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Vitamin D Video Reference Guide

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Can I use a camera with Vitamin D Video if it is not on the “supported” list?

The short answer is that almost any camera should work with Vitamin D Video, although for some network cameras you may need to look up and enter additional settings.

USB and Firewire webcams

• Any webcam that plugs into a USB or Firewire port (or is built in to your laptop or monitor) should work, but there may be specific cases of software incompatibilities. Known issues and workarounds are described here.
• USB and Firewire webcams support general standards that do not require camera-specific information to work with Vitamin D Video. As a result, we have not created a list of "supported" USB/Firewire webcams.

Network (IP) cameras

• Network cameras (also called IP cameras) plug into computer networks and send video through the network. As a result, Vitamin D Video needs to know some camera-specific technical settings (a video stream URL) in order to send data to and from the camera.
• Cameras that appear in the list of supported cameras have their settings pre-configured in Vitamin D Video. Selecting your camera model from the appropriate drop-down list in the Camera Setup Assistant automatically configures Vitamin D Video with those settings.

• If your model is not in the list of supported cameras, it should work, but you may need to look up and enter additional settings. Specifically:
  • Every model has a unique Internet address (URL) that is used to access the video stream of the camera. Note that this is not the URL used to access the configuration website of the camera, but a special link to access the actual video coming from your camera. It consists of your camera's IP address and a "stream path," which is a command sent to the camera to tell it to send video in a certain format. The URL might look something like "http://10.0.1.1/image.cgi." (where "10.0.1.1" refers to the specific IP address of your camera).
  • If a similar camera model appears in your list, you can try that one. For example, if you have a MyCamera 100B, and there is a setting for "MyCamera 100A," "MyCamera200," or "MyCamera (other MJPEG)," they might work. This is because camera manufacturers often use the same video stream URL for multiple models.
  • Otherwise, you may have to search for the URL string and enter it manually. A few ways to find this:
    • See if your owner's manual has this information.
    • Go to a search engine and entering your camera model and "mjpeg or mpeg4 + URL." You can also try "RTSP."
    • A few websites with lists of these strings are:
      • http://skjm.com/icam/mjpeg.php
      • http://www.soleratec.com/rtsp/rtsp_listing.php
      • http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/User_Reported_Compatible_IP_Cameras
  • The process to manually enter the URL string is described in detail here, but the basic steps are:
    • Select Add Camera... or Edit Camera... from the Tools menu.
    • Select Other in the Manufacturer drop-down list and click Next.
    • If you selected Add Camera..., in the first step, you will see a screen asking you to choose whether your camera is already working or not. Select appropriately and click Next.
    • Select "Manually specify the address of a network camera" and click Next.
    • In the setup screen, select "http" or "rtsp" in the Protocol drop-down list, depending on the URL for that camera.
    • Enter the IP address of the camera.
    • If you selected RTSP, you need to enter a port number in RTSP port (optional), such as "554."
    • In Stream path, enter the stream path you found for your specific camera, e.g., "video.mp4"
    • Enter your the user name and password you used to set up your camera (this is not a new user name and password for Vitamin D Video).
    • When you are done, you sceen should look something like this:

    
    

• Troubleshooting tips for specific camera models can be found here.

Analog (CCTV) cameras

If your camera is called a CCTV camera, and if you can plug it directly into a TV or monitor, it is probably an "analog" camera. Vitamin D Video does not work directly with analog cameras, but there are products called "encoders" that convert analog video signals to digital formats. Vitamin D Video can work with some of these encoder products. Details can be found here