I have Designed a rather full featured Windows Screensaver designed to View webcams, Particularly Zoneminder....
4 Cameras on the screen.. Supports scrolling through cameras separately in each box... Zoomed View if you press #1-4
Also Server Based Config.... I have it setup so the screensaver queries the server for the list of Cams to display so i can update them all dynamically.. Auto Updates of clients from the server... Temperature in the corner of the screen (loaded from the server though- so you could change this to a custom message)
It can also handle windows power management so the server can turn off and on the monitors at a certain time... this is all done in a PHP script so i can control VIA IP address which computers are turned off at what times (i.e. In my Business, they go off at 10pm, 1 hour after close.. and come on at 9am, 1 hour before opening..... the ones in my house across the street stay on until 1am so i can see check on it all night long... I have an old laptop in my kitchen that is running it constantly so i can always keep an eye on it)
And it launches on whatever screen the mouse is on if you have multiple monitors (I just leave it up on my extra screen when I'm working to keep an eye on employees)
I also wrote a lil PHP program to Cache NOAA radar images and then feed them to the screensaver so my bottom right cam flips through the last 30 mins of radar and i can warn renters of an impending storm (I run a Bicycle Rental Shop)
My Question is-- Has this been done? and If not- would any be interested in it? I bought some domains and was thinking of releasing it commercially for use in businesses and the such..... all those POS computer system could be set to watch cameras when not in use (Great for restaurants, stores, anywhere...)
I was thinking $20 for a basic one computer licences... and $100 for a pro version with 5 computer licenses and Server Configuration Support ($10 per install after the first 5)
Am i wasting my time making this public or is this something people would be interested in? If i get a big Response i can probably have a commercial version released by Wednesday at the latest (monday probably)
Thanks everybody for your input!
Anybody Looking for a Windows Screensaver to View ZM Cameras
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KinkyMunkey
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:30 pm
- Location: Baltimore
Interesting, I have seen it done though using the windows screen saver pulling images off a shared folder on the Linux ZM box over Samba. It was a nifty and simple setup a friend of mine did, he set up a basic perl script that ran ever 5 minutes to copy an image from each of his 8 cameras, then had them merged with command line ImageMagick. They were saved and shared over his network on a mapped drive with the windows workstation. Using the built-in screen saver to play images, he pointed it at that mapped drive which had images from all his cameras, and the larger montage merged.
Now a simpler easy to install and manage piece of software would be nice for sure. I'm not sure if it would draw much money though since so many of these folks are Linux admins and such. Most would do as my friend and I have done.
Paid front end's to free software don't seem to work from what I have seen. Most companies seem to opt for the "free software, paid support" business model. Canonical, of Ubuntu fame, is a great example of this.
Now a simpler easy to install and manage piece of software would be nice for sure. I'm not sure if it would draw much money though since so many of these folks are Linux admins and such. Most would do as my friend and I have done.
Paid front end's to free software don't seem to work from what I have seen. Most companies seem to opt for the "free software, paid support" business model. Canonical, of Ubuntu fame, is a great example of this.