Camera Recording Setup 1 Frame Idle 7 Frame Alert

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cgrcwoods
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2019 7:59 pm

Camera Recording Setup 1 Frame Idle 7 Frame Alert

Post by cgrcwoods »

Hi, I work for the education districts in my area where we have a number of cameras installed using an obsolete system at the moment. We are hoping to make the switch to Zoneminder but we have found a few hiccups a long the way when it comes to setting up the motion recording.

We would like it so that the cameras are always recording at 1 frame per second, however, when motion is detected this triggers the alert and will record at a higher frame rate of 7. We would also like it so that when the camera is viewed in montage with other cameras that the view frame rate is at 7 for the live video.

It looks like the route for us to achieve this will need the monitor function to be in "mocord" mode as this records all the time and marks motion in the recording. I am hoping that there might be a way to trigger the frame rate to go to 7 when that alert is detected. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure this out.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated it! :D
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snake
Posts: 337
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 2:20 am

Re: Camera Recording Setup 1 Frame Idle 7 Frame Alert

Post by snake »

In order to detect motion off of 1FPS and record 7FPS, you should be able to use two sources under something called Linked Monitors. Search the forums and you will find what you are looking for.

Here's a link with more information on how to configure Linked Monitors properly: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=27912&hilit=linked+monitors

I think you will need cameras that offer multiple streams. For example, Hikvision have 2 (or even 3) streams that can be configured independently (as far as FPS / Resolution). One issue, is that motion on 1 FPS can be a bit rough. But, maybe it works for you. You can't just limit the FPS in Zoneminder for IP Cameras (though you can for USB).

As far as montage is concerned I can think of two ways to solve this.

Option 1) You can create a custom webpage that serves up whatever cameras you like, in whatever order you prefer. See: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Example_Camera_View_HTML
Note that there are some tricks with this setup. Some browsers were limited in ZM < 1.32 to 6 cameras at a time (unless you modified about:config in Firefox). ZM 1.32 (I think and later) have gotten around this issue by using multiple ports for each camera stream. This feature might need to be enabled, and some apache configs adjusted.

Related to the above custom html page, is some use a reload every plugin on the webpages to refresh the page periodically, in case a stream drops out. This was necessary in 1.30. I'm not sure how 1.32 fares. My particular solution is here (but there are many ways to deal with it): https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Dedicated_S ... riodically

Option 2) Simply have extra servers. Have one that does all the recording you need. Then have one that watches the streams (monitor mode). For the stream watcher, you would use only the 7FPS streams, while the other server would do the 1 + 7 FPS recording. That solves the montage issue. I don't mean the multi-server mode (though that is a thing). Multi server is a distinct mode, but you can alternatively just have extra ZM servers. There is no limit to how many ZM servers you can have. This can offer some avenues for customization.

Option 2 is what I would recommend. It can be done.
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