[AG-TECH] RS 232 control of cameras and projectors

Marcia Perry (DSD staff) MPerry at lbl.gov
Thu Dec 4 19:49:05 CST 2003


Hi Jon,

LBL has s/w to do remote camera and video-
switcher control.  It's available at
http://dsd.lbl.gov/mbone/devserv.
'devserv' is a device server that does
all the RS232 communication to the
devices. There is a separate client GUI
for actually making requests to move the
devices.

You are correct that the Sony's can be daisy chained (and devserv
handles that).  And yes, the daisy-chained cameras have to be 
connected to one dedicated serial port.
You probably could add more serial ports 
(we've used Boca cards for PCs).

Is it worth the trouble?  The big
advantage we found w/ remote control s/w
was easier ability to control cameras 
mounted in inaccessible or awkward places
to reach w/ the hand-held device (some
conference rooms have them near a high 
ceiling or want to control them
from a separate 'control room').

Please feel free to email me further
about this.

-- marcia 


Jon I Johansson wrote:
> 
> I'm thinking about connecting our cameras and projectors
> to a computer and controlling them through RS-232 but
> there seem to be some problems with that idea:
> 
> I have 4 computers with 2 serial ports each and
> 10 serial connections to make -
> 
>    4 projectors
>    4 cameras (sony VISCA)
>    1 Gentner
>    1 Switch
> 
> Ok, so the cameras are supposed to be able to be daisy chained
> and I'm left with 7 connections to make. I would really like
> to be able to control all of this stuff from a single machine
> with two serial ports, is that possible? If it is possible,
> is it worth the trouble? The cameras and projectors can be
> controlled with remotes but the operator may be sitting too
> far from a device for that to work.
> 
> My limited understanding of serial ports is that they are
> pretty much dedicated to the connected device but maybe
> there is a way around this?
> 
> If anyone has done this sort of thing I would appreciate
> their comments.
> 
> Thank you,
> Jon.
> 
> --
> Jon I Johansson             *  Research Computing Support
> jon.johansson at ualberta.ca   *  Computing and Network Services
> Tel.: (780) 492-9304        *  University of Alberta
> Fax.: (780) 492-1729        *  Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Marcia Perry                            MPerry at lbl.gov
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory   WORK#  (510) 486-6786
1 Cyclotron Road                        FAX#   (510) 486-6363
Berkeley, CA 94720     			MS: 50A-3111



More information about the ag-tech mailing list