Comments

Thursday 01, January 01:33

Cameras Update

Still plodding on...

Am making good, if slow, progress. Am now able to exchange HTTP headers with VideoLAN and recieve the stream. If you are going to be debugging HTTP headers then take my advice and avoid HTTPSpy. It only modifies the flippin GET line! That one had me stumped for a while until I tried HTTP Sniffer instead, which gave me the TRUE headers. Bah!

Also have the shared memory segment up and running after a few teething problems with permissions.

Lastly I now have a proper architecture designed for managing connections and giving proper feedback (rather than the cams just "not working"). I am finally happy that I have a robust and clean sequence for connection, so all good :-)

As for timescales, hmm. Never ask a coder for timescales. ;-) Seriously, it all depends on how much free time I get to work on it. I would say all the major technical hurdles are out of the way, so now it is just a case of blatting out the rest of the code. {sticks finger in air}, mebbe another week? (famous last words)

Jitz      2007-02-28 22:24:30

I just did a quick scan of your page, I may be off base...but You have done a lot of work, but seems like zoneminder would provide what you are looking for??? http://www.zoneminder.com/

Jeremy      2007-02-28 23:14:35

Many thanks for the suggestion. I actually was planning to use ZoneMinder for its motion detection stuff for overnight logging. As a streaming solution it unfortunately uses MJPEG streams which I have already looked into. I rejected them due to lack of IE support, and the large bandwidth overhead, but thanks again for the suggestion.

Jitz      2007-03-01 20:25:32

Hi: I am fairly new to zoneminder as well, but seems Ok so far. I came across your page as I was looking for info on setting mpeg bitrates over the net for zoneminder... I am still figuring this all out but I do know this... zoneminder will support mpeg and flash if you install/build the ffmpeg libraries. I used this FAQ to get things going on fedora.. --http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Fedora_Core_6_Step-by-Step --the ffmpeg library seems to be in constant flux, so it may take a couple of tries to get one that builds with zoneminder. --for mjpeg streams with IE and zoneminder...you can get a java stream client that works I used this FAQ to get things going on fedora..( it's actually for ubuntu though ) --http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_6.06_-_Alternate //sudo apt-get install ant // I didn't do this?? sudo wget http://www.charliemouse.com/code/cambozola/cambozola-latest.tar.gz sudo tar xvfz cambozola-latest.tar.gz sudo cp /usr/local/src/cambozola-0.68/dist/cambozola.jar /var/www/html/zm sudo chmod 775 /var/www/zm/html/cambozola.jar At this point, you need to enable the option ZM_OPT_CAMBOZOLA in ZoneMinder. That's about as much as I know for now. Hope this helps you. regards Jitz

Jeremy      2007-03-01 21:28:56

Ah, that's interesting about mpeg support. I didn't know that, thanks Jitz. However, my real problem isn't generating the stream, but displaying it in people's browsers. I've just had a quick squint over at the zoneminder forums and cannot see anything about displaying MPEG streams in a browser - it is all MJPEG which is just out of the question I'm afraid. I'm having to fit 3 cameras streams up 256Mb/s and with MJPEG the quality is a no go (see my experiements further down the news page :-/ ). I appreciate your useful info though, thanks!

Jitz      2007-03-01 22:12:27

Hi: Yes, it can send mpeg streams to the browser. I am doing that. You can set this option to send either mjpeg and/or mpeg to the browser ZM_STREAM_METHOD. zoneminder will send the appropriate stream over the net. Mpeg or Mjpegs And that is where I start to run into my own issues with zoneminder. -basically using adsl 1.5Mbps down/ 500 K up. Now, you are entering my domain of the problem. How to set-up the streaming bitrate to get decent video and good QoS over the net. ZM_WEB_*_VIDEO_BITRATE ZM_WEB_*_VIDEO_MAXFPS I can get decent performance with Mjpeg updating screen about 1 time per second. Then I try to enable mpeg streaming from zoneminder ( asf, or swf ) -The browser can pick up the video for one cam no problem, but when I enter into trying to do montage, I don't get "reliable" feeds. Actually I think I need to post this on the Zoneminder site, which is what I will do next.

Jeremy      2007-03-01 22:32:34

Ah cool! Thanks a million. I will head over the Zoneminder site and have a proper look when I get a chance. Do you happen to know how they are displaying the MPEG stream? Is it a Java applett like the MPJEG? It would solve a good chunk of my problems if they have a ready made Java applett. BTW, If you're looking at stream formats and speeds, I put up a couple of example clips here: http://www.thebunnyshed.co.uk/NewsComments.php?item=11 They are encoded using VideoLAN, but I seem to remember that that uses ffmpeg under the hood too. Thanks again!

jitz      2007-03-01 23:33:51

Hi: hope this answers your question. test. Having a problem posting

jitz      2007-03-01 23:39:10

Zoneminder is sending the stream using ffmpeg as best I can tell. I can't say that I am getting the performance overall that I desire, but I expect that it due to my lack of knowledge with decent settings. IE and Firefox on Linux install flash 9 plugin for swf not sure what they use for asf ( but I didn't have to do anything special ) To view it on linux using Firefox I had to add a plugin to mplayer mplayer from freshrpm and mplayerplug-in.i386 from livna