ZoneMinder Forums

Hi this is my first posting here is the scenario.
server is pentium i3 with 4 gig ram running UBUNTU server 12.04 lts 64 bit
Cameras are a mix of ACTi and Axis (6 Acti tcm1231 6 Acti tcm3111 and 6 axis m1114 cameras) frame rate is set to 5 on all. 2 cameras are yet to be installed but monitors are created for numbering purposes. The system will allow any 12 monitors to be active at once but will never show video for the 13th monitor. I've used much smaller machines on 4 camera systems with no problem. is this a memory issue machine is just recording and indexing nothing else. any ideas?
thank you in advance

Update:
Top shows CPU load steady at about 40% so I'm leaning towards memory. Anybody have any ideas?

Are you viewing the monitors in montage mode or individual? If in montage and you are using FireFox you will have to change some settings in FF in order to see all the cameras at once.

I'm viewing in single mode. Using chrome or IE doesn't matter. upgraded to 8 gig memory today seemed to help. I also slowed down frame rate to 5 on all cameras and set resolution to 640x480 on all cameras today. got processor loading down to under 10% and added memory smoothed out live video a lot. I am now tweeking recording parameters (now that I have processor availability resolved) to eat up less drive space. Still having sporadic camera issues, Black Screen, etc....

You mentioned that the 13th doesn't "show", but does it record? Can you review events from it? It could be that your client machine just isn't able to view that many monitors at the same time, even though your server can process them.

If you're using all IP cameras, you can always create a separate viewing server where you just view the cameras. Most current IP cams should be able to handle 1-10 connections at the same time with only 640x480. The FPS is also important. My core i7 desktop with 16GB crashes with any browser if I try to view 10 or more cameras above 20fps.

If your cams are using mjpeg that a lot of RAM work on the browser. Using the RTSP feed for viewing the cams and the mjpeg for recording is always another option. That is what I do. A separate portal site that just allows viewing the RTSP feeds.

kuehnem wrote:You mentioned that the 13th doesn't "show", but does it record? Can you review events from it? It could be that your client machine just isn't able to view that many monitors at the same time, even though your server can process them.

If you're using all IP cameras, you can always create a separate viewing server where you just view the cameras. Most current IP cams should be able to handle 1-10 connections at the same time with only 640x480. The FPS is also important. My core i7 desktop with 16GB crashes with any browser if I try to view 10 or more cameras above 20fps.

If your cams are using mjpeg that a lot of RAM work on the browser. Using the RTSP feed for viewing the cams and the mjpeg for recording is always another option. That is what I do. A separate portal site that just allows viewing the RTSP feeds.

I am intrigued by your setup/suggestion. I also have cameras that go black every so often and it we run 16 cameras, though, not all are active on a single browser screen (or from the same computer) at the same time. What do you mean by separate viewing server and what settings for RTSP vs mjpeg? Is that FF only? Where can I read more about this?

Here's how I do it with ip cameras;

http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/IpCamMontage

kuehnem wrote:My core i7 desktop with 16GB crashes with any browser if I try to view 10 or more cameras above 20fps.

Can't confirm that. Viewing 12 cameras on a dual core CPU with 20fps each seems no problem. The server side is working as well (although of course load peaks). A good idea posted was to grab a stream (mjpeg) or auto-reload jpg from each cam directly on a different html site (easy coding using the direct url).

Nevertheless, browsers seem to matter a lot.

br gerfry