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General => Users => Topic started by: gtsupport on January 27, 2011, 10:24:59 pm

Title: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on January 27, 2011, 10:24:59 pm
After a long break for the holidays, I'm back at the keyboard again trying to get my system functioning as I would like.

I see that somebody on here has used the Y-Cam cameras with LinuxMCE, I had one anyway and want to integrate it.  I'm not sure what template to use, but I also seem to be missing something because whichever template I pick, I can't see any images from the camera.  I can log into the camera from my windows box, and see the streaming video, I can even log into the camera from another computer in a different country, so I know it works, it must be something I need to setup properly with the LinuxMCE unit.  For now I have connected the camera directly via cable to the network switch, linuxmce gave it an IP address in the correct range, but there are no images.

Any users with this type of camera that can give me a prod in the right direction?

Cheers

Matt.

* Update *

I can log into the camera and view the feed from firefox within LinuxMCE, its just the camera button on the orbiter that doesn't get the picture??
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on January 28, 2011, 11:15:28 am
Welcome back, hope you enjoyed your hols.

What are you wanting to do with the camera? Do you want it as just a viewer? Do you want to use it as a motion sensor? Do you want to record images with it? Does it have pan/tilt/zoom function?

I found cameras to be a confusing subject, but mine are all up and running now and am fairly happy I could do it again. Check out the cameras in my setup page for detailed explanations of how to install them. Any problems post back and let us know.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: DragonK on January 28, 2011, 12:10:53 pm
I can log into the camera and view the feed from firefox within LinuxMCE, its just the camera button on the orbiter that doesn't get the picture??

Hi Matt,

whats the full path to your camera when viewing the it from firefox?
Screenshot of ur template?

Karel
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on January 28, 2011, 02:36:33 pm
Also check to see if username and password is entered correctly, different from camera to camera. Sometimes you put them in the username/password field, sometimes they go in the path.

Also check to see that the device # for the scenario in question is correct, I had that problem.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: cht_winston on January 28, 2011, 10:22:20 pm
Hi Matt,

The path to the jpeg image stream is /stream.jpg:account:password

Obviously replacing account and password for your own. We have used a few of the Y-cam models and that path has been valid for all of them.

Good Luck

Win - CHT
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: tschak909 on January 29, 2011, 01:29:41 am
Guys! can we _PLEASE_ make a proper device template for this?

Having to futz around with the path names, is unacceptable!

-Thom
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on January 30, 2011, 06:10:53 pm
All I really want is to be able to view the images from the camera, I'm not worried about motion sensing.  There are no axis controls either.  When I type the ip address of the camera into firefox it goes straight to the login page, and when I enter username and password I get the live feed.

When I unplugged and re-inserted the LAN cable Linux detected it as a "DCS5300", which I guess is another camera type, should I base settings on this template, or use the generic ip camera?

Personally I like Thom's suggestion, if there were a template already there, it would be great! ;D
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on January 30, 2011, 09:31:53 pm
I would have thought that the Panasonic template would be a good place to start. Add it in web admin and change the appropriate parts.

From the point of view of making a specific template for this camera, I don't know how to do that.

Does anybody know of a decent explanation/example of how to make a template (either from scratch or copied from an existing one) and submit it etc?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: DragonK on January 31, 2011, 06:30:53 am
HI,

I came across this....
Wiki page to create or edit Device Templates.
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Edit_Page

Karel
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 11:17:41 am
Thanks Karel.

Matt, I will attempt to make a template for your camera, if you would be willing to test it for me? I've not done it before, but I need to learn in order to try and avoid these constant bollockings.

Two questions for anyone who knows:

1. For a given manufacturer, in this case Y-Cam, how do you find out the MAC range without the risk of leaving any Y-Cams out?
2. Once the template is complete, obviously it will be in my list of device templates, but how do I share it with the community?

Cheers,
Matt.

EDIT: 3rd question - If the username and password is included in the path, how can a device template be written without having to manually edit the path? Assuming people want to choose their own username and password for their camera?
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: coley on February 01, 2011, 12:58:10 pm
Matt,
The first three octets of the MAC address will give you the manufacturer range - eg for y-cam its  00:19:70
check out http://www.wireshark.org/tools/oui-lookup.html

Once your template is complete and tested you should be able to commit it with sqlCVS via webadmin, although I don't know if this is working correctly at the moment - maybe one of the lead devs can confirm?

-Coley.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 03:37:14 pm
Thank you very much.

OK cool, so the range is 00:19:70:00:00:00 to 00:19:70:FF:FF:FF? I realise this needs to be converted to decimal for the template.

How would I go about sending the template to an individual for testing?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: tschak909 on February 01, 2011, 04:22:44 pm
Again, the template needs to be checked into sqlCVS for testing. The user can then update from sqlCVS, and he will have the template.

As the username and password in the individual fields, you can take a cue from the panasonic template, it grabs the values of those fields....Instead of using basic auth in this case, however, simply append them onto the end of the URL you send as part of the GET request to the camera.

-Thom
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 06:15:12 pm
Ah, Coley said to commit it with sqlCVS AFTER testing, which made sense to me, but I will take your word Thom (sorry Coley ;)).

Regarding the username/password, is there a specific reason why "dceadmin" and "dcepass" are used? Am I right in saying that if somebody wants their own different username/password on their camera, they would have to change this manually on the path in web admin? The reason I ask is because I thought we were trying to avoid having to make manual changes to the path.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: tschak909 on February 01, 2011, 06:28:41 pm
hmm...

dceadmin and dcepass are merely the default device data entries for username and password in the template. The correct practice is for the code in the device template to use these fields wherever the username and password are required (in this case, the template specifies dceadmin and dcepass as the defaults.)

So, you have two options:

(1) set the username and password to this in the camera's web admin beforehand, or...
(2) create a script that can set the username and password on the camera, and use this as the Configuration Script in the template.

-thom
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 07:08:13 pm
OK, I made a Y-Cam template and checked it in.... I think.

I'm assuming one would need to do a sqlCVS Update before the new template is available?

Matt, following confirmation of the above, if you would be so kind as to test it and let us know how you get on. If you have tried to install the camera already, please remove it in web admin, reset the camera to factory settings, reboot your core (just to be safe).

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: tschak909 on February 01, 2011, 07:09:57 pm
Did you check it in using sqlcvs diff?

If so, please make sure you've checked in both the DCE and IR repositories. (The template is stored in the DCE tables, the code is stored in the IR tables)

-Thom
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 01, 2011, 09:56:47 pm
Hi guys,

Many thanks to Purps for trying to setup a new template for this camera.  Just a note, my MAC address for the camera is 00:0D:F0:55:CB:7B which doesn't fall within the range suggested in this thread.  This aside, I'm sure I can alter this in the template afterwards.

I am just in the middle of a firmware upgrade for the camera, which will reset everything to factory afterwards.  I'll try and add it then with the new template.  Just a quick one though, how do I get, or make sure I've already got the new template?
*Just checked and there isn't a template for it yet*

Great response from everyone else as well, thanks guys, the community spirit is flying high!  :D

Matt
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 10:22:59 pm
Did you check it in using sqlcvs diff?

If so, please make sure you've checked in both the DCE and IR repositories. (The template is stored in the DCE tables, the code is stored in the IR tables)

-Thom

Yes, diff. I checked in everything DCE related, but not IR, will do it again.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 10:32:45 pm
Hi guys,

Many thanks to Purps for trying to setup a new template for this camera.  Just a note, my MAC address for the camera is 00:0D:F0:55:CB:7B which doesn't fall within the range suggested in this thread.  This aside, I'm sure I can alter this in the template afterwards.

I am just in the middle of a firmware upgrade for the camera, which will reset everything to factory afterwards.  I'll try and add it then with the new template.  Just a quick one though, how do I get, or make sure I've already got the new template?
*Just checked and there isn't a template for it yet*

Great response from everyone else as well, thanks guys, the community spirit is flying high!  :D

Matt

I'll add another MAC range to the template.

In theory the camera should be PnP once all this is in place. Have you done a sqlcvs update?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 01, 2011, 11:59:32 pm
Template modified and checked in (dce and ir repositories).
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 02, 2011, 10:14:25 pm
I've just completed the sqlcvs update, and can't find the new template.  Can you tell me the number of the template, I'll try and select it that way?

Even with everything on the camera set back to factory, it doesn't seem to work on the orbiter, still working fine in the browser.  One question, I remember reading about the IP address range that the core issues, its given my camera a 192.168.80.130 address, which as I remember is for hardware outside of the LinuxMCE system.  Am I right about this, and does it matter?

I've got further questions that might be related to this, but I'm going to start another thread, as it will get too mixed up otherwise.

Thanks all.

Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 02, 2011, 10:31:10 pm
It may take a while to find its way in, I have no idea what the procedure is, timescales etc after it has been checked in.

Make sure the network cable is unplugged when you reset to factory settings, remove the camera in web admin, then reset the core. When core has restarted, then plug your camera back in - this is crucial. The whole point of the template is that it makes the camera PnP i.e. orbiter should pop up with a message saying that your Y-Cam has been detected. This may not be necessary, but let's play it safe (this is what has worked for me with the Panasonic for example). The only thing that should be left to do is to set the username and password in the camera's admin page (use "dceadmin" and "dcepass" for now).

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 02, 2011, 10:34:49 pm
Righto, off to try that now...

No joy.  The sqlcvs was updated, I checked all the dce and IR boxes, it said it finished successfully.  Rebooted the core, then plugged the camera in.  Nothing on the core, or other MD to tell me that anything was detected.

One thing I just thought of regarding mac addresses, at the moment its plugged via cable to the internal network, it also has a wireless mode which will be used later once I've moved the wireless router to the internal network.  Perhaps this will have a mac address within the range discussed earlier??

it still works in the browser, so I can make use of it for now, perhaps it takes time for the new template to get into the system, and onto my core?

Thanks for the help.

Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 02, 2011, 10:49:04 pm
FYI the template is called "Y-Cam IP Camera" and is # 2163.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 02, 2011, 11:06:39 pm
Ah, that template is not found so I will leave it overnight, and try a sqlcvs update tomorrow.  Hopefully it'll appear by then.

Matt
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: DragonK on February 03, 2011, 07:39:49 am
Matt,

I had a problem with a different template that I couldn't get to. Here is the reply from another thread that worked for me.
Did you select all repos, or did you select all tables within dce? Make sure to not do the former, but only the latter
So only choose the tables wintin DCE to update.


Karel
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: Marie.O on February 03, 2011, 10:31:14 am
sqlCVS can be a bitch. When you create new templates, make sure to
* Add the manufacturer, followed by a diff commit for the IR repo
* Add the template codes, followed by a diff commit for IR repo
* Diff commit the DCE repo
* Try to get a hold of someone with sqlCVS approval priviliges to approve your batches

The ticket to success with sqlCVS is micro commit stuff, and make sure to commit the dependent records (IR repo stuff) first.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 03, 2011, 11:00:12 am
Karel, I just selected everything in dce and everything in ir, I didn't select everything.

Possy, when I go into sqlCVS now, it says "no changes" (unsurprisingly), does this mean it was successful?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: Marie.O on February 03, 2011, 11:29:36 am
It means, sqlCVS can't find any changes
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 03, 2011, 02:29:35 pm
Right, I have learnt that the proper procedure (after following the instructions posted by possy) is to create a trac ticket with the sqlCVS Batch IDs. Find out what these are by going to http://schema.linuxmce.org/sqlCVS/?site=batch/view and looking in dce and ir.

Matt, I have now added a trac ticket or twelve (my apologies again chaps!) for this template, so let's see what happens.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 03, 2011, 08:47:46 pm
Cool, I'll wait until I can get template 2163.  There's no mega rush at the moment, as I'm moving house this weekend and it'll take a few days to get everything connected back together and running.  I have a whole load of Z-wave devices that will probably keep me busy for the next week or so too....lol.  Might need to find a bigger server to host this forum.  ;D
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 18, 2011, 10:06:08 pm
I'm revisiting this again as I'm now keen to get the camera working.  I've just checked and template 2163 is now there, however its for something else entirely (a HDMI-CEC interface)

The only device template for Y-CAM is 2156 which is for a Cine 2 capture card??!!

Is it possible that a couple of new templates have gotten mixed up along the way somewhere?

I did have some success with an old webcam though, it wouldn't work on any windows version newer than XP, but added it in MOTION as per the wiki and it worked straight away. Result!

Now back to the IP camera....
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 20, 2011, 08:33:44 pm
Probably my fault, I added it in two stages as I didn't do it properly the first time, and it's probably gotten all messed up somehow. Could somebody clever please confirm?

FYI on my set up there is only one device for the manufacturer "Y-Cam" and it is for the camera obviously, with template number 2163.

If all else fails I'll start over.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 23, 2011, 10:22:38 am
Success! ;D

After my success with the webcam I tried adding the Y-CAM IP camera as a child device of 'Motion' too (using the generic IP camera template), and after setting the path in the template as suggested by cht_winston it started working.  Now I'm not sure what has changed, as I tried this last week and never got a picture, but as of last night it was working a treat.  It needed a core restart to get it to work properly, perhaps thats what was missing last time I tried it, but I'm happy to say that its functional.  I also tried to add it as a child of the core without motion, but this still didn't work.  Don't know why.

Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 23, 2011, 11:11:52 am
Hi Matt,

Glad it's working for you. Obviously the template that I did wasn't designed to add the camera as a motion device, only as a standalone viewer. Which is your preference in this case, motion or viewer?

When you say you tried to add it as a child of the core, which template were you using for that?

You'll often find that sometimes things need a reset or two, doesn't hurt to reset the cameras themselves also.

I would be interested to know what the camera is like to live with and how reliable it is, whether it's worth the money, etc - I am currently in the market for an outdoor IP camera and saw a Y-Cam somewhere.

Cheers,
Matt.

Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: gtsupport on February 23, 2011, 03:57:25 pm
Hi Matt,

When I tried to add the camera as a direct child of the core I had to choose the generic IP camera template, as there still isn't one for the Y-CAM in the list.  I'm not sure whatever happened to the template you created, but its not on my list.  I'd have preferred to just use the camera without motion, as it already has motion detection software built in, but I was just glad to get it working so its staying as it is for now.  I am going to have to adjust the refresh rate I think, as I am used to viewing it as a camera, not as a series of stills(I know its the same thing, but when you view it from a browser it refreshes itself seemlessly)

I've had mine for 18 months now, and its been faultless.  The only slight gripe is that it uses an activeX script to refresh with a browser, and my old mobile phone couldn't function with this so I couldn't view it on my phone over the home wifi.  Still it works great on the IPad, and now with MCE too.  I like the fact that you can log into it too, mine's always been in the boy's bedroom, so I could see him when I'm working overseas.  This should still work unless the router on the core fails.

Recommended.

Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on February 23, 2011, 04:26:28 pm
For a standalone viewer I would try using the Panasonic one (that's what I used for the template), add it manually and change the path, password etc to match your Y-Cam settings. Once you get that working we can make a template in confidence.

You know that motion in LMCE not only records motion, but also detects motion, essentially turning the camera into a motion sensor for the alarm system right? Or it can switch on lights, whatever you want!

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on April 14, 2011, 04:16:44 pm
For anybody using a Y-Cam device, I have just resubmitted a new template. Username and password still need to be entered manually in web admin though, sorry :(

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: Marie.O on April 14, 2011, 05:55:01 pm
purps,

I assume you entered trac ticket 1064. Is your email address really abc@gmail.com? We use the email address to contact people sometimes, to verify trac tickets. It would help if the correct email address is used.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on April 18, 2011, 10:52:20 am
Yes, that is the trac ticket, and no, that is not the correct email address. I used that email address as an experiment as I can never submit tickets without getting the spam thing, and it worked first time. I swear that in the past I have used my genuine email address and it's not worked.

I will try my real email address again in the future.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on May 04, 2011, 10:43:38 pm
The path to the jpeg image stream is /stream.jpg:account:password

Obviously replacing account and password for your own. We have used a few of the Y-cam models and that path has been valid for all of them.

Hmm, my template doesn't work, so back to the drawing board.

Code: [Select]
http://192.168.80.XXX/stream.jpg:admin:password does not work in a browser for me.

Code: [Select]
http://admin:password@192.168.80.XXX/stream.jpg does work (in a browser), but I cannot put this into web admin (invalid IP).

Any suggestions? Just looking to get this set up as a viewer, not interested in motion.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: tschak909 on May 04, 2011, 10:46:17 pm
If the Y-Cam template was based on the Panasonic template, then there is code in there to do BASIC authentication with the username and password, which is essentially what you are doing with that URL.

-Thom
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on May 04, 2011, 11:00:15 pm
Sorry, should have mentioned, yes it was based on the Panasonic template.

I also should have mentioned that initially I tried the username and password in the AuthUser and AuthPassword fields respectively, but it did not work (hence frigging about with the username/password in the path/IP, just to see what's going on).

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on May 05, 2011, 11:16:38 am
Well I finally got the camera working under ZoneMinder, had to increase shared memory. Was hoping that it would then start working under LMCE...... but no  :(

Don't understand why it worked under motion, but not under the Core as a viewer.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: ectraz on May 07, 2011, 01:46:25 am
depends on what revision of Y-cam you have aswell, I have 6 of the original cameras and they only support ActiveX thro internet explorer.
Pain in the ass.
But there newer cameras support Firefox
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on May 07, 2011, 04:33:59 pm
Thanks for the reply.

It's the YCB004 one - bang up to date.

I do wonder if the problem is something to do with ActiveX, will have a tinker with the settings.

Or does anybody know of a way I can get "admin:password@192.168.80.XXX" into the IP field? It comes back with "invalid IP", for obvious reasons. Just want to ensure that this camera _CAN_ work.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Y-Cam Camera
Post by: purps on May 15, 2011, 06:51:27 pm
I read that having the alarms enabled (in the camera's settings) can cause problems, but disabling them has made no difference.

Does anybody have any other ideas as to how to get this working as a viewer?

Cheers,
Matt.