FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

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turtlepants
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Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:52 pm

FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by turtlepants »

Hi,

I am starting to think libvlc is not supported on FreeBSD. Is that a true assumption?

The reason I ask this is because I am trying to use libvlc for one of my cameras (ffmpeg does not work) and it says it is not found...

Code: Select all

2020-04-06 17:00:41	zmc_m1		101474	FAT	You must have vlc libraries installed to use vlc cameras for monitor 1	zm_monitor.cpp	2313
I have installed vlc using pkg successfully and the only libvlc pkg I can find is fpc-libvlc (also installed). My other cameras that use ffmpeg work fine. Am I missing something?

Zoneminder v1.34.6

Thanks!
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iconnor
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Re: FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by iconnor »

Perhaps we should try to debug why ffmpeg doesn't work. ffmpeg has come a long way from when we added libvlc...

You can always compile libvlc yourself.
turtlepants
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Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:52 pm

Re: FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by turtlepants »

https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Wyze_Cam

That is the camera I am using and I can confirm that I do get artifacts when using ffmpeg. I think it is related to using udp & not being able to buffer the stream. Tcp works for a bit then freezes.

I tried making vlc from ports, but zoneminder still had an issue with it missing. Maybe I missed enabling something?
turtlepants
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:52 pm

Re: FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by turtlepants »

iconnor wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:47 pm Perhaps we should try to debug why ffmpeg doesn't work. ffmpeg has come a long way from when we added libvlc...

You can always compile libvlc yourself.
I was not able to figure out how to compile libvlc, but you were right about ffmpeg. On a previous version of Zoneminder I could only get UDP to work consistently but with artifacts in the video. So I tried all the source methods again and HTTP Tunnel works the best without issue. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

I guess the wiki should be updated with this info for the Wyze camera settings.
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knight-of-ni
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Re: FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by knight-of-ni »

turtlepants wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 12:29 am https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Wyze_Cam

That is the camera I am using and I can confirm that I do get artifacts when using ffmpeg. I think it is related to using udp & not being able to buffer the stream. Tcp works for a bit then freezes.

I tried making vlc from ports, but zoneminder still had an issue with it missing. Maybe I missed enabling something?
After building VLC on your local system, you then need to rebuild zoneminder against VLC... then ZoneMinder will work with VLC.
Visit my blog for ZoneMinder related projects using the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, Odroid, and the ESP8266
All of these can be found at https://zoneminder.blogspot.com/
turtlepants
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:52 pm

Re: FreeBSD vlc libraries not found

Post by turtlepants »

I had no luck doing that and gave up on that idea. I am running zoneminder in a jail of FreeNAS. The plugin was just recently updated and so I updated the jail and now Zoneminder is running v1.34.9.

I ended up setting ZM to use RTSP UDP instead of TCP and tweaked my wifi network quite a bit. It seems to be a bit more stable now. TCP would drop out way too long for continuous recording, so I can deal with the few artifacts occuring when using UDP instead.

--------------

On a side note, I am using Dafang Hacks (https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks) on my Wyze v2 and works pretty well with the right settings. However, the Wyze RTSP firmware does some strange things. Events are set to record for 300 secs and ZM is usually close (+/-3 secs) but viewing the event shows anywhere from 180 to 300 secs when viewing the event, but the timestamp from the camera shows start to finish being the full 300 secs. It is like it loses the connection in between start/finish and ZM doesn't blank it out during that time but shortens the whole recording instead.

ZM is set to use h264 passthrough so maybe that is normal behavior with that? In any case, I plan on changing all my Wyze cameras to use the Dafang firmware but if anyone is interested I can start a new post to help investigate this further.
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