#zoneminder

Anyone here tonight?

I have a filter that emails events if alarm frames are >= 1...

set to run in the background

yet for the most part I only get emails on 10 minute increments

which lines up with my Event timer

so, is there a way to configure it to run the filter list on alarm, or something like that?

hummm

Zoneminder is quite happy with all the tables in MySQL/Maria being replaced with views :P

which is a nice way of distribution multiple cameras and common config across different machines (load balancing)

multiple databases?

that seems like a lot of overkill

multiple schemas

and the duplicate schemas have views of the main schema's tables

the views allow different cameras to be handed to different machines

elaborate.

:)

so what's the basic idea behind that?

it allows the load of multiple surveillance cameras to be distributed over different machines

it's only useful if you have multiple low-power machines handling surveillance cameras

We are already developing a solution that does that: https://github.com/ZoneMinder/ZoneMinder/pull/1040

cool

well I'll give it a try when it's ready :)

there should be a function where you can view all cameras a certain point in time

I have lots of armhf boards

ah

and they're relatively low power, both in processing abilities but also in absolute power usage

they're sufficiently capable to handle 8 H.264 IP cameras operating at 5 fps in 720p

at a bitrate of 1024kbps

but that's a bit low... so I figured distributing the feeds over three machines would work

CREATE VIEW Monitors AS zm.Monitors WHERE MOD(id, 3) = 0

etc.

but naturally a solution built by the developers would be better :P

you can always contribute. you're welcome to, if you're able :)

I doubt I'd have the skills necessary to contribute

I couldn't even get it to compile

...on armhf

aquarat: that's exactly what my first project is going to be once the mutli-server functionality is merged.... Run zoneminder on multiple Raspberry Pi's, that all talk to each other, without using a traditional, centralized server.

even without central storage?

correct

just store it locally

or in the cloud <- future

cluster file system?

no need

depends how you access it from the web

traditionally commercial products have a software, gateway device that allows video access from the Internet. I have not looked to see if the mutli-server feature does something like that, but we can add it later.

A simple way to implement this would be to enable reverse-proxy on each zoneminder camera, but we can figure that out when we come to that.

i'd opt for a cluster fs like xtreemfs or ceph. that way you can transparently access all media files on all hosts via webserver (either on all or on one dedicated)

The beauty of the multi-server feature is that you will be free to use an entirely "serverless" design, or you could keep a centralized server, or you could do both ....I've certainly not seen every commerical product out there, but I've not seen any other product able to do both.

k. that would be something i can finally be useful for. i can do things like that :)

knnniggett: I use ODROID machines

they're quite a bit beefier than Raspberry Pis

I have a ton of Pis too... but they're used for lower-level tasks like controlling pumps, measuring power usage, etc.

Those would work even better

the main machine I'm using for Zoneminder at present is the ODROID-XU which is an 8-core BIG.little machine with 2GBs of RAM

although only 4 of the cores can be active at any time

I'm using the 15.04 Ubuntu repo zoneminder with a custom compiled ffmpeg binary

Hardkernel makes the XU4 now which allows all 8 cores to run simultaneously :P

substantial saving in power usage... I think my XU uses about 6 watts when processing multiple cameras

that's impressive.

can zm handle PTZ cameras?

Hi Everybody. hope you're well. I'd like to take the opportunity of that conversation to ask you for something. I'd like to run 80 cameras (basically cheap 10-15$ each) on zoneminder for some project. For the moment I plan to use 5 PCI capture cards with 16 channels each. What kind of machine could handle that load ? (Resolution should be min: 640x480 more is better). I really have no idea.

Do you think multiple servers should be used in that case ?

zamba: yes

^0300912: do you get PTZ controls through it as well?

It depends. If you can get the drivers for those capture cards to work in a modern machine then the cpu load won't be anywhere near if you were using ip cameras

zamba: all you need to know is there http://zoneminder.readthedocs.org/en/latest/use...

Titler: Camera Control &mdash; ZoneMinder 1.28.1 documentation

knnniggett: Thanks but I don't have the budget for 80 ip cameras

I wasn't suggestion you us ip cameras

But since you brougt it up, how much are you paying for each analog camera?

? So what did you mean? I speak French. I think I missed something in your explanation

I was comparing the cpu load on machine with capture cards Vs. a machine running IP cameras -> it'll be much lower

knnniggett: I found some for 13 $ on dx.com

The problem with capture cards, however, is getting the drivers to work

I also found a chinese made model on Ebay, but they don't give any information about linux support for the capture cards...

Many capture cards use V4L version 1 drivers, which is no longer maintained in the kernel. I'm not saying you won't be able to get it work, but I have seen others struggle with this.

:'(

So if I can ensure that Capture card is using v4l2, It should be ok, ... assuming I have a machine powerful enough (because load is heavier than with IP cameras)

Am I right resuming that way ?

IP Cameras are the future... and probably also the present

The cpu load would be less. much less.

The capture card does all the work, freeing up the cpu

ah ok, so ip cameras are more load for cpu? I understood wrong

In hindsight, I could have worded that better

Great. That's a ggod news, so multiple machine won't be necessary...

*good

Maybe. It depends if the cards you use will work with five of them all in the same machine.

You said five capture cards, right?

yes with 16 channels each

I suppose I will have to ensure that the motherboard can handle enough voltage for each of the five slots...

I don't know if the driver in the linux kernel supports 5 cards. it might. You'll have to test it and find out.

it's the equivalent of processing a 25MP video stream

that's substantial

Depends on the frame rate

123MP/sec at 5fps

and the resoultion and the compression

most fluid possible (in fact it's not for CCTV)

it looks like a 4K image at 25p is more severe

You aren't going to get fluid motion

lol