Disclaimer: code is written by Jan Panteltje, see: http://panteltje.com/panteltje/mcamip This github repository exists to make it easy to compile on modern Ubuntu distros (>12.10)

Please try

 mcamip -h

for a list of all options and defaults.

All defaults are set as #defines in mcamip.h, you can change these if you like.

Motion detection threshold will be higher for 640x480, setting the correct level for your situation needs some experimenting. In motion detection only frames with sufficient change are output on the stdout (-y). You can see if something is encoded by looking at fps displayed by mencoder. The X windows display will always display normally. The main purpose of the motion detection is to save big time on used disk space in encoding. Only those frames that have sufficient change are encoded, and recorded with a time stamp. If you use motion detection and specify the -i flag with some filename, then a semaphore file will be created that other programs can check and take action upon. These programs should erase the semaphore file after testing for it, and then test for it again in a loop.

Example of using the semaphore file in bash, when using mcamip -y -c -s 5000 -i semaphore_file:

while true
do
    { 
    if test -f semaphore_file 
        then
        echo "motion detected, do something here."
		rm semaphore_file
    fi

#   sleep 1
    }
done

The frame speed you get is what you specify with -f, default is 20 fps. Please set the camera to 'automatic' in the video setup menu.

Just watch the (any) camera:

mcamip -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD -x

Visual output via mplayer:

mcamip -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -y | mplayer -fs -

Show just a picture in X windows:

mcamip -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -x

Encode to mpeg4 AVI:

mcamip -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -y -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD | mencoder -  -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc

Encode to mpeg4 AVI with on screen clock bottom middle in UTC (Greenwich time), and set playback speed to 25 fps:

mcamip -t -f 25 -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -x -y -g -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD | mencoder -  -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc

Encode with motion detection to an AVI file:

mcamip -e 1000 -c -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD -f 16 -t -a IPADDRESS -p 80 -x -y |\
mencoder -  -o /huge/recording.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc

Write single frames if motion detected to ~/mypictures/frames/, no X display:

mcamip -c -e 1000 -t -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -j -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD

You can list these in sequence with:

ls -rtl ~/mypictures/frames/

And you can see the exact date to the second of a picture with for example:

ls -l --full-time mcamip.197.jpg

When storing as single frame .jpg files, a counter file 'jpeg_sequence_number' is written to the directory where you stored the frames (~/mypictures/frames or as in -d directory). The jpg files will be numbered starting at this number, a check is always made for existing numbers, and these are skipped. You can set the start number by editing the file jpeg_sequence_number, or delete that file, then the numbering will start at zero or the first free number.

The same, using a different directory for the jpg images:

mcamip -d /huge -c -e 1000 -t -a IPADDRESS -p PORT -j -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD

Display all .jpg images in sequence:

xv -wait 1 mcamip.*.jpg

Encode with ffmpeg version 0.4.8 (from 2004-02-22, some other versions seem to differ):

mcamip -x -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD -f 2 -t -a IPADDRESS -p 80 -y | \
ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 800 -g 300 -bf 2 -y camera4.avi

Encode with transcode (v0.6.11, later version may have different options) to DivX4, in transcode you must specify the size, and the -z flag reverses the upside down picture: It uses the old DivX 4 codec, you can find it here, and the old transcode here.

mcamip -x -u USERNAME -w PASSWORD -f 2 -t -a IPADDRESS -p 80 -y | \
transcode -f 2 -i /dev/fd/0 -g 320x240 -x yuv4mpeg,null -y divx4 -z -o camera4.avi

Encode with latest ffmpeg version to H264, in the background (I use this one), if you re-start a new filename will be created.

mkdir /video
serial_number=`/bin/cat /video/mcamip_serial.txt`
/bin/echo "serial_number=$serial_number"

nice -n 19 mcamip -x -f 2 -t -a IPADDRESS -p 80 -u panteltje -w r2 -y 2>>~/mcamip-log | \
nice -n 19 ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -f avi -vcodec h264 -b 80 -g 300 -bf 2 -y /video/camera4-$serial_number.avi \
1>/dev/zero 2>/dev/zero &

/bin/echo "updating serial number"
let serial_number=serial_number+1 
/bin/echo $serial_number > /video/mcamip_serial.txt

Send a low bandwidth AVI stream to a remote client in a one to one session using netcat: First have the receiver side started (this example uses port 1234, use whatever gets you past firewalls etc.).

netcat -l -p 1234 | /usr/local/bin/mplayer -cache 80 -aspect 4:3  - 

Then start the server side (where the camera is, with the IP address of the receiver).

mcamip -x -u USER -w PASSWORD -f 2 -t -a CAMERA_IP_ADDRESS -p CAMERA_PORT -y | \
ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 800 -g 300 -bf 2 -y /dev/fd/1 | \
netcat -w 100 REMOTE_IP_ADDRESS 1234 

It seems in this version of the firmware that uses server push with video.cgi, you need to set only ONE port open in the router to allow external access. So in the router network translation table, if camera is at IPADDRESS port 80, and you also run a web server on port 80, translate external port 81 to IPADDRESS:80. (You can define an other port then 81 for access of course).

If you get lines in the X windows picture, or multiple folded pictures on screen, look in x11.c around line 61, and try uncommenting an other value for display_bits, perhaps 24, then do a

make; make install

Apart from the java applet as indicated by D-Link, you can also make the camera available (with password) on your web page like this:

<A href="http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/video.cgi">click here for the direct cgi version, press reload if no motion</a>

Of course IP_ADDRESS and PORT must be set, and for external (non LAN) use a proper NATP translation must be specified in the router.