P3, Remote Viewing via the Internet

[Bob W7KWS]

I've been interested in remote control of my station for about ten years now and have experimented with just about every method there is between Seattle & Hawaii.  Now that remote controlling the K3 is easy with the RemoteRig device and the new Elecraft firmware, I’m headed down that path.  However, the current state of most devices makes remote viewing of my P3 pan adapter a challenge and Elecraft has not addressed this as yet.  After experiencing the value of a P3 for the last year I miss it terribly when I’m at my remote location.

To date it has been difficult for me to view most waterfall displays remotely due to the high bandwidth requirements of the ever changing picture.  I’ve tried remote viewing of many PSK-31 displays with poor results.  The bottleneck is usually the low upload speed of my consumer Internet circuits which are cable at one end and DSL at the other.  Their upload speeds are 1-megabit or less and remote control programs such as Microsoft's Remote Desktop, PC-Anywhere and VNC just don't compress the video enough for a satisfying result and it locks things up waiting for each new frame of video.  However, MPEG4 does a nice job of transmitting my local news in standard definition NTSC at about 500 kilobits/sec.  So, I’m going to try that method for my P3.

I haven't tried this yet but I'm gathering the parts for the experiment and I should know more after I visit my P3 at the remote location and wire things up.  Unfortunately that won’t be for over a month and this is not of interest to my adult children who are there to kick most other things when needed.  If anyone else wants to try this before I do, I’d be very interested in your results.

I have an old Slingbox Classic that I use to send local, over-the-air television to Hawaii so that I can watch the local Seattle news from here.  This unit accepts video via an RCA or S-Video connection as well as having an NTSC tuner.  They don’t offer this older unit any longer but their  newer offerings include the PRO & PRO-HD models which have either no tuner or, in the HD version, an NTSC/ATSC/QAM tuner.  SlingMedia.com claims a 400% improvement in video for these newer offerings over what my classic produces.

I’ve found an $18 device at Amazon.com (Kanaan PC VGA to TV Composite Video RGB Converter) which claims that it will convert RGB video to S-Video.  There are other converters listed so be careful that you get one that will accept video in a resolution that the P3s SVGA card will produce.  I’ve chosen 1280 x 1024.

This unit should accept the output of the P3’s SVGA card and convert it to S-Video ready for the Slingbox.  The SlingBox should then send it over the Internet to my remote location using MPEG4 compression and be ready for viewing on my PC using the SlingBox player that came with my classic unit.  The main unknown right now is the latency of the video buffer and how that might impact operating.

This arrangement will not allow me to control the P3 remotely but viewing the P3 is primary while control is secondary to me for now.

I don’t see why this shouldn’t work but until I can try it I will be looking for comments on how I might do this using any other method someone might be willing to share.

Thanks,

Bob, W7KWS

[Rick WA6NHC]

I took the lazy way out.  

I'm using HRD and a spare laptop in the shack, attached to the K3/P3, using
remote login and Skype for audio.  When I know I'm going to be remote (I'm
QRV in San Diego now) I set the web cam to view both the K3 and P3 displays.
I then use Skype video to 'see' the displays and can zoom and pan as needed.
I don't have control access of the monitor (unless I run a macro from the P3
utility) and it requires bandwidth but this simple and clunky lashup
actually works.  If the bandwidth is limited, I remotely login, 'answer' my
call with audio only and keep the HRD bandwidth low.  

So system (and rig/license) security requires that you're on the allowed
list of logins for remote desktop (just me); that you're on my Skype list
(very few) AND have the HRD remote login info (again, just me).  

So far, so good.

Some days, being nerdy and having toys is a good thing.

73,
Rick wa6nhc

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Fuller

I've been interested in remote control of my station for about ten years now
<snipped>


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[Bob W7KWS]

Rick,

Thanks for the input.  I too use a camera but it's mostly to look for smoke.

Bob, W7KWS

[tomb18]

My windows for P3 app will work remotely and allow full control of the P3 as well.

[Bob W7KWS]

Is your P3 for Windows software available and will it operate under WIN 7 x64?

Thanks,

Bob, W7KWS

[VE3GNO Daniel]

Bob,


I am using also Sling from time to time for my parents when they are visiting me in Canada from YO land to watch local programs in Romanian and on my end I am using a Slingcatcher (RX-er), the stream from Europe to here (on Rogers Network) is abt 1.5Mbps, not too bad but delay is around 160msec. 
A good idea is to think  to set-up QoS on your routes on both end (I hope the providers infrastructure are forwarding qos tags also otherwise is a waste of time) to eliminate the possibility of adding additional delay in your remoterig (SIP) voice packets. Now I am experimenting different mikrotik (router) configuration setup adio sip server with highest priority- Voice (same with CW key packets) and rig control as Video priority (one step lower) . Sling is eating lots of bandwidth so gotta be configured with best effort (lowest priority) otherwise lots of additional delay will be added to existing one. 
I am planning to try a remoterig from my overseas shack here in Canada with the beautiful K3/0 solution, but still in experimental phase with routers configuration, mikrotik routers are linux based, very complex and requires deep networking knowledge. There is a long discussion how to configure the beasts, UDP packets, size of the packet, rate control so and so...not an easy task.
Would be nice in the future Elecraft to take one step forward and to integrate remoterig into K3/0 eventually to sell a compete solution including routers already preconfigured for best performance, I  know this will be faar away from their main core business but I see IP integration into hamradio world moving forward faster than we think. On youtube there is a clip with a remoterig over 3G network from mobile, so in the near future this kind of integration won't be considered so exotic. 

VE3GNO/YO3GJC Daniel


________________________________
From: Bob Fuller <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 3:20:00 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] P3, Remote Viewing via the Internet

I've been interested in remote control of my station for about ten years now
and have experimented with just about every method there is between Seattle
& Hawaii.  Now that remote controlling the K3 is easy with the RemoteRig
device and the new Elecraft firmware, I’m headed down that path.  However,
the current state of most devices makes remote viewing of my P3 pan adapter
a challenge and Elecraft has not addressed this as yet.  After experiencing
the value of a P3 for the last year I miss it terribly when I’m at my remote
location.

To date it has been difficult for me to view most waterfall displays
remotely due to the high bandwidth requirements of the ever changing
picture.  I’ve tried remote viewing of many PSK-31 displays with poor
results.  The bottleneck is usually the low upload speed of my consumer
Internet circuits which are cable at one end and DSL at the other.  Their
upload speeds are 1-megabit or less and remote control programs such as
Microsoft's Remote Desktop, PC-Anywhere and VNC just don't compress the
video enough for a satisfying result and it locks things up waiting for each
new frame of video.  However, MPEG4 does a nice job of transmitting my local
news in standard definition NTSC at about 500 kilobits/sec.  So, I’m going
to try that method for my P3.

I haven't tried this yet but I'm gathering the parts for the experiment and
I should know more after I visit my P3 at the remote location and wire
things up.  Unfortunately that won’t be for over a month and this is not of
interest to my adult children who are there to kick most other things when
needed.  If anyone else wants to try this before I do, I’d be very
interested in your results.

I have an old Slingbox Classic that I use to send local, over-the-air
television to Hawaii so that I can watch the local Seattle news from here.
This unit accepts video via an RCA or S-Video connection as well as having
an NTSC tuner.  They don’t offer this older unit any longer but their  newer
offerings include the PRO & PRO-HD models which have either no tuner or, in
the HD version, an NTSC/ATSC/QAM tuner.  SlingMedia.com claims a 400%
improvement in video for these newer offerings over what my classic
produces.

I’ve found an $18 device at Amazon.com (Kanaan PC VGA to TV Composite Video
RGB Converter) which claims that it will convert RGB video to S-Video.
There are other converters listed so be careful that you get one that will
accept video in a resolution that the P3s SVGA card will produce.  I’ve
chosen 1280 x 1024.

This unit should accept the output of the P3’s SVGA card and convert it to
S-Video ready for the Slingbox.  The SlingBox should then send it over the
Internet to my remote location using MPEG4 compression and be ready for
viewing on my PC using the SlingBox player that came with my classic unit.
The main unknown right now is the latency of the video buffer and how that
might impact operating.

This arrangement will not allow me to control the P3 remotely but viewing
the P3 is primary while control is secondary to me for now.

I don’t see why this shouldn’t work but until I can try it I will be looking
for comments on how I might do this using any other method someone might be
willing to share.

Thanks,

Bob, W7KWS



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[Bob W7KWS]

Daniel,

Thanks for the tips.  I have RemoteRigs between my two locations which will be converted from my TS-480 to the K3/0 and K3 combination.  My router is a Dual WAN Peplink Balance 20 since I have both DSL and cable here.  Both ISPs have troubles from time to time and the router tests each circuit every five seconds for Internet and fails over to the alternate ISP if necessary.  The real bottleneck will be at the other end where the P3 will have to work through a 768 kilobit/sec. upload limit.

The router on that end is a Cisco SPA-3102 VOIP router and I'm not likely going to change that or I'll not have off-premise-extension telephone between the two locations.  Since it tags its own voice packets for QOS maybe it can be configured to do the same for other protocols.  I'll check into it.  Maybe the RemoteRig has that capability.  I'll check that as well.

My round trip ping time between the two locations is usually around 110 msec. which has not been a problem to date.  My worry on latency is that I don't currently know what the Slingbox will add to that with its video buffer.  I know it will be some but I really am not sure how to measure that from one end without a real time reference as to when the video was sent.  I guess I'll just have to try it.

Good ideas Daniel.  Thanks!

Bob, W7KWS

[VE3GNO Daniel]

Hi Bob,
 
With only 768 kbps you might have a problem. The sling codecs are not very bandwidth optimized like flash let's say or others, on the other hand Sling have a very bad habit to eat the entire bandwidth. 768kbps is a marginal speed for sling, the image will be OK but you won't see details. On the other hand based on my experience bandwidth fluctuates (kind of  networking QSB :-)) and sling is adjusting codecs accordingly, is very tolerand in bandwidth variations (you start getting an image from 3-400Kbps but low rez) of course the immage quality is adjusted accordingly. Maybe your providers from Hawaii to State of WA are more consistent but in my case the bandwidth from Europe to Canada is constantly qsb-ing from 1000 to 1500kbps. Now to see P3 details over sling you need at least 1Mbps, at 768Kbps the resolution will be marginal, and this is best case scenario. The old Windows XP Sling Players had the possibility to set the resolution manualy so let's
 say you want always low res you could set-up and the eaten bandwidth never crossed but with new player that feature is not anymore available.Other remark the audio channel even if you don;t have any sourse plugged in mono set-up will eat aprox 30-40Kbps (set-up as mono audio source, if is stereo you waste 90Kbps) and audio side cannot be disabled.
I am thinking for myself to use a kind of flash server instead of sling that can be optimzed for low bandwidth, even a webcam will eat less than sling. QoS will not help you, is just a way to prioritize the packets and eventually to do limit the bandwidth but the router must mark the packets comming from a specific application or device. to do QoS If you have only one device like sling is easy to mark all packets based on IP or MAC, but in case of remoterig there are different services comming from that device so needs to be prioritize base on ports or on application level. Remoterig for the moment does not know qos so all must be done in the router, I have no clue abt Peplink but with SPA3102 is a problem, the only packets marked as Voice with highest priority are the one comming from internal sip client (used by voip ports), maybe I am wrong but this is what I remember.
I am also looking for a decent blackbox solution, once I'll got something I'll post here results....let's see. Any suggestions from forum users are welcome.
 
73
VE3GNO Daniel


________________________________
From: Bob W7KWS <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:43:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Fw: P3, Remote Viewing via the Internet

Daniel,

Thanks for the tips.  I have RemoteRigs between my two locations which will
be converted from my TS-480 to the K3/0 and K3 combination.  My router is a
Dual WAN Peplink Balance 20 since I have both DSL and cable here.  Both ISPs
have troubles from time to time and the router tests each circuit every five
seconds for Internet and fails over to the alternate ISP if necessary.  The
real bottleneck will be at the other end where the P3 will have to work
through a 768 kilobit/sec. upload limit.

The router on that end is a Cisco SPA-3102 VOIP router and I'm not likely
going to change that or I'll not have off-premise-extension telephone
between the two locations.  Since it tags its own voice packets for QOS
maybe it can be configured to do the same for other protocols.  I'll check
into it.  Maybe the RemoteRig has that capability.  I'll check that as well.

My round trip ping time between the two locations is usually around 110
msec. which has not been a problem to date.  My worry on latency is that I
don't currently know what the Slingbox will add to that with its video
buffer.  I know it will be some but I really am not sure how to measure that
from one end without a real time reference as to when the video was sent.  I
guess I'll just have to try it.

Good ideas Daniel.  Thanks!

Bob, W7KWS

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[VE3GNO Daniel]

One box that I am thinking is this one.:
http://www.axis.com/files/datasheet/ds_241qs_32377_en_0808_lo.pdf
Is used in video survelance but maybe can be used by us also in ham radio applications. Anyone ever played with it?
Tnx

VE3GNO Daniel


________________________________
From: Bob W7KWS <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:43:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Fw: P3, Remote Viewing via the Internet

Daniel,

Thanks for the tips.  I have RemoteRigs between my two locations which will
be converted from my TS-480 to the K3/0 and K3 combination.  My router is a
Dual WAN Peplink Balance 20 since I have both DSL and cable here.  Both ISPs
have troubles from time to time and the router tests each circuit every five
seconds for Internet and fails over to the alternate ISP if necessary.  The
real bottleneck will be at the other end where the P3 will have to work
through a 768 kilobit/sec. upload limit.

The router on that end is a Cisco SPA-3102 VOIP router and I'm not likely
going to change that or I'll not have off-premise-extension telephone
between the two locations.  Since it tags its own voice packets for QOS
maybe it can be configured to do the same for other protocols.  I'll check
into it.  Maybe the RemoteRig has that capability.  I'll check that as well.

My round trip ping time between the two locations is usually around 110
msec. which has not been a problem to date.  My worry on latency is that I
don't currently know what the Slingbox will add to that with its video
buffer.  I know it will be some but I really am not sure how to measure that
from one end without a real time reference as to when the video was sent.  I
guess I'll just have to try it.

Good ideas Daniel.  Thanks!

Bob, W7KWS

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[Bob W7KWS]

Well, I got the VGA to S-Video converter today from Amazon and hooked everything up.  It does a decent job converting 1280x1024 RGB video to composite and S-Video.  A cable from its RCA output direct to a TV looks pretty good.

Once I introduce the Slingbox, it all falls apart.  One problem is that my slingbox classic set for my maximum upload speed of 768 kilobits/sec really degrades the video just as Daniel predicted it would.  It is still usable but hard to look at.  The main difficulty is that the Slingbox introduces a six-second buffer delay.  This just doesn't work for tuning a radio and watching the results.

Back to the drawing board.  I see that Grandstream makes a fairly inexpensive ($120) video server (GXV3501) aimed at the security market.  Has anyone used one of these who can give input on the buffer delay before I waste the bucks?  One suggestion has been the Axis servers but they are half a kilobuck.  A bit rich for this.

I may bring my K3 & P3 here and continue using the TS-480 for remote.  I really miss the P3.

Thanks,

Bob, W7KWS

[VE3GNO Daniel]

wow half K$ box...waaay too expensive. Maybe a raspberry pi with a capture usb card and a smart linux software will be a decent answer... and can be used on both ends and is waaay cheaper.On the other hand the jpg pr mpeg transport is eating lots of bandwidth, I am thinking to a flash server/player...why not?
 
VE3GNO Daniel

 

________________________________
From: Bob W7KWS <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:43:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] P3, Remote Viewing via the Internet

Well, I got the VGA to S-Video converter today from Amazon and hooked
everything up.  It does a decent job converting 1280x1024 RGB video to
composite and S-Video.  A cable from its RCA output direct to a TV looks
pretty good.

Once I introduce the Slingbox, it all falls apart.  One problem is that my
slingbox classic set for my maximum upload speed of 768 kilobits/sec really
degrades the video just as Daniel predicted it would.  It is still usable
but hard to look at.  The main difficulty is that the Slingbox introduces a
six-second buffer delay.  This just doesn't work for tuning a radio and
watching the results.

Back to the drawing board.  I see that Grandstream makes a fairly
inexpensive ($120) video server (GXV3501) aimed at the security market.  Has
anyone used one of these who can give input on the buffer delay before I
waste the bucks?  One suggestion has been the Axis servers but they are half
a kilobuck.  A bit rich for this.

I may bring my K3 & P3 here and continue using the TS-480 for remote.  I
really miss the P3.

Thanks,

Bob, W7KWS

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[Bob W7KWS]

Since my experiment with my Slingbox didn't work out I looked back through the replys and remembered that Rick was using a camera pointed at the P3 and was viewing it using "remote login and Skype for audio."  

I'm not sure from that description what software was transporting the video but logic says it could just as well be Skype for the video as well as for the audio.  

I hooked up my HD camera and tried this using Skype for the video and it looked pretty good so I've ordered an inexpensive S-Video to USB frame grabber which I hope skype will see as a camera.  I plan to caputre 1280x1024 video, similar to what the P3's SVGA card produces, using the VGA to S-Video converter I mentioned in my initial post.  That will feed the frame grabber and if Skype sees it, I should be in business.  I'll report my results here.

73,

Bob, W7KWS

[Bob W7KWS]

Well, the cheap S-video frame grabber I bought isn't recognized by Skype as a camera.  In device manager it shows up as a "sound, video and game controller.  

I've heard, off-line, from George reporting that he uses an Epiphan frame grabber successfully with Skype but there are a wide range of models and prices ranging from $150 to well over a thousand dollars plus.  George didn't say which model he's using but the least expensive I've seen is the vga2usb on eBay at $150.  Unitil I hear from someone who confirms success with a specific model number in the lower price range I'm going to wait before spending more on experiments that don't work out.

73,

Bob, W7KWS

[Rick WA6NHC]

Web cam + Skype = remote viewing

Sometimes simpler is better.

Rick wa6nhc

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob W7KWS

Well, the cheap S-video frame grabber I bought isn't recognized by Skype as
a camera.  In device manager it shows up as a "sound, video and game
controller.  

I've heard, off-line, from George reporting that he uses an Epiphan frame
grabber successfully with Skype but there are a wide range of models and
prices ranging from $150 to well over a thousand dollars plus.  George
didn't say which model he's using but the least expensive I've seen is the
vga2usb on eBay at $150.  Unitil I hear from someone who confirms success
with a specific model number in the lower price range I'm going to wait
before spending more on experiments that don't work out.

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[George Cortez Jr]

Give me a couple days I just got my p3 back from mother elecraft....  I have the vga2usb model...

George NE2I

On Apr 26, 2012, at 4:29 PM, Rick Bates <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Web cam + Skype = remote viewing
>
> Sometimes simpler is better.
>
> Rick wa6nhc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob W7KWS
>
> Well, the cheap S-video frame grabber I bought isn't recognized by Skype as
> a camera.  In device manager it shows up as a "sound, video and game
> controller.  
>
> I've heard, off-line, from George reporting that he uses an Epiphan frame
> grabber successfully with Skype but there are a wide range of models and
> prices ranging from $150 to well over a thousand dollars plus.  George
> didn't say which model he's using but the least expensive I've seen is the
> vga2usb on eBay at $150.  Unitil I hear from someone who confirms success
> with a specific model number in the lower price range I'm going to wait
> before spending more on experiments that don't work out.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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[tomb18]

The epiphzn does not do a very good job getting the svga from the p3 to the displzy.  Low fps as well s dropped frames.  On the other hand, if you have a PC with a spare PCIex4slot, the Avermedia HD will capture the P3 display flawlessly. It also comes with a tutorial on how to stream his video via flash to a web page.  You can also check out Windows4P3Remote which has a good description of the process.
73's, VA2FSQ, Tom