VM95 and 2 C4000 cams?

[Cienega32]

As we approach Monsoon-time, I figured I would play with a 2nd C4000Z and VM95. Total frustration!

I can get either cam working inVM95 (_98E/F) but not both at the same time. I can set either cam ID, get a positive test, snap either, run either, etc. but NOT at the same time! VM95 doesn't want to keep the cam IDs with both running. Cams are not running thru a hub, each has their own USB port, plenty of ports available, both cams show up under windows, both are acknowledged in VM95, either will function alone but both will not. It seems to be something with keeping the "CAM ID" squared up but VM95 won't maintain that. IDs have been set one at a time as per VM95 popup screens. Both can be set thru the digital cam options menu but after that, it falls back to the "You have more than one Oly hooked up and blah blah", telling me to set the IDs - again. I also swapped one of the 4000 for my 765 to test the setup - same results.

I see others having a pair running - how did you accomplish that? I know it'll be something simple that I missed but can't seem to recognize.

[jmcmurry]

Maybe try on the their forum http://www.evs123.com/forum/ and perhaps Nick can help you out.

- Jim

[Cienega32]

Well Jim, that would make too much sense! 

... thanks for the link.

[Albuquerque Weather]

Hi

Did you get anywhere with Chris or Nick as to getting your 2 cameras working.?

I tried same thing today 4000 and 765 oly - same prob -
tells me I have more than 1 cam and set id -
not working

Ron

[Cienega32]

Well Ron, as I'm sure you know - Chris is no longer there and Nick sounds too backed up for anything; asking for us users to work things out if we can.


So, I ask the forum once again - anyone have two Oly cams running in VM95 that care to share their technique???

[Albuquerque Weather]

Hi
Saw that - Guess we are on our own.
Untilit gets worked out I have put second camera on 2nd pc.Didnt want to but for now, its there.
One of our RMWN buddies in Windsor CO has 2 cams but I have not seen him on for quite a while.

Would be nice to get it all working.


Ron

[ncpilot]

You're running 2 separate instances of VM95? In different directories?

Does it use the windows built-in webcam driver?

Isn't it true that you can only use one camera with that driver?

I'm running a Canon via USB with Canon software, and have never been able to run a second webcam on the same computer, even with different software...

[Albuquerque Weather]

Hi NC

No - I have 2 Olympus cameras and 2 computers. With 1 cam to each computer with software on each.
When we get the software problem sorted you can have I think 4 cams running on one computer with just the
one program VM95.

[Cienega32]

Ron, have you tried the 2 cams on the 'other' computer w/out any other USB devices running? I'm also wondering if running 1 or both cams thru USB2Serial converters might help.

I made a little progress today. I got it accept both IDs and test OK but that was as far as it went. Lost them in schedule test and/or run, reporting either cam as off-line.

I'm going to have to get a little more "dedicated" with the weather software. After throwing in VirualVP & Cumulus, my demo version of Image Salsa won't run my Logi 9000 Pro - "not enough resources"!


Do me a favor - keep that 102* stuff up there...

[ncpilot]

Have you tried http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php/topic,22730.0.html or http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php/topic,21797.new/topicseen.html#new (work backwards from the last page)...

[Cienega32]

If only Ryan(doo567) could remember how he did it. He responded on the RMWN forums that he did run into some obstacles but finally got it... somehow.

Thanks for those links ncpilot - I had come cross those earlier in the year but couldn't remember on what site and can't find where I bookmarked them.

[Cienega32]

SUCCESS!!!

2 C4000s on one machine!

[Albuquerque Weather]

W2G  - ok whats the secret

[Cienega32]

Double Daniels on the rocks...

Seriously, I have no idea.

What I was doing was putting back in service an old P3 1G Celeron w/ 384meg of ram machine (what a cute little CPU fan!  ) that I used to have in the garage at my old place years ago. The idea was to duplicate your efforts with 2 cams - 2 machines with this machine just to be for another cam view. Long story shorter is the 12 year old 4G hard drive was replaced and a new install of WIN98SE etc, etc. Established my wireless connect to my network and updated 98SE. Then installed the VM95 version 'D'.

 Had a couple of glitches getting one cam to run and then downloaded the USB drive drivers for WIN98 from Olympus. WIN98 recognized the drive and installed. The one cam came right up in VM95 so I figured I'll try two. Clean machine with no purpose yet so I figured I would just play with VM95 w/out concern.

WIN98SE mounted them both cleanly. In VM95, they both IDed right away and a test snap from each surprised me. Shut down VM95, restarted it and they were both there and functioning correctly. Got brave and powered it all down - same thing - both there and working. No tricks to it - they just IDed and ran like we would expect them to. I tried to NOT have them work and failed. They ran under VM95 every time.

The only problem I really had was finding two USB ports that ran both cams. 2 in front and 2 in back and only one in each group would run the cams so I used a powered USB 2.0 4-port hub that has one USB plug for power, one for data type setup. Then both cams were recognized under WIN98 every time thru the hub.

My problem came later when I said "Hmmm, how about THREE cams?"  The 3rd being a C4040Z. That gave me problems to the point of having to reinstall VM95. It would hang when loading. Even then, the 2 C4000s kicked in correctly again.

The C4040 I couldn't get to run under VM95 at all - even by itself. I even tried uninstalling/reinstalling everything associated - VM95/Oly drivers - and still no go. It shows as such when being recognized/installed by WIN98 and in the WIN98 drive table as mounted but VM95 wouldn't see it as a 4040 nor would it ID at all. I don't know if it's the cam itself or the cam under VM95 but the C4040 was a big no-go for me. Later or tomorrow, I'll try a 3rd with my C765 to eliminate the VM95 being a problem with 3 cams but I'm sure it's with my C4040 itself.

Ron, I don't know what you're running on your second box but I wonder if WIN98SE and the Oly-98 drivers combo was the key. They came right up in VM95 and I didn't even have to restart it after IDing each cam. I did them both at the same time and the test-shots w/out restarting the software.

Remember "doo567" saying he had obstacles getting 2 to run? I had none to speak of other than reacquainting myself with WIN98. 

BUT - it is a new day so who knows what I'll find now with that machine. It ran fine the first day I had it out of the box and I ended up with a trashed drive the next so who knows... You would think a 12 year old hard drive would still be OK 

[Cienega32]

I couldn't wait and gave it a shot with the 2 C4000s and the C765. Took a little bit of doing; swapping USB ports, restarts, etc. to accommodate the 3rd cam BUT - success! 3 Oly cams on VM95! It would confuse 2 cams thinking they were one but I think I can write that off to my hardware end of it and the way VM95 senses the USB ports.

Now that I found a 3-way hardware combo that works, I'll try the C4040 again... later. But I'm thinking it's not going to work with that one. The cam doesn't "feel right".

EDIT: Still nothing from the C4040. It's a different cable style that I only have one (aftermarket) of but it does setup as a C4040 under WIN98 so I can't fully rule out the cable.

One thing I did notice (going back to using the C765 after the C4040 failure) is that after changing the cam model and/or ticking the "Present" box, quitting and restarting VM95 will sometimes "confuse" VM95 on 2 of the 3 cams unless I pull the plug on the powered hub and reset it first. Then all 3 three will ID cleanly in VM95. One of the two cams will kick out that "You have more than one Oly..." message screen. Resetting the hub first and then runninng VM95 doesn't see that happen.

[Cienega32]

Ron - I forgot to mention that most of the other little problems I suddenly developed with running VM95 on my XP Pro box were pretty much solved after I noticed the BIOS was providing "Legacy USB device" support. After turning that off, the majority of problems I had with the cam and other USB devices went away.

Another big contributor to those VM95 problems (lock ups and black screens) was after I was playing with the Quickcam 9000 (after changing the BIOS). If I reset the machine, it would clear up until I ran the Quickcam again. Now and then it might black screen but rarely.

Hopefully, I can keep the VM95 (and 3 Olys! ) on this WIN98 box and run the Quickcam on the XP box and not have any problems.

[Cienega32]

I seem to be stuck at three Olys. I picked up another C765 on Ebay ($50!) and can't seem to get it acknowledged at all in VM95 - just like the C4040. The OS accepts it - just not VM95. Oh well, something to play with this weekend.

EDIT: The 2nd 765 needed a few full camera based resets but is now seen in VM95. Why a few, I don't know. The 4040 is still ignored

[Cienega32]

GOT IT! 3 Olys on an XP Pro box!!!     ...AND without the need to reboot either VM95 or the box during schedule (so far).

I was going thru too many hardware/software problems (damn kernel crashes!) on the 98SE for one thing and I wanted to move all my Wx software on to another machine all together so I picked up an off-lease Dell GX620 on EBay. The 98SE box belongs in the garage anyway.

While it was in a "pristine state" - nothing but a fresh install of XP Pro SP2 on it - I figured I would play around with the cam setup. I always thought that the XP box I was first trying this on was stuffed with too many USB registrations and cam drivers for its own good. Seemed to prove true when I could run 3 on the 98SE box.

Anyway - ran into a problem or two at first with the Dell freezing while doing a POST with a cam plugged in. Got around that - booted with 2 cams plugged in but then ran into the same problem when having a cam thru active USB extenders on it. Finally got it to boot clean with 3 cams hooked in - active extenders not used. Now for the VM95 games...

On the 98SE box it was fairly simple to ID all 3 - not so on the Dell. But it seemed to be VM95's logic vs my logic. In fact I'll have to try this on my other XP box just to check myself. Plugging in the cams one at a time, IDing it, restarting and then doing the next would give the same old "More than one Oly.." blah blah that I didn't get on the 98SE box.

IDing the first, restarting VM95 to check it, quitting VM95 when done, unplugging that cam then running VM95 and plugging in the next cam for IDing seems to do it. In other words only ONE cam being plugged in at a time when setting the IDs. All 3 seemed to ID on their own, one at a time so while VM95 was off, the 3 were plugged in and VM95 restarted. BAM! There they be!

One utility that that helped along the way was USBDeview from www.nirsoft.net. Using that, I was able to check USB associations with the cams and allowed me to delete the ones that were not needed. Plugging the same cam into 2 different ports before settling on which seemed to confuse VM95 while IDing the cams later. USBDeview would also show my 2 C4000Zs has being USB registered with both drive letters for each. Deleting the 2 associations and rebooting cleared that up so only one drive letter was associated to each cam.

CAM-1 being moved from USB port 1 to USB port 2 anytime before VM95 could ID it created an obstacle with the USB table showing multiple entries. This was something that I suspected on my XP box that only lets me use one cam.

The first adventure in all this was to get the LAN ported Dell wireless like the 98SE box was. That box had a wireless NIC with an add-on amplified antennae on it and was still a little ala WIN98 goofy on the XP network I run thru my LinkSys N-router. The net result with the Dell is it's now using my old, retired WRT54G wireless router as a wireless bridge using DD-WRT firmware flashed into it. Flawless!

It's been a good couple of days but, as everything else, also some downturns. It seems my one, isolated C4000Z was victimized by the F22-A Raptors popping the MACHs lately. Can't seem to focus cleanly anymore since that last one that everyone in town complained about - it was a heavy sonic boom tho'. And I may have lost another C4000Z that is one of the 3 on the Dell. That one keeps generating "Card Error"s on the cam when under USB control (on any computer). I'll let that one "discharge" (no power/no mem card) for a day or two before I check it again.

Sorry for the long, drawn out post but man oh man am I jazzed about having 3 Olys ID cleanly with VM95 under XP Pro! I might pick up another Dell just to see if I can do it again!!! 

[Strgazr27]

 

I had trouble geeting and keeping One Oly up and running and here you have 3.... You da man.

I do miss the resolution of the Oly but man the 600 is throwing up a KILLER image for a webcam right now. I stopped eysterday and picked up another 600. I sold the MS HD. The new 600 is going to replace the Linksys as my "feeder cam".

Nice Job!!

[Cienega32]

Thanks. Yeah, it's quite the coup for me and solves a lot of logistical problems with cam locations and cable lengths in the future.

I haven't tried a 4th cam on it yet but I think it may work out. At least now I know I'm not "limited" in my Oly views and that is a BIG plus.

[Cienega32]

A small update on the Cams - the one with the card error seems to have found itself after a full power down with no card in it for a day or two. And the other that I thought the Raptors ate has refocused since removing the active extenders from it, killing all USB registrations to it and rebooting.

FWIW - 2 of the cams each run thru 2 16' extenders on top of the cam's USB cable without any problems.

And not 1 problem with VM95 at this point.

[Strgazr27]

Pat,

I'm waiting for them to get back to me on using my G-10 with VM95. They offer the G-10 as part of their "Monster" $3000+ camera systems but was hoping they would release the software for a small fee. The G-10 would make a killer hi-res webcam.

Which extenders are you using? I had trouble with the last 2 I bought off of Ebay.

[Albuquerque Weather]

GDay all

I am still looking and fiddling with the cams and vm95.
I have been given a win98 box so this is next.
I have one issue with vm95 where it hangs and I restart vm95 and it carries on -
Will post error next time it shows.


Ron

[Cienega32]

Pat,

I'm waiting for them to get back to me on using my G-10 with VM95. They offer the G-10 as part of their "Monster" $3000+ camera systems but was hoping they would release the software for a small fee. The G-10 would make a killer hi-res webcam.

Which extenders are you using? I had trouble with the last 2 I bought off of Ebay.

You know, you keep asking me questions like this and I end having to go thru the pile of carelessly thrown about cables in the middle of the spare room and actually coiling them up and neatly putting them somewhere!  It's much more fun trying to figure out which end belongs to which cable 

I can't seem to find any saved box-info on the actives but here is my EBay source for them: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-Active-Extender-Cable-Adapter-16-ft-FREE-SHIP_W0QQitemZ200431684171QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2eaaa8ca4b

I do read of some actives "breaking" now and then so who knows. The main problem I had was each one was being acknowledged by XP as a device. If I had a cam running thru 2 of them I would get 3 of the "Windows ding-dong" device connected announcements. Why it would stop the Dell from booting - don't know. My home-brew box never had a problem with those - other than the one cam losing focus and even that may have been a temp situation.

That EBay source for the active extenders is also my source for the passive extenders: http://cgi.ebay.com/2-PACK-15-FT-USB-2-0-A-A-M-F-EXTENSION-Cables-FREE-SHIP_W0QQitemZ400096091897QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5d2795def9 . I have them on every cam and have no problems running 2 per Oly cam. The webcams are a different story, of course.

I also have a couple of sets of Gigaware CAT5 based extenders but I haven't tried mixing those in yet with any passive x-tenders. My only CAT5 cable long enough to use w/out any other extenders is an old 50' x-over. 

But now that I have this neat little row of coiled up cables  on the floor I might be able to check those out!

[Cienega32]

Which extenders are you using? I had trouble with the last 2 I bought off of Ebay.

Update:

I found an old CAT5 cable and those GigaWare CAT5 based extenders seem to work OK tho' I don't have them on the Dell. They're on the cam that runs on the other box.

I found those on sale at Radio Shack a year ago or so.