1.24 DVD and Grand IP Camera II

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:56 pm

I'm trying to get the above combination working, I've got a new PC and I've installed the 1.24 DVD (thanks for that, by the way, very simple and straightforward for us non-Linux people).

I've set an IP address on the camera, found some settings to set the path correctly, and I'm not getting video in the 'feed' window. If I set to 320x240 and 8-bit greyscale, I get a black rectangle instead of video. If I set to anything else, I don't get any image, just the Cambozola message text.

I've tried just connecting directly to the cam with IE from another PC, and also from Firefox on the ZM server itself, and using the link shows the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:56 pm

If you have any way of sending me a PM with the server address I can take a look at it. I've setup multiple remote cam's while testing out my custom build Wireless Router's and Linksys SLUG's. I'm sure it's something simple, try and switch it from simple to regexp or visa versa. I'm curious what is the path your putting in when setting up the cam? I'm sure we can get it working. I'll check back this evening.

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:04 am

I found some settings for the older version,

Remote Host Name: user:pass@ipofcam
Port 80 (or whatever you set it to)
path: /still.jpg?nocache

I'm not sure what link you putting in your browser. Does it end in the path above?

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:05 am

Hi, thanks for your replies, sorry I couldn't reply over the weekend.

I also found that post with the URL and path, and have set the config to those values but to no avail. I also played with the HTTP 1.0/1.1 flag, and simple vs. regexp, and a couple of other settings. If I connect directly to the camera using that path, it shows an image as expected.

I will play some more today, if I can't figure it out I may well take you up on your kind offer of accessing the box remotely to see if you can see what's up. I've used ZM before, but with a USB camera and some time ago.

allanE · Post by **allanE** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:34 pm

The size and color rendition settings must agree with whatever the camera is set for. If you call for a 640x480 24rgb picture from a camera set to 400x400 grayscale for example zoneminder will return a blank screen.

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:56 pm

Success! I now have this working, though I don't seem to have changed much. I have the maximum FPS set at 15, the source details are:

HTTP / simple
user:password@myhostaddress
Port: 80
Path: /still.jpg?nocache
24 bit colour, 640 x480

The last thing I changed was on "buffers", I had increased the image buffer size (frames) from the default to 70, now I have decreased to 10 and it jumped into life.

Now it's showing around 13 fps, though it does give a black screen from time to time, just for a second or so.

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:18 pm

Well, it "kind of" works. I keep getting events claiming to be dated 1970-01-01 01:00:00, with very large negative number of seconds duration. Also the on-screen display is very erratic - I can open the view window and maybe the display will show, and maybe it won't.

I'm playing some more with the maximum fps to see if it's just overloading the camera.

I know the cam is in general working order as I downloaded a windows app called "Vision GS Private Edition" which accesses the camera without any trouble. But most of the good stuff on that is disabled.

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:57 pm

Glad to see it's working for you. I'll try and get you guys all an update for that dvd if you want to have the latest stable build. I'm not sure if there is a need to update that dvd, but I know most people want the latest.

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:44 am

I can't tell whether there's a problem with the camera, or the build, but I keep getting no activity (for example it's showing nothing now, but the config has not changed since 7:15 this morning when it recorded some footage), also I keep getting events of very-large negative number duration, for example :

Code: Select all

Id    Name       Time                  Secs     Frames Score
847 Event-847 1970-01-01 01:00:00 -11203965.27 82/34   50/100 X

When selected, these strangely-sized events do not play at all (which I guess is not surprising).

If I can find it, I'll rebuild with my old USB camera and see if it's any better.

Post by **zoneminder** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:29 pm

What do you get if you go into mysql and type

Code: Select all

select * from Frames where Id = 847;

for example?

newvisionantenna · Post by **newvisionantenna** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:40 pm

I've noticed when running remote cams switching between Simple and Regexp on Remote Method options seems to bring the picture back. I'm not familiar with what each option is doing or what would cause one or the other to display the picture. I do remember while building the dvd I added in something that regexp was complaining in a log about, so that should be good.

Post by **zoneminder** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:46 pm

At the very least changing those options will cause zmc to restart so that may be what is bringing the image back, at least for a while.

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:20 pm

zoneminder wrote:What do you get if you go into mysql and type
Code: Select all
select * from Frames where Id = 847;
for example?

I get a list of 82 frames, the first ten have a blank timestamp, 0.00 Delta and Score 0. The remainder have a proper timestamp, delta of -999999.99 and various scores.

(I translated the query to use "EventId" as it complained about "Id". Hope that's what you meant.)

Post by **zoneminder** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:35 pm

Very odd. I notice earlier that you mentioned you dropped the 'buffers' setting to 10, which setting did you mean? That is probably not really big enough for the ring buffer especially if the pre-alarm count is the same. Either increase the ring buffer size to 20 or so, or drop the pre-event count to 5 or so, the post-event one can be as long as you like.

droopsnoot · Post by **droopsnoot** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:57 am

I meant the image buffer size for the camera, but I have put it back up to 30 recently.

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