Trendnet TV-IP312W Working

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:36 am

First of all this camera is pretty cool, for $150 (see newegg its $190 with a nice massive instant rebate code right now) it has night/day mode at decently high 640x480 resolution and built in IR. It runs over Wifi (non Wifi version also avail). The start of the mac address is: 00:14:D1:F0 .

You can use it several ways
ffmpeg with RTSP url of rtsp://123.123.123.123/mpeg4
single frame grabbing (REMOTE with HTTP) hostname: admin:password@123.123.123.123 path: /cgi/jpg/image.cgi

problem with ffmpeg and RTSP is RTSP is over UDP so corrupt/dropped packets cause video frame to sometimes be corrupt/have artifacts which is not so good for ZM.

Problem with single frame grabbing is its slow, can only grab at 3fps or so for me.

The best way I have found so far is to use the mjpeg stream:
http://123.123.123.123/cgi/mjpg/mjpeg.cgi

Ok previously I had a super long way of get it to work with pipes and other complexity and then I figured out a simple hack to have FFMPEG detect this properly and it work out of box.

For the MJPEG config in ZM:

Source Type: FFMPEG
Source Path: http://123.123.123.123/cgi/mjpg/mjpeg.cgi?.mjpeg

Thats all you need you will get a nice 20FPS+ if done right and its very stable with no problems the other methods have.

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:48 am

Hi mitch!

Sounds like good news mate. I'm glad to hear that you've had success with it. I actually bought 4 of these cameras earlier today to take advantage of the promo code. I'm from Australia and they sell them at 3 times the regular price! So I needed to get them quick.

Anyway, my plan is to located them around the house and hopefully build a home surveillance system with zoneminder. Just had a few questions to ask you, if you don't mind. I already have a wireless LAN set up at home at the moment, but I have yet to install zoneminder on a machine.

1. I do have some unused machines lying around my room though and they are at least Pentium 1GHz boxes with at least 512MB. Would this be enough to run any of these machines as a ZoneMinder server, and have it interface to all 4 cameras?

2. How easy is it to get the cameras connected on the wireless network? Is it just a matter of turning the cameras on and then you can see them from any computer on the network??

3. Must I also update the cameras firmware?

4. I have little Linux experience and am just wondering how easy or difficult it would be to configure zoneminder once all of the cameras have been wirelessly connected to the network. Is there a lot of tinkering with the kernel (I think it's called) or whatever else that's really technical for that matter?

5. Do you know of any good ZoneMinder client software that I can install on any other PC or MAC that will be able to access the ZoneMinder server remotely via the Internet and be able to view the streams that way? I'm hoping to be able to do this from anywhere in the world.

6. What's the range of the IR Illumination? For example, would it be able to illuminate objects at least 10 metres away?

By the way, I hope it's ok if I get more help from you with regards to your post about getting zoneminder to use FFMPEG, because I didn't really understand any of the perl script at all. Why exactly would you continue to stream video through the FIFO once ZM dies?

I think they are really my main issues at the moment. It would be great if I could set up zoneminder on one of the machines I've got before the cameras arrive so that it's all ready. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:10 am

No problem.
1) No clue I run it on a beast of a box but that just because of what I have laying around, from what others have posted id assume you should be fine. Keep in mind a simple way to reduce load is to reduce FPS and it doesn't hurt much.

2) Easiest way to config these (atleast what I did) on your computer setup your network card to use a static ip and set the ip to 192.168.10.20 netmask 255.255.255.0 and leave the gateway empty. Put a cable from the camera into your computer. Plug the camera in, give it 20-30 seconds atleast to boot, then in the browser go to 192.168.10.30 login and config it to join the wireless through the admin interface (pretty easy). Then config it to use a static IP on your wireless network (so you always know its ip) Let it reboot. Then unplug it and do the next. Fairly quick and simple

3) No, id assume not, but I did it at the same time as the initial config (actually before I setup anything) as newer firmware hopefully makes things more stable.

4) No you shouldn't have to tinker with anything in the kernel, ZM is pretty easy to add the cameras on (per my instructions above). To get ZM itself working consider one of the live cds to be instantly ready.

5) Zone minder is web software, once its online you can access it via the web interface from any computer no real client software needed.

6) Not great, although its not meant to be. it will work in a small room that has no light but anything as large as a 30ft room you will probably want either a small light source or an IR light source as it probably will just be too dark. Keep in mind these are $150 cameras not $600 IR cameras.

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:25 am

I went back and edited both my posts to remove some confusion, previously I had a very complex method to get MJPEG working but the method in my first post now works and requires no tweaking etc.

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:36 am

Mate you are an absolute legend! That is very promising indeed. I can't wait to try it out now! I'm extremely excited! Now if only the cameras would arrive in the next week or so!

Right... I'll try to calm myself down now, enough so I can also thank you for your feedback on my other questions. Really appreciate your help.

If I get stuck on any of the set up process, be it the camera or zoneminder itself, I hope you don't mind if I fire back a few more questions at you. A job well done again mate!

Post by **cordel** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:14 pm

Would I be able to talk you into adding the first 3 or 4 tuples of the MAC address for this cam to your description above

BTW thx mitch on a good find and especially posting the working setup

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:12 pm

done. Also FYI this camera goes by a lot of other names and other versions (without IR and without Wifi) all of which use similar base firmware so it should in theory work with several others.

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Tue May 05, 2009 12:38 am

Hi mitch,

Just wondering, do you happen to know the wavelength of the infrared light from this camera?

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Tue May 05, 2009 12:58 am

Another thing I wanted to ask you mitch in relation to my previous post is whether this infrared light can be seen by the human eye, in dark conditions. I've read about near infrared and buying cameras that fall within the 950nm category to be more covert, but in your experience with using the IP312W, is it covert enough?

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Tue May 05, 2009 2:56 am

Cheap IR lights generally give off a red glow, given its a $150 camera these are certainly cheap:) You can see the red glow at night. On the plus side you can completely disable not only the IR but the on light from the admin side so if you used a 3rd party IR illuminator you wouldn't know the camera was on.

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Tue May 05, 2009 4:28 am

Thanks mitch.

1. I'm assuming that if the camera is in 'day mode', then it wouldn't be able to see any IR illumination right? You'd have to turn on 'night mode' manually for it to be able to detect it.

2. Do you the wavelength of the infrared light that the IP312W emits?

3. What do you think of these IR illuminators: http://www.rayled.com/images/range_matrix/index.html ? Do you think there are others out there that don't necessarily have PoE, but provide ability to sense light through a photocell or some other sensor?

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Tue May 05, 2009 4:45 am

1. No the cameras can always see IR sources even in 'day' mode.

2. No clue

3. I am _not_ a camera expert the only thing I would worry about with some of the bigger ones would be making it too bright, but again I would defer to anyone else on that question. You may want to call the Bluecherry guys they seem pretty knowledgeable

noah35 · Post by **noah35** » Tue May 05, 2009 5:04 am

1. No the cameras can always see IR sources even in 'day' mode.

Just wanted to ask about your answer above. If this is true, does this mean that any ordinary camera would be able to pick up IR sources? For example, would I be able to buy a cheap Logitech webcam and get that to see in the dark by using a 3rd party IR illuminator?

I'm just confused because I thought that the IP312W camera was different in that it could behave in both 'day' mode and 'night' mode, that is in the way it responds to light coming through the lens.

Post by **cordel** » Tue May 05, 2009 6:39 am

Most all IR emitters especially those on cameras are in the 850 nm range.
I have only seen 980nm on some very expensive gear that directed at law enforcement. I would not be surprised if it is done intentionally but it's only an observation as I have not gone around specifically looking for IR's on a camera in that range. If you can see the glow it's most certainly below 900nm.

coke · Post by **coke** » Tue May 05, 2009 6:41 pm

I'm under the impression that CCD (maybe CMOS also) sensors have to be IR shielded to avoid picking up IR, as they do so rather well natively. Not sure if that's still the case, and if so, if the night vision cameras pull off the filter at night.

noah35 wrote:
1. No the cameras can always see IR sources even in 'day' mode.
Just wanted to ask about your answer above. If this is true, does this mean that any ordinary camera would be able to pick up IR sources? For example, would I be able to buy a cheap Logitech webcam and get that to see in the dark by using a 3rd party IR illuminator?

I'm just confused because I thought that the IP312W camera was different in that it could behave in both 'day' mode and 'night' mode, that is in the way it responds to light coming through the lens.