06/01/18 10:39:49, exit status 255
'zmwatch.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:26, pid = 3644, valid
'zmaudit.pl -d 900 -y' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3637, valid
'zmfilter.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3632, valid
'zma -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:45:09
'zmc -d /dev/video0' pending at 06/01/18 10:47:18
'zmc -m 2' pending at 06/01/18 10:42:21
'zmc -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:44:33
Starting pending process, zmc -m 2
'zmc -m 2' started at 06/01/18 10:42:21
'zmc -m 2' starting at 06/01/18 10:42:21, pid = 14120
'zmc -m 2' crashed at 06/01/18 10:42:21, exit status 255
Starting pending process, zmc -m 3
'zmc -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:44:33
'zmc -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:44:33, pid = 14202
'zmc -m 3' died at 06/01/18 10:44:33, signal 10
Starting pending process, zma -m 3
'zma -m 3' started at 06/01/18 10:45:09
'zma -m 3' starting at 06/01/18 10:45:09, pid = 14227
'zma -m 3' crashed at 06/01/18 10:45:09, exit status 255
'zmwatch.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:26, pid = 3644, valid
'zmaudit.pl -d 900 -y' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3637, valid
'zmfilter.pl' running at 06/01/17 18:28:25, pid = 3632, valid
'zma -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:55:09
'zmc -d /dev/video0' pending at 06/01/18 10:47:18
'zmc -m 2' pending at 06/01/18 10:52:21
'zmc -m 3' pending at 06/01/18 10:54:33



P.D: I have tested the Logitech Quickcam Express usb webcam and it works perfectly

P.D 2: I don't understand you when you say 'your messages log'.

[Flash_]

This is a bit embarassing.

I've been playing some more with this camera and I can't get it working again. Whilst I can get a mjpeg stream through firefox, it stalls after a few frames and needs an F5 refresh to get it going again.

ZM just blackscreens it, occasionally giving exit-code 10 in zmdc.log

I have a sneaking suspicion that the mjpeg stream this camera is outputting is quite quite broken. (Firmware 5.10)

This is a really bad camera, please don't buy it.

Will post back if I can find some way of getting it to play ball.

[Flasheart]

More grief...

Using the linksys viewing software (not ZM - given up there!), worked ok-ish for some months then suddenly stopped. The "finder" software would find the camera but clicking 'view' would give errors and no picture.

It turns out, after I check some logs on a remote proxy server I'm using, that the Linksys software silently inherits the InternetExplorer http proxy settings which I'd changed. The remote proxy was erroring because it couldn't find a camera on a private subnet.

And of course, this isn't documented anywhere - except here now.

(I repeat, don't buy linksys cameras)

[AdamWhite4]

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... ght=wvc54g

Still a crappy cam, and the screen artifacts from the CCD make it unrealistic for modetect, but it makes an okay monitor.

Adam

[Flasheart]

Another update...

New pc, installed 1.24.1 from ubuntu rep's. (One command - what a world we've travelled since the early days!)

Had to do the shared memory thing manually as we're dealing with 640x480 colour frame.

And - this camera works!

No need to faff around with the external scripts, call mplayer or ffmpeg directly, all handled from ZM's source setup.

To add this camera;

Choose ffmpeg as source type.

As source path, obviously changing IP: http://10.0.1.191/img/video.asf

Source colours: 24 bit colour
Width: 640
Height: 480

And off it goes.

The only downside is it is a little heavy on the cpu (25% modect per cam, even with a heavily cropped zone mask). Changing the fps down to 2-3 dropped that to 9%. (FWIW, the stream was coming in at about 10fps)

Also I noticed a lot of backscatter in a shell I had open at the time - an unrelated console being flooded with what look like log lines - some weird unrelated crossover? Doesn't seem to affect operation at all though - so good work on the new version.

Eg:

0086c000-00878000 r-xp 00000000 08:01 1066068 /usr/lib/libgsm.so.1.0.12
00878000-00879000 r--p 0000c000 08:01 1066068 /usr/lib/libgsm.so.1.0.12