PTZ Camera into Qlab (control)

[timsabre]

Probably a silly question but I assume you have checked that your borrowed PTZ camera uses RS232/RS485... Serial control seems to be gradually being overtaken by ethernet/IP. Every manufacturer has their own version, but the ones I have got involved with you just send an http request with some attached parameters to move the camera to an absolute position (there are also relative up/down/left/right commands for manual control). e.g. for the Panasonic cameras you send "http://192.168.x.x/cgi-bin/aw_ptz?cmd=APCxxxxyyyy" where x=8000, y=8000 is "in the middle"

For pelco-P or pelco-D if you want absolute positioning you need to program presets and then recall them. It's very easy to do over the RS485 though.

Edited January 17, 2022 by timsabre

[TomHoward]

On 1/17/2022 at 2:38 PM, timsabre said:

Serial control seems to be gradually being overtaken by ethernet/IP. Every manufacturer has their own version, but the ones I have got involved with you just send an http request with some attached parameters to move the camera to an absolute position (there are also relative up/down/left/right commands for manual control). e.g. for the Panasonic cameras you send "http://192.168.x.x/cgi-bin/aw_ptz?cmd=APCxxxxyyyy" where x=8000, y=8000 is "in the middle"

Thanks for this. I'll be honest I've found one someone will lend me one but I haven't actually tried it out yet. That could be really helpful (and if we end up buying one we can but Ethernet control instead) as presumably this could be easier to do a network request from Qlab even if it's via Script than RS232/485 control.