Confused by Panasonic cams in the wiki

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:01 am

I have a BL-C111A that I see other people having success with by using the urls to the cam like http://user:pass@host/cgi-bin/nphMotion ... on=320x240

The wiki has updates just like that for various versions of the Panasonic BL- series network cameras.

However, they give a link, just like that above. But there is nowhere in zoneminder to put an entire link, so I tried putting, in the Source tab, for "Remote Host Name" user:pass@host

And the correct port, and then for RemoteHostPath I put /cgi-bin/nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240 and it fails to connect.

I tried leaving RemoteHostPath empty and putting it all in the Remote Host Name tab, and it fails.

Am I doing something wrong here? I have tried every different way I can think of. There are people posting in both the forums and wiki with much success with these cameras, but only post a full link like that one at the start of this post. Am I supposed to be putting the full link somewhere else? In a config file instead of the gui or something?

I've never had any problems so far using capture cards, just this network camera thing has me at a loss

Flash_ · Post by **Flash_** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:16 am

In zm, under source tab for a camera.

Source type: remote
Remote host name: the ip of the camera, eg: 192.168.1.100

Under "Remote Host Path" add the rest of it.

/cgi-bin/nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240

Change colours to 24 bit, width to 320 and height to 240

Note this will only work if the camera is setup to remove user authentication - otherwise you will need the user@path bit - which I /think/ goes in front of the ip and is replaced with a valid username and password (but I don't use it and don't have any cams setup that way to test)

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:42 pm

It just stays red when I try it with user:pass@ip. I know it works doing it that way in a browser. And I don't see a way to turn off authentication in it. I'll look at that closer, but as I said before, the posts in the wiki all used authentication and people got them to work fine.

They just did not provide a lot of details other than the address and that it worked.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 4:48 pm

I have tried every combination and permutation of all of the settings that I can think of, still can't get it to connect to zoneminder. It stays in red. I have tried using Jpeg, Mjpeg, Mp4, none seem to allow a connection. The host just stays red

Pada · Post by **Pada** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 7:24 pm

Howie69: see if you can view the video feed with VLC or mplayer using the same URL that you're using for ZM.

If it works in ZM, then you might want to try and use the Source Type = Ffmpeg, and then specify the URL under the Source Path option.

Flash_ · Post by **Flash_** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 5:57 am

Howie69 wrote:I have tried every combination and permutation of all of the settings that I can think of, still can't get it to connect to zoneminder. It stays in red. I have tried using Jpeg, Mjpeg, Mp4, none seem to allow a connection. The host just stays red

From memory - visit the camera's web admin, and to disable passwords it's under Users -> "Turn on guest access" or similar.

Sorry, don't have one to hand right now to be more accurate.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:21 pm

Well, the URL works fine in VLC. Can watch it. So I changed the source type to be ffmpeg. Now the zoneminder status screen went from red to orange, but still doesn't show any video.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:27 pm

I also do not see a way to allow guest acocunts. At least not in this version for the firmware. But I'll keep playing around with it until I get it right.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:30 pm

Well, Flash_, you were right. When I went in and turned off the authentication, it works fine.

Now if I could only find a way to secure that camera with a user and pass and have it work.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:50 pm

Ok, I don't know what I did different, but it's now working with a user and password and setup as a remote camera.

What appeared to be happening is the input box in the web gui kept chopping off the pasted address in there right after Resolution=

I typed in 320x240 and up it came. That was just wierd.

Now if I can just figure out how to make it record audio.

Howie69 · Post by **Howie69** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:14 am

Is there a way to make it record audio? Or does that require an actual sound card and alsa installed to capture the audio?

My little testing router has no sound card, so I don't think I ever bothered installing ALSA on it.

Flash_ · Post by **Flash_** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:07 am

Zoneminder doesn't do audio.