Plugin to support Ycam IP camera's

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
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Following the tip of Ap15e to open a new thread, i copied and paste our initial correspondence in a new thread here.
Im open to suggestions while im trying to contact Ycam development!

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Re: DIY: Support for Foscam FI8908[w] (pan, tilt, patrol)
« Reply #56 on: Today at 12:42:54 pm »
Question @ Ap15e

Im using a Ycam Black (http://www.y-cam.com/) that is actually sold in the Netherlands as a package deal with Vera systems.

Although pan/tilt is not supported, zoom and streaming is…

Is there a way you could help me out with the Generic IP cam xml that im currently using (only got it to work with snapshot, even after reading the stream wiki http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/IP_Cameras & http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Remote_Camera_Streaming).

---------------Ap15e’s reply-------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can find the relevant URLs on page 80 of the user manual (“7.7 Alternative methods of accessing the video stream”).

Neither the datasheet nor the manual seems to contain the information that is required to create a customized Luup plugin that would enable zooming.

You should ask the manufacturer for the programming manual, post it to the MCV forum and ask the community for help.

Options for my camera stream as per manual and the cams web interface:

RTSP MPEG4 stream: rtsp://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/live_mpeg4.sdp
RTSP MJPEG stream: rtsp://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/live_mjpeg.sdp
HTTP MPEG4 stream: http://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/stream.av
HTTP MJPEG stream: http://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/stream.jpg
HTTP ASF stream: http://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/stream.asf
HTTP snapshot image: http://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/snapshot.jpg

I got the snapshot to work, but not the stream (so far).
Also the cam supports 1x zoom from within the native NVR software provided from Ycam (Multilive) it would be aussumn to get that support working for the cam too.

Any takers?

Henk

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You could use Wireshark to capture what the native NVR software is doing (provided that zooming is done in hardware …).

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@Ap15e

That could work but i have the impression its digital zoom incoperated in the application.
Ill wait and see what Y-cam comes back with, i just mailed customer support&sales pointing them to this forum.

Lets see what happens…

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@Henk,
I’m streaming with Vera from a Y-Cam White, but the paths are the same.
Snapshot: /snapshot.jpg
Motion: /stream.jpg

The leading slash is crucial; at least for motion. Without it Vera presumably builds an invalid URL.

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@oTi@

Are you using the generic IP camera plugin?

My syntax is absolutely right.
Im using a Ycam Knigth 2nd gen on the latest firmware, but even snapshot delays now and again (tried different timers). Streaming is a no go on my end.

All works fine from MultiLive and any browser (in- or externally using IP or DynDNS)
Even remote from iPhone over 3g is no problem (Babymonitor HD does streaming AND sound)

So im at a loss here…

Im thinking of deleting and reinstalling, giving the panasonic plugin a shot… see what that does for me…
Any other ideas?

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Yup; try that. That seems to have worked for @aschwalb. I did do it through the generic plug-in, and both camera instances (you and @aschwalb) are showing up as associated with that plug-in. But I do have the Panasonic plug-in installed for my own camera.

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@oTi@

I installed my Ycam again using the default Panasonic plugin

Guess what… streaming works… but snapshot refused to return an image… haha
This is SO awkward!

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UPDATE:

After playing with MCS default settings, using the provided Panasonic plugin and even replicating the dcsdmin user and dscpasword password in my camera settings, here are my results:

Ive got both the Generic IP camera plugin as well as the Panasonic plugin to work with my camera with both the snapshot as well as streaming.

Hold on… theres a BUT…

I found that this ONLY worked with the dcsadmin/dscpassword combination.
After that i started experimenting.

My conclusion:
No problem with streaming at all
However, i concluded from my testing that the snapshot feature has a flaw.
If one uses a password containing special characters (non Alphabetical or numbers) the snapshot cannot be retrieved.

After setting up my original username with a new password not containing special characters, everythng works FINE.

I already posted in the security thread about remote vera connections not accepting special characters and my feelings about that.

Is it possible this issue extends through other portions of the programming?

It would be nice to hear thought of other ppl on this!

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@Henk,

Interesting, as that seems opposite of how you started out?

So for the stream is does work with special characters?

You could try manually escaping the special characters, as the problem for Vera is potentially building a valid URL (http://:@:). You could try to make that work in a browser first.

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[quote=“oTi@, post:9, topic:168288”]@Henk,

Interesting, as that seems opposite of how you started out?

So for the stream is does work with special characters?

You could try manually escaping the special characters, as the problem for Vera is potentially building a valid URL (http://:@:). You could try to make that work in a browser first.[/quote]

@Oti@

Here goes, the confessional post :wink:
Initially i made these mistakes (recording them here as to help other users not to make the same basic errors)

Initially i struggled getting anything to work. In retrospecive, this is what went wrong: i didnt take a structural approach to testing making baby steps, but changing some variables every new effort i took.

To name a few:

  1. i tried to get streaming to work in the same variable field as the snapshot URL (not knowing there was a seperate variable field available for that in the advanced settings tab).

  2. I fiddled around with my admin account for the cam as well as user logins i already had defined. At a certain point i left them alone (since they work perfectly for the role i created them for) and created a seperate account for vera to acces the camera. When i did that i unknowingly probably created a simple password and things worked.

When i started to work on getting streaming to work and posting in this thread, at a certain point i removed the camera completely (without logging the username/password of course!) and recreated it. I must have had a blank mind, because i forgot the password and created a new (more complex) one and managed to get streaming to work (using the proper streaming URL field) but never the snapshot.

Until yesterday i started working with the Panasonic plugin, doing some reading on defaults used there (including the Panasonic preconfigured dscuser/dscpassword) and recreated that baseline for my camara. Et Presto! everything worked, until i went back to my original username/complex password. Streaming yes, snapshot NO.

After some back and forth testing this resultet in a reproducable issue, related to the password complexity. ONLY Alphanumeric and numeric characters work.

Using the browserformat you suggested works similarly. Since my camera accepts the input and gives either snapshot or stream on this input in any webbrowser, the issue isnt with the cam or webbrowser. Its almost certainly the way the plugin handles it.

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Interesting. If you don’t mind sharing, what are the special characters that you used (or at least one of them)?

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Interesting. If you don’t mind sharing, what are the special characters that you used (or at least one of them)?[/quote]

As far as i tested now, AT (@) exclamation (!) and underscores(_)
Didnt test any further, so maybe if you want to try to reproduce it yourself, feel free to use these and other characters to verify and/or extend the list

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@Henk,

Have snapshots/streaming of a Panasonic going with the Generic Camera plugin; username “testuser”, password “testuser!@_”.

In the plug-in:
username: testuser
password: testuser%21%40%5f

Give that a whirl in your environment if you would.

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Thats funny… in the plugin i would manually add !@_ and not %21%40%5f

Ive setup a testcam with the parameter you suggsted…
No image for the /snapshot so far…

Ill try and change the syntax from !@_ to %21%40%5f in a few

login testuser
passwrd testuser!@_

Doesnt work…
Reverting back to original (working) username/password… and everything was back online

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[quote=“Henk, post:14, topic:168288”]Thats funny… in the plugin i would manually add !@_ and not %21%40%5f

Ive setup a testcam with the parameter you suggsted…
No image for the /snapshot so far…

Ill try and change the syntax from !@_ to %21%40%5f in a few

Meanwhile… feel welcome to test:

http://xxxxxxxxx.dyndns.org:yyyy

login xxxxxxxx
passwrd xxxxxxxx!@_

Let me know…

Direct urls would be at http://xxxxxxxx.dyndns.org:yyyy/snapshot.jpg and http://xxxxxxxx.dyndns.org:yyyy/stream.jpg

Ill be removing this post after testing…[/quote]
Nice catch, looks like the Plugin isn’t escaping UN/PW characters correctly before plonking them into the URL. I imagine that’ll trip up more than a few people.

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[quote=“guessed, post:15, topic:168288”][quote=“Henk, post:14, topic:168288”]Thats funny… in the plugin i would manually add !@_ and not %21%40%5f

Ive setup a testcam with the parameter you suggsted…
No image for the /snapshot so far…[/quote]
Nice catch, looks like the Plugin isn’t escaping UN/PW characters correctly before plonking them into the URL. I imagine that’ll trip up more than a few people.[/quote]

@guessed, do me a favour and remove the private info from the quote you made?
Ill be removing the testaccount shortly!

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If i can get feedback from other users with similar issues, ill file a bugreport to MCV.
Maybe @mcvflorin can look into the issue?

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If i can get feedback from other users with similar issues, ill file a bugreport to MCV.
Maybe @mcvflorin can look into the issue?[/quote]
Yeah that sort of thing should definitely be bugged, since it’s bound to hit a number of people just trying to do simple stuff. The encoding routines are already around, so it won’t be a lot of headache to add it.

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If you now have it working (it worked for me) with the escaped sequence that I gave you, then I would just go ahead and file a bug. Point to this thread and the picture should be clear. :smiley:

p.s. Note sure why you guys always point the camera at a garbage can, but oh well. :wink:

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Haha, maybe to throw you off with smell and stop you from peaking at the cam too much?