Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

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JariR
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:22 am

Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by JariR »

I got couple of used ip cameras from my friend while ago and today I thought try to set them up. I didn't even get started with these because I'm not able to get any connection to these. Seems that these are not getting ip address from the router dhcp after reseting. Does anyone has idea what could be the brand for these cameras and is there any manuals available for them ot how to get connected to them? See images of the camera below:
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ip_camera_02.jpg
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ip_camera_01.jpg
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mikb
Posts: 585
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:34 pm

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by mikb »

Do they even work ;) -- you seem to have some other connectors, are they for audio/composite video/DC power etc. ?

Also they say "wifi function" -- if they are looking for you friend's WIFI network, that may be a stumbling block.

They may not get IP addresses from your dhcp server, if they are configured to use static IP addresses, so that's not necessarily a problem.

I suspect if you find the little hole/button for factory defaults, it will revert to dhcp (or at least a standard IP address for the model).

Ask the friend if they used static/dhcp when last in use? Do they know what the IP addresses were?

If there's NO logo or anything visible externally, you may have to cautiously open one to see reference numbers on circuit boards (if you are comfortable), as sometimes one thing is branded as another thing, or not branded at all externally ...

To discover if the cameras are emitting any kind of packets, you may need to connect them as a single device to a PC (no other networked items/hubs/routers to get in the way), then power them up while watching -- through a tool like tcpdump, wireshark etc. to see if they send any packets.

This will give you a clue to their IP address. They may not grab an IP address, but may do other stuff (seeking an NTP server for time, secretly logging into their Chines secret control hub, who knows ... ;)
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snake
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Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by snake »

Looks remarkably similar to what foscam sold as a 9805 or 9804. If the reset button doesn't work, you can use wireshark or tcpdump to listen to what its sending out. It may have the ip info as mentioned in the previous reply. Post some pictures of the inside, if you are able. You can compare with foscam hardware to double check.
JariR
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:22 am

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by JariR »

Thanks for the tips, I was able to find the camera ip address by using Wireshark and by connecting camera ethernet cable straight to computers ethernet port and set computer's ip address statically to same network than the camera was using. I was also able to access camera management UI and it turned out that camera brand is Qihan. Management UI is horrible, it can be used only by IE and to see all needed content, buttons etc. on UI you must set IE Document mode to "5" to get available options visible! :D

But anyway, camera seems to be working and it also seems to be working with Zoneminder by using rtsp. It would be great if the management UI could be replaced by other one which could be used by modern browsers, but I'm afraid that this would be more difficult task? However maybe I'll set them up just for fun since there no need to access to camera's management UI very often when you'll get it working once. :D

And yes, it looks like Foscam in pictures (I also have couple of Foscam devices), but I think these are much more bigger and heavier than Foscam's cameras. Dimension of the device is +10 centimeters and length is about 30 centimeters, antennas are also huge, about 35 centimeter long. I'm excited to see are they that powerfull that they looks! :D
mikb
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Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:34 pm

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by mikb »

JariR wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 7:37 am Management UI is horrible, it can be used only by IE and to see all needed content, buttons etc. on UI you must set IE Document mode to "5" to get available options visible! :D

It would be great if the management UI could be replaced by other one which could be used by modern browsers, but I'm afraid that this would be more difficult task?
Glad you've found the camera's address!

For the UI: It's a "proceed with caution" thing, but you may be able to change the firmware. I wouldn't go there unless desperate, as failure to reflash it with working firmware may lead to an unflashable device (brick!) :(

If the camera is a Foscam knockoff (or if both are rebranding a third party original hardware), it's likely they have used the Foscam firmware, changed the UI to make it "completely different and original" and then flashed that, so a possibility is Foscam's own firmware.

With the DCS-900's (DLink) I've got, there is some level of swappability with CAS-330 cameras (same hardware?) and the firmware file is in fact a blob made up of a mini-Linux filesystem or two, with the web GUI and resources as part of it (good tool for this: binwalk). You can then unpack it, mess with the UI, repack it, and flash it back. Similar stunts are done with the cheap USB/RJ45 connectable NAS units from unknown brands that share a common hardware and o/s core, sometimes bringing online features you didn't originally have ;)

If you could be more sure of the hardware you've actually got, then it'd be easier to research if re-flashing is possible.

Mike.
JariR
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:22 am

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by JariR »

I decided to open one of these cameras to see if I could find some more information about manufacturer. Unfortunately there wasn't very much information that can be easily seen. Only brand that I was able to find there was Sony -text on the chip at the camera unit. Here are couple of pictures from opened device attached below.
ip_camera_03.jpg
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ip_camera_04.jpg
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ip_camera_05.jpg
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I got camera "working" together with ZM, but have to say that I'm not very satisfied to results. I was using ffmpeg source type for rtsp feed that is H264 compressed by the camera as default. There was lot's of pixelation in stream especially when there is motion in stream image. Tried to set many different combinations of bitrate and fps settings from the camera without luck. When looking stream by VLC player stream looks better, no pixelation.

Tried also change to MJPEG from the camera but then the strean was available in ZM only by setting source type to libvlc. When using libvlc CPU usage increased lots. By using libvlc the stream looked better but it worked only for while when it stalled and stream disappeared. Seems that if results on table setup looks like this it is not very ideal to install these devices anywhere. :/
mikb
Posts: 585
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:34 pm

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by mikb »

The pixellation/smearing with FFMPEG and pre-compressed stream sources is a common thread on here (Search for smearing, tearing, pixellation ...) and is usually fixable by setting Zoneminder correctly, so don't give up just yet.

The fact the stream looks good in VLC means it probably *is* good, but comms errors between ZM and the camera cause dropped/corrupted data that results in interesting artefacts.

Also, don't push the resolution and frame rate too high at first (e.g. start off at something like 640x480/5FPS and work upward).
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snake
Posts: 337
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 2:20 am

Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by snake »

You came through with the pictures, so I'll post some from a 9804 Foscam that I had hanging around. I'm still curious what kind of main CPU is on the long board on your camera. Unfortunately, I didn't take a zoomed out picture, but the design is essentially the same. There is the one long board which hosts the CPU, with some connectors going to the front image sensor board. There is a wifi module connected to the main board, and the long board connects to the sides of the chassis. Here's the main board. The main CPU is a Hi3518.
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Here you can see the big amount of wires that come in from the ethernet cable. The wifi module is also in the back. It's connected by a screw, and a few 0.1" headers. There are a lot of wires on the external ethernet connector. Some 20+ wires come in from it. It makes for the thick cable that you see on the outside.
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Back of the main board. This board connects to the back of the chassis through some hardware, and slides into the sides, similar to the previous camera.
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Note that the main board says 9805. The image sensor board says 9804, so it may be that the only difference between the 9805 and the 9804 is the image sensor.
Last edited by snake on Sat Nov 30, 2019 3:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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snake
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Re: Help: Which brand is this ip camera?

Post by snake »

Finally, we have the image sensor.
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And then the back of the image sensor.
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I didn't include the LED board, which has I think 10mm LEDs on it, and a light detector. If you want to disconnect the LED board, or the IR cut filter solenoid switch, it's possible to just unplug the power connectors.

One thing I noticed when tearing this apart, is that it's pretty easy to add a new zoom lens to these cameras. If you take off the top and then unscrew the front, you have easy access to the lens, without needing to open the rest of it up.
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