Panasonic 5-pin Control-M remote??

[Norleif Slettebø]

I have this el-cheapo Panasonic NV-DS28 cam that really sucks, but that's a different story.
I've been trying to gather some information on that mysterious 5-pin DIN connector on that camera, and have found some details about it.
The protocol used, I think, is called Control-M, but the information I have found is only for VCR control.
Lots of cool stuff there... But it never mentions any camcorder spesific functions.
I was wondering if this port could be used for remote control of zoom and/or focus or any other camera related operations?

I'm considering building a crane for this and also future cameras and would like to have some control at the operation end of the crane whitout having to hack into the camera itself to get to the zoom and focus controls.
If all else fails, that is still a last resort (as I have 2 identical cams), but I would really like to avoid that.
Using a IR remote repeater could be a solution too, but I don't have the remote...

I know a thing or 2 about AVR microcontrollers, and I'm confident I could make a device that would talk to the camcorder based on the information I have already found, but it would only be VCR related commands.