Weird question and some information on DLink DCS-920 cameras

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:31 pm

Folks,

I've added two DCS-920 cameras to my setup. Zoneminder box is based off the latest Bluecherry liveCD, ZM 1.24.0 on Xubuntu 8.10.

The 920 is a WiFi version of the 910 and I've found very little info on it.

I'm running the cameras at 640x480 low-grade JPEG. I can't get more than .65 to .70fps off them UNLESS I have another browser window on some system on the local net continuously query the camera's video feed - in that case, Zoneminder's FPS goes to a more usable state just under 3fps, which I can live with.

Before I grab a bell, book and candle next lemme show you how it's working now.

From a regular web browser window talking straight to the camera, I can go to a camera's IP address such as:

http://192.168.0.54

...and login. From there I can access the latest image snapshot at:

http://192.168.0.54/image.jpg

OR the camera's continuous video feed at:

http://192.168.0.54/video.cgi

...and this line seems to work too:

http://192.168.0.54/video.cgi?

Getting the camera's video feed gives me a somewhat "choppy" view, as it will delay refreshing every few seconds for a split second...but when it's displaying video, it looks to be about 5 to 8 FPS.

(Note: I have static camera IP addresses, and the ZM central box is on the same internal net.)

Great. So go over to Zoneminder and it'll work off of /image.jpg just fine, but at low frame rates (under 1 frame per second) unless I have a separate browser window pointing to the camera's /video.cgi feed - then it quadruples to something usable.

I can't get zoneminder to see the /video.cgi or /video.cgi? feeds at all - no picture.

ZM setup stuff:

I've been looking at this thread:

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... 4a8ce9ca4b

...for the 910 cameras and ZM 1.23 series. In ZM version 1.24 I see no way to set anything in Options>Network related to "ZM_NETCAM_REGEXPS" or similar. Am I missing something?

In the camera's setup window in ZM I'm doing "source type" as remote of course, "remote protocol" as HTTP, "remote method" is "simple", remote hostname is [username]@[cameraipaddress] (this is behind a firewall so I'm not bothering with passwords), "remote host port" is "80".

Under "remote host path" I've tried all of the following:

video.cgi
/video.cgi
video.cgi?
/video.cgi

Thanks!

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:55 pm

Just got off the phone with DLink. Managed to get a list of known subdirectories for the 920 camera:

http://192.168.0.55/video.cgi

This is the one that supposedly works in Zoneminder 1.23 series with a "?" at the end, with the Dlink 910 camera. Ain't working for me. Certain "regex" tweaks in ZM1.23 are mentioned, but not available in 1.24.0. Dunno what's going on.

Page source is disabled from this .cgi display. Sigh.

http://192.168.0.55/video.avi

- gives me a 404 not found...

http://192.168.0.55/video.dvf

- proprietary Dlink format of some sort? Zoneminder doesn't work with it...

http://192.168.0.55/image.jpg

- this gives the last still image off the camera. Zoneminder can work with this, but the speed blows chunks (less than 1 frame per second).

What I guess I need is a tweak to get the video.cgi stream working in Zoneminder. Worst case I'll try upgrading ZM to 1.24.2 but it's a stone cold bitch to compile...

Jim

bb99 · Post by **bb99** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:32 am

I share your frustration! Had 900a's and never got the performance others were posting. They were never better than ok. One suggestion in dealing with slow frame rate feeds - change your warm-up frames value ( a value of 50 @ .7 fps = lot's of patience, @ 3 fps a little less).

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:35 am

One suggestion in dealing with slow frame rate feeds - change your warm-up frames value ( a value of 50 @ .7 fps = lot's of patience, @ 3 fps a little less).

Uhhh...WHAT? I mean seriously...what is a warm-up frames value, and where is it set?

The other issue is, why can't I get /video.cgi working? That's my big problem here...I'd be happy with even 2.5fps...

bb99 · Post by **bb99** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:32 am

I'm working with 1.23.3 but the documentation still contains this section:
Warm-up Frames
This specifies how many frames the analysis daemon should process but not examine when it starts. This allows it to generate an accurate reference image from a series of images before looking too carefully for any changes. I use a value of 25 here, too high and it will take a long time to start, too low and you will get false alarms when the analysis daemon starts up.
If the frame rate for the camera is 1 fps and the warm-up frame setting is 50 (I've noticed this value set at 50 by default) than you won't see anything until 50 sec after starting the monitor. I was never able to get the 900a's to work with 1.22.3 or 1.23.3 so they were discarded but they were ok on Ross Melin's 1.21.3 live CD. I'll bring up a seed on linuxtracker.org to use for troubleshooting If your interested.

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:36 am

Use FFMPEG and for the remote path put:
http://192.168.0.54/video.cgi?a=.mjpg

bb99 · Post by **bb99** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:18 am

Sorry for the short answer! Warm-up frames is set up in the monitor set up under the tab for buffers. This setting will delay the monitor from working until the designating number of frames has been processed (that's the reference to patience with a low frame rate). Video.cgi (without the question mark or slash) is the path I used almost exclusively to get 7+ fps and the path posted by Mitch is one I never tried but may be the answer for the 920, please post your results.

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:02 am

Folks, these look like great tips, I'll try 'em tomorrow. THANKS!

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:46 pm

Dammit, still nothing but failure.

This link works in a web browser just fine:

http://192.168.0.54/video.cgi?a=.mjpg

...but when I try and translate it into Zoneminder settings I get no image whatsoever.

Does part of it go into the "host path" ("video.cgi" maybe?) and part into the "subpath" ("?a=.mjpg")?

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:52 pm

Another thing: Mitch, what *exactly* do you mean by "use FFMPEG"?

There's around a dozen or so settings that interact with FFMPEG including at least half the stuff under "images". Do I turn Cambozola on or off? Do I want JPEG or MPEG under "ZM_STREAM_METHOD"?

I have "ZM_OPT_FFMPEG" checked "on" and I think FFMPEG is working in this thing.

Please...if anybody can tell me in plain English how to make this thing work, what settings to use, I'd be much obliged.

solsrch · Post by **solsrch** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:34 am

These are my settings for getting about 13FPS from a DCS-910 at 640x480 using ZoneMinder 1.24.2 under FreeBSD 7.2:

[Source tab]
Remote Protocol: HTTP
Remote Method: Simple
Remote Host Name: admin:yourpassword@192.168.11.12 (obviously use your own camera's username:password@IP address or hostname)
Remote Host Port: 80
Remote Host Path: /video.cgi
Remote Image Colors: 24 bit color
Capture Width (pixels): 640
Capture Height (pixels): 480
Preserve Aspect Ratio: (unchecked)
Orientation : Normal

...make sure the camera is also set to 640x480, and make sure your shared memory settings are such to handle this resolution (see here).

Jim March · Post by **Jim March** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:42 am

Huh. OK...obviously, I'm going to have to compile 1.24.2. 1.24.0 with the same settings has "fail" written all over it.

Crap, I tried compiling from scratch before and something always went wrong. Sigh. But hey, at least I know mysql and apache are all set now.

Man, 13fps would be frickin' sweet.

dyu · Post by **dyu** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 5:38 pm

Jim, were you able to make 1.24.2 work with the /video.cgi from dcs 920?