Vtel Smartcam Commands?

by **Kazko** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:29 pm

Curious what you found for the VTel Smartcam control command set? Did you find anything beyond basic pan, tilt, zoom? I've been wanting to know more for this cam.

kazkotx at hotmail dot com

OldMan has figured out how to control the camera with a serial connection over the web! The vtel smartcam is an excellent quality camera that can be pan tilt zoom - ptz - controlled with serial commands from a network camera server. The camera was originally designed for teleconferencing, but can be found on eBay and the like for less than $50 because nobody knows how to hook one up!

by **anoldman** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:34 am

I have my smartcam controller connected to an AXIS 240 stand-alone video server. I have four smartcams connected to the controller.
I use simple get commands through the axis to control pan/tilt/zoom.
I can also set white balance, ect.

I learned the hex commands for camera control by connected my smartcam controller through a NT server and running com port snooping.
I did this with a vtel dos-based camera control program.
The system also has position(status) polling on the active camera.

If you would like the results of the snoop, or the dos based program, let me know.

Sorry it took me a couple of days to respond, this site is not exactly a hotbed of activity!

by **Kazko** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:00 am

I would indeed like to see your data on the camera. I assume the output was from the codec to the camera controller? It will be interesting to see how the codec switches cameras and how that differs if you have a camera direct by itself. Please email me at the following addresss.

kazkotx at hot mail dot com

by **anoldman** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:54 am

I think you are missing an important piece of hardware - the SmartCam Controller:
solid black
16w x 5h x 6d -rack mount size
four db15 ports on back - for cameras
one db9 port on front - for serial input
four video outputs on front - all bnc plus first two have s-video
also has audio input/volume level - I have never used it.

The controller takes serial input and uses the first hex pair to determine which camera we are controlling.

I have never actually controlled a camera without it.
I have never controlled a camera from a PC except for testing.

The axis 240 camera server has a serial port that you can send to via http get commands.

I control cameras like so:
http-->axis 240-->serial port-->smartcam controller-->camera(s)