Controlling camera remotely via Teamviewer

tomr

My ASI 120mc-s is connected to a Win 10 mini-pc. I would like to control the camera remotely via Teamviewer sessions over wlan. Remote control works fine with Firecapture 2.4 but fails with Sharpcap 2.8 and 2.9. In sharpCap the Camera Control Panel remains grey without any visible controls, if pinned to the main window, even if the camera is connected and opened. Another weird thing is, that the SharpCap Settings Dialog window opens blank without any controls in it (except the Close Window control at the top right Corner :-)). If I use sharpCap locally on this mini-pc without Team Viewer, everything works fine. However, since I would like to use the camera remotely, this doesn't help much. Since you seam to use Teamviewer as a support tool, maybe you have a tip for me how I can get this system working.

tomr

It seems to me that I am the only person, which prefers to observe remotely from within a warm living room. Or should I maybe add some screenshots of the unusable application for the unbeliever so to speak? ZWO ships its products with free third party software and in case something doesn't work, no one feels responsible. Nice business model.

merlin66

Tom,

I sense your frustration....

I use Teamviewer to connect to my observatory.

It's been used with various cameras/ computers etc over the years with no issue.

I've recently acquired an ASI 174MM which I use for solar, so haven't had the opportunity to check it with Teamviewer. I use both FireCapture and SharpCap.

If all the other screens/ controls are showing normally I can only suggest it may be display screen issue within SharpCap - it may be worth raising this with Robin over on the AstroShed forum?

http://www.astronomyshed.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=55

Sam@ZWO

yes, please contact Robin who is the author of SharpCap

tomr

Merlin, it may also be a Teamviewer issue, who knows, since SharpCap executed locally does not show the problem. If the problem shows up in such a special constellation (camera driver, capture software and remote control software) it is a perfect opportunity to delegate the problem to someone else, so I really don't want to spend my time, raising this issue with any of the involved parties. The conclusion I draw from all this, is, that this camera and capture software market still has many quirks and to get a satisfactory solution may not be as easy as suggested in the ads. So I think I'll have a look at some of the other applications first and then make up my decision, if the whole subject is worth any more effort.

Here are some screenshots to demonstrate the problem. Just in case someone else gets the same problem:

merlin66

Tom,

I've just set up Teamviewer 11 between my Win7 machine in the office and the new MSI Win10 laptop in the observatory.

Both FireCapture and SharpCap work for me......

I can only think it must be something to do with your screen settings....

teamviewer_FireCapture.JPG

Teamviewer_SharpCap.JPG

tomr

Merlin, thanks for doing some testing. Since the setup works in your environment, I decided to have a second look at this combination (ZWO, SharpCap, Teamviewer) on my system, too. At first I thought my problems with the application might have something to do with the lower wlan connection rate (the telescope is on my terrace and wlan has to get through the outer walls of my house). But this was not the problem, the connection speed was approx. 200Mbit/s, not bad. I accidentally discovered that the greyed out camera control panel is due to the missing external monitor of my garden observatory. If I plug in my HDMI monitor cable into the mini-pc connected with the camera, then and only then the SharpCap camera control panel gets its content. This is ridiculous. It seems that SharpCap needs an external monitor at startup to run properly. Maybe someone is worried, that the ZWO advertising banner at the lower part of the camera control panel ist not visible without a monitor. These guys are wasting my time. I'm not going to put a dummy monitor in my garden just to satisfy some advertising needs.

rigel

Hi Tom,

The problem is related to the graphics card without a connected monitor.

In my MiniPC BeeLink BT7 I had a similar problem.

The dongle shown in the link solves the problem.

Many greetings Cl.-D.

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fit-headless-4k/

tomr

Hi Rigel,

thanks for the dongle-tip. However, I've allready kicked SharpCap out of my system, because I don't want this adware sniffing around. I'll still have to check though, if I can use Firecapture for deep sky imaging with live stacking and if the auto-align function works with my alt-azimuth CPC800. Are you happy with your BeeLink BT7? I'm using a CSL narrow box 4k, which seems to be a clone of the BeeLink BT3.

Regards

Thomas

rwg

Firstly, please always download SharpCap from the official SharpCap web site at

http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/downloads

If you get your SharpCap install from there then you will have no spyware or other rubbish. Unfortunately other sites wrap up the SharpCap installer in crapware and offer it for download without my permission :(

Secondly, there's nothing sinister about those bits of the UI not appearing over teamviewer, they are just all written in particular Microsoft technology (called WPF) that obviously doesn't like the no-monitor connection via TeamViewer approach. Not something I've been notified of before.

If you want to connect remotely using the current version of SharpCap then I'd suggest using Microsoft Remote Desktop if you can (unfortunately not with the home editions of MS Windows). If you can access it and are on the same network it is far superior to TeamViewer.

If you have to use TeamViewer without a monitor attached, then it might be that this tutorial will help fix the problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiPuu9TIpYE

cheers,

Robin

tomr

To demonstrate that current versions of SharpCap downloaded from the sharpcap website display irritating ads in the camera control panel, I tried to reinstall the software. However, this time my virus-scanner halted execution of the sharpcap installer SharpCapInstall-2.9.2965.0.exe due to „malicious behavior“ and put it in its quarantine area. I don't remember seeing this behavior the last time I installed it on my system, so this is probably due to updated virus definition files. I'm not going to touch this software anymore with a 10 foot pole.

rwg

Well, I guess you can't please some people... :

For reference, every version of SharpCap uploaded is checked by Virus Total which runs 56 different virus scan engines over it. You can see the scan results for the latest version here

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/30c2ef52c13417c753331ae983d036f7cafa2aaf1ca4d6365d3b6aad464f3164/analysis/

The download page also includes the sha1 and md5 hash of the installer so you can check you are getting the version that has been virus checked.

The adverts at the bottom of the controls panel (which hide themselves if you need the space incidentally) are a way to help support those vendors and retailers who have helped with the development of SharpCap by providing - for instance - sample cameras to develop and test with.

Robin

tomr

Indeed, it does not please me, if my virus scanner reports malicious behaviour of the software I am trying to install. What a surprise. Whatever that reported malicious behaviour might be, it does not necessarily have to be a virus.