Raymarine IP camera converter?

[DDW]

Has anyone used the Axis M7011 analog to IP converter to get an analog camera to display on a Raymarine MFD (like Axiom)? Raymarine suggests that it might work with no guarantee. I have an existing analog camera that would be very difficult to change to IP, just changed out the MFDs to new versions which do not support analog video. Would like to still use the camera.

Or other solution?

 

[DDW]

I see elsewhere on the old Raymarine Support forum that they claim it will work. So I guess I will burn the $200 and try.

 

[Comodave]

Let us know what works. I just bought a couple of Axiom displays but haven’t installed them yet.

 

[DDW]

Well one quirk I found was that the Axiom Pro displays still have analog video in, and convert this to IP for rebroadcast on the Ethernet. The Axiom XL displays also have analog video in, Raymarine is silent on the subject but it turns out they DON'T convert or rebroadcast the video. There are some specific requirements for the IP video in order to be recognized, and the Axis M70xx seems to be what Raymarine is pointing people towards. Minimum cost is about $200, you can find older Axis gear on eBay for $20 but it does not appear to support the needed protocols.

 

[wkearney99]

If you think IP cameras on Raymarine are vague, Furuno is equally opaque about other IP camera options. The Axis gateways though, are typically the ones most support. Analog in, IP out. Some gateways have support for more streams at higher resolutions, so it's good to dig into the specs to understand the differences.

 

[DDW]

I have found only one that is less than a small fortune, the Axis m7011. There are a couple of others out there for less, but do not appear to support everything Raymarine needs. If you get into servers that will deal with 4 cameras, then the options open up a little (and the price increases substantially). One that comes up first on an Amazon search for example at $90 looks Ok until you see it has a fixed IP address, Raymarine requires DHCP.

 

[wkearney99]

With axis they'll all do dhcp or you can set the ip to the one needed by the plotters.

 

[DDW]

Raymarine spec says DHCP only.

Update to this is I received the Axis m7011. The specs do not mention what voltage it requires, only that it is POE type1/class1. It turns out to require 48V. Will not run on 12 or 24. There are 12V -> 48V POE boost converters, about $40 is the cheapest I've found that I would actually buy. So that needs to get added to the cost unless you happen to have 48V handy on your boat. I'v got one on order, so haven't been able to try it on the Raymarine yet.

It is almost certain that there is a 48 -> 5V power supply inside the device, too bad their design team was too lame to make the input wider range in a $200 device. I guess the market they are in doesn't require it.

 

[wkearney99]

Raymarine spec says DHCP only.

Update to this is I received the Axis m7011. The specs do not mention what voltage it requires, only that it is POE type1/class1. It turns out to require 48V. Will not run on 12 or 24. There are 12V -> 48V POE boost converters, about $40 is the cheapest I've found that I would actually buy. So that needs to get added to the cost unless you happen to have 48V handy on your boat. I'v got one on order, so haven't been able to try it on the Raymarine yet.

It is almost certain that there is a 48 -> 5V power supply inside the device, too bad their design team was too lame to make the input wider range in a $200 device. I guess the market they are in doesn't require it.

The markets they target may expect that unit to be at a distance and using 48v has advantages for dealing with voltage drop. So their design team probably keeps wider considerations in mind when making devices.

I've had good results using Tycon PoE power injectors in a few situations. This 12-48 one from Tycon looks an awful lot like the same thing from Raymarine (R32141), but without the added "marine" markup and Raymarine sticker on the case. https://www.tyconsystems.com/tp-dcdc-1248g I have one powering a unifi WiFi access point on our EB47.

As for DHCP, well, for networking there's nothing requiring a device to ask for a DHCP lease to operate on a subnet. It can get fancier, where the device hosting the DHCP service shares that info with other services, like DNS or zeroconf. Most chart plotters I've seen expect the cameras to always be on specific IP addresses, and will hand them that via DHCP if they're not on there already.

The bigger issue is most chart plotters (including Raymarine) don't allow for setting passwords on the cameras. You're forced to use them without login credentials. Anything that can get onto your network can thus see/control/change the cameras. Not an ideal situation and basically driven only because they're too lazy to put the camera login setup in the plotter UI.

 

[DDW]

Update on this. I did buy the Tyco which does work to power the Axis from 12V.

Some Raymarine chartplotters (including the Axiom 16 XL) have POE ethernet ports. The documentation is vague, suggesting that it may only produce the input voltage (24V in my case). However it turns out that it has a DC boost converter and produces 50V, sufficient to power the Axis m7011 directly. I discovered this when connecting everything on the boat.

The only problem is that the Axis m7011 is no longer compatible with a Raymarine MFD. There is a technical note about using it for just that, there is a hidden footnote that must be clicked in that note which says in 2015 Axis introduced a firmware upgrade and it no longer works "plug and play" unless downgraded to a version of software that is no longer available on the Axis site. There is no description on what might be incompatible or how one might set it up. Getting into the Axis setup, it looks as though there is no way to disable the ONVIF authentication, required by Raymarine. So I think I am screwed on this - have a support request into Raymarine but I'm not hopefull.

 

[wkearney99]

Check web.archive.org for old web pages, they often have back-dated stuff still online.

It's on Raymarine for not stepping up to using authentication. For stuff like cameras it's just flat-out lazy on their part to not do basic security. That doesn't help the immediate problem though.

A bit of digging should probably let you find the old firmware to downgrade the M7011.

 

[DDW]

Axis requires registration and login to download firmware, and did back in 2016 as well. So the web archive is no help. I've tried poking around but haven't found the file yet. It appears it would have to be v5.8 or v5.9. Current is 6.5

Axis support said to try setting "no authentication" for viewers, but I suspect Raymarine is getting in and setting up some of the ONVIF parameters on boot. That isn't allowed anymore.

A bit hard to debug on the boat since Raymarine has zero tools for ethernet. I won't even know the address the device has been given.

 

[wkearney99]

Ah, that would be a problem. I checked my files and the only old Axis firmware I've got is for a 7014, so that probably wouldn't help. I never had an M7011 so I probably wouldn't have grabbed firmware for it.

Have you asked on any IP camera forums if anyone's got the old firmware?

I'm assuming you've already seen this panbo thread?
https://panbo.com/broad-ip-camera-support-a-raymarine-advantage/

 

[DDW]

I think the older 7014 didn't support a few other things Raymarine requires (ONVIF and h264 among them). The Panbo thread talks mainly about IP cameras. That would be too easy. To replace the analog camera on this boat would require a few thousand in labor (de-rig, hire crane to remove mast, remove mast conduit, build new camera mount, run cat5 down mast and through boat, hire crane again, etc.). So I'm trying to stick with it.

Response from Raymarine is that Axis software update in 2020 killed their (and Garmin's) use of it. However they added a useful bit of info: the Axiom XL I have will encode and forward its analog camera input via IP - but only on Analog 1 input, which requires a special cable that does not come with the unit. I'd tried Analog 2 (cable comes with unit), turns out it will not forward that one. Would be nice if some of this might have been mentioned in the documentation. So I will buy the $30 cable and if that works, return the $250 in IP encoder equipment.

 

[wkearney99]

An added point about the thread was other people might have info/insight on getting the old firmware for it. Somebody out there no doubt still has the old firmware, couldn't hurt to post a request or two in other places to see about finding it.

 

[DDW]

To finish off, no setting suggestion for the Axis worked. But using the special cable required and Analog 1 input on the Axiom XL, it does encode and forward the video on the network, viewable from the other Axiom 12". Might have saved me some trouble if they had documented this in the literature, but Raymarine Support did provide the needed info when asked.

Bottom line is that you can no longer use an Axis encoder in a Raymarine system. Basically they expect the network to be isolated and trusted so there is no security, and an expectation that no device will require it.

Another moderately interesting thing discovered, you can access a browser on a LHIII chartplotter, indirectly: run the Netflix app and get into it's browser via the help facility. That seems to require a network connection good enough to log into Netflix though. Since the Axioms are running Andriod, you can probably install a real browser, but it is not supported by Raymarine.