Do you need to control Panasonic commands via TCP? Perhaps you want to send commands from a programmable button panel or AV controller. The commands are quite simple, and common across many models. This article explains the commands.

The particular Projectors I had to control were Panasonic VW440 WXGA, but from what I can see online, these commands are implemented very broadly across the Panasonic range.

Panasonic has two control protocols:

• Protocol 1 (used by Panasonic TVs, and some Projectors)
• Protocol 2 (used mainly by Panasonic Projectors – this is the protocol I explain here)

Before you can start, make sure you enable Network control via the projector’s menu. Also, make sure you can connect to the projector in a web browser.

In the web browser, to simplify the protocol, you may want to set the admin password to be blank. If you set it to anything (even the default), you need to encode your TCP commands in a special format.

Protocol 2 is available on TCP Port 1024. You can use a terminal program, such a PuTTY in Telnet mode, to connect.

When you first connect, you’ll see the following string:

NTCONTROL 0\r

This string shows you are in ‘Mode 0’ (non-password protected mode).

If you see this data returned when you connect, it means you are in password protected mode:

NTCONTROL 1 zzzzzzzz\r

Sending Commands

In non-password protected mode, here is how you send commands:

00[COMMAND]\r

Power on command: 00PON\r

Power off command: 00POF\n

Switch to HDMI1 Input: 00IIS:HD1\n

Here is the table showing a bunch of basic commands:

Error Codes

ERR1 Undefined control command
ERR2 Parameter out of range
ERR3 Busy state or unavailable period
ERR3 Time out or unavailable period
ERR5 Invalid data length
ER401 Error occurred on processing command