
Last updated: 17 Feb 2010	Carol and Andrew Hebden Telephone: 01775 769887 e-mail Carol at: carol@eriador-cats.com e-mail Andrew at: andrew@ahebden.com © Copyright: Please contact us if you wish to reproduce or use any items from this web site.
Site Menu Welcome Page Eriador Cats The Cat Place TCP it Home Services MS Access Development Tech Stuff Network Camera	Camera Troubleshooting Guide Even at night you should still be able to see the clock running with everything else black. (Apart from a small red dot (pixel) which suddenly appeared after the kittens had given the camera a bit of a heavy going over!) If it is not then there are several reasons why you can't see the image, the obvious ones are as follows: 1) Is the camera on-line? The camera is not dependent upon any of our PCs being operational and is usually available 24x7. However, we could be doing some maintenance work on the web site or camera which necessitates the camera being unavailable. Carol usually puts a note to this effect on the home page. (Yes, I know, we ought to switch it off at night to save power but it takes very little in the grand scheme of things.) 2) Equipment failure. The camera may not be operating for some reason. This is not an uncommon occurrence as the kittens like to play quite boisterously with the camera and cables. We try to keep an eye on this happening but they do vandalise the kit periodically. I have recently (Jan 2010) refitted the camera underneath a shelf screwed to the wall. The cables are held in to the back of the camera with a thick rubber band and so far they haven't damaged the set up too much to date. I will probably need to fit the camera in a box at some point. In the past I have had to change the wires once a year, hopefully this new setup should help matters. The other pieces of essential equipment are a switch and the router. These haven't failed yet but do lock up on occasion usually after a power failure. 3) A lack of broadband connectivity. We live some distance from the local telephone exchange and the line quality is not that good. We occasionally lose our connection as the router fails to synchronise with BT. This happened very frequently in early 2009 and after numerous calls to our ISP (and the purchase of a new router, the ISP insisted as it was a single point of failure!) they eventually asked BT to investigate and low and behold they found a loose connection down the road. What a surprise! 4) Failure to resolve the camera's IP address? We use a Dynamic DNS Service to resolve our camera's IP address and occasionally their server goes down either for maintenance or due to other failures. This means that the browser won?t know where to find the camera. 5) Java disabled? Check that you have Java enabled in your browser. Typically, this should be set to enabled but can often be disabled. 6) Viewing from work? You may be one of the lucky ones and work for a company that either doesn't have a content checker or it is set to permit video streaming. (Carol and I used to work for a large IT multi-national and they let very little through, the web page just showed a grey box where the video should be.) 7) What browser do you use? I've only ever tested this on Internet Explorer v7 and v8 so I am not sure how the page is presented using other browsers. I am reliably informed that it works with a wide variety of browsers but you never know, I've probably made a mistake somewhere which has crippled everything. I really ought to fire up my Linux box to see how it fairs. 8) Problems with the AXIS Media Control (AMC)? The coding makes use of an ActiveX component in MS IE which can be troublesome when trying to load. There are some FAQ pages on the Axis web site about how to force this control to register. 9) Using a dial-up modem? Although it is just possible to view the video at a slow frame rate over a dial up connection it really is not recommended. I will try to put a page together that just publishes a new image every 10 seconds or so. You could try some of the other camera pages that make use of different coding and methods (coding is all courtesy of Axis as example code generated by the camera set up menu.) If all else fails then e-mail Andrew and he'll try and find time to investigate further.
	How the camera works We often get asked how our camera is set up and I’ve put a few notes together which may give you a flavour of how it hangs together. The Hardware We use an Axis 210 network camera to monitor the kitten activities in the house and enable cat enthusiasts around the world to view the kittens. The camera used to be mounted on an old photographic tripod and is connected to the network utilising a Devolo power line network adapter. This arrangement proved the most versatile and was usually quite stable unless, of course, the kittens decided to climb up the tripod legs and pull the whole thing down on the floor which was not an uncommon occurrence! So far I have had to change the cabling 3 times, the power plug on the back of the camera once and they have broken one tripod. We now have a completely different arrangement with the camera mounted upside down underneath a shelf screwed to the wall. The cables exit through a hole in the wall behind the camera into my office where it is connected to a small network switch. The Axis camera is relatively easy to set up, however it should be appreciated that it is primarily intended for fixed surveillance work rather than being a portable device. The unit is very light weight, consumes very little power, and so far has proved to be very reliable despite the battering it gets from the cats. People often say to me that you can buy much cheaper cameras but my view on this is like most things in life, you do your research and you get what you pay for. A couple of years ago I encountered a problem after doing a firmware upgrade I have to say that the Axis support engineers were quick getting a fix back to me. The Software There is little software for the PC, only the IP Configuration Utility which is used to find and set the initial IP settings and some PDF documentation files. Axis do have some useful Camera Management applications available that allow you to monitor and manage camera settings. However, these applications are expensive for the home user and I have found that it is relatively straight forward to use the built in web based administration facility. Setting it up To set up a network camera like this there are several things that have to be considered and set up together: 1) Getting it connected to your local network (LAN) Run the IP Configuration utility on your PC to find the camera and set up the basic IP details and set a password. I just used a fixed local IP address rather than using DHCP, this ensured that nothing changed unexpectedly. 2) Configure your router to forward traffic on the appropriate "port" The default port is normally set to 80 but I wanted to use this port number for another device. I have now set my camera to use port 8080 which is commonly used for cameras. I currently use a Belkin router and as can be seen from the Firewall/Virtual Servers screen it is fairly easy to do. With the above settings an external user can connect to the camera by referencing my external IP address, assigned by my ISP, using port 8080. The router will route this data request through to the camera to establish a session. 3) Your IP address As your IP address may vary each time you establish a connection with your ISP it can prove difficult to code a direct link to the camera from a web page. To make things simple, Axis offers their camera users use of their Internet Dynamic DNS Service. This service essentially provides the camera with a simple web address that users can use to access the camera via a web browser. This is especially useful if you are using a dynamic IP address from your ISP. Axis provide two web addresses, one for your own internal network and the other for the rest of the world. Our external web address is http://eriador.axiscam.net:8080 - note that you need to put :8080 on the end as we don’t use the default port 80 which is typically used for web servers. 4) Test this out. If you have your own camera and can’t access it by reference to the Axis DNS service try adding a line to your HOSTS file. E.g. 192.168.1.200 eriador.axiscam.net # Axis camera local address 5) Configuring the rest of the camera Working your way around the camera’s built in menus to configure your video does take a bit of time but it is certainly worth experimenting with different settings, most of the defaults work OK. There is a reasonably detailed help facility, however, there is an expectation that you understand about streaming video already (not an unfair assumption for professional cameras!). 6) Integrating the video into the web pages At first we just set up the camera with a simple internal web page which just displayed the video. However, we wanted a small pop-up type window so that we could open up a window and park it away in a corner of the screen. We also wanted people to access the camera through the Eriador Cats web site rather than directly. As those of you who have seen our earlier web set up this worked reasonably well, for the surfers. This configuration needed to change as we encountered several problems caused primarily as a result of having the video displayed in this way. It was so nice and convenient that viewers just kept the window open either watching the activity or waiting for the cats (usually kittens) to put in an appearance. We occasionally needed to disconnect users in order to get a look in on the bandwidth available. If you need further info then please e-mail Andrew.

Last updated: 17 Feb 2010

Carol and Andrew Hebden

Telephone: 01775 769887
e-mail Carol at: carol@eriador-cats.com
e-mail Andrew at: andrew@ahebden.com
© Copyright: Please contact us if you wish to reproduce or use any items from this web site.

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Tech Stuff

Camera Troubleshooting Guide

Even at night you should still be able to see the clock running with everything else black. (Apart from a small red dot (pixel) which suddenly appeared after the kittens had given the camera a bit of a heavy going over!) If it is not then there are several reasons why you can't see the image, the obvious ones are as follows:

1) Is the camera on-line?

The camera is not dependent upon any of our PCs being operational and is usually available 24x7. However, we could be doing some maintenance work on the web site or camera which necessitates the camera being unavailable. Carol usually puts a note to this effect on the home page. (Yes, I know, we ought to switch it off at night to save power but it takes very little in the grand scheme of things.)

2) Equipment failure.

The camera may not be operating for some reason. This is not an uncommon occurrence as the kittens like to play quite boisterously with the camera and cables. We try to keep an eye on this happening but they do vandalise the kit periodically. I have recently (Jan 2010) refitted the camera underneath a shelf screwed to the wall. The cables are held in to the back of the camera with a thick rubber band and so far they haven't damaged the set up too much to date. I will probably need to fit the camera in a box at some point. In the past I have had to change the wires once a year, hopefully this new setup should help matters. The other pieces of essential equipment are a switch and the router. These haven't failed yet but do lock up on occasion usually after a power failure.

3) A lack of broadband connectivity.

We live some distance from the local telephone exchange and the line quality is not that good. We occasionally lose our connection as the router fails to synchronise with BT. This happened very frequently in early 2009 and after numerous calls to our ISP (and the purchase of a new router, the ISP insisted as it was a single point of failure!) they eventually asked BT to investigate and low and behold they found a loose connection down the road. What a surprise!

4) Failure to resolve the camera's IP address?

We use a Dynamic DNS Service to resolve our camera's IP address and occasionally their server goes down either for maintenance or due to other failures. This means that the browser won?t know where to find the camera.

5) Java disabled?

Check that you have Java enabled in your browser. Typically, this should be set to enabled but can often be disabled.

6) Viewing from work?

You may be one of the lucky ones and work for a company that either doesn't have a content checker or it is set to permit video streaming. (Carol and I used to work for a large IT multi-national and they let very little through, the web page just showed a grey box where the video should be.)

7) What browser do you use?

I've only ever tested this on Internet Explorer v7 and v8 so I am not sure how the page is presented using other browsers. I am reliably informed that it works with a wide variety of browsers but you never know, I've probably made a mistake somewhere which has crippled everything. I really ought to fire up my Linux box to see how it fairs.

8) Problems with the AXIS Media Control (AMC)?

The coding makes use of an ActiveX component in MS IE which can be troublesome when trying to load. There are some FAQ pages on the Axis web site about how to force this control to register.

9) Using a dial-up modem?

Although it is just possible to view the video at a slow frame rate over a dial up connection it really is not recommended. I will try to put a page together that just publishes a new image every 10 seconds or so. You could try some of the other camera pages that make use of different coding and methods (coding is all courtesy of Axis as example code generated by the camera set up menu.)

If all else fails then e-mail Andrew and he'll try and find time to investigate further.

How the camera works

We often get asked how our camera is set up and I’ve put a few notes together which may give you a flavour of how it hangs together.

The Hardware

We use an Axis 210 network camera to monitor the kitten activities in the house and enable cat enthusiasts around the world to view the kittens. The camera used to be mounted on an old photographic tripod and is connected to the network utilising a Devolo power line network adapter. This arrangement proved the most versatile and was usually quite stable unless, of course, the kittens decided to climb up the tripod legs and pull the whole thing down on the floor which was not an uncommon occurrence! So far I have had to change the cabling 3 times, the power plug on the back of the camera once and they have broken one tripod.

We now have a completely different arrangement with the camera mounted upside down underneath a shelf screwed to the wall. The cables exit through a hole in the wall behind the camera into my office where it is connected to a small network switch.

The Axis camera is relatively easy to set up, however it should be appreciated that it is primarily intended for fixed surveillance work rather than being a portable device. The unit is very light weight, consumes very little power, and so far has proved to be very reliable despite the battering it gets from the cats. People often say to me that you can buy much cheaper cameras but my view on this is like most things in life, you do your research and you get what you pay for. A couple of years ago I encountered a problem after doing a firmware upgrade I have to say that the Axis support engineers were quick getting a fix back to me.

The Software

There is little software for the PC, only the IP Configuration Utility which is used to find and set the initial IP settings and some PDF documentation files.
Axis do have some useful Camera Management applications available that allow you to monitor and manage camera settings. However, these applications are expensive for the home user and I have found that it is relatively straight forward to use the built in web based administration facility.

Setting it up

To set up a network camera like this there are several things that have to be considered and set up together:

1) Getting it connected to your local network (LAN)

Run the IP Configuration utility on your PC to find the camera and set up the basic IP details and set a password. I just used a fixed local IP address rather than using DHCP, this ensured that nothing changed unexpectedly.

2) Configure your router to forward traffic on the appropriate "port"

The default port is normally set to 80 but I wanted to use this port number for another device. I have now set my camera to use port 8080 which is commonly used for cameras. I currently use a Belkin router and as can be seen from the Firewall/Virtual Servers screen it is fairly easy to do.

With the above settings an external user can connect to the camera by referencing my external IP address, assigned by my ISP, using port 8080. The router will route this data request through to the camera to establish a session.

3) Your IP address

As your IP address may vary each time you establish a connection with your ISP it can prove difficult to code a direct link to the camera from a web page. To make things simple, Axis offers their camera users use of their Internet Dynamic DNS Service. This service essentially provides the camera with a simple web address that users can use to access the camera via a web browser. This is especially useful if you are using a dynamic IP address from your ISP. Axis provide two web addresses, one for your own internal network and the other for the rest of the world.
Our external web address is http://eriador.axiscam.net:8080 - note that you need to put :8080 on the end as we don’t use the default port 80 which is typically used for web servers.

4) Test this out.

If you have your own camera and can’t access it by reference to the Axis DNS service try adding a line to your HOSTS file.
E.g. 192.168.1.200 eriador.axiscam.net # Axis camera local address

5) Configuring the rest of the camera

Working your way around the camera’s built in menus to configure your video does take a bit of time but it is certainly worth experimenting with different settings, most of the defaults work OK. There is a reasonably detailed help facility, however, there is an expectation that you understand about streaming video already (not an unfair assumption for professional cameras!).

6) Integrating the video into the web pages

At first we just set up the camera with a simple internal web page which just displayed the video. However, we wanted a small pop-up type window so that we could open up a window and park it away in a corner of the screen. We also wanted people to access the camera through the Eriador Cats web site rather than directly. As those of you who have seen our earlier web set up this worked reasonably well, for the surfers. This configuration needed to change as we encountered several problems caused primarily as a result of having the video displayed in this way. It was so nice and convenient that viewers just kept the window open either watching the activity or waiting for the cats (usually kittens) to put in an appearance. We occasionally needed to disconnect users in order to get a look in on the bandwidth available.

If you need further info then please e-mail Andrew.