Using USB Camera As POE Cam?

[PeteCress 0]

I have a situation where my existing LogiTech Webcam Pro 9000 USB camera would do a nice job if only I could get to it at the end of an Ethernet cable.

 

i.e:

Camera Server Running On PC => Router => POE Switch (or injector) => Ethernet Cable => [some sort of hardware device] => Logitech 9000

 

Google-ing reveals a plethora of USB/Ethenet solutions, but I have not yet found one that addresses this exact situation.

 

The bottom line is being able to hang that Logitech 9000 on the end of a Ethenet cable; have it get it's power from the cable; and have a PC on the network see that USB camera as if it were plugged in locally to a USB port.

 

Anybody been here? Or am I trying to fool Mother Nature and should just suck it up and buy another IP cam?

 

 

FWIW, it looks pretty straightforward to do this via USB-over-120v-AC... but I'd rather keep AC out of the picture in this case bc the camera would be located outside of the building and Ethernet is easier to run.

[buellwinkle 0]

Not sure it's possible because USB Webcams require a driver specific to the camera, so an ethernet to USB adapter would have to decode that to turn a USB cam to an IP camera. Some NVR software, like BlueIris as an example will work with a USB camera. If the purpose is to gain distance, you can use a traditional USB extender that uses ethernet, but at the computer side it would still look like a webcam.

 

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=1521&sku=39993

[Kawboy12R 0]

I wouldn't put too much money into extending an indoor USB webcam into an outdoor cam. Just because something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD, especially if part of the use of the cam is after dark. For permanent duty, you'd be much better off, IMHO, to spend a few extra bucks and get a real outdoor IP cam that'll work well at night and won't die after the first few rainy days or a snowstorm. Good ones are available for about $20 more than the USB 1.1 extender that buellwinkle mentioned, and note that your webcam is 2.0. I love creativity and making existing stuff work in different ways, but in this case if it were me I'd suck it up and get a Dahua clone. $300 for two at Costco or $170ish each online from some place like Empire on FleaBay. You'll be happier over the long run because you'll have much better night vision and two working cams rather than one dead one that used to work well only in the daytime.

[PeteCress 0]

I wouldn't put too much money into extending an indoor USB webcam into an outdoor cam. Just because something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD, especially if part of the use of the cam is after dark. For permanent duty, you'd be much better off, IMHO, to spend a few extra bucks and get a real outdoor IP cam that'll work well at night and won't die after the first few rainy days or a snowstorm. Good ones are available for about $20 more than the USB 1.1 extender that buellwinkle mentioned, and note that your webcam is 2.0. I love creativity and making existing stuff work in different ways, but in this case if it were me I'd suck it up and get a Dahua clone. $300 for two at Costco or $170ish each online from some place like Empire on FleaBay. You'll be happier over the long run because you'll have much better night vision and two working cams rather than one dead one that used to work well only in the daytime.

After looking at prices, I have to agree with you. What I was trolling for was an el-cheapo way to use the 1080 rez/really-good motion/autofocus/autozoom on the Logitech.

 

Also, it's dawned on me that the $100+ solution is probably not routeable - just using the copper in the Cat5 plus some sort of amplifier/power supplement scheme. Heaven forbid what the price would be on a routeable solution - if one even exists.

 

RE/The Indoor-camera-outdoors thing, I have an EdiMax 3010 POE cam down at the shore outside in the cupola of a gazebo behind a hotel on the bay. It survived several storms this year until Sandy had her way with the place. Sometime soon, I hope to recover the camera from the gazebo (which is apparently intact, but no longer in it's assigned location...as in http://tinyurl.com/a4yoqvd.). Then we'll see if I can brag that my indoors cam sealed in a DIY IP-66 housing (i.e. a plastic bag) survived Sandy.... -)

[nfair 0]

It's very easy to turn a USB webcam into a IP based camera if you are good with linux. Grab a TP-Link WR703N pocket router, add Open WRT firmware then install and configure the MJPG-Streamer package. The wiki page about it is a little out of date http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/webcam but it's a good start. You can also download a custom firmware like the ones at http://www.madox.net/blog/projects/tp-link-tl-wr703n/

 

I've done this with the Logictech C270 and it works great, although I only set it up for 15fps. I'm fairly sure it will also work with a 1080p USB webcam. $17 for the webcam, $23 for the pocket router, free firmware and you've got a $40 IP camera with both wired and wireless connectivity. It's also powered by a micro usb adapter so you can power it off one of those USB batteries. You should also be able to add a small USB hub and USB memory stick and have MJPG-Streamer record to the memory stick.

 

If you want to use POE you might be able to grab a passive POE cable set (like from Sparkfun). However you'll get significant loss over the ethernet cable injecting 5V and you'll have to build your own adapters to insert and extract the 5V from the barrel jacks on the passive POE cable set.

[PeteCress 0]

...but in this case if it were me I'd suck it up and get a Dahua clone. $300 for two at Costco...

Just unpacked two from Costco.

 

*Nice* little housing. Seems like a down-sized clone of my Sony SNC-CH200's housing.

 

But I'm having a problem getting to the cams' video streams.

 

Port 85, no problem: I can log into the cam's web page and either see the live stream or do setup.

 

But when I try to access the cam's video stream directly via the port I assigned in the cam's web page > Setup > Network > Connection > TCP Port, no joy.

 

Having assigned TCP Port = 1400 and being able to ping the device at 10.0.0.140, my expectation is that http://10.0.0.140:1400 in a browser window will render a video stream. Or have I got it wrong?

 

I have it accessible via BI using BI's Dahua RTSP driver and with the cam's RTSP port set to 1401.... I even tried putting 10.0.0.140:1401 into a browser and, at least, the browser confirmed it was reachable by throwing an expected:

RTSP/1.0 405 Method Not Allowed
Server: Dahua Rtsp Server

 

At least I know port 1401 is reachable by the browser. OTOH, when I feed port 1400 to the browser is returns

Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data.

... so I'm guessing that shows that Port 1400 is, at least, alive.... if not well....

 

Port forwarding, although I'm pretty sure it's set properly, would appear tb moot in light of my accessing the cam via it's local IP addr. CanYouSeeMe.com even says that the service is reachable - and when I unplug the cam, it says it is not reachable.

 

Firewall, I dunno - although it has not been an issue with any of my half-dozen other cams and I have not had to take any explicit action with any of them.

 

I must be doing something wrong, but what?

 

Is anybody using one of these cams? (QSee's QCN7001B)

[Kawboy12R 0]

I can't help on specifics, sorry. I've never set one up to run. I've been spending too much time looking for a perfect (apparently fictional) hybrid DVR that'll run what I think I want for cameras. Time to get off the laptop and actually buy a couple of IP cams to start playing with. Using a PC with analog DVR card and IP cam software to tie things together and running a video feed to the front door for convenience is starting to look like a good solution.

[dexterash 0]

@PeteCress

 

No, you cannot access direct TCP Port through WebBrowser - you need PSS for that!