Transfer pictures wirelessly for a Sony camera without using Playmemories (Sony PM Alternative)
I created this project because I wanted to be able to transfer my pictures to my Linux machines, but Playmemories was not available for Linux. So, I ended up running a mini windows VM within Linux just to run Playmemories. This was a pain and sooo slow. The slowness had very little to do with the VM and more with the way Sony rescans every image/video.
The way Sony transfers pictures is via PTP/IP (Picture Transfer Protocol over Internet Protocol). The moment you enable the 'Send to Computer' option from the Camera it starts braodcasting UPNP UDP packets across the network to multicast address (239.255.255.250:1900). This is also known as Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP). At the same time the camera starts up A PTP/IP server on port 15740. The UPNP packets contain all the connection details. The Playmemories app (or sony-pm-alt.py) see these packets and then turn around an hit the PTP/IP servers and transfer the pictures.
The sony-pm-alt.py pytho script is really only the UPNP listener. The real magic comes from the open source gphoto software: http://www.gphoto.com/. Basically once the PTP/IP mode is enabled ('Send to Computer' option selected), you can run a command like this to download all the pictures/videos:
gphoto2 -P --port ptpip:192.168.1.222 --skip-existing #assuming your camera's IP is 192.168.1.222
This was tested with version 2.5.8.1 using a Sony Alpha ILCE-5000 (version 2.5.8 had an issue for me)
Sony requires some non-standard packets to display the 'Sending...' on the camera. This also goes for the automatic shut down feature when done. Without this you have about 2 minutes to transfer the picture before the camera stops and you have no confirmation that it worked. Also, the camera will remain on so you can't walk away or else your battery will continue to drain. I was hoping there would be one magic packet to turn these options on, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Doing a series of tcpdumps I was able to determine what packets make it work. I started off with over a 100 packets being needed and have finally narrowed it down to 23 packets (update: 4 packets to start and 3 packets to end). I was also hoping I could send these packets directly from python using a different tcp session than gphoto, but no luck. So, I ended up really hacking up the libgphoto code to make this work. The developer of libgphoto was then kind enough to work with me and incorporate changes to make things work without the hacking.
In order to use this method you do still need to initially install Playmemories on a PC/MAC and link the camera to it. The key is to obtain the PTP-GUID. I'm not sure at this point the easiest way to obtain this is it doesn't seem to appear in any config files or settings menus that I can find. I did find a partial match to the GUID used on the USB controller in the windows registry. Basically the last 12 digit on this registry entry matched for me if anyone else want to validate:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_14CD&PID_6D00\5&c1e6cce&0&1
ContainerID = {a4d7a2f7-c5ae-11e4-93ac-080027f5164f}
Otherwise the for-sure method is to run tcpdump/wireshark and watch for the first ptp packet (port 15740). You will see something like this:
00000000 2c 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ,....... ........
00000010 ff ff 08 00 27 f5 16 4f 57 00 49 00 4e 00 37 00 ....'..O W.I.N.7.
00000020 2d 00 56 00 4d 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 -.V.M... ....
Where bytes 9 - 24 are the GUID: 0000000000000000ffff080027f5164f
Wireshark will nicely display this in the info window like so:
Init Command Request GUID: 0000000000000000ffff080027f5164f Name: WIN7-VM
To test things out quickly (without the addtional packet injection hack to get the Sony to gracefully transfer files) you probably will want to just grab the latest gphoto2/libgphoto2. If you are using a Debian/Ubuntu based Linux distro run this:
sudo apt-get install gphoto2 Then to quickly test that your camera will work:
1. Disable playmemories (disable network, block port 15740, turn PC, etc)
2. Turn Camera's 'Send to Computer' option on
3. Run: gphoto2 --port ptpip:192.168.1.222 --summary #Update IP accordingly
Note: First time will probably fail since the GUID will be wrong
4. Update the ~/.gphoto/settings that should now exist and replace with correct GUID
5. Run the gphoto command again <br>
###Here are three methods for downloading libghoto2:
2) The bleeding edge version is located on github: https://github.com/gphoto/libgphoto2/archive/master.zip
3) Or you can do a git clone:
git clone https://github.com/gphoto/libgphoto2.git
(Note you need git installed. E.g. sudo apt-get install git)
4) Or assuming a version >2.5.8 is out you could grab a stable version at sourceforce:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gphoto/files/libgphoto/
###To download ghoto2:
- Stable version at sourceforce:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gphoto/files/gphoto/ - Bleeding edge at github:
https://github.com/gphoto/gphoto2/archive/master.zip - Git clone:
git clone https://github.com/gphoto/gphoto2.git
First you need to make sure you have these pre-reqs:
pkg-config
m4
gettext
autopoint
autoconf
automake
libtool
libpopt-dev
libltdl-dev
For example on Debian/Ubuntu run:
sudo apt-get install pkg-config m4 gettext autopoint autoconf automake libtool libpopt-dev libltdl-dev
On CentOS/Redhat run:
sudo yum install pkgconfig m4 gettext gettext-devel autoconf automake libtool popt-devel libtool-ltdl-devel
Next make sure the source is unzipped for both and then run these commands in each of the source directories:
``` -#this will validate the 'configure' script is ready autoreconf --install --symlink -f -#use a custom prefix so we don't affect other versions installed ./configure --prefix=/usr/local -#does the compiling make -#deploy the code sudo make install
To run then update your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and kick off the command: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib /usr/local/bin/gphoto2 --version
COMPILING IN THE CUSTOMIZATION TO LIBGPHOTO2:
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No customizations are needed at this time. From time to time I might add something in here. One item I want to continue exploring is the 'Sending' message vs. the 'Sending - automatically shutting down when complete' message. <br>
<br>
To test any customizations, rerun :
make sudo make install
TEST! <br>
USING THE PYTHON SCRIPT - sony-pm-alt.py
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This is just a basic python server that will listen for correct UPNP broadcast. What you will need to do is edit it and update the top few line with your correct information (e.g. paths and GUID). Once configured, run it. It shouldn't do much until to you turn on the Sony camera and try to send to PC. Hopefully it works. I also include a simple start script to help auto start it when you PC boots up.