Export a whole day or many selected events to MPEG or AVI?

[eracc]

Hi folks. We need to be able to export a whole day of events (7:00AM to 6:00PM) or selected events using the checkboxes from the web event log on a single camera into a single MPEG or AVI file for export to a Microsoft Windows XP (or Vista) laptop to be viewed later in random audits. The events DO NOT need to be purged. What is the procedure to do this please? I'm reading the docs, not figuring it out and need some pointers in the correct direction. TIA!

[eracc]

Hmmm, ok, no replies. Does this mean this is not able to be done? I still have not figured out how to do this. The installation of any additional ZoneMinder systems for this client hinges on being able to do something like this. We have the possibility to install in up to 11 more multi-camera sites with a donation from us to the ZoneMinder project for each one. Plus this client has already referred us to another new client who is asking for a quote for a multi-camera ZoneMinder system. (I truly want to make these folks happy)

An alternative would be to auto-generate MPEG videos as each event is captured under motion recording on a per camera basis. They really only need to review video in the audits from one, maybe two, of the six cameras. Then the person(s) needing to audit the site could just choose to download the videos. If there is an option to do this please point me to the correct settings page.

TIA!

[Lee Sharp]

Depending on how soon, they could just do it from within ZM over the web. It is much simpler to just use the front end to view, rather than create an aditional step. Unless it is long after the events would normally purge.

[jameswilson]

There is no way to do this via the zm interface but in the last release of zm4ms i added a means to export all archived events into 1 video. Might be worth a look

[eracc]

Depending on how soon, they could just do it from within ZM over the web. It is much simpler to just use the front end to view, rather than create an aditional step. Unless it is long after the events would normally purge.

Unfortunately we have yet to get permission from this client's IT division to make the ZoneMinder system available over the internet. Not only that but the location where this system is installed does not yet have an internet connection. The auditor's office that will be reviewing the videos and matching them to financial transactions is ~80 miles away so he wants the videos placed on CD-R or DVD-R media and mailed to him.

[eracc]

There is no way to do this via the zm interface but in the last release of zm4ms i added a means to export all archived events into 1 video. Might be worth a look

Definitely worth a look. I'll try to find this zm4ms thing you mention. Thank you.

[eracc]

There is no way to do this via the zm interface but in the last release of zm4ms i added a means to export all archived events into 1 video. Might be worth a look

Definitely worth a look. I'll try to find this zm4ms thing you mention. Thank you.

Well, that was a nice idea but I cannot implement it. My contact in this rather large, ponderous company (it takes them 70 days to cut me a check for my services!) said they are not allowed to install any "foreign" applications on the Microsoft Windows based company computers and they are not allowed to use their own personal computers (like his laptop he has at home) in the company. The users in his company, including him, do not have any administration rights on the Windows PCs there. I can and will submit a request to their corporate IT department to ask them to place your application in their test queue for approval. The only problem with that is their typical turn-around time for approving new applications is 12 to 18 months, approval for updates is usually 6 months unless it is a critical security update. I need a solution for this in the next few days to weeks.

Back to my original problem. How to generate a video or set of videos for a range of time. Heck, I can even use a script outside of the ZM interface if I can find one or someone can write one for me (yes I will pay for that).

[jameswilson]

zm4ms is a .net 2/3 app and doesnt need admin rights to install (it makes no file system changes) so if you have .net 2 upwards then your fine.

Doing it in script isnt that easy tbh mate.

[eracc]

zm4ms is a .net 2/3 app and doesnt need admin rights to install (it makes no file system changes) so if you have .net 2 upwards then your fine.

Great news. But that still does not help me here. I still have to get approval from the corporate IT department to install it, they still will take a year or more to issue an approval. I need something sooner than that. If I install something on one of their corporate Microsoft Windows based PCs without their approval I am finished as a vendor for them (that is how the previous company that supplied exactly one Windows based video surveillance system lost this contract). I am not going to do that.

Doing it in script isnt that easy tbh mate.

Yeah, I know. Why do you think I'm offering to pay someone else? I already tried to figure it out on my own and am stumped. Given enough time I can probably figure it out but I do not have a lot of time.

[jameswilson]

can you plug something into the same network (ie your windows laptop) to do this or add a 2nd nic to the zm machine and have a seperate network for this purpose?
If they have allowed you to plug zm onto the network, how about using vmware on the zm machine.

I couldnt create the script, the will be a lot of copying of jpegs and renameing to make it work.

good luck

[eracc]

can you plug something into the same network (ie your windows laptop) to do this or add a 2nd nic to the zm machine and have a seperate network for this purpose?
If they have allowed you to plug zm onto the network, how about using vmware on the zm machine.

The IP camera ZM system has two gigabit NICs already. It was designed to run the cameras on their own LAN segment and connect to a company LAN/WAN through a second NIC. The camera segment is run off a POE capable 8 port gigabit Linksys switch. This is how I design all the IP camera ZM systems we quote here. Frankly it has been about six months since we installed the ZM system and we have not yet gotten permission to connect it to even the LAN at its' current location, much less make it available on their WAN (once this site has the WAN connection). They are running the monitors on the ZM system itself using a fluxbox X session and Firefox. They can attach a laptop to the second NIC using a 5 port switch we supplied.

I couldnt create the script, the will be a lot of copying of jpegs and renameing to make it work.

Ok, well, maybe someone else here might can? At least I really, really pray so.

good luck

Heh, thanks.

[AlienTesticle]

I am looking into this for a client. I was hoping the filter option would work since it has a check mark for "Create video for all matches" but it does not seem to be working with a few quick tests or its working and I cant find the file its making.

I figured it would do one of two things... make a video for each matching event like if you did it manually or make one video for all matching events

I can not start on this till next week but my goal for this client was to have the 3 camera servers dump their videos to a NAS box that the other departments can burn from.

Since we are working on going from modect to mocord, I would like to make a system that could make a dvd with the chapter marks at each motion detect. hmmm....I wonder if I could use an angle to also have the areas of motion avail to view.. Ok.. kind of ambitious but its fun to think of the maximum features you can go to.

I was unable to find much info on filter examples so if I figure out any I will post them to the wiki

[AlienTesticle]

How much control are you looking to have.

The solution I think I will use is to modify the filter function to allow merging all the generated videos or create a input file with all the jpgs to pass to generate video. It doesn't look to hard and I want to make it integrate well into the current design.

I also need to add a couple of options to the filter to allow saving to another directory so you can save to a share off the server. And maybe some options for file naming.

I am going to concentrate on full and half dvd, svcd, vcd specs to make burning to dvd/cd disks for easy archiving and later viewing.

seems all the non techies like to pop disks into dvd players.... they sign my checks... they get what they want...

If anyone is still reading this post and has any other ideas related to this.. I would be happy to try to add them if possible.

[nakedfarmanimals]

Have you looked at ffmpeg (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg/)?

With knowledge of how the end image files are named via naming conventions, you should be able to access all of them or sets of them at a time and have ffmpeg take the stills and make a movie or set of movies from them.

Having a straightforward php or perl script talk to the mysql database can get you the even numbers you need... traversing the right directories in the /usr/share/zoneminder (storage location) can get you the stills. Then it is just building (string concatenation?) the ffmpeg commands and getting the resulting movies to the right place for the auditors to review.

Hope that this helps...

[AlienTesticle]

Thanks for the info, but I already understand how to use ffmpeg and mencoder, etc. And I figured out how zoneminder is doing its current movie making and what direction I will go processing the data.

I was asking if people wanted any more features than what I am designing into it to meet my current clients needs. If the needs are little I may just do it as a hack to make this customer happy. Otherwise I will spend more effort and make it something that will work more seamless with the current filter setup to allow more flexibility.

I work good with lots of feadback. I do the least needed when everyone is quite.

[OT] what we need is a detailed wishlist on the wiki and people can volunteer to take on some tasks. would be nice to have the current build in some kind for cvs/svn or I like mercurial.