Configure settings on network camera

[autodestruct]

I'm a paid user and have a Panasonic BL-C140A network camera running at 640x480.

The images appear to be blocky.

Is there a way to see/modify the camera URL being used? it may be set to favor motion, and I'd like to set it to favor clarity.

Also, is there a way to see the frames per second of each camera?

Thanks!

[ryan]

If you configured your camera before you had a paid license, or didn't adjust the 'scale video to' parameter when configuring the camera it may only be requesting a 320x240 stream (this would explain blockiness).

The 320 stream for this camera would use a stream path of rtpOverHttp?Url=nphMpeg4/nil-320x240 while the 640 would be rtpOverHttp?Url=nphMpeg4/nil-640x480

Their operating instructions are embedded in an exe so I am unable to check them at the moment, but you can find them here if you don't have a copy. http://panasonic.net/pcc/cgi-bin/produc ... 1810583428

I'm afraid without that I'm not sure offhand whether things like fps/quality are controllable on this model, and if that is done so through the camera settings or exposed via stream path parameters. If you can set fps, feel free to go down to 10, that is all VDV needs and can save on wasted computation.

Hope that helps,
- ryan

[autodestruct]

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for your quick reply. I'm a developer, and was looking to write my own system (after giving up on ZoneMinder), until I stumbled across VitaminD. It's a slick, impressive, well written app that you should be very proud for having written.

Going back through the CGI manual I have: http://csj.psn-web.net/netwkcam_net/download/us/document/Camera_CGI_Interface_v3.51.pdf , I see that there are 'quality' options, such as 'quality=motion', or 'quality=clarity', though these are for the MJPEG CGI, not the MPEG4 CGI. There don't appear to be similar options for MPEG4... I'll play around a bit with this to see if I can improve the quality via settings on the camera. I double checked any my resolution is set to 640x480 (which I set after upgrading the license), so it should be capturing at the best resolution it can.

You mentioned that I can set the FPS down to 10. If the camera sends more than 10 FPS, does VDV throw those frames away (say in the recording around the event), or does it keep the higher rate video in that case? So, is there any reason why sending more than 10 FPS would be worth while (for saving video, or running motion detection at the higher rate)?

Thanks!

[ryan]

Hi autodestruct,

Glad you're enjoying the app! Thanks for the kind words.

MJPEG will work just as well with VDV if you want to play with the quality options. I'd be willing to bet you can get higher quality images from MJPEG at the cost of significantly more bandwidth usage. I'd highly suggest wired connections if possible.

Our algorithms were optimized for 10fps, anything higher will ultimately be discarded (and anything significantly below will negatively impact accuracy).

Let us know if you have further questions,
- ryan

[autodestruct]

Hi Ryan,

I got the camera tuned up well and it is providing nice clear and crisp images. Just adding in my notes in case anyone else has a Panasonic BL-C140 or BL-C140A camera. I think these are pretty decent weatherproof/outdoors cameras for the price (about $99 or less when on sale).

In the camera settings page, one can modify the MPEG4 and MJPEG maximum frame rates. Setting these to 10 gives the ideal framerate to VDV. For MPEG4, I ramped up the bandwidth allowance to provide higher quality images. At it's maximum, the camera utilized about 2% of a 100MB/s network connection. I set MJPEG to favor quality over motion (especially as I lowered the framerate). In this case, the camera utilized about 4-5% of a 100MB/s network connection. In the end, I stuck with MPEG4 and have good results.

Thanks,
-AD