Does AXIS 205 do FTP transfer?

[David Pinero]

One thing that's bothering me in researching network cameras is the
profound assumption that "live streaming video" is always desirable
and the key point of any network camera you might be considering. It
isn't. For me, live streaming video is merely *interesting*. What I
really want to do is become proficient at stringing together many
same-brand network cameras on one LAN network, and network cams are
really the only way to do that. As most of you know, it's impossible
to run multi-cam systems efficiently using PC tethered USB webcams, or
even through video capture cards.

Anyway, this frustration carries over into the advertising of AXIS's
new highly affordable 205 network camera. It's a GREAT looking camera
and darned affordable. If I had a business I wanted to monitor
remotely, I'd buy a half dozen! But I don't. I want my network
camera to provide me a static image to a website about once a minute
using good ol' FTP. Axis's website doesn't cover this and is very
incidental about FTP in speaking about any of its other cameras.

Therefore, can anyone who has one yet tell us if Axis 205 supports
very basic FTP transfer of an image to another web server? And will
it allow that transfer to occur at a rate of one per minute (since
network camera manufacturers are thinking archive, not webcam site,
some that do include FTP allow for FTPing of every single image
generated every second - which is way too much for broadband!).

Thanks!

Dave
www.davidpinero.com

[Bj?rn Wes?n]

(David Pinero) wrote in message >...
> Anyway, this frustration carries over into the advertising of AXIS's
> new highly affordable 205 network camera. It's a GREAT looking camera
> and darned affordable. If I had a business I wanted to monitor
> remotely, I'd buy a half dozen! But I don't. I want my network
> camera to provide me a static image to a website about once a minute
> using good ol' FTP. Axis's website doesn't cover this and is very
> incidental about FTP in speaking about any of its other cameras.

There is FTP in the more expensive products, and the 205 is marketed
for "simple" uses.

However, for your purpose, a cronscript running on the website server
that fetches an image every minute, is easier and safer than an FTP
server.

Just do

wget -O mypic.jpg "http://mycamera.axiscam.net/jpg/image.jpg"

and you get a picture.. wget is available for both linux and windows.
Then figure out how to execute it every minute and you're home free
with no setup of FTP servers, usernames or passwords..

> Therefore, can anyone who has one yet tell us if Axis 205 supports
> very basic FTP transfer of an image to another web server? And will
> it allow that transfer to occur at a rate of one per minute (since
> network camera manufacturers are thinking archive, not webcam site,
> some that do include FTP allow for FTPing of every single image
> generated every second - which is way too much for broadband!).

The other Axis cameras have this feature, with completely selectable
upload rates and triggers. We do know what the use is, but we had to
cut down on complexity in the 205 and that is one of the things that
didn't fit. But again, it's quite easy to do it "the other way around"
and poll images from the webserver instead of pushing them to it,
provided that the camera is not behind a NAT-box or firewall.

/Bjorn