Non Working Devices

Here is a short list of MJPEG IP cameras that are not directly compatible (while this list can be quite long, only cameras that claim to be MPEG compatable should be listed)

When possible, the reasion(s) for incompatibility should be briefly listed.

Gadspot GS9684

The Gadspot GS9684 ( Link to web) is IP cam that can output video in the MJPEG (and MPEG4) formats but is not compatible because the JPEG video stream is only available encapsuled in an ASF stream format (not supported by motion) as to opposed to a multipart HTTP based stream.

You can fetch individual JPEG frames at the URL

• netcam_url http://CAMERA_IP/img/video.jpg

but this will quickly fail after several frames (connections) with the error of

Document Error: Site Temporarily Unavailable. Try later.
                Access Error: Site Temporarily Unavailable. Try later.
                Sorry, over 4 viewers.

F/W version : V1.26 U0.4

The Gadspot GS9684 is a OEM (as with all Gadspot cams) based on the SPCA536 chip, with firmware from AViQuest Technology.

-- EvilPete - 04 Feb 2007

Acti ACM-1231

This camera delivers individual jpeg snapshot images however it is run through a cgi-bin binary on the camera that is very slow. The preferred means of capture is through the video streaming port, defaulting to TCP port 6002, which takes a plaintext login and begins streaming jpeg images as quickly as possible back one after the other, with just a small 44byte image info chunk inbetween. In this sense it resembles the 'mjpg' netcam_url protocol already in motion-3.2.11

I've put together a set of development resources for the purpose of extracting some test streams, and faking a stream from the camera if you don't have one.

The acti protocol in summary: connect to port 6002 and send 128 bytes of zeroed out data (with the username filled in at the beggining and the password sitting half way through starting at the 64th byte), then receive 128 bytes of camera info which you can ignore, and another 44 bytes of info about the first image which you can also ignore, the remaining data you attempt to receive will be the first raw motion jpeg file data. Next will follow another 44 bytes just before the next jpeg is sent.

You can retrieve the development resources and as of 04 Dec 2008 even apply a crude patch to motion to make this a working device:

http://www.tatralarm.com/systems/cameras/acti/software.html

The camera can also be switched to an MPEG4 stream but thats something to be left much further into the future!

-- LesterVecsey - 04 2008

BTIS Network Camera

Can't find any info on this camera now, it is a no-name IP camera off of eBay, a clone of a BTIS IP camera, which I also can not find any information for, now that I decide to contribute. Cylinder shape, Silver, has a shade cover, Horrible firmware. Works great with motion! use regular http 1.0 auth and the URL is youripordnsname.com/videostream.cgi

-- MatthewRoss - 06 Jan 2010

KWorld PlusTV Analog Lite

Bought one off newegg.com for $20, works ****in great. Too bad they aren't sold there anymore ! uses saa7134 chipset i believe. Nothing special needed to get working, using Ubuntu 9.10.

-- MatthewRoss - 06 Jan 2010

Hawking HNC290G REV-R wireless netcam

Works quite well. mjpg video stream at <IPAddress>/mjpg/video.mjpg. Static jpg image is configurable in the control panel. Note this is the REV-R version which is supposed to use ActiveX. The initial release was apparently Java based.

-- MattThornton - 05 Feb 2010

-- JuanJosePablos - 08 Feb 2010