Windows or Linux app for montage

[dougmccrary]

I'm really having a hard time understanding why you are even trying to use edited layouts.
I'm attaching a sample of mine, which uses a default 3 across. Is this the sort of thing you're looking for?

Screenshot from 2023-10-31 17-20-50.png (916.63 KiB) Viewed 23633 times

[iconnor]

If he has cameras with different aspect ratios the layout can go wonky. Improved a lot in 1.37 but can still leave a bit of whitespace.

Still, shouldn't be as bad as he is showing.

[dougmccrary]

Right. I did tweak the capture resolution in some cases to make it line up properly.

[burger]

I run old hardware (late 2000's laptops), and I have also found the ZM web interface unusable (too slow) for live viewing. What works for me is https://wiki.zoneminder.com/External_Li ... of_Cameras a map with buttons that updates what stream is viewable. I'm also a minimalist so a simple webpage like above is faster, less menus to go through.

I have some people that view all the streams at once. For this I use dedicated old core 2 duo pcs and https://wiki.zoneminder.com/External_Li ... eams_(API) If you see the streams flickering, this may be due to resource constraints, and the solution for that is to scale them (the higher res streams) on the ZM side: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/External_Li ... are_(SBCs)
See also: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Dedicated_S ... ra_Monitor if you are interested in this approach.

Personally, I find it better to view one stream at a time via a image map than to use a montage, but just my two cents.

[iconnor]

In the past the ZM web ui would simply request the full res stream and let the browser scale it. Nowadays we try to figure out what the size on screen will be and request that ZM scale it down to that, which actually saves a lot of cpu as well as bandwidth.

I am also working on adding a frame rate limiter option.

At the end of the day though, let's face it: browsers just seem to keep sucking more cpu and ram no matter what. Also cameras keep getting higher res and faster fps and more cpu to decode. I'm not sure it makes sense to continue using 2000 era hardware when a $35 raspberry pi is more powerful.

If what you have is working though, great!. If it aint broke, keep fixing it.

[burger]

I wrote that wrong. When I said ZM was too slow for the old laptop, I meant that it was too many menus to traverse through. Of course I wouldn't try to run montage on a laptop like that. My bad. I think there was a post about making the default page the montage, and the path needed for the config on it, but I found what works for me is a single URL of an imagemap with buttons. No menus to jump through. It's lightweight. It's also modular (separate from trying to put everything on the ZM website). So just for my preference, I think maps are the way to go with camera viewing interfaces (montage being a secondary option for those who view all cameras, and for that I just use a dedicated computer). I don't actually like montage myself, as it's too distracting to see all the cameras at once (when there are 28+ cameras). I set it up for a company I work with, but I could never have that sitting next to my desk. (There are also employees at the company, and I find it unacceptable to watch them when they are working, just for the sake of their privacy. I suppose if the cameras were at a property or home I owned it might be different).

You are right about the RPIs being more powerful. I just have a lot of computers from when I was installing libreboot (which are all older thinkpads). And the increasing resolution of the cameras is a problem. But I think it's going to reach a ceiling around 4K. Even a lot of cameras don't need to be 4K. At some point, a high resolution, is high enough. Does anyone really need 4K on a hallway or a door? There are going to be limits to what is necessary in high res, I think. Hopefully, the CPU or GPU vendors will figure out how to get all those streams to display on computers once it levels out.

Anyways, montage with a dedicated computer, or imagemap with an existing PC is what I find works.

[dougmccrary]

There are going to be limits to what is necessary in high res, I think.

Sure. OTOH, if somebody comes out with a 16K cam, there are those that "hafta havit cuz itz kewl".

[Magic919]

As long as a camera offers a high and low stream, it’s pretty manageable. Ideally you’d want the viewer software to be aware and just montage the low rates and switch when you select an individual camera. The Hikvision software does this pretty well.

There might be some 16MP cameras soon, but 16k is a pipe dream.

[burger]

Remember that higher res also means more HDD storage. Eventually, the increased resolution will not be worth it. Where the trade off will be, we will probably find out in the future. Cameras will also probably become commodity.

At that point, it's just a question of optimizing the software and hardware for whatever cameras and compression everyone agrees on. In that, I'd say something like FOSS silicon via something like skywater might be the answer. Or maybe it will just be a GPU.

[viterneb]

Your solution for managing multiple streams is interesting, especially with the map and buttons setup. I run some older hardware too, so finding efficient ways to handle surveillance feeds is a real challenge. I'll definitely check out the links you provided. I'm curious, have you ever tried using a Windows app for montage? I stumbled upon one that works pretty well with my old laptop. It's not fancy, but it gets the job done, and I found a cheap windows 11 key that made the upgrade worth it. If you're interested, let me know, and I can share more details. Anyway, thanks again for the insight—I'll be exploring the options you shared!

[LBDG]

Hello

I uploaded a php file to github called "zm_streams_0a.php" for those interested. Works great on browser and phone. (There is also a script for object detection but they are both independent of each other.)

https://github.com/lbdc/zm-alarm

I have been using this for viewing my cameras. Gets the camera links directly from the database so only have to provide username and password of zoneminder.

Functionality:
- Display streams
- Resize grid
- Automatically adjust columns based on page width and grid size
- Reorder grid by drag and drop of buttons
- Automatically adjusts for aspect ratio, keeping grid consistent

Screenshot2.jpg (319.1 KiB) Viewed 22777 times

See github readme for details.

This is not production code but is functional.