Panasonic

The "Panasonic IP" monitor preset in ZoneMinder is compatible with these Panasonic netcam models:

• BL-C1
• BL-C20
• BL-C30
• BL-C101
• BL-C111
• BL-C121
• BL-C131
• BL-C140
• BL-C160
• BB-HCM381
• BB-HCM511
• BB-HCM527
• BB-HCM531
• BB-HCM547
• BB-HCM580
• BB-HCM581
• KX-HCM10

All members of the BL and BB model families are likely to be compatible, including PTZ support. The model name suffix indicates the market. For example, the BL-C140A is for North America, the BL-C140E is for Europe, and the BL-C140CN is for China.

bl-c1 works on http://user:password@ip/cgi-bin/nphContinuousServerPush?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Standard

bl-c101 works on http://user:password@ip/nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Standard (However, on mine this mjpeg stream drops out intermittently and won't resync without camera restart)

BL-C111A and BL-C10A also work with RTSP/Unicast and ffmpeg with rtsp://user:password@ip/nphMpeg4/g726-640x480 (However this may use considerably more CPU than MJPEG, perhaps some tweaking can help)

BB-HCM531 works on the same as the c101 and varieties. Very reliable external camera.

BB-HCM511A and BB-HCM531A

MJPEG Example Configuration

 Monitor Page -> Source Tab ->
 Remote Protocol: HTTP
 Remote Method: Simple
 Remote Host Name: 192.168.1.254
 Remote Host Port: 80
 Remote Host Path: nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Standard
 Remote Image Colors: 24 bit color
 Capture Width (pixels): 640
 Capture Height (pixels): 480
 Preserve Aspect Ratio: Off
 Orientation: Normal

In MJPEG mode, ZoneMinder can get approximately 5 fps from a Panasonic netcam.

RTSP MPEG4 Example Configuration

 Monitor Page -> Source Tab ->
 Remote Protocol: RTSP
 Remote Method: RTP/Unicast
 Remote Host Name: 192.168.1.254
 Remote Host Port: 554
 Remote Host Path: nphMpeg4/g726-640x480
 Remote Image Colors: 24 bitcolor
 Capture Width (pixels): 640
 Capture Height (pixels): 480
 Preserve Aspect Ratio: Off
 Orientation: Normal

In RTSP mode, ZoneMinder can get 30 fps from a Panasonic netcam that has an MPEG4 encoder.

Note: ZoneMinder transcodes the MPEG4 stream to add a banner or stream through the web interface. Doing this on one 640x480@30fps stream can consume an entire core on a modern CPU. If the CPU becomes overloaded, then the zmc process will crash and the Feed Watch page will be blank or show the broken image icon. An easy way to reduce CPU load is to set the "Maximum FPS" field on the monitor General tab to 15 or less.

Model Notes

BL-C140A

ZoneMinder must authenticate with a username and password to use the BL-C140A. Using the anonymous guest account will result in a black box or this error in the zmdc.log file:

 zmdc.ERR ['zmc -m 1' exited abnormally, exit status 255]

Put the credentials under the Source tab in the Remote Host Name field like this:

 Remote Protocol: HTTP
 Remote Method: Simple
 Remote Host Name: MyUser:MyPass@192.168.1.254
 Remote Host Port: 80
 Remote Host Path: /nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Standard
 Remote Image Colors: 24 bit color
 Capture Width (pixels): 640
 Capture Height (pixels): 480
 Preserve Aspect Ratio: Off
 Orientation: Normal

BL-C20A

Source type: Remote
Remote Host Name: IP Address of Camera
Remote Host Port: 80 (Default) or the non-default port assigned to the camera in your network
Remote host Path: /cgi-bin/nphContinuousServerPush?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Standard 
Control script: download at www.condrau.com/download/zmcontrol-blc30.pl

BL-C30

Source type: Remote
Remote Host Name: IP Address of Camera
Remote Host Port: 80 (Default) or the non-default port assigned to the camera in your network
Remote host Path: nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240&Quality=Standard
Control script: download at www.condrau.com/download/zmcontrol-blc30.pl

The control script supports all controls for this camera, but it can be used for other Panasonic cameras as well.

Note that I implemented a real name preset functionality, where you can set any desired name as the preset name. It is basically possible to set the presets through ZM's interface, but I prefer to do it through the cam's firmware interface, which is the default setting in the script. By changing one constant definition, you may change this behaviour. In any case still activate the "can set presets" option in ZM, after which you can assign names to each preset.

I would further recommend to update the cam's firmware. I found smoother operation in ZM after having updated the firmware. [bco]