max/msp/jitter and IP Cameras ?

This depends on the IP-camera of course, if it has an MPEG4 stream (not a JPEG stream) then is quite easy usually.

Otherwise you have to retrieve static frames from the camera. Framerate is very low then.

It is possible to grab the image from jitter itself but your whole patch will wait for the camera to return an image. I did it with the help of some JAVA-code I found on this forum and modifying that. I can look up the code if you want to.

Sylvain, in fact I'd like to use 4 or 6 IP Cameras and use max/msp/jitter to switch live from them and finally export the resulting video to a videoprojector.

If it's easy with MPEG4 IP cams : I'll take such cameras !

But (I am a newbie) how do you proceed to :
- grab multiple MPEG4 IP cameras streams ?
- open/close the video streams ?
I am not sure it could be possible with some jit.qt.grab, as I don't think that IP cameras are QuickTime-compatible...

Thanks for your help !
PAul

I had a setup with 5 cameras that were hundred metres apart

An mpeg4 stream can be 'captured' with a jit.qt.movie object. For multiple movies you use multiple objects. Just do a 'read http://url-here' message to it and it should show the stream.

I wouldn't open and close them during runtime, because it needs some time to sync/buffer.

Just switch between the source with a switch or alike, they are all running and with the switch you choose which one you want to view.

Great !

- Is it not too CPU intensive to have 4 or even 6 IP cameras always opened ? (I have a 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro)

> I can look up the code if you want to.
Waoh... of course yes ! That would help me a lot...
;-)

- What kind of IP cameras do you advise ?
(a good quality and reasonably cheap wireless Pan/Tilt/Zoom IP Camera would be great !)

- I'll need one WiFi routeur like Linksys WRT54G to receive wireless IP cameras streams, no ? (or one per camera ?)
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1149562300349&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

Thank you for your help and advises !
PAul

* It is a bit intensive yes, but if you are planning on switching between streams it is necessary i guess.

* I used a camera from which i had to grab the images one by one resulting in very low framerate. I would suggest looking around and finding one with a MPEG4-stream. Note: the tilting and panning might not directly from Max/MSP. But if it has a webinterface you can probably load the URLs which trigger it normally.

* You need 1 router which creates a (wireless) network to which all cameras and your computer connect.

*update*
Maybe something like this: http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/en/netwkcam/lineup/bl-c111/index.html although i think it costs money..

Here is a simple example of the static network frame grabber. It is a Max5 patch that opens in presentation mode and automatically starts loading a network camera. I put two random urls in there, try them. The framerate of course is better on a local network, but still has some troubles.

I hope this helps.

The java component was taken from this forum somewhere and i made some small improvements to it. For example seeing of it was busy.

> * It is a bit intensive yes, but if you are planning on switching between streams it is necessary i guess.

Not sure (?). I have been told that with analog cameras you could use DFG13941e digitizers with ASC drivers and 6 jit.qt.grabs and open/close them as needed. There's just a delay : the switch takes 1/25 second on Pal.

In an another post Dan said :
"If the cameras send an rtsp stream, you can receive them with jit.qt.movie."

Thanks a lot for your attachment: network_camera.zip
What are the framerate problems ?

> What are the framerate problems ?

The problem lies that the cameras i used didn't provide a stream, so i had to grab an static image over the network, you can imagine that that isn't as fast as a stream. Usually these static images don't refresh as often as well..

Sylvain,

what kind of modification to your code do I have to do to switch from different 25 fps IP cameras ?
(sorry as you see I am a newbie...)