Program for D-Link DCS-5010L

 D-Link DCS-5010L is a pretty old generation Pan & Tilt WIFI network camera. It is so old, only can be accessed with old IE web browser as it needs ActiveX. For Edge, may work by using IE mode. And almost impossible to use Firefox or Chrome browser. And for some feature and function, would need java installed. And it might not work due to old firmware and interface.

D-Link's Android app even cannot connect to the camera. Give up on that as so frustrate. The TinyCam app can view and control the movement of the camera, but cannot change video resolution, codec type, and motion detection setting.

So come to the idea to use Python script to control and view the camera, more flexibility. Later, may think to make my own Android app for the camera. There is github dlink-dcs-python-lib can be used as lib or reference. This lib has unit test code, but does not have stream video viewer code. Github copilot suggests to use opencv-python for video processing and use requests for handling HTTP requests. Code like below, worked quite well:

import cv2

import requests

import numpy as np

import os

CAM_HOST = os.environ.get('CAM_HOST') or ''

CAM_PORT = os.environ.get('CAM_PORT', 80)

CAM_USER = os.getenv('CAM_USER', 'admin')

CAM_PASS = os.getenv('CAM_PASS', '')

# URL of the video stream

stream_url = f'http://{CAM_HOST}:{CAM_PORT}/video.cgi'

# Start a session

session = requests.Session()

response = session.get(stream_url, stream=True, auth=(CAM_USER, CAM_PASS))

# Check if the connection to the stream is successful

if response.status_code == 200:

    bytes_data = bytes()

    for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024):

        bytes_data += chunk

        a = bytes_data.find(b'\xff\xd8')  # JPEG start

        b = bytes_data.find(b'\xff\xd9')  # JPEG end

        if a != -1 and b != -1:

            jpg = bytes_data[a:b+2]  # Extract the JPEG image

            bytes_data = bytes_data[b+2:]  # Remove the processed bytes

            frame = cv2.imdecode(np.frombuffer(jpg, dtype=np.uint8), cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)

            if frame is not None:

                cv2.imshow('Video Stream', frame)

                if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):  # Exit loop if 'q' is pressed

                    break

    cv2.destroyAllWindows()

else:

    print("Failed to connect to the stream.")

Above code is for viewing Motion Jpeg. To view h.264 stream, can use below code:

import cv2

import os

# URL of the H.264 video stream

CAM_HOST = os.environ.get('CAM_HOST') or ''

CAM_PORT = os.environ.get('CAM_PORT', 80)

CAM_USER = os.getenv('CAM_USER', 'admin')

CAM_PASS = os.getenv('CAM_PASS', '')

# URL of the video stream

stream_url = f'http://{CAM_USER}:{CAM_PASS}@{CAM_HOST}:{CAM_PORT}/video.cgi'

# Create a VideoCapture object

cap = cv2.VideoCapture(stream_url)

# Check if camera opened successfully

if not cap.isOpened():

    print("Error: Could not open video stream.")

else:

    # Read until video is completed

    while cap.isOpened():

        # Capture frame-by-frame

        ret, frame = cap.read()

        if ret:

            # Display the resulting frame

            cv2.imshow('Video Stream', frame)

            # Press Q on keyboard to exit

            if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):

                break

        else:

            break

# When everything done, release the video capture object

cap.release()

# Closes all the frames

cv2.destroyAllWindows()