ZoneMinder Forums

I've added a new camera to my house and I'm struggling to get it to record events as expected. It is placed over the garage doors looking down into the driveway. I've set up 2 zones, one on the concrete and one in the grass. I've used linked monitors as I read that processing on the HD stream can be resource-intensive. The HD stream (set to Nodect) is linked to the SD stream (set to Modect) where I've configured the motion detection.

The issue is that obvious motion events (such as an adult walking through the frame or cars coming/going in the drive) are not being triggered, regardless of which preset I use for the zones, but large events, such as headlights sweeping the drive or a lightning flash, will. As a test, I will walk the path marked in orange on the attached screenshot to attempt to trigger the event; my driveway zone goes to the near edge of the sidewalk and covers the visible concrete.

Walking through the grass is never triggered, nor is the path across the end of the drive. I will wait in the side yard for a few seconds, to run out the buffer, then return to the start. Generally, motion isn't detected until I'm at the red X where, because of my height and the placement of the camera, my head goes to the top of the trigger zone.

Additionally, there is no audio captured with the stream, either in the event playback or in the exported videos. I've confirmed the stream has audio by putting the source URL in VLC where I can hear the goings on outside. I have ticked the "Whether to store the audio stream when saving an event" box in the Storage tab.

Admittedly, I know just enough to be dangerous with this program and I'm assuming there's something obvious to a more seasoned user that will explain this... My monitor setups, which used ONVIF to create, are as follows:

SD Stream
Monitor
Resolution: 1280x720
Image Buffer Size: 60
Maximum Image Buffer Size: 0
Warmup Frames: 15
Pre Event Image Count: 30
Post Event Image Count: 5
Stream Replay Image Buffer: 0
Alarm Frame Count: 1
Zone(s)
Units: Percent
Alarm Check Method: Alarmed Pixels
Min/Max Pixel Threshold: 60, [blank]
Min/Max Alarmed Area: 20, [blank]
Overload Frame Ignore Count: 0

HD Stream
Monitor
Resolution: 12688x1520
Image Buffer Size: 60
Maximum Image Buffer Size: 0
Warmup Frames: 15
Pre Event Image Count: 30
Post Event Image Count: 5
Stream Replay Image Buffer: 0
Alarm Frame Count: 1
Zone
None Defined

Try changing your Zone units from % to pixels.

ANd reduce the minimum values to around 500

Thank you for the suggestions, guys; that got things working as expected!

Any suggestions to fix the audio capture issues?

What does VLC say about the audio?
I think there are cams that that checkbox doesn't work with. Not sure there's a fix, but you'd need to know what the cam is sending to find a fix.

Good suggestion. In VLC, under Tools > Codec Information I have the following:

Stream 0

• Codec: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265) (hevc)
  Type: Video
  Video Resolution: 2688x1520
  Buffer Dimensions: 2688x1520
  Frame Rate: 20
  Decoded Format:
  Orientation: Top Left
  Chroma Location: Left

Stream 1

• Codec: PCM MU-LAW (mlaw)
  Type: Audio
  Channels: Mono
  Sample rate: 8000 Hz
  Bits per Sample: 16

mine are alaw and work. So, got any audio options on your camera?

Not a ton...
And just to make sure I didn't do something dumb, here's my setup in ZM:

See if there's a g711 or g.711 no "U" That'll prolly work.

Well, I do have a G.711A but it's my only other option...
And here is the new codec info
Just so I know what I should be expecting - should I hear audio in the web playback in the ZM Console? I'm not getting anything there or in the exported videos. Are there any known issues using Firefox?

should I hear audio in the web playback in the ZM Console?

Of a recording, yes. The live view doesn't give sound presently, although I think it did at some point.

I'm not getting anything there or in the exported videos.

You should have sound on any playback, from anywhere in or out of ZM.

Are there any known issues using Firefox?

Well, yes, but not zm specific AFAIK.

I think the problem now is "just" saving JPEGs. Analysis is OK, but you need camera passthrough, I think. Less cpu and storage load, too.

Just wanted to follow up on this from forever ago. I changed the video writer in the monitor storage settings to camera passthrough and now I'm capturing camera audio. I did have to change the encoding of one of my cameras to H.264 to get the audio and camera passthrough to work. Happy days!

Yay!