I have an old CCTV DVR with two older analog cameras attached. It was all top of the line security gear 10 years ago when I was active in the field, and it has not aged well. The DVR has a very old and obviously no longer maintained android app, and the desktop software is just the same. I am not even sure if the company still sells standard DVRs anymore. The image quality on the cameras is horrible, somewhere around 480. To top it off my once prized analog security camera died while I was writing this.
Everything is IP and all the recorders are now NVRs these days. I was looking at possible new solutions to upgrading and there are some decent options out there. Theres the Blink XT2 and Arlo Pro cameras, they seem to be the most popular. There are also the super cheap (but indoor only at this time) Wyze cameras. They all have pretty decent apps but they all rely on cloud storage or record to local SD cards. If you want IP cameras without the cloud you are looking at going through a security professional or something you can get from Costco, Home Depot or Amazon etc. Now I can’t afford a new IP camera package at the moment but they seem nice, but with no local storage I decided to see if I could roll my own NVR and IP camera.
Before you go any further you should read this blog article, it has a ton of info on the options you have available to you. He goes in depth about the options, I am going to give you my experience with them, what I ended up sticking with and how I got it setup. I recommend trying out all the options if you are so inclined, it took me about a day or two to bounce between them all and settle on one. I have been writing this article for two weeks now.
I have a home server running on an old slim desktop computer (that someone dumped off on my curb one day). I am running Ubuntu Server 18.04 headless. I have a few programs and services running on it as well as a few terabytes of media that I cannot risk losing. Even losing the OS would be a pain in the ass as my Plex server would have to re-crawl the folders. That takes a long while, an event I would like to avoid if at all possible. So I am always hesitant on installing and trying new things that look like they need a lot of tweaking and trial & error. Enter the Raspberry Pi. This little SBC makes testing things perfect for me (I have still yet to dive into Docker and VMs). If it proves not too problematic then I can toss it on ye ole server.
I started writing this over a weekend, I thought I could turn my experience into a quick write up and oh man did this thing grow. I just want to state up front that I was kinda sideswiped during my process of doing this as a motionEyeOS prerelease came out and the official github has updated a few things which also match what I wrote here now (like they now cover the install on Buster which they did not before). So you may find some redundancies between our pages. Go figure.
My Requirements
- Preferably runs off a Raspberry Pi, or at least a version Linux.
- Low processor/memory requirements
- Decent mobile support
- Can live stream the UI via mobile or desktop
- Motion detection of some sort
- Ability to disable motion activation/recording via script or API (or GPIO buttons!)
- The ability to send alerts (via email preferably)
- Accepts more than one camera (ideally up to 4 or 5)
- Nice multi-camera view
- The ability to take a snapshot and/or record video on an external trigger (like GPIO buttons!)
The Options
The Cameras
I have decided to use a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a Raspberry Pi v2.1 camera module as my homebrew IP camera. The second camera I am using is a Wyze Cam 2. A small and super awesome $20 1080 IP camera. Wyze just released a beta version of firmware to give RTSP features to their cheap $20 v2 cameras. Of course some things may be too good to be true? There are reports floating around the web (mostly Reddit, of course) on the policies of the (Chinese) parent company. It just so happens that there is also 3rd party firmware out there to remove all default features of the camera and make it a pure RTSP IP camera (this kills all phoning-home and app abilities). So if that shit bothers you can can turn the Wyze Cam 2 into a pure RTSP camera (no app features).
Updating the firmware on a Wyze 2.0 camera for RTSP support (maintains app features)
Original Wyze firmware if you want to go back to stock
Xiaomi Dafang Hacks, turn the camera app features off and pure RTSP (I have not tested this)
Raspberry Pi as a IP Camera
If you are using an RPi as an IP camera you have a few options available to you on exactly what software you want to use to get it done with. The options for streaming IP camera footage are:
motionEyeOs as an IP camera
To use motionEyeOS as an IP camera with a Raspberry Pi just connect a RPi camera to the unit and flash the SD with the motionEyeOS software. Once the Pi boots it should have automatically configured itself for the camera (you should see video on the web GUI). Now you could get away with motionEyeOS installed on a Pi with a camera as an all in one IP NVR solution. It may work well for this, I have not tested it this way. I intended to use it to stream the camera footage. A few things I’ve noticed:
- The RPi Zero W takes a long time to boot up, 2-5 minutes to boot and gain WiFi
- The RPi Zero W sometimes locks up and requires a hard reset, often.
- The RPi Zero W sometimes slows down if it doesn’t lock up, requiring a reboot.
- Fast network camera toggle disables most features, it is meant for using the Pi as a camera to stream to another server.
When you have Fast Network Camera enabled, you’ll notice that:
- Your motionEyeOS-based camera can reach a significantly higher frame rate, at a higher resolution.
- You can tweak many CSI camera-specific parameters directly from the UI
- Your browser will eat up less CPU at the same frame rate/resolution (it uses a pure MJPEG stream, rather than triggering every refresh from JavaScript)
On the other hand, this doesn’t come without some disadvantages:
- No more motion detection (on the Pi itself, another motionEye server can still handle motion detection)
- No more motion notifications (on the Pi itself, another motionEye server can still handle motion detection)
- No more pictures or movies (on the Pi itself, another motionEye server can still handle motion detection)
- No more overlaid text (date/time, camera name) (on the Pi itself, another motionEye server can still handle motion detection)
- A significantly higher network bandwidth usage
Most of my time spent testing motionEyeOS on a RPi Zero W was spent rebooting the unit and trying to figure out why it was locking up and freezing constantly. I was not able to get more than a few hours out of it without it needing to be rebooted. I moved on. There are a few options to go through below, they all do the basic same thing. Some just work better than others or use different codecs etc.
VLC (with raspivid)
Video LAN player has been around for a long time, and it has a lot of different uses. In this case we are just interested in streaming a video feed over the network (I have found this to be the best way to stream the IP footage from a PI Zero W).
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raspivid -o - -t 0 -w 1280 -h 720 -fps 20 -b 250000 | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{access=udp,sdp=rtsp://:8554/unicast}' :demux=h264 |
VLC with the v4l2 driver.
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cvlc -vvv v4l2:///dev/video0 --v4l2-width 1280 --v4l2-height 720 --v4l2-chroma h264 --sout '#standard{access=http,mux=ts,dst=0.0.0.0:8554}' :demux=264 |
There are a ton of different flags you can call for many different options. For example I found this on the internet, looks like it transcode the stream – not good for a Pi.
cvlc -vvv v4l2:///dev/video0 --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=800,acodec=none}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554/}'Some basic flags.
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-o - causes the output to be written to stdout -t 0 sets the timeout to disabled -n stops the video being previewed (remove if you want to see the video on the HDMI output?) -w width -h height -fps framerate -b bitrate |
cvlc is the console vlc player
-vvv and its argument specifies where to get the stream from
-sout and its argument specifies where to output it to
We can specify HTTP or RTSP protocol for the stream.
https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/
https://raspberry-projects.com/pi/pi-hardware/raspberry-pi-camera/streaming-video-using-vlc-player
UV4L
https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Video-Streaming/
Installation for ARM devices
Stretch only at this time (08-25-2019)
curl http://www.linux-projects.org/listing/uv4l_repo/lpkey.asc | sudo apt-key add -and add the following line to the file /etc/apt/sources.list:
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list deb http://www.linux-projects.org/listing/uv4l_repo/raspbian/stretch stretch mainFinally, we are ready to update the system and to fetch and install the packages:
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sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install uv4l uv4l-raspicam |
If you want the driver to be loaded at boot, also install this optional package:
sudo apt-get install uv4l-raspicam-extrasAs a convenience, the above package will install a service script for starting, stopping or restarting the driver at any time, for example:
sudo service uv4l_raspicam restart
Test the module
uv4l --driver raspicam --auto-video_nr --width 640 --height 480 --encoding jpegTo manually terminate a running driver, close all the applications accessing the device and kill the corresponding uv4l process:
pkill uv4l
Omxplayer
We can use omxplayer or VLC (cvlc)
For the screen we use omxplayer rtsp://12.34.56.78/live
If we want to simply output to an HDMI source then we can add the -o flag.
-o hdmi outputs the audio to the hdmi port
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omxplayer -o local rtsp://192.168.3.100:8554/live |
V4L2rtspserver
v4l2streamer github page and information
You need to have make and cmake installed.
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sudo apt-get install cmake liblog4cpp5-dev libv4l-dev git clone https://github.com/mpromonet/v4l2rtspserver.git cd v4l2rtspserver/ cmake . make sudo make install |
To use it:
v4l2rtspserver -F15 -H 972 -W1296 -P 8555 /dev/video0
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sudo modprobe bcm2835-v4l2 cvlc v4l2:///dev/video0 --v4l2-width 1920 --v4l2-height 1080 --v4l2-chroma h264 --sout '#standard{access=http,mux=ts,dst=0.0.0.0:12345}' |
I went with VLC player with raspivid and it has been working flawlessly for a few weeks. So lets make it a service and auto run it on boot so it just boots and streams happily away.
Create a service
- Create a file sudo nano /usr/bin/streamrtsp.sh
- Make it executable:
12[crayon-675806012027c586612253 inline="true" ]sudo cp test_service.sh /usr/bin/streamrtsp.shsudo chmod +x /usr/bin/streamrtsp.sh - Create a Unit file to define a systemd service: sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/streamrtsp.service
-
123456789[Unit]Description=Stream an RTSP IP Camera feed.[Service]Type=simpleExecStart=/bin/bash /usr/bin/streamrtsp.sh[Install]WantedBy=multi-user.target
- This defines a simple service. The critical part is the ExecStart directive, which specifies the command that will be run to start the service.
- Copy the unit file to /etc/systemd/system and give it permissions
-
12sudo cp streamrtsp.service /etc/systemd/system/streamrtsp.servicesudo chmod 644 /etc/systemd/system/streamrtsp.service
- Reload systemctl sudo systemctl reload
- Enable and start the new service
12sudo systemctl enable streamrtspsudo start streamrtsp
Realistic expectations
Now before we get all crazy let’s be real for a minute. A Raspberry Pi is not going to replace a standalone commercial NVR, no. I am not looking for stellar performance and I expect to have to manage this project for a while (updating and tweaking etc). I am also not using 4k or anything crazy for my streams. I am simply looking for a low cost upgrade solution to my current ailing CCTV system.
ZoneMinder
After reading Jason Antman’s blog I decided to try ZoneMinder first. It seemed to fit the bill, mostly. But when I went to look at the install requirements I changed my mind. There is no simple (or simpler) install process for ZoneMinder on the Raspberry Pi, or even Debian for that matter as both install processes are pretty much the same. The ZoneMinder website has a guide to walk you through the install process but it is a long one. I did not want to waste my time on an older program I would probably not like (I am a sucker for a nice web GUI). So away with you ZoneMinder!
Kerberos.io
Next up was Kerberos.io. It looks to be the shiniest of the Linux NVR solutions I found so far. But upon re-reading Jason Antman’s blog again before I ran through the install I found Kerberos.io only supports ONE camera. To get more than one camera you need to spawn more than one instance of Kerberos. Fuck that! I mean if you are planning on only having one camera perhaps this is the way to go, but I am not and I want room to grow. But it does look nice. Didn’t even get out of the gate.
Shinobi
After getting nowhere with ZoneMinder and Kerberos.io I set my sights on Shinobi. Shinobi looked to have a great interface and the documentation wasn’t hard to find. Shinobi supports Ubuntu, CentOS, and MacOS which is different than most NVR softwares.
Installing Shinobi is pretty straight forward and easy
sudo bash <(curl -s https://gitlab.com/Shinobi-Systems/Shinobi-Installer/raw/master/shinobi-install.sh)Once finished you can open up http://yourraspberrypiIP:8080 or http://raspberrypi.local in your browser.
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Default Superuser : admin@shinobi.video Default Password : admin |
http://yourraspberrypiIP:8080/super or http://raspberrypi.local/super is the address for the admin side. This allows you to edit and add users.
I could not for the life of me get either of my two IP cameras to work. Shinobi had no problem loading but the cameras would not load no matter what settings I tried. I spent a few hours on it but nothing crazy. I also did not really dive into the issue as I was testing software to see what fit, and having major issues right from the start was a flag for me.
motion
https://motion-project.github.io/
motion is a nice lightweight Linux supported piece of software for streaming and viewing streams of IP cameras. It has tons of features, create and save videos or pictures on motion enabled events, schedule recordings, on the fly capture, view live streams and much more. Only drawback is it has no interface. It is command line driven. All of the configuration and setup are done with config files. Ugh. Not what I was looking for at all, thanks Linux.
motionEye/motionEyeOS
First off they’re the same thing. One pertains to a manual installation and the other the prebuilt image. As far as I know is the support and features are the same, same product as far as I am aware. motionEyeOS has a few more features than motionEye installed on top of something else like Raspbian. But you lose the ability to do anything else with the Pi as the image is rather small (around 50mb) and has a very limited set of packages installed.
There is also an Android version of motionEyeOS, you don’t even need a computer or a Raspberry Pi to run it. An old cellphone will work (and probably better), most phones are faster and have much more ram than a RPi. The caveat with the Android version is that it only supports motionEye cameras no RTSP IP cameras. Major drawback.
My Pick
motionEye/motionEyeOS
I decided to run with motionEye over motionEyeOS, I like the ability of having a full distro behind the Pi. More options are available. But there is nothing wrong with motionEyeOS, it is a great piece of software.
First off, motionEye runs the Pi HOT. You are going to need a cooling solution of some sort. I ran the Pi with motionEye for a few days with no fan and to IP cameras running at 15-20fps and the Pi was sitting at a constant 72C, pretty hot (ambient temp is about 24C). It slows itself down at 80C. With the Noctua fan and the same exact setup the Pi is sitting at a nice 41.3C at idle, and only jumps up to 52.1C when viewing motionEye feeds for long periods of time. Most of the research these days for the Pi show that it is best to use just a straight fan over the CPU. No heatsink needed, and a heatsink alone wont help much with the heat motionEye puts off. They make fan shims and cases for the Pi. I highly recommend a Noctua 40mm fan (NF-A4x10 5v), they are a little pricey as fans go but they are super silent. I have my motionEye Pi running on my computer desk and I don’t notice it. Whatever fan you use make sure it is 5v!
You can keep an eye on your Pi temps with this command
vcgencmd measure_temp
Installing motionEye via prebuilt image
You can view the official installation instructions here motionEyeOS install from the wiki – Raspbian – Ubuntu
Go here and download the most current stable version (or a dev version if you’re brave)
Make sure you download the proper image for the right device/OS. We are using a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for this guide.
Once downloaded you need to flash the image to the SD card for the Pi. Balena Etcher is my preferred choice. You can use whatever method you like. After the image is flashed to the card go ahead and add the usual Raspberry Pi wpa_supplicant.conf file and SSH file so motionEyeOS will connect to our WiFi and allow us SSH access.
Once booted you are now in motionEyeOS! Proceed to change the settings and add cameras.
Installing motionEye on Raspbian Stretch Lite
Follow these steps for Raspbian Stretch Lite if you do not want to use the prebuilt image.
Installing motionEye on Raspbian Buster Lite
It is pretty close to the same install as stretch (and the instructions on the motionEye website). I have noticed one difference, installing motionEye on top of Raspbian did not give me the option to use a network share as camera storage the first time, but it did the second time around. So keep that in mind before going forward.
First, as always – update, then upgrade
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sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade |
Don’t forget to run through raspi-config at least once. Set the local time, language locale, hostname and set the memory split. Give a hefty chunk to the GPU..
Install ffmpeg (this part takes the longest)
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[crayon-67580601202e9340781801 inline="true" ]sudo apt install ffmpeg |
[/crayon]
Install libmicrohttpd12 , libmariadb3 and libpq5 required by motion 4.2.2
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[crayon-6758060120302585533805 inline="true" ]sudo apt install libmariadb3 libmicrohttpd12 libpq5 |
[/crayon]
Install motion v4.2.2 (current as of this posting 09/2019)
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[crayon-6758060120311755166188 inline="true" ]wget https://github.com/Motion-Project/motion/releases/download/release-4.2.2/pi_buster_motion_4.2.2-1_armhf.deb sudo dpkg -i pi_buster_motion_4.2.2-1_armhf.deb |
[/crayon]
Install files required by motionEye
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[crayon-675806012031c562489688 inline="true" ]sudo apt install python-pip python-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libjpeg-dev libz-dev |
[/crayon]
Install some pip dependancies for motionEye
sudo pip install pytz
Install motionEye
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[crayon-675806012032b474525196 inline="true" ]sudo pip install motioneye |
[/crayon] That should also install the dependancies tornado , jinja2 , pillow and pycurl
Prepare the motionEye configuration directory
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[crayon-6758060120349666873642 inline="true" ]sudo mkdir -p /etc/motioneye sudo cp /usr/local/share/motioneye/extra/motioneye.conf.sample /etc/motioneye/motioneye.conf |
[/crayon]
Prepare the motionEye media directory
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[crayon-6758060120353614133067 inline="true" ]sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/motioneye |
[/crayon]
Add an init script and configure it to run the motionEye server on startup
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[crayon-675806012035e851476856 inline="true" ]sudo cp /usr/local/share/motioneye/extra/motioneye.systemd-unit-local /etc/systemd/system/motioneye.service sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable motioneye |
[/crayon] If you are ok with the motionEye defaults or just want to dive right in go ahead and load it up, otherwise go a little bit further and configure motionEye first
sudo systemctl start motioneye
Configure motionEye
And now you have motion and motionEye installed. Time to configure motionEye. We can edit the motioneye.conf file and make any changes to the defaults. Such as the GUI interface port (default is 8765 ), timeouts, restart on error, enable the GUI to edit wifi settings same with the time, enable reboot and shutdown, hostname. https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye/wiki/Configuration-File
You can change the default path here if you already know where you want the files stored
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# default output path for media files (must be writable by motionEye) media_path /var/lib/motioneye |
I changed the default port to 80 as I am not using this Pi for anything other than motionEye
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# the TCP port to listen on - default is 8765 port 80 |
I set this to true, I want this thing to run 24/7 without intervention as much as possible
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# whether to restart the motion daemon when an error occurs while communicating with it - default false motion_restart_on_errors true |
Change the mount point of network shares if you want
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# the directory where the SMB mount points will be created smb_mount_root /media |
I want to be able to edit the WiFi credentials from the GUI so we need to enable this (this is the path for Buster)
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# path to the wpa_supplicant.conf file # (enable this to configure wifi settings from the UI) wpa_supplicant_conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf |
I also want to be able to edit the timezone from the GUI
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# path to the localtime file # (enable this to configure the system time zone from the UI) local_time_file /etc/localtime |
We want to be able to reboot and shutdown the system from the GUI as well
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# enables shutdown and rebooting after changing system settings # (such as wifi settings or time zone) # default is false enable_reboot true |
And then we can change the hostname if we want. It defaults to raspberrypi which you can change from using raspi-config or we can override it here. I would still use raspi-config as I could not get this to take on my install
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# overrides the hostname (useful if motionEye runs behind a reverse proxy) server_name motionEye |
Now we can start (or reload) motionEye
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sudo systemctl start motioneye or sudo systemctl restart motioneye |
In the future, to upgrade to the newest version of motionEye, just issue:
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[crayon-67580601203ba205761544 inline="true" ]sudo pip install motioneye --upgrade sudo systemctl restart motioneye |
[/crayon]
Installing motionEye with Docker
Docker Image
https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneye/wiki/Install-In-Docker
I have not dived into the world of containers yet so I have not tested this out, but it is available.
Adding External storage
There are a few options you have to work with. You could just use a large SD card and store all the video and picture accumulated on there with the OS. But the issues with limited read/writes with SDs make this less than ideal. If you have a NAS or a server with some network shares you can offload the storage there. Or you can use a USB flash drive or hard drive. I have an old 80gb USB hard drive I have laying around so thats what I am using.
With motionEye I had to mount the drive myself. With motionEyeOS the disk was autodetected and mounted at boot. If your device does not auto mount you will need to do it manually. The following information is taken from the Raspberry Pi website.
See here https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/external-storage.md
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[crayon-67580601203c4723206165 inline="true" ]sudo lsblk -o UUID,NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,MODEL |
[/crayon]
Run the following command to get the location of the disk partition:
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[crayon-67580601203ce967598513 inline="true" ]sudo blkid |
[/crayon]
For example (and usually) the drive is /dev/sda1
Create a target folder to be the mount point of the storage device. The mount point name used in this case is storage . You can specify a name of your choice:
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[crayon-67580601203e3025466798 inline="true" ]sudo mkdir /mnt/storage |
[/crayon]
Mount the storage device at the mount point you created:
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[crayon-67580601203ed141773134 inline="true" ]sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/storage |
[/crayon]
Verify that the storage device is mounted successfully by listing the contents:
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[crayon-67580601203f7797558168 inline="true" ]ls /mnt/storage |
[/crayon]
Automatic mounting at boot
You can modify the fstab file to define the location where the storage device will be automatically mounted when the Raspberry Pi starts up. In the fstab file, the disk partition is identified by the universally unique identifier (UUID) or you can specify the location like /dev/sda1 .
Get the UUID of the disk partition:
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[crayon-6758060120410656455609 inline="true" ]sudo blkid |
[/crayon] Find the disk partition from the list and note the UUID. For example, 5C24-1453 .
Open the fstab file using a command line editor such as nano
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[crayon-6758060120424326886675 inline="true" ]sudo nano /etc/fstab |
[/crayon]
Add the following line in the fstab file:
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[crayon-6758060120433245806569 inline="true" ]UUID=5C24-1453 /mnt/storage FSTYPE defaults,auto,rw,users 0 0 |
[/crayon] Replace FSTYPE with the type of your file system, which you found above using the blkid command.
If you need to remove the device, unmount it first.
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[crayon-6758060120456849828209 inline="true" ]sudo umount /mnt/storage |
[/crayon]
Add an RTC to motionEye
I was unable to edit the appropriate files and add an RTC with motionEyeOS, they didn’t exist.
Using a DS1307 RTC
Log in remotely via SSH/putty and create/edit the file /data/etc/modules
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sudo[crayon-6758060120465192985246 inline="true" ]nano /data/etc/modules |
[/crayon] Add the following line, save and exit the editor
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[crayon-675806012046f910244931 inline="true" ]rtc-ds1307 |
[/crayon] Create/edit the file /data/etc/userinit.sh
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[crayon-675806012047f992897857 inline="true" ]sudo nano /data/etc/userinit.sh |
[/crayon] Add the following lines, save and exit the editor
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[crayon-6758060120489441434481 inline="true" ]echo ds1307 0x68 > /sys/class/i2c-adapter/i2c-1/new_device sleep 5 hwclock -s |
[/crayon] Reboot
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[crayon-6758060120493555092662 inline="true" ]sudo reboot |
[/crayon] Now test with sudo hwclock -r
If done correctly it should spit out the date and time, if the date and time is off you can try adjusting it via the web GUI. Set the local timezone again and reboot, then test again. you should be good to go.
Using a DS3231 RTC
There are only two edits that need to be done to get the DS3231 working, put the below line into the /boot/config.txt dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,ds3231
Edit /lib/udev/hwclock-set file and “comment out” the following lines a few lines
sudo nano /lib/udev/hwclock-set
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if [ -e /run/systemd/system ] ; then exit 0 fi so they become: #if [ -e /run/systemd/system ] ; then # exit 0 #fi |
If done correctly it should spit out the date and time, if the date and time is off you can try adjusting it via the web GUI. Set the local timezone again and reboot, then test again. you should be good to go.
A few extra RTC commands
Read time directly from RTC module
hwclock -rUpdate RTC module time from system time (system time should be regularly updated by NTP from the internet if your Pi is networked)
hwclock -wUpdate system time from the RTC module (this should happen on startup)
hwclock -s
Using an Raspberry Pi Zero and 3.5″ LCD to view streams
In short, not so hot an idea. I wanted to entertain the idea of using the dust collecting waveshare 3.5″ LCD screen I have for the Pi. I have had it for a few years and never found a decent use for it. So i figured I could use it and a Zero as a dedicated screen to view a camera stream.
There are basically two choices that I found. Omxplayer and VLC.
Create a Pi with a 3.5″ waveshare LCD screen
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git clone https://github.com/waveshare/LCD-show.git cd LCD-show sudo ./LCD35-show |
Reboot your Raspberry Pi and make sure you get video on your LCD.
Once the Pi reboots login over SSH or with a keyboard/mouse and now all you need to do is launch the viewer to see the feed on the screen.
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omxplayer rtsp://10.0.0.150:8554/unicast or cvlc rtsp://10.0.0.150:8554/unicast |
It worked, but horribly. The framerate on the waveshare is so low the LCD is unusable for pretty much any IP camera viewing, this was on a RPi Zero W with the 3.5″ screen.
For future to-do
I have come across a few ways to trigger an event with motionEye. So it is possible to have an external trigger activate motion detection, or other alarms (GPIOs even). I’ll write more on that later when I get to those needs.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=220385
Monochrome/black & white
You may also notice that monochrome images from cameras give a far superior picture. The Wyze cam I have will do monochrome in low light and I get more detail with that picture than I do with the color image. On that camera I can force it, I have not found a good way to do this with a Raspi-camera.
raspivid -o - -t 0 -w 1280 -h 720 -fps 20 -b 250000 -cfx 128:128 | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{access=udp,sdp=rtsp://:8554/unicast}' :demux=h264But it does not give you real cctv monochrome. You don’t gain anything by switching to BW on a Pi like yo u do on real security cameras. Usually the resolution of the image increases – you gain more details with the absence of color.
Ii could not find anything related to true black and white camera for the Pi, or a way to remove the color filter. I don’t think it’s possible.
Some links I found helpful
CCTV RPi system with storage (RPI with a USB HDD and RPI Zeros as IP cams)
Pi3 RTSP Stream Viewer for 4 cameras?
Linus Tech Tips on motionEyeOS (Youtube video)
how to display cctv camersas in the dashboard
How to stream on a raspberry pi – stack exchange
youtube video on Node-Red as an NVR with IP cameras
Here is the Node-Red flow to go along with the Youtube video
script to display RTSP IP camera feeds on the Raspberries HDMI
Interesting script for displaying multiple RTSP feeds on a monitor/TV via HDMI
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 |
#!/bin/bash # First row screen -dmS camera1 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "0 0 800 400" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0; exec bash' screen -dmS camera2 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "800 0 1600 400" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=2&subtype=0; exec bash' # Second row screen -dmS camera3 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "0 400 800 800" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=3&subtype=0; exec bash' screen -dmS camera4 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "800 400 1600 800" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=4&subtype=0; exec bash' # Third row screen -dmS camera3 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "0 800 800 1200" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=5&subtype=0; exec bash' screen -dmS camera4 sh -c 'omxplayer --win "800 800 1600 1200" rtsp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@172.16.2.110:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=6&subtype=0; exec bash' |
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wyze is an american company with no chinese parent company