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PCMCIA Cards on Desktop PCs
The PCMCIA (or PC Card) standard was built for portable machines which involve smaller form-factors than desktop PCs. Similar to ISA and PCI cards in desktop PCs, the cards offered expansion capabilities for portable machines including storage and communications. The most common cards are either ethernet, modem or wireless. Storage became an option with both flash memory cards, IDE interface cards and SCSI cards.
Desktop machines can be fitted out with PCMCIA card interfaces. Below I'll cover ISA to PCMCIA, PCI to PCMCIA and USB to PCMCIA, noting the limitations of each. I've had an IBM External CD-ROM 0991-011 in the collection for a while and I'd always wanted to check out its capabilities noting that it has a sound-card built-in!
The desktop machine that'll be running the tests is a PIII-500 with 512mb RAM. It's got enough storage internally to support multiple versions of Windows, so we can test compatibility across the board. I've actually taken out ethernet and sound cards, and disabled unnecessary onboard peripherals, to prevent hardware conflicts with any installed PCMCIA bridge.
PCMCIA Cards
I've tested the following PCMCIA Cards during this article. I wanted to make sure I had a card from each category, since I'd expected that certain adapters wouldn't handle all types of cards.
| Device | Description | Driver |
|---|---|---|
| SanDisk 1.2gb Memory Card | Flash Storage | Uses the standard Mass Storage Driver |
| Belkin 11g Wireless Card | Wireless Network | Download |
| IBM External CD-ROM + Sound Card + Gameport | External IDE Interface + Extra | Download.EXE |
I'm pretty much in-love with the IBM External CD. It's got the beautiful 'Aptiva'-esque styling and a bloody sound-card built-in!
Yup, that's the amazing all-inclusive IBM External CD-ROM, but we'll discuss its capabilities at a later date. Following are the two boring (aka. just-work!) cards...
Super boring. They didn't even try to use a differing palette!
PCMCIA Interfaces
To slap a PCMCIA card into a desktop machine, you'll need some kind of adapter. The following are the units that have been tested throughout this article.
| Device | Connection |
|---|---|
| IO-Data CardDock EX/DV | ISA |
| Ricoh | PCI |
| Ricoh | PCI |
| Condor PCI Super Card | PCI |
| AirFree | USB |
First up, here's the Condor PCI Super Card. It's huge and seems to have been custom built for a specific chassis? It might actually have been for a Kodak photo kiosk or somesuch where there are card slots on the front of the case. Based on it's length, I could see this card providing ports to the front.
Unfortunately, it wasn't detected by any part of the system!
The other Ricoh 485-based and 475II-based cards...
Hagiwara Sys-Com Airfree
And I-O DATA's CardDock2-EX/DV...
The results are as follows. The basic finding have been that the newer PCI/USB interfaces only support specific classes of PCMCIA devices. Those being Mass Storage and Network. As soon as you bring in a card that needs interrupts or other low I/O ranges then you're out of luck. On the flip-side, newer versions of windows don't support the older ISA hardware, meaning that the ISA PCMCIA bridge that I had just wont work on anything newer than Millenium.
| Bridge | Device | Operating System | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| IO-Data CardDock EX/DV | All | Windows 98 SE | Fully operational. |
| IO-Data CardDock EX/DV | Any | Windows XP | Card cannot be installed. Drivers wont recognise hardware and Add/Remove Hardware doesn't auto-detect it. |
| Ricoh 485/475II | Sandisk Flash Storage | Windows 98 SE | Works, but cannot be easily re-partitioned. Needed to use BOOTICE. (see information below) |
| Ricoh 485/475II | Belkin 11g Wireless Card | Windows 98 SE | Worked perfectly. Used Odyssey Client 4.52 for WPA2 access. |
| Ricoh 485/475II | IBM External CDROM | Any | Failed with resource issues. Hardware could not start. |
| Condor Super PCI | Any | Any | Entire card couldn't be recognised. Even the BIOS didn't list it. Going in the bin... but it's so cool-looking! |
| Hagiwara Sys-com Airfree | Flash Storage | Windows 98 SE | Works fine. A bit tricky to install on the US English version of Windows 98 SE as the installer just drops out. Works perfectly on Windows 98 SE JP. |
| Hagiwara Sys-com Airfree | Belkin 11g Wireless | Windows XP | Works fine, as above with installation. |
| Hagiwara Sys-com Airfree | IBM External CDROM | Any | As above with the PCI cards, it just doesn't work at all thanks to resource limitations. |
Partitioning Removable Media In Windows XP Or Lower
I'd somehow managed to trash the partition table on the SanDisk Flash Memory during the testing above. It hadn't caused the resource errors above (I went back and re-tested the scenarios after I'd realised the disk wasn't actually readable), but it had caused errors when trying to access the drive in My Computer... when it actually chose to show up. Both FDISK, DISKPART and Disk Management in all forms/versions/flavours of old-windows didn't want to touch the partition table. I also tried Partition Magic 7.0, but that didn't care either.
Actually, FDisk in Windows 98 SE JP managed to show the card, but then suggested that it was onlt 136mb in size? I actually tried to follow through with it and that's what probably really killed the partition table.
Thanks to this post at lancelhoff.com, I was directed to an older version of BOOTICE which disregards all forms of safety and allows you to totally wipe and re-partition removable media in older versions of Windows.
Choose the correct disk and click 'Parts Manage'. You'll be presented with the screen below...
I was expecting an option to set up the actual parition table, but nothing was presented. Instead you need to choose 'ReFormat USB Disk' and choose the top option.
WPA2 on Windows 98 SE
As mentioned above, you can install the Odyssey Client 4.52 on Windows 98 to enable connections to WPA2-encrypted wireless networks.
I expected that I'd have to build a guest network with WEP encryption, or worse - no encryption, to test the wireless PCMCIA cards... but I didn't! This software worked perfectly!
Conclusion
The IBM External CD-ROM is super-cool! The fact that it comes with a sound card inbuilt and a gameport/midiport is awesome. I suppose it's really suited to an older laptop that doesn't have a soundcard. I actually tried using the joystick port and it works fine, but don't expect all joysticks to work 100%. I'll post about that soon.
As for the PCMCIA to PCI or USB, you're mileage may vary. If you just want to use flash storage or ethernet cards, then go for it... but why not just get an ISA or PCI card? I remember back in the day I really wanted a PCMCIA to PCI adapter for a wireless card to join the Canberra Wireless network... as actual PCI wireless cards were still a pipe-dream. That never happened... and now I have a surplus of the technology and no real reason to need it. Actually... that's the point behind too many posts on this blog!
Passing Freight in South Yarra – April, 2020
Thanks to having a camera hanging off the balcony, I'm able to capture and record scenes like the following. Also, thanks to FTTP NBN, the steam is live 24/7.
Above you'll find an up Maryvale Paper Service entering first from the left. Shortly after, a down Long Island Steel train will pass through. The up service was relatively on-time, but the steel was allocated a run for the 11:30am service, running well-late even for the 13:30 (9557) timeslot.
Anyway, here's the live cam. (But if below is temporarily unavailable, browse here to find the latest URL: stevenhoefel - youtube - live)
Enjoy!
Restoring an Azure DB Bacpac into SQL Express
Every so-often, one receives a request out of the blue to revive things that one has totally forgotten about. In most cases, it's comments on pages on this hideous blog asking questions about things that I've gotten rid of, in one form or another, and can't answer! Fortuantely, this time I could: it was a request to revive a project which had been on ice for a long time, but had been well-backed-up... or so I thought.
Firstly, it took me two days to find the files... not cool. If you shut down a project, get EVERYTHING and put it in ONE LOCATION. The system comprised of a zip of the IIS inetpub folder, a zip of the data drive and finally, a database backup from the SQL-as-a-service database. This, thanks to Azure not providing direct access to the server, takes the form of a bacpac file.
Back in the day, when developing, the preprod server was located on a HP something-something with 44gb of RAM which hosted multiple VMs. It made a fantastic noise when it first booted, making sure the fans could hit the required RPMs, and so it was left on most of the time. It was quite the powerhouse and did everything we needed. To save cost, the preprod server only ran SQL Express, so whenever we needed to back-port the production database to diagnose and squash bugs, we needed to manipulate the backups to make them fit.
What do I mean by this? Well SQL Express (or, at least the old 2014 version running in the VM) isn't as capable as Azure DBs and therefore you needed modify the backups so that they wouldn't throw errors when they were being restored. Below is a perfect example (this happened tonight) of such errors...
All looking OK, taking large amounts of time, and then...
Bang! With is not a valid operator... what's it doing embedded in a SQL script? Let's find out! Did you know that a bacpac file is just a pkzip archive? Install 7-zip, right click on the bacpac file and choose Open Archive.
Nice, contents. You'll find the database tables stored as BCP files in the Data folder and actual entire structure and scripts in the model.xml file. If you have your favourite editor installed correctly, then you should just be able to double-click model.xml and edit the file inline.
We know that the error is about shared access keys, so I CTRL-F'd the relevant keyword and the result was at the very bottom of the file. It's trying to store the logging and auditing on Azure shared storage... which is obviously not a good idea if we're running a private server. It's also totally incompatible with SQL Express, so lets rip it out.
<DataSchemaModel> <Model> ... <Element Type="SqlDatabaseCredential" Name="[https://azure.net/sqldbauditlogs]"> <property Name="Identity" Value="SHARED ACCESS SIGNATURE"> </Element> <Element Type="SqlDatabaseCredential" Name="[https://azure.net/sqldbtdlogs]"> <Property Name="Identity" Value="SHARED ACCESS SIGNATURE" /> </Element> <Element Type="SqlFullTextCatalog" Name="[SnomedCatalog]"> <Property Name="IsAccentSensitive" Value="True" /> <Relationship Name="Authorizer"> <Entry> <References ExternalSource="BuiltIns" Name="[dbo]" /> </Entry> </Relationship> </Element> </Model> </DataSchemaModel>
I also ripped out the Full-Text Searching block above, as shown, and another block much further above that was also referencing this block. Once I'd made all the changes to the zip file, I closed my editor and went back to 7-zip.
Yes, 7-zip, I very muchly would love to commit the changes back into this 1gb archive, thank you. From here, I attempted to deploy the bacpac to the server...
Ok, right, by editing a file inside this archive, we've trashed the thumbprint. A checksum is a magical calculation of a chunk of binary data that, somehow, resolves it down to a unique number that indicates the bits. If a bit changes, the checksum number changes and this allows software to know if things have been tampered with. That's what has occurred here... we've actually tampered with it and it's changed the calculation.
The SQL Server has run a calculation on the file and the result has mismatched with something, but with what? Turns out that in the original.xml file is a checksum value! We need to change this value to the new checksum, but how do we calculate that? Don't even bother thinking, just copy the following script into a file called checksum.ps1 and store it in your home directory.
$modelXmlPath = Read-Host "model.xml file path"
$hasher = [System.Security.Cryptography.HashAlgorithm]::Create("System.Security.Cryptography.SHA256CryptoServiceProvider")
$fileStream = new-object System.IO.FileStream ` -ArgumentList @($modelXmlPath, [System.IO.FileMode]::Open)
$hash = $hasher.ComputeHash($fileStream)
$hashString = ""
Foreach ($b in $hash) { $hashString += $b.ToString("X2") }
$fileStream.Close()
$hashString
If you've never run scripts in Powershell before, then you'll need to run the following command first if you get an error like 'checksum.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system.'
set-executionpolicy remotesigned
Once sorted, run the following:
PS D:\> checksum.ps1 model.xml file path: d:\model.xml 898D9323A53F0C52B782867B9E8343D8371059A1192849F793CEA168FEAC7AA0
That final number needs to be pasted into original.xml in the archive. Save it back into the archive and deploy once more. Note that, before you try to deploy again, you'll need to detach the half-deployed database and delete the mdf/ldf files that were half-stored in the deployment folders that you set when you tried previously.
I then hit another error, a long way into deployment where the server said that AT was a shit command. Turns out one of my previous developers had tried to cast a datetime into a timezone using the query getdate() AT TIME ZONE 'UTC' AT TIME ZONE 'Aus Eastern Standard Time'. Neat! But SQL Express hates that... so... open the archive, edit model.xml, save it, copy it out of the archive, checksum it, edit original.xml and deploy again...
Fiinnnnaaalllyyyy....!!! IT'S ALIVE! ... Hah... it's not...
dbo.Sort Failed? What dat? Google! There's always someone else that has had your error before... tempdb full? Let's add a new 100gb disk and slap tempdb over there. You can do this by running the following in a new query editor against master...
USE master; GO ALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = tempdev, FILENAME = 'T:\MSSQL\DATA\tempdb.mdf'); GO ALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = templog, FILENAME = 'T:\MSSQL\DATA\templog.ldf'); GO
And you'll need to restart SQL before it applies...
The file "tempdev" has been modified in the system catalog. The new path will be used the next time the database is started. The file "templog" has been modified in the system catalog. The new path will be used the next time the database is started. Completion time: 2020-04-08T22:55:04.1929547+10:00
Of course, you'll need to change T drive to something else! Enjoy!... or not... what the hell is this error?
Right, memory? Is that physical memory? Swapfile memory? Or storage space? Fortunately, it's a VM, so lets increase every one of those. If you have the RAM, then that's easy... slide that slider to the right. Disk space is a little trickier. Open the main Virtual Box console and choose Virtual Media Manager from the File menu. From here, select your disks, slide the slider to the right and then hit apply. Note that this will only change the dimensions of the disk, it wont touch the partitions.
So, to extend the partitions, open Disk Management (right-click the start button) and then find the drive. Once located, right-click and choose Extend Volume. If the free space is directly after the drive, it'll already be selected and you can just hit nekk-nekk-finish. Enjoy!
Mixing And Matching KVM Cables
Thanks to these new working-from-home shennanigans, I had to dig through the to-sell-at-trash-and-treasure box and find a KVM Switch to hook up all my machines. The desk used to only have one PC, but now additionally houses my work laptop and a large development server. I've got two monitors, and I want one of those to switch over to the development PC when required. I also want my keyboard and mouse to switch between all devices. To do this, I'll use the VGA/USB KVM to channel input and video to the monitor.
The best KVM in the box'o'stuff was a Belkin SOHO 4-port VGA+USB+Audio switch. Fortunately it had two of the KVM cables, so I could switch in my Laptop and development machine... but... I had to then unplug the USB to switch the input to the main PC. This wasn't optimal, so I went digging in the box again for another cable. The Belkin cables switched both Audio in+out, VGA and USB. From the outside, it looked like the audio channels were external to the VGA cable, unlike the USB which does seem to run through the same wires.
Back into the box, but unfortunately there were no other Belkin-branded cables. What I did find was another KVM with USB switching: Level One 2-Port VGA+USB KVM Switch.
This one also switched audio, but via USB instead of standard audio jacks. I grabbed a cable from it and was about to just plug everything together, but then I halted. USB has four wires, with two of those being the 5v rails. If there's any wiring differences between the switches then I could well send voltages in haphazard directions and cook equipment!
USB over VGA cable pinout
Wanting to hook this all together, I reached for my multimeter and started mapping out both the Level One and Belkin KVM cables. Thankfully, they have used very similar wiring for their cables! Thanks to monitors now talking digitally to hosts when describing their capabilities, there are spare pins on the cables to use for other purposes. There's a lot of extra ground pins also, but Belkin still preferred to keep those split whilst Level One happily merged them altogether.
| Pin | VGA | Level One Cable | Belkin Cable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | R | ||
| 2 | G | ||
| 3 | B | ||
| 4 | ID2 / RES | USB D- (White) | USB D+ (Green) |
| 5 | GND | USB D+ (Green) | USB D- (White) |
| 6 | RGND | USB GND + GND | USB GND + RGND |
| 7 | GGND | USB GND + GND | GND |
| 8 | BGND | USB GND + GND | GND |
| 9 | KEY / 5v | USB 5v + 5v | USB 5v + 5v |
| 10 | SGND | USB GND + GND | GND |
| 11 | ID0 / RES | ||
| 12 | ID1 / SDA | ||
| 13 | HSYNC | ||
| 14 | VSYNC | ||
| 15 | ID3 / SCL |
From above, you can see that the voltage (thanks to VGA actually having a +5v pin as standard!) and GND are close-enough, but the USB data pins are backwards. You assholes.. here I was thinking there might be a standard. What to do here? Well, I simply hacked apart a USB extension cable and crossed over the D+ and D-. Note that there is absolutely no reason for using this cable in any other scenario!
After this, one last hurdle.. the Level One KVM has a male plug at either end, whereas the Belkin cables have female on the KVM side.
And the bloody thing just worked! Happy to not have to spend money on extra proprietary cables that I actually couldn't find anywhere.
Sony HDR-AS100V Action Cam – Further Hacking
After a LOT of mucking around, trying to get a stream URL from the Action Cam, I did further googling on the defunct UStream service that the camera could, supposedly, stream live to. It wasn't long before I came across this mammoth thread on Github describing a few users' attempts to hack apart the APK that does the steaming and to fake a server with the intent to intercept the feed.
They use the Sony-PMCA-RE Project code to tweak settings on the camera and then built up an entire webserver to fake the Ustream service. None of this was beyond me, so I started by trying to work out if I could configure my camera to point at a server... (note that I've fudged any secrets in the console logs below...)
C:\Users\Steven\Downloads>pmca-console-v0.17-win.exe info -d libusb Using drivers libusb-MSC, libusb-MTP Looking for Sony devices Querying mass storage device Sony Camcorder is a camera in mass storage mode Model: HDR-AS100V Product code: 0002426601 Serial number: 03035253 Firmware version: 2.00 GPS Data: 2020-04-02 00:00:00 - 2020-05-02 00:00:00
C:\Downloads>pmca-console-v0.17-win.exe stream -d libusb Using drivers libusb-MSC, libusb-MTP Looking for Sony devices Querying mass storage device Sony Camcorder is a camera in mass storage mode twitterEnabled: 0 twitterConsumerKey: o9fJ2342342423433qg twitterConsumerSecret: TTL4324234234234324324llM6EQdivTXesA twitterAccessToken1: twitterAccessTokenSecret: twitterMessage: Live Streaming from Action Cam by Sony facebookEnabled: 0 facebookAccessToken: facebookMessage: Live Streaming from Action Cam by Sony service: 0 enabled: 1 macId: macSecret: macIssueTime: 0000000000000000 unknown: 1 channels: [0] shortURL: videoFormat: 1 supportedFormats: [1, 3] enableRecordMode: 1 videoTitle: Recorded with Action Cam by Sony videoDescription: Shot 100% with Sony's Action Cam #SonyActionCam #ProveYourself videoTag:
C:\Downloads>pmca-console-v0.17-win.exe updatershell -d libusb Using drivers libusb-MSC, libusb-MTP Looking for Sony devices Querying mass storage device Sony Camcorder is a camera in mass storage mode Getting device info Using firmware for model HDR-AS100V Initializing firmware update Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca-console.py", line 96, in <module> File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca-console.py", line 82, in main File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca\commands\usb.py", line 360, in updaterShellCommand File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca\commands\usb.py", line 373, in firmwareUpdateCommandInternal File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca\usb\sony.py", line 527, in checkGuard File "C:\projects\sony-pmca-re\pmca\usb\sony.py", line 501, in _sendWriteCommands Exception: Firmware update error: Low battery [9052] Failed to execute script pmca-console
Right... low battery... I charged it up and then tried again:
C:\Users\Steven\Downloads>pmca-console-v0.17-win.exe updatershell -d libusb Using drivers libusb-MSC, libusb-MTP Looking for Sony devices Querying mass storage device Sony Camcorder is a camera in mass storage mode Getting device info Using firmware for model HDR-AS100V Initializing firmware update Switching to updater mode Waiting for camera to switch... Please follow the instructions on the camera screen.
Cool, at this point the camera showed 'EXEC' on its LCD display. This kept flashing... and then the console app error'd out:
Operation timed out. Please run this command again when your camera has connected.
I pressed the record button on the back of the camera to try and force the 'EXEC' and it seemed to reboot. From here, it then wouldn't even come back to life. The battery charge light just stayed a fixed red, which I now think was an error indicator. After popping the battery out, I could get it back to the 'EXEC' screen via the console app, but it occurred to me that I actually had no idea what updater-shell even did. Instead I tried the stream fuction to push a UStream configuration file to the device as per the instructions here at Novex's project where he attempts to create his own UStream APK. Here's the config I used...
[
[
"twitterEnabled",
0
],
[
"twitterConsumerKey",
""
],
[
"twitterConsumerSecret",
""
],
[
"twitterAccessToken1",
""
],
[
"twitterAccessTokenSecret",
""
],
[
"twitterMessage",
"Live Streaming from Action Cam by Sony"
],
[
"facebookEnabled",
0
],
[
"facebookAccessToken",
""
],
[
"facebookMessage",
"Live Streaming from Action Cam by Sony"
],
[
"service",
0
],
[
"enabled",
1
],
[
"macId",
"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
],
[
"macSecret",
"bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb"
],
[
"macIssueTime",
"dbeaaaaa00000000"
],
[
"unknown",
1
],
[
"channels",
[
12345678
]
],
[
"shortURL",
"http://www.ustream.tv/channel/asdf"
],
[
"videoFormat",
3
],
[
"supportedFormats",
[
1,
3
]
],
[
"enableRecordMode",
0
],
[
"videoTitle",
"Recorded with Action Cam by Sony"
],
[
"videoDescription",
"Shot 100% with Sony's Action Cam #SonyActionCam #ProveYourself"
],
[
"videoTag",
""
]
]
And then I smushed it into the camera using the console application...
C:\Downloads>pmca-console-v0.17-win.exe stream -w ustream.json -d libusb Using drivers libusb-MSC, libusb-MTP Looking for Sony devices Querying mass storage device Sony Camcorder is a camera in mass storage mode
Urrghh... what mode does it need to be in? Wait, is that even an error? Let's try use the buttons on the camera to switch it into Live mode...
Preparing?
No AP? Maybe it has no idea how to connect to a 5Ghz access point? Let's set it to my 2.4G secondary network, which nothing else uses, so I can isolate and watch any traffic. This took a little bit of hacking as the Sony Network Settings Utility needs the driver to be reverted back to USB Mass Storage. Jump in to Device Manager and force a driver 'update' back to the standard driver.
Now you can go into Network Settings and set your AP once more.
Note that it'll complain at the end that the settings are incomplete. Fortunately it still writes the AP configuration to the camera. After this, you'll have to switch back to the lib-usb driver and then re-upload the streaming settings.
From here? Test! Unplug the camera and hit the Live mode again...
Auth Error? HDR-AS100V Official documentation indicates that this means it's failed to authenticate with UStream... makes sense to me! Can we hack my local network to make it auth to a fake server?
Network Setup for a Fake UStream Server
Since I want the raspi to be doing all the heavy lifting, I'm going to follow the instructions here at Luca Lanziani's project to set up a listener and a dns faker.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ wget https://github.com/LucaLanziani/sony-camera-stream-receiver/archive/master.zip --2020-04-03 16:01:51-- https://github.com/LucaLanziani/sony-camera-stream-receiver/archive/master.zip Resolving github.com (github.com)... 13.237.44.5 Connecting to github.com (github.com)|13.237.44.5|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found Location: https://codeload.github.com/LucaLanziani/sony-camera-stream-receiver/zip/master [following] --2020-04-03 16:01:51-- https://codeload.github.com/LucaLanziani/sony-camera-stream-receiver/zip/master Resolving codeload.github.com (codeload.github.com)... 52.63.100.255 Connecting to codeload.github.com (codeload.github.com)|52.63.100.255|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 3790 (3.7K) [application/zip] Saving to: ‘master.zip’ master.zip 100%[===========================>] 3.70K --.-KB/s in 0s 2020-04-03 16:01:51 (7.39 MB/s) - ‘master.zip’ saved [3790/3790]
It downloaded easy enough... let's see what's inside!
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ mv master.zip sony-camera-receiver.zip pi@raspberrypi:~ $ unzip sony-camera-receiver.zip Archive: sony-camera-receiver.zip dd4b1170f9cdeaabc2cb68eccff6b7f63214abce creating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/ extracting: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/.gitignore inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/README.md inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/dns_server.js inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/index.js inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/package.json inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/rtmp_server.js inflating: sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/web_server.js pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd sony-camera-stream-receiver-master/ pi@raspberrypi:~/sony-camera-stream-receiver-master $ ls dns_server.js index.js package.json README.md rtmp_server.js web_server.js
Cool, everything we need. Following the instructions, we first need to download all the supporting node libraries.
pi@raspberrypi:~/sony-camera-stream-receiver-master $ npm i npm WARN npm npm does not support Node.js v10.15.2 npm WARN npm You should probably upgrade to a newer version of node as we npm WARN npm can't make any promises that npm will work with this version. npm WARN npm Supported releases of Node.js are the latest release of 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. npm WARN npm You can find the latest version at https://nodejs.org/ npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file. npm WARN sony-cameras-stream-receiver@1.0.0 No repository field. added 76 packages from 64 contributors in 17.452s
Cool, done. Now it's time to see if it'll actually run?
pi@raspberrypi:~/sony-camera-stream-receiver-master $ sudo node ./index.js --web.channel_number=12345678 --dns.external_ip=192.168.1.50 03/04/2020 16:09:24 16471 [INFO] Node Media Server v1.4.7 dnsproxy:info we are up and listening at 192.168.1.50 on 53 +0ms 03/04/2020 16:09:24 16471 [INFO] Node Media Rtmp Server started on port: 1935 Server listening at http://0.0.0.0:80/ 03/04/2020 16:09:26 16471 [INFO] There is a new version 2.1.6 that can be updated
Okey dokey.. it's up and running. The best thing we can do now is slap the new DNS server in our config and see what happens. After configuring my router and letting it reboot, nothing was resolving via .50. It seemed that .1 was still the DNS Server? I tried renewing my DHCP and flushing DNS, but nothing worked. Intead, I just hacked my local ethernet interface to point to .50 for DNS... woah! It works!
But I can't hack the camera in the same way... so I need to work out why DHCP isn't giving me .50. I then realised I'd been reconfiguring my repeater and not my actual router!? I logged into .1 and set the DHCP configuration to have a Primary DNS of .50 and, well, shit just worked.
The camera still threw the Auth Error, so I totally disabled the DHCP on the repeater, because that really shouldn't be there, and rebooted the camera. Hitting the REC button on Live mode on the Action Cam then saw action on the raspi!
03/04/2020 16:58:47 16471 [INFO] [rtmp connect] id=SRMCPZ41 ip=::ffff:192.168.1.134 app=12345678 args={"app":"12345678","flashVer":"LNX 9,0,124,0","swfUrl":"http://www.ustream.tv/mobile.swf","tcUrl":"rtmp://api.ustream.tv/12345678","capabilities":1,"audioCodecs":1143,"videoCodecs":252,"videoFunction":1,"pageUrl":"http://www.ustream.tv","objectEncoding":0,"fpad":false}
03/04/2020 16:58:47 16471 [INFO] [rtmp publish] New stream. id=SRMCPZ41 streamPath=/12345678/broadcaster/live7665 streamId=1
03/04/2020 16:58:48 16471 [INFO] [rtmp publish] Handle video. id=SRMCPZ41 streamPath=/12345678/broadcaster/live7665 frame_type=1 codec_id=7 codec_name=H264 0x0
03/04/2020 16:58:48 16471 [INFO] [rtmp publish] Handle audio. id=SRMCPZ41 streamPath=/12345678/broadcaster/live7665 sound_format=10 sound_type=2 sound_size=1 sound_rate=3 codec_name=AAC 48000 2ch
03/04/2020 16:59:40 16471 [INFO] [rtmp connect] id=7YV3W0L2 ip=::ffff:192.168.1.121 app=12345678/broadcaster args={"app":"12345678/broadcaster","flashVer":"LNX 9,0,124,2","tcUrl":"rtmp://192.168.1.50:1935/12345678/broadcaster","fpad":false,"capabilities":15,"audioCodecs":4071,"videoCodecs":252,"videoFunction":1}
03/04/2020 16:59:40 16471 [INFO] [rtmp play] Join stream. id=7YV3W0L2 streamPath=/12345678/broadcaster/live7665 streamId=1
And then pointing VLC at rtmp://192.168.1.50/12345678/broadcaster/live7665 got me....
Traaaaaiinnnsssss... Now to find the perfect angle. Note that you get an 'ONAIR' message on the LCD when it's ... on air.
Sure, not the best mounting... I'll work on that. I've also got a waterproof case for it that I'll need to hack a hole into to get the USB power through.
Productionising
Having the raspi be the DNS server is a little scary. But I suppose this is where secondary DNS servers come in? If we put 8.8.8.8 for the secondary, does it get used when the primary is down? Turns out it doesn't work that way, so I'll need to keep the raspi up and running 100% of the time!
C:\Users\Steven>ipconfig /all
Ethernet adapter Ethernet:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 30-5A-3A-81-E1-1B
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.121(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.50
8.8.8.8
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
C:\Users\Steven>ipconfig /flushdns Windows IP Configuration Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.
C:\Users\Steven>nslookup google.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.1.50
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to UnKnown timed-out
For some reason I really enjoy the spelling of 'UnKnown'. Regardless, the secondary has not kicked in! With this news, I suppose it'd be best to learn how to keep that service up and running 24/7 on the pi. Instead, I have decided to not even go ahead with this camera! It's wide-view fish-eye angle just isn't wide enough to get the trains close enough and the cityscape in the shot... I therefore don't see any advantage over my current camera.
So! A learning experience! For those who want to use a Sony Action Cam HDR-AS100V as a livestreaming camera, it's plausible!
Streaming from a Sony HDR-AS100V Action Cam
This is a cool camera. I picked it up from the Hard Off in Kagoshima whilst I was visiting the southernmost JR Railway station in Japan. I then used it to take a miriad of videos, especially from the balcony at the apartment in Shin Osaka.
Whilst it works great recording by itself, you can also use the Play Mobile (now Imaging Edge Mobile) application from Sony to control it remotely. The application uses the phones Wifi to connect to the camera, which acts as a wifi access point. From there, it shows a live view of what the camera can see whilst you're trying to line up the next shot. You can even control the camera remotely with the buttons on screen, being able to start and stop recording very easily... especially without bumping the camera!
I was hoping Sony would release the same software for the PC and allow me to connect wirelessly to the camera. This would then let me sniff the traffic and get the video stream live link, but alas, it's only available for mobile devices. Wait!, you say, there is a version of Play Memories for windows! Sure, go ahead and download it... install it even! It'll connect to your camera, but there's no ability to see the live stream from the lens... I tried... trust me....
With the USB camera connected, you'll get the screens above. They let you update firmware and manage settings, but not much else. Of course, there's also the file transfer functionality to let you download the images and videos you've taken. Interestingly, the last image shows the second pane of the Network Settings tab which allows you to configure the camera to upload to UStream automatically. Turns out that this was a 'thing' back in the day and not really practical anymore: IBM bought UStream and the service is no longer free... nor could I get it to work, even with a trial account.
Can we create a network to inspect the Wifi?
So, I had a plan. I have a Vonets VAR11N-300 that allows an ethernet cabled device to access an access point over Wifi. With this, I could use an ethernet port on my laptop to connect to the camera. The Wifi adapter in the laptop could then create an ad-hoc network that my phone could connect to. If I bridged the ethernet to the Wifi, connected my phone ad-hoc to the wifi network created by the laptop, then I could possibly pass the traffic through the laptop and use wireshark to listen in?
As I was plugging this all together, traffic started flowing without client application requesting anything! I'd not yet bridged the adapters, but I'd installed Wireshark and had the VAR11N-300 connected to the camera and, all of a sudden, I'd noticed jitters on the traffic graph for the ethernet interface on the front page of Wireshark. The ethernet port seems to have received an IP from the camera since it was acting as a terminating host and not an ethernet bridge! For everyones information: the IP range is 196.168.0.x, with IPs dished out from 1 and the camera being 192.168.122.1. With the little graph jumping around, I decided to listen in and have a look!
Ok so, from left to right above... the Wireshark main screen with my miriad of interfaces. You may notice that I have Wifi-2 selected there and there's traffic flowing on it... At this point, realising that I didn't need the mobile application to trigger data flow from the camera, I'd slapped a USB Wifi dongle into my main desktop so that I could work in comfort. The second screen is the main window of Wireshark once you're sniffing. You'll see a huge list of traffic up the top. Wireshark, without filters, will just present everything it can possibly see. Each row is a packet sent over the Wifi and you may need to combine multiple rows to see an entire picture, depending on what you're looking for. Usually, if this was my main network interface, I'd use a filter at the top with either ip.dest == 192.x.x.x or ip.src == 192.x.x.x to limit the displayed data, but fortunately this interface was only talking to the camera.
The second shot there has a very interesting packet displayed. It turns out that the camera is broadcasting UPnP information, telling anyone listening on the immediate network how to find it! No wonder, once you've connected your phone to the camera, that it can find it. It doesn't even have to look as the camera just yells it out every few seconds. Let's check out the data we're receiving...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <root xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:device-1-0" xmlns:dlna="urn:schemas-dlna-org:device-1-0" xmlns:av="urn:schemas-sony-com:av"> <specVersion> <major>1</major> <minor>0</minor> </specVersion> <device> <dlna:X_DLNADOC xmlns:dlna="urn:schemas-dlna-org:device-1-0">DMS-1.50</dlna:X_DLNADOC> <deviceType>urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1</deviceType> <friendlyName>HDR-AS100V</friendlyName> <manufacturer>Sony Corporation</manufacturer> <manufacturerURL>http://www.sony.com/</manufacturerURL> <modelDescription>SonyDigitalMediaServer</modelDescription> <modelName>SonyImagingDevice</modelName> <modelURL>http://www.sony.net/</modelURL> <UDN>uuid:00000000-0005-0010-8000-fcc2de658d5e</UDN> <serviceList> <service> <serviceType>urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:ContentDirectory:1</serviceType> <serviceId>urn:upnp-org:serviceId:ContentDirectory</serviceId> <SCPDURL>/CdsDesc.xml</SCPDURL> <controlURL>/upnp/control/ContentDirectory</controlURL> <eventSubURL>/upnp/event/ContentDirectory</eventSubURL> </service> <service> <serviceType>urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:ConnectionManager:1</serviceType> <serviceId>urn:upnp-org:serviceId:ConnectionManager</serviceId> <SCPDURL>/CmsDesc.xml</SCPDURL> <controlURL>/upnp/control/ConnectionManager</controlURL> <eventSubURL>/upnp/event/ConnectionManager</eventSubURL> </service> <service> <serviceType>urn:schemas-sony-com:service:ScalarWebAPI:1</serviceType> <serviceId>urn:schemas-sony-com:serviceId:ScalarWebAPI</serviceId> <SCPDURL>/ScalarWebApiDesc.xml</SCPDURL> <controlURL/> <eventSubURL/> </service> </serviceList> <iconList> <icon> <mimetype>image/jpeg</mimetype> <width>48</width> <height>48</height> <depth>24</depth> <url>/DLNA_camera_48.jpg</url> </icon> <icon> <mimetype>image/jpeg</mimetype> <width>120</width> <height>120</height> <depth>24</depth> <url>/DLNA_camera_120.jpg</url> </icon> <icon> <mimetype>image/png</mimetype> <width>48</width> <height>48</height> <depth>24</depth> <url>/DLNA_camera_48.png</url> </icon> <icon> <mimetype>image/png</mimetype> <width>120</width> <height>120</height> <depth>24</depth> <url>/DLNA_camera_120.png</url> </icon> </iconList> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_DeviceInfo xmlns:av="urn:schemas-sony-com:av"> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Version>1.0</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Version> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceList> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType>guide</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL>http://192.168.122.1:10000/sony</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_AccessType /> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType>accessControl</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL>http://192.168.122.1:10000/sony</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_AccessType /> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType>camera</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceType> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL>http://192.168.122.1:10000/sony</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ActionList_URL> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_AccessType /> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_Service> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ServiceList> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ImagingDevice> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_LiveView_URL>http://192.168.122.1:60152/liveview.JPG?%211234%21http%2dget%3a%2a%3aimage%2fjpeg%3a%2a%21%21%21%21%21</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_LiveView_URL> <av:X_ScalarWebAPI_DefaultFunction>RemoteShooting</av:X_ScalarWebAPI_DefaultFunction> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_ImagingDevice> </av:X_ScalarWebAPI_DeviceInfo> </device> </root>
Oooowwweee... Check that link at the bottom!? X_ScalarWebAPI_LiveView_URL? Really? Can it be this easy? I slapped it into a browser and no... it's not this easy... the browser just doesn't respond as it's constantly being fed a stream of data and doesn't know what to do with it! Turns out this stream is a motion-jpeg or some frame-by-frame binary flow that isn't a standard video stream. So, what to do? Google the hell out of those keywords and see who has already come to our rescue!
First hit was a post on stackoverflow asking 'How to get Sony ScalarWebAPI method list'. From the responses, one person suggested to send the camera JSON via a post so that you can see what functions you can call. One such function is getMethodTypes and can be called via the following post body:
{"method": "getMethodTypes", "params": [""], "id": 1, "version": "1.0"}
Using Postman, I got the following result...
{
"id": 1,
"results": [
[
"actTakePicture",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getApplicationInfo",
[],
[
"string",
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getAvailableApiList",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getAvailableCameraFunction",
[],
[
"string",
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getAvailableMovieQuality",
[],
[
"string",
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getAvailableShootMode",
[],
[
"string",
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getAvailableSteadyMode",
[],
[
"string",
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getCameraFunction",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getEvent",
[
"bool"
],
[
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"names\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"cameraStatus\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"zoomPosition\":\"int\", \"zoomNumberBox\":\"int\", \"zoomIndexCurrentBox\":\"int\", \"zoomPositionCurrentBox\":\"int\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"liveviewStatus\":\"bool\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"liveviewOrientation\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"takePictureUrl\":\"string*\"}*",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"continuousError\":\"string\", \"isContinued\":\"bool\"}*",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"triggeredError\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"sceneRecognition\":\"string\", \"steadyRecognition\":\"string\", \"motionRecognition\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"formatResult\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"storageID\":\"string\", \"recordTarget\":\"bool\", \"numberOfRecordableImages\":\"int\", \"recordableTime\":\"int\", \"storageDescription\":\"string\"}*",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentBeepMode\":\"string\", \"beepModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentCameraFunction\":\"string\", \"cameraFunctionCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentMovieQuality\":\"string\", \"movieQualityCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"checkAvailability\":\"bool\", \"currentAspect\":\"string\", \"currentSize\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"cameraFunctionResult\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentSteadyMode\":\"string\", \"steadyModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentViewAngle\":\"int\", \"viewAngleCandidates\":\"int*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentExposureMode\":\"string\", \"exposureModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentPostviewImageSize\":\"string\", \"postviewImageSizeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentSelfTimer\":\"int\", \"selfTimerCandidates\":\"int*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentShootMode\":\"string\", \"shootModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentAELock\":\"bool\", \"aeLockCandidates\":\"bool*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"checkAvailability\":\"bool\", \"currentBracketShootMode\":\"string\", \"currentBracketShootModeOption\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"checkAvailability\":\"bool\", \"currentCreativeStyle\":\"string\", \"currentCreativeStyleContrast\":\"int\", \"currentCreativeStyleSaturation\":\"int\", \"currentCreativeStyleSharpness\":\"int\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentExposureCompensation\":\"int\", \"maxExposureCompensation\":\"int\", \"minExposureCompensation\":\"int\", \"stepIndexOfExposureCompensation\":\"int\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentFlashMode\":\"string\", \"flashModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentFNumber\":\"string\", \"fNumberCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentFocusMode\":\"string\", \"focusModeCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentIsoSpeedRate\":\"string\", \"isoSpeedRateCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"checkAvailability\":\"bool\", \"currentPictureEffect\":\"string\", \"currentPictureEffectOption\":\"string\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"isShifted\":\"bool\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentShutterSpeed\":\"string\", \"shutterSpeedCandidates\":\"string*\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"checkAvailability\":\"bool\", \"currentWhiteBalanceMode\":\"string\", \"currentColorTemperature\":\"int\"}",
"{\"type\":\"string\", \"currentSet\":\"bool\", \"currentTouchCoordinates\":\"double*\"}"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getMethodTypes",
[
"string"
],
[
"string",
"string*",
"string*",
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getMovieQuality",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getShootMode",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getSteadyMode",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getStorageInformation",
[],
[
"{\"storageID\":\"string\", \"recordTarget\":\"bool\", \"numberOfRecordableImages\":\"int\", \"recordableTime\":\"int\", \"storageDescription\":\"string\"}*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getSupportedCameraFunction",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getSupportedMovieQuality",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getSupportedShootMode",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getSupportedSteadyMode",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"getVersions",
[],
[
"string*"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"setCameraFunction",
[
"string"
],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"setMovieQuality",
[
"string"
],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"setShootMode",
[
"string"
],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"setSteadyMode",
[
"string"
],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"startIntervalStillRec",
[],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"startLiveview",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"startMovieRec",
[],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"stopIntervalStillRec",
[],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"stopLiveview",
[],
[
"int"
],
"1.0"
],
[
"stopMovieRec",
[],
[
"string"
],
"1.0"
]
]
}
So, there's a startLiveview command down the bottom there... maybe I need to call this prior to trying to actually display the URL in a browser? It easily be called via Postman with the body:
{"method": "startLiveview","params" : [],"id" : 1,"version" : "1.0"}
You'll get the following result...
{
"id": 1,
"result": [
"http://192.168.122.1:60152/liveview.JPG?%211234%21http%2dget%3a%2a%3aimage%2fjpeg%3a%2a%21%21%21%21%21"
]
}
We knew this link already from the XML above, but does the video now work? I slapped the URL into the browser but didn't have much luck. So... a little more digging and I found the following: Tony Jan's work on decode the Sony stream written in Ruby, kazyx's kz-remote-api written in C# and twenzel's version called SonyCameraRemoteControl also in C#.Finally, with the term 'liveview' added to my search, I hit cryptofuture's liveView project which contained binaries to run really easy on Windows.
Horrible image quality... but we have it! A livestream from the HDR-AS100V! I wrapped it up at that point, since you can see it was past midnight.
Getting this out to the world!
Nice, we have a connection. Next step? Pipe this to Youtube. I was going to use a Raspberry Pi, so Ruby will an easy choice and therefore Tony's library was tested. Gem is installed by default...
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo gem install sonycam Fetching: thor-1.0.1.gem (100%) Successfully installed thor-1.0.1 Fetching: sonycam-1.3.2.gem (100%) Successfully installed sonycam-1.3.2 Parsing documentation for thor-1.0.1 Installing ri documentation for thor-1.0.1 Parsing documentation for sonycam-1.3.2 Installing ri documentation for sonycam-1.3.2 Done installing documentation for thor, sonycam after 3 seconds 2 gems installed
Just for fun, after hooking up the wireless... try to take a picture?
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sonycam api actTakePicture
Can not find /home/pi/.sonycam, start scanning...
Found location: http://192.168.122.1:64321/DmsRmtDesc.xml
Device description file saved to /home/pi/.sonycam
Traceback (most recent call last):
8: from /usr/local/bin/sonycam:23:in `<main>'
7: from /usr/local/bin/sonycam:23:in `load'
6: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/sonycam-1.3.2/bin/sonycam:3:in `<top (required)>'
5: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/thor-1.0.1/lib/thor/base.rb:485:in `start'
4: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/thor-1.0.1/lib/thor.rb:392:in `dispatch'
3: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/thor-1.0.1/lib/thor/invocation.rb:127:in `invoke_command'
2: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/thor-1.0.1/lib/thor/command.rb:27:in `run'
1: from /var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/sonycam-1.3.2/lib/sonycam/cli.rb:49:in `api'
/var/lib/gems/2.5.0/gems/sonycam-1.3.2/lib/sonycam/api.rb:17:in `request': Sonycam::Error::IllegalRequest
I suppose, this is an Action Cam and not an SLR? Let's try the livestream to MP4.
sonycam liveview | ffmpeg -f image2pipe -c mjpeg -i pipe:0 -codec copy liveview.mp4
Trying to open the video file whilst the recording was happening didn't work... but it opened successfully once it was stopped.
The final option was to use ffserver, but it turns out that it's ancient technology that's been deprecated in FFmpeg. I quickly looked at the age of the repository and noticed it was last updated 6 years ago!
In the end, it turns out that the liveview is only ever outputted at 635x300-something. It's not HD! Nooooo... alllll... thissss... timmmeeee... speennntt.... It seems that there's another call for startLiveviewWithSize, but my camera doesn't support this. Oh right, only the full-frame cameras do!? And look at that link, they've called Liveview "viewfinder"! Of course it wont be full resolution.
HDMI Output
What goes out, must come in? Sure, this thing has a mini/micro/something HDMI port in its ass... but how does that help me? YouTube doesn't have a HDMI input plug! Well, eBay does have crappy HDMI to USB converters.. so..
I bought that thing... and got this input via VLC. The actual software they wanted to use needed Direct X Movie/Video WMV software installed and Windows 10 didn't want to even care.
Image quality was OK, but no colour? I didn't bother digging further as I really didn't want HDMI cables running all over the shop.
Let's just use the old camera
Oh well.. it's back to the old camera until I find another method of getting this camera to stream. Here it is, right now, streaming live to the world from my balcony.
Hahahaa... do you like my handywork? (Go over here to Youtube if the embed below is broken.)
I'll update if I manage to find a better method. There's hints of people hacking apart the APK (yes, these cameras run Android!) on the unit that streams to UStream.
Why can't we just create one that provides an RTSP endpoint, like my camera above?
Amiga 500 – Internal IDE Port
Whilst looking for side-car Amiga A590 Hard drives for the Amiga 500, I found this deisgn at PCBWay of an internal IDE interface. The design seemed pretty straight-forward, but it did have its caveats. The main one was that this device does not Auto-Configure and therefore needs a boot floppy to use it. This wouldn't have been such a bad problem, if it wasn't for the fact that I wasn't able to write a bootable floppy disk. I therefore got my Goteks working in the A500 first.
In case you didn't know, PCBWay is a fully-fledged PCB design and fabrication site. They even provide a community side (similar to Thingyverse for 3D printing) where users can upload their designs and anyone can have them made! After finding this design on their site, I followed the checkout and a few of boards created. I wanted to save money, so I had two other designs created at the same time... but I'll talk about them in later posts.
With the PCBs now in my hand, it was time to fill them up and test the devices. Using the shopping list of parts provided at the original site, I purchased everything I needed from either Digi-Key or Jaycar.
This all arrived at around the same time and, thanks to being locked up at home due to a bug floating around the entire world, I now had time to get this thing built! First-thing's-first... take your bloody time doing this, otherwise ... or, as I did on the very first build ... you'll solder items in backwards. I quickly put that first attempt aside and started again.
Jaycar only had horizontal 50-pin IDC headers, so I cut it down to fit... not the prettiest!
I also purchased pin strips of both male and female thinking that the board had two individual areas for the male and female pins that the CPU plugs through.
Turns out that was totally wrong and you need to make sure you get the 'triple-length' female pin strips! Here's the item at Jaycar.
They're not cheap, but you want absolute stability when you're dealing with a piggy-backed CPU!
Note that if you look closely at that middle photo.. you'll see that I failed to solder two pins. Sure, the strength of the solder on the neighbouring pins will probably force contact... but... again... take your time!
The IDE header required a re-think back to my 386 upgrade. There's an issue here between providing a male or female pin header on the board. Officially, this is the 'host' of the IDE channel so, like any motherboard, it should provide male pins. You can then use a cable to provide a female IDC connector if your device has male pins. Also note that some units (like the transcend disk-on-a-stick in over here) are built to plug straight into motherboards and therefore will plug straight into this unit.
The only real thing you need to worry about is that if you're using a CF to IDE adapter, make sure it has a female header on it, i.e. on that's meant to go straight into a motherboard, or, if it has male pins, that you have a short IDE cable to go with it. Look over here for the logic on how to run the IDE cable... making sure that you get the pins in the correct order.
Mounting it
It was now finally built! Mounting it into the A500 I had open on the workbench took a little more effort than I expected. It turns out the legs of the piggy-back pin header are quite a bit thicker than the legs of the standard 68000 CPU. This meant that the whole unit required quite a shove to get it into the socket. It also made me wonder if the CPU would happily sit back in again afterwards if I ever had to revert this work. Firstly, anyway, I had to remove the cpu!
I'm pretty sure I mentioned something about taking your time with these things... After successfully removing the CPU from the motherboard, I also successfully bent two pins when mounting it onto my new PCB. Relax, breathe, grab a set of tweezers... realign the pins without snapping and try again!
It was in and, without a disk connected, the machine still powered up. Make sure you test this scenario as a milestone during your build!
Connecting the disk required a little trickery with the power cables. Thankfully there's a 5v header on the adapter and that's all this disk needs.
Testing it
In the zip file provided on the original site, you'll find bootable disk images that have the IDE device driver included. Or do they? It turns out Kickstart 1.3 also had the IDE driver inside... but 1.2 didn't? At first, I connected my Transcend disk-on-a-stick and booted the unit using the Boot_WB13.adf from the original site. I got the following:
Ok, c/assign can't be found. From what I've learnt, c is a folder on all Workbench installations with standard binary tools. Something like the DOS folder in MS-DOS or the /bin folder in Unix. It's trying to run the assign application which creates temporary symbolic links to paths on disks so that the shell knows what to run. The fact that it's failing isn't good, but let's try work out why.
Firstly, where is this line even being called from? It turns out it's the startup-sequence in the s folder on the boot: disk, which happens to be the disk image we downloaded and booted from. We can use the type command to work out what's in this file...
Ok, so it's tried to mount the HDD on DH0:. It's then changed to it, and succeeded? It's then tried to run the assign application from the c folder on the HDD. Uh, there's nothing on this HDD... actually, I have no idea what's on it! Quick way to find out...
Uh, yeah.. that'll never work! The delete command will come in handy here... I went ahead and whacked each of those useless files. Sorry DOS! Note that I could have also formatted the partition at this point... I had tried to do so during this adventure, but I couldn't work out how to format it as FAT (or FAT32) from the Amiga. Whenever I formatted it, it came up as an unknown DOS disk... so I slapped it into a Windows PC and formatted it there.
That last image above shows the Mountlist file located in the devs/ folder. This is super important as it tells mount how to understand what each partition is. It's similar to the /etc/fstab in Unix. Above you can see that it would try to use the fat95 library located in the L folder. Hence, when I formatted it and it became an Amiga partition, the fat95 driver would then throw an error indicating it wasn't a DOS drive. I would still love to know how to fix this Mountlist after a format... what parameters do I need to give the rest instead of just the driver being FastFileSystem?
Anyway, we're getting lost... leave it as FAT and then run copy boot: DH0: to copy the contents of the bootdisk to the HDD. Once done, reboot!
Hmm... still the c/assign error? Switching to the disk saw that only the root files copied... is there a -R switch? Turns out I should have run the following: copy boot: DH0: ALL...
Cool! The next error!? It's trying to map a fonts folder? Checking the bootdisk, there is no such folder. Oh, right, the bootdisk doesn't actually have WB1.3 on it! It's just a booter to get WB1.3 running off the HDD. Go and purchase the Floppy & Hard Disk Image Pack from Amiga Forever, download the ADFs and get them onto your USB stick. Boot the machine with the IDE bootdisk, swap the ADF via the Gotek change disk button to WB1.3 and run the same copy, but this time with the differing drive name: copy workbench1.3: DH0: ALL
And reboot!
Holy moly... my HDD is visible! Note that this was tested on both a Kickstart 1.2 and Kickstart 1.3 Amiga 500! I quickly booted up SysInfo to see what the system specs were.
Yup, it's still a lowly A500. I no longer have any components for sale.
Finally, for more thorough instructions on IDE formatting, view the tutorial I've written over here.
Amiga 500 – Gotek
So, the goal was an internal IDE drive, but to do that I needed a boot disk as my A500 with Kickstart 1.2 would not auto-boot. To make it boot and find a HDD, I needed a floppy image written to a floppy disk. Of course, you can't write this with a standard PC drive; instead I either needed a bootable Workbench disk and serial magic (like what I did to the Apple II back in the day) to copy over floppy-copying-software, or just use a Gotek!
I happened to have a spare 'cheap' gotek that I've complained about before which deserved to be used for this hack and slashery.
Could I flash Amiga firmware to it? I don't have an FTDI USB device, but I have plenty of Arduinos! Firstly though, we'll need to allow data access to the Gotek. This means soldering on some pin-headers to the holes right behind the power plug.
Regarding using an Arduino, it's the internet, so someone has already done it. Wiring it up was pretty straight-forward: dedicate two pins to SoftSerial and then make sure the transmission line has a few resistors on it. The Gotek is TTL level, which means 3.3v data signals. As the Arduino puts out 5v, we need a 4.7k resistor between the TX pin and the gotek. Where the resistor meets your wire, also put a 10k resistor to ground.
Yup, you can't see shit because of my 'mood lighting'. The sketch on the Arduino was as follows:
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
SoftwareSerial mySerial(10, 11); // RX, TX
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
while (!Serial) {
; // wait for serial port to connect. Needed for native USB port only
}
mySerial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() { // run over and over
if (mySerial.available()) {
Serial.write(mySerial.read());
}
if (Serial.available()) {
mySerial.write(Serial.read());
}
}
Very simply, the code brings up the hardware port to 9600 baud and the same with the softserial port on pins 10 and 11. Pin 11 is TX and had the resistors, as mentioned above. The Gotek then needed 5v and GND from the Arduino. From there, you need to install the STM software and grab the Cortex hex image to flash. It's all in this blog post, with the downloads being at the very bottom.
I then unmounted the existing drive in the Amiga and swapped in the Gotek on a 3d-printed base that a friend (thanks Shouchan!) had made. Unfortunately, it seems to be for a newer revision of the A500? Or I'm mounting it wrong. Regardless, it all went in and the access light just stayed on when I booted the machine. No dice, just the usual Kickstart 1.2 screen asking for a floppy.
At this point, I could probably write a few extra paragraphs here on how I then went and tried FlashFloppy, to have that fail too. I thought I should then try HxC which also, after paying for it, ended up with the same error. So... I slept.
Testing out my 'better' Gotek
I had another Gotek (with display and buttons) that I've previously used in my IBM PCs and didn't really want to hack apart. My assumption was that the 'fake' one above with no display or buttons couldn't handle the 3rd-party firmware and this just had to work!
I did the usual... soldered on the header and programmed it.
This time I used the USB Serial adapter from Jaycar that I'd bought above to get HxC to burn. It wouldn't work via the Arduino as the baud rate needs to be 115200 and the Arduino can't 'pipe' this through quick enough! Anyway, as you can see above, I flashed it and still got the standard 'insert disk' screen. What am I doing wrong!? I then looked at the actual Gotek, which now had a beautiful error on display...
Ah crap... remember back in the day with standard floppy drives... how when you had the ribbon cable backwards, they'd just stay lit up (or even make a horrid repetitive searching noise)!? Amiga drives do this too. Better yet, when a Gotek (with a display) has the ribbon cable backwards, it'll tell you with a rib warning!
All this time spent above was a total waste as I'd just had the cable backwards the whole time. To me, the cable was actually forwards, as pin 1 matched pin 1 on both ends... but it turns out you need to flip it on the Gotek side. I'm sure this information is written in a manual somewhere?
A quick flip of the cable and...
Hoy polloy... I've learnt a lot... have a bit of new usb-serial hardware, and two dismantled Goteks. So, I then purchased the original Workbench disks from Amiga Forever (USD$9.95 for just the floppy images!) and threw the ADFs on the USB drive.
Ah. Nice! Time to give this thing an internal IDE HDD.
Commodore 1084S Monitor Power Switch
As per usual, I saw an auction on eBay and thought I'd have a crack. It happened to be 3 Amiga 500s with a lot of paraphernalia. Included, if I picked it up personally, was a beautiful Commodore 1084S monitor, with a faulty power switch.
After a quick message to a good friend in the Amiga community (thanks Steve!), I had a link to a fellow Australian's anonymous blog on blogspot under the name Random Mayhem. Here's the link to the article, but it seems to have disappeared in the time that I've now come around to writing this post. I picked everything up mid-february, got around to purchasing the items soon after... but now two weeks later the blog is gone! Thankfully, here's the cached version from Google. I have no idea how long that'll be around.
Thankfully, the whole process is very straightforward. First up you'll need to buy a replacement switch from Wagner Electronics Super Store in Sydney. From here, we make minor mods to the switch, as it now has a secondary pole, and then swap it in.
Opening up the Monitor
CRT Monitor contain high voltages, which can be stored for long periods of time. BE CAREFUL! Yes, the usual warning. The large capacitors in CRT monitors will hold charge and need to be discharged if the monitor has been on recently. Grab an insulated flat-head screwdriver and bridge the pins on any capacitor. If you get a spark out of it, then you've probably just saved that spark from travelling through your finger.
There's around 6 screws to remove to take the main housing off. From here, don't pull it away with speed. There are two speakers in the housing and these are connected by relatively-loose cables that run to the front-left of the monitor, where the headphone jack is. You'll need to lift the housing around 5cm off the chassis and then unplug these two cables. Once done, you can remove the housing completely.
From here, give the internals a good clean-up... my unit sure did need it!
Removing the existing switch
The switch is held in with 6 pins: 4 electrical contacts and two for the support bracket. Removing it will involve removing the solder from the pins and then 'walking' the switch out. The basic idea of 'walking' is to heat up the pins on one side of the switch and prise it up as high as possible, only moving it millimetres at a time. From here, heat up and loosen the pins at the other end and prise that up. Once you've got one end clear of the solder pads, heating up the other end should see the whole switch come out.
With the switch out, we can now remove the support bracket. This is held in by two bent tabs on the top side. Grab a set of reverse pliers, the ones that open when squeezed, and slowly bend the top pins open. We want to re-use this support bracket, so try not to snap the tabs off! They should bend relatively easily. Test if you can wriggle the switch vertically out of the bracket each time to prevent opening up the tabs too much. Too much flexing of the tabs could weaken and see them tear off.
With everything apart, we can now install the new switch.
Modifying and installing the new switch
First up, you need to cut off the three pins on the new model. We don't need these on our old monitor. I grabbed my sharpest pair of pliers and cut the tabs off right at the base. I suppose you could use them for a mod if you wanted? LED lighting? an extra amp for the speakers? I had no use though.
Once done, you can slide the support bracket on and gently bend the tabs back into position. The whole switch will then slide perfectly into the previous switch's position. If not, just make sure all the solder holes are clean. Once in place, solder away!
Re-assembling the housing
Just a quick note here... make sure you run the speaker cables correctly. One runs internally around the entirety of the housing so as to keep it from electrical interference produced by the circuitry. I assume there's also heat concerns, so make sure it's not running too close the to main tube. There are actually little plastic tabs where you can push the cable into, to keep it in position when you push the housing onto the chassis.
Also, when plugging the cables back in, make sure you have them the right way around. You wrote down the order, didn't you? Or did you take a photo prior!?
Testing... or... please keep the magic smoke in!
I bit the bullet and just applied power and video data. Thankfully, I got a Kickstart 1.2 boot screen! I knew the Amiga already worked, as I'd tested the black-and-white composite out. I was very happy to see this crispy screen come to life.
As you can see... it was time to load A-Train, which I'd bought whilst I had the A1200, but which had arrived after I'd sold the A1200.
A-Train disks on the Amiga
A quick note here... if you look at the final photo above, you'll notice A-Train is asking for 'Disk 2'.
Uh... 'Disk 2'? I'd booted off 'Lo-res', so I slapped in 'Hi-res'. It worked, but the disk naming is terrible. Nowhere on those disks is the number 1 or 2?
Monitor built-in stand
Just in-case you didn't notice, there's a built-in stand in the base of the monitor. The stand consists of two plates of plastic that are hinged to provide a triangular stand, supporting the rear of the monitor. This is specifically to be used when the front half of the monitor is sitting on the rear edge of your Amiga.
It's actually very handy. Without it, the angle that the monitor sits at would put severe pressure on any cable plugged into the back.
Amsterdam + Koplopers – January, 2020
After being delayed on the return trip from Belgium, I'd chosen a hotel in Amsterdam that I'd always wanted to check out. The Ibis Amsterdam City Centre Hotel is located both adjacent and on-top-of Amsterdam Centraal Station.
In the shot above you can see the main building to the left and the above-the-rails building to the right. Just like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, the building is suspended above the platforms by large 45-degree legs. Note that one of the floors in the annex, as the extra building is called, is being refurbished.
..but don't let that stop you as there was absolutely no noise during the stay. You'll find views from all windows of the building as you transfer between lifts to get to the 'upper' floors in the annex.
And then the view from the room. Don't forget to ask for a room with a north-facing view!!
Almere Poort
During the holiday, we'd gone to meet family in Groningen. The trip north consisted of a fast-paced ride through the country-side on a Koploper. As this was my most-favourite NS train, I'd made an effort along the way to determine the easiest station to take a few videos from, where I could capture these trains at full-tilt. I also wanted to make sure it wasn't too far from the city. I chose Almere Poort as it was the first station from Centraal that the service didn't stop at, whilst going at a good clip.
The weather was miserable, but it was the last day in the country and I was determined to check the place out. The station provided good visibility in both directions, but was a little 'urban' with lots of concrete and glass for framing.
Multiple services passed through with Sprinters, as above, stopping to pick up the college kids and residents. No one minded that I was there to take photos of trains. Actually... that's a good point: the NS staff even asked how my train photos were when they saw me with a camera. Anyway... here's the resulting video.
We'll declare it as historical, rather than a work of art. I REALLY love those 3-car consist Koplopers!
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