I've read most of the google results on this.  Zoneminder and a couple others.

 

Do any of you use a Linux DVR/NVR system?  Integrate with unRAID? 

 

I've got a 4 channel h.264 card and was running Hikvision IVMS. I'd like to get away from windows.

 

Any suggestions for a Linux system? 

I'm too looking into this, I want to set up a CCTV set up in my household (I'm gone for quite a long time quite often, so, I'd like to be able to monitor it remotely).

 

Does anyone know how I'd record the footage into ~ hour long videos? Then I can use something like:-

find /mnt/user/CCTV/ -mtime +31 -delete

 

To manage it. I've never set up a CCTV setup though, just wondering if anyone has done anything like this. VLC seems to have a CLI for recording streams & transcode them & save to a file, so, I'll be looking into that.

I'm also looking into this. Zoneminder comes up consistently as being the best option for linux. It can watch zones, record on movement only, and even move cameras around. I'm planning on getting an IP cam (wireless) to test it out

 

I'm starting to move away from complex plugins on unRAID, instead moving to a (kind of) simpler VirtualBox setup with an Ubuntu/Debian vm hosting Zoneminder. Zoneminder can be compiled for Slackware, so presume it'll run. A DVR PCI card may require additional modules, which will then require a custom kernel. Keep that in mind..

I'm also looking into this. Zoneminder comes up consistently as being the best option for linux. It can watch zones, record on movement only, and even move cameras around. I'm planning on getting an IP cam (wireless) to test it out

 

I'm starting to move away from complex plugins on unRAID, instead moving to a (kind of) simpler VirtualBox setup with an Ubuntu/Debian vm hosting Zoneminder. Zoneminder can be compiled for Slackware, so presume it'll run. A DVR PCI card may require additional modules, which will then require a custom kernel. Keep that in mind..

 

Funny thing, I was just installing zone-minder to check it out using my laptop's webcam (before investing hundreds in CCTV cameras). I'll probably also use IP cameras if I set it up due to the fact that I want a few cameras outside and it's going to be an issue if I use cables.

I'm also looking into this. Zoneminder comes up consistently as being the best option for linux. It can watch zones, record on movement only, and even move cameras around. I'm planning on getting an IP cam (wireless) to test it out

 

I'm starting to move away from complex plugins on unRAID, instead moving to a (kind of) simpler VirtualBox setup with an Ubuntu/Debian vm hosting Zoneminder. Zoneminder can be compiled for Slackware, so presume it'll run. A DVR PCI card may require additional modules, which will then require a custom kernel. Keep that in mind..

 

Funny thing, I was just installing zone-minder to check it out using my laptop's webcam (before investing hundreds in CCTV cameras). I'll probably also use IP cameras if I set it up due to the fact that I want a few cameras outside and it's going to be an issue if I use cables.

 

That's a good idea actually, it does accept USB camera feeds doesn't it...

I'm also looking into this. Zoneminder comes up consistently as being the best option for linux. It can watch zones, record on movement only, and even move cameras around. I'm planning on getting an IP cam (wireless) to test it out

 

I'm starting to move away from complex plugins on unRAID, instead moving to a (kind of) simpler VirtualBox setup with an Ubuntu/Debian vm hosting Zoneminder. Zoneminder can be compiled for Slackware, so presume it'll run. A DVR PCI card may require additional modules, which will then require a custom kernel. Keep that in mind..

 

Funny thing, I was just installing zone-minder to check it out using my laptop's webcam (before investing hundreds in CCTV cameras). I'll probably also use IP cameras if I set it up due to the fact that I want a few cameras outside and it's going to be an issue if I use cables.

 

That's a good idea actually, it does accept USB camera feeds doesn't it...

 

First of all, sorry for the delay, I had to install a whole bunch of dependencies for it to even launch and I was busy doing that, second of all, I have no idea about the USB camera question, I don't have one, however, it doesn't seem to work for my built in camera (I'll continue trying):-

In fact, I updated the configuration with the output of "Motion" and now:-

 

[0] Motion 3.2.12 Started
[0] ffmpeg LIBAVCODEC_BUILD 3482368 LIBAVFORMAT_BUILD 3478784
[1] Thread 1 started
[1] cap.driver: "uvcvideo"
[1] cap.card: "USB2.0 UVC 1M WebCam"
[1] cap.bus_info: "usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2"
[1] cap.capabilities=0x04000001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Config palette index 8 (YU12) doesn't work.
[1] Supported palettes:
[1] 0: YUYV (YUV 4:2:2 (YUYV))
[1] 1: MJPG (MJPEG)
[1] Selected palette YUYV
[1] Test palette YUYV (352x288)
[1] Using palette YUYV (352x288) bytesperlines 704 sizeimage 202752 colorspace 00000008
[1] found control 0x00980900, "Brightness", range -127,128 
[1] 	"Brightness", default 0, current 0
[1] found control 0x00980901, "Contrast", range 0,30 
[1] 	"Contrast", default 17, current 17
[1] found control 0x00980902, "Saturation", range 0,127 
[1] 	"Saturation", default 31, current 31
[1] found control 0x00980903, "Hue", range -180,180 
[1] 	"Hue", default 1, current 1
[1] found control 0x00980910, "Gamma", range 20,250 
[1] 	"Gamma", default 100, current 100
[1] found control 0x00980913, "Gain", range 0,10 
[1] 	"Gain", default 0, current 0
[1] mmap information:
[1] frames=4
[1] 0 length=202752
[1] 1 length=202752
[1] 2 length=202752
[1] 3 length=202752
[1] Using V4L2
[1] Resizing pre_capture buffer to 1 items
^C[1] Thread exiting
[1] Calling vid_close() from motion_cleanup
[1] Closing video device /dev/video0

Well (sorry for triple post), the frame rate on this thing is terrible, huge motion blur & basically unusable...

 

...although, I have no idea if that's the camera or the software, and, because I've never used this camera before, I'll give the software the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to leave my laptop in the corner of the room tomorrow and check it at the end of the day, see how well Motion Record works.

Well, I've bought a single camera, night vision works well and zoneminder works well on my laptop, just, not on unRAID. I can't seem to install it there.

I bought an IP cam, installed it on an Ubuntu virtual machine via the Virtualbox plugin. That works really well, loving Zoneminder!

I bought an IP cam, installed it on an Ubuntu virtual machine via the Virtualbox plugin. That works really well, loving Zoneminder!

 

Can I ask what kind of resources the Virtual Machine is using? I'm considering doing that too at this point, or, maybe installing unRAID on a full slackware distro (Which apparently zoneminder works on).

 

Also, do you have X/somekindofGUI on your ubuntu machine? Or have you disabled that so it just runs text based?

I bought an IP cam, installed it on an Ubuntu virtual machine via the Virtualbox plugin. That works really well, loving Zoneminder!

 

Can I ask what kind of resources the Virtual Machine is using? I'm considering doing that too at this point, or, maybe installing unRAID on a full slackware distro (Which apparently zoneminder works on).

 

Also, do you have X/somekindofGUI on your ubuntu machine? Or have you disabled that so it just runs text based?

 

Without Zoneminder installed, Ubuntu server only uses 3% of one core and 2-300MB RAM. With ZoneMinder enabled, and processing 25fps from one cam uses 20-25% CPU, and around 500MB RAM.

 

Not running a GUI, but no need for this as it's a waste of resources. Install Ubuntu server in a VM (quite easy to get this running under unRAID using the plugin), configure network, run: apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, apt-get install ZoneMinder.

 

Boom!

I bought an IP cam, installed it on an Ubuntu virtual machine via the Virtualbox plugin. That works really well, loving Zoneminder!

 

Can I ask what kind of resources the Virtual Machine is using? I'm considering doing that too at this point, or, maybe installing unRAID on a full slackware distro (Which apparently zoneminder works on).

 

Also, do you have X/somekindofGUI on your ubuntu machine? Or have you disabled that so it just runs text based?

 

Without Zoneminder installed, Ubuntu server only uses 3% of one core and 2-300MB RAM. With ZoneMinder enabled, and processing 25fps from one cam uses 20-25% CPU, and around 500MB RAM.

 

Not running a GUI, but no need for this as it's a waste of resources. Install Ubuntu server in a VM (quite easy to get this running under unRAID using the plugin), configure network, run: apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, apt-get install ZoneMinder.

 

Boom!

 

Well, I'm doing it, however, my web-UI I was using to install the VirtualBox plugin has stopped responding and apparently the update process is now defunct:-

root     18929  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    06:00   0:00 [rc.virtualbox] <defunct>

 

Woohoo!

 

Anyway, thanks for the statistics, however, I'm hoping to run ~ 3-6 cameras when I get it fully up, all around the house, so, I just hope that it won't use too much CPU, if one camera is using 25% of yours.

Yeah - I'm running a crap low end AMD CPU. If you're running something decent I'd expect that number to drop significantly. Another way to reduce it is to limit each cam to 5-10 fps.

 

I'm looking into a different build of ffmpeg to improve efficiency also.

Yeah - I'm running a crap low end AMD CPU. If you're running something decent I'd expect that number to drop significantly. Another way to reduce it is to limit each cam to 5-10 fps.

 

I'm looking into a different build of ffmpeg to improve efficiency also.

 

Well, I'm installing ubuntu now:-

 

Anyway, if you find anything that does improve efficiency, feel free to post it here, I'll be happy to reduce the resources I know this will soon be sucking up (Just thought I'd note, currently using 80% of my CPU... and I set VB to only use 80% of my CPU).