Open source 'Pan Tilt Zoom' for Zoneminder?

Base it on RC-style servos and the electro-mechanical part of it is well within the capabilities of a good hobbyist. I don't know if there's an Ethernet Pan/Tilt standard, and if so how hard it would be to conform to

-- but assuming that either there's none or that the one out there is easy, the Ethernet part should be reasonable, too, given a board or processor with a pre-installed Ethernet dingus.

Get cracking!

Thanks Tim! :)

--Winston

Several of my recent video chip designs are in these products...

But had nothing to do with pan and tilt, just video amplification, sync separation, day/night filters and UTC data back and forth during the VBI... that data _was_ used for pan, tilt, zoom and focus, but those motor drivers came from other sources. ...Jim Thompson

They all look very profe$$ional. :)

--Winston

Yep. Heavy-duty security systems. ...Jim Thompson

It occurs to me that you could do hobby-level stuff with comparators (such as LM339) for sync separation _and_ data. Look up Coaxitron Protocol and UTC to see how they piggy-back the data inside the VBI (vertical blanking interval). ...Jim Thompson

(...)

Yeahbut, Power Over Ethernet would give one all the necessary functionality without too much sweat, at least for cameras shielded from temperature extremes.

--Winston

The Panasonic line of security cameras are reasonably priced. Even for the Pan and tilt ones.

Cheers

That would be helpful but I'm looking for the whole DIY open source project, the way linuxcnc.org is for CNC for example.

Their cheapest PTZ is U$800 !

Must be a *tiny* market. :)

--Winston

(...)

For that kind of cash, one would expect very good resolution and aiming capability. Odd, that.

--Winston

That depends on what you consider reasonable. The link I provided has enough detail in the images that you can build a pan & tilt from scratch. You can buy 'servo testers' dirt cheap on Ebay, or use a couple 555 timers to create the PWM control signals.

I bought this monitor:

And this camera:

I bought this to mount it in. I thought what better way to hide a camera, than to disguise it as a fake? ;-)