IPRobot3 cam

[a_shorething]

I just got my camera today and it looks pretty cool.

It's got 3 resolution settings, night vision, PTZ and it's an IP camera so I can view from a browser on my laptop (which means I don't need to get a separate monitor). It was under $80 shipped from Amazon. Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009WLH4QQ/ref ... 1_ST1_dp_1

The reviews weren't great and it was fiddly as hell to get it set up at first, but I think it's going to work fine for this application. Most of the criticism seemed to be about the alarm functions and security features like e-mailing and storing pics of people when you use the motion detector mode.

Since I don't care about any of that I decided to give it a shot. There is a high res setting (like 1200x720 I think) and it goes 30fps. The night vision looks pretty cool too. All in all it looks like a good piece of kit that will work nicely.

I'll post results once I build a platform around it.


EDIT- 9/14/2013- I'm a little concerned about video lag. I may have to go with another option if this becomes a concern. Does anyone else have this problem or is it just because I don't have things completely worked out yet?

[martinw]

Video lag through IP cameras is well known problem in the ROV industry and one of the main reasons most ROV manufacturers don't use them. They are getting better, but any kind of lag means that the interaction between the operator and the subsea environment can be rather hit an miss to say the least, sometimes literally

Martin

[a_shorething]

Thanks. Yeah I'm imagining on the less critical side, just not being able to grab something with a grabber and in more important situations just totally damaging/losing the ROV or something on the bottom like some hundred year-old coral.

Since I posted this I found that some formats are better at this than others and of course the H264 that this camera uses is the worst.

The camera also has a mini BNC balun connection that I could potentially use and go a different route. Another option is using low res for navigation and higher res for pics/video of things I really want to see. The lower res setting seems to be quicker (naturally) and switching between them is pretty simple in the software.

No matter what I do with primary vid I think I'll end up putting in a cheap backup chip camera just in case something happens to my primary video signal. I don't want to be blind navigating down there. Even if it only sends back a pic every few seconds I'll get some idea what's going on down there.

[rossrov]

How long a delay are you getting? I recalled that turning my camera's mic on increased video delay. Just tried it again, mic off approx 0.3 seconds, mic on approx 2 seconds. 640 X 480.

[a_shorething]

I'd say the delay is on the order of .2 to .3 seconds for the same resolution. I hadn't compared with vs. without audio but that makes sense. Wait. Did you say a full 2 seconds? Wow. No I don't think it's increased that much with audio but I'll have to check and compare them now. I think .2 might be acceptable although annoying. Over a second and that's too much lag for my brain to compensate for.


I don't plan to send my control signals over the same Ethernet wires so hopefully whatever delay I'm getting now will not get any worse, but we'll see.

There are adjustments for the number of fps and also the bitrate which seem to affect the delay a bit and I'm still trying to find a happy medium. Also I'm testing on a bench with ambient light but it may require more/less resolution to do what I want to do when the lighting is different and it's underwater.