I stumbled upon a website, http://octro.com they make a nice video conferencing product that runs on mobile phone, cool on it's own. They also have a Windows Mobile, and Symbian app that uses the mobile phones built-in camera, and the wireless connection to stream to their server. You can then provide your user and through a java applet it will show the stream from the phone!
The service is in Beta right now, and completely free. All you have to do is create a user, download the .cab for your device, install it, and provide you just created user and password to the WM app.
I got to thinking about whether or not I could get the stream into Zoneminder, and it worked! First time, right out of the box!
Once you have a user setup and everything is working setup the remote camera as follows:
Code: Select all
General Tab:
Source Type - Remote
Source Tab:
Remote Host Name - serv2.octro.net
Remote Host Port - 9192
Remote Host Path - mjpeg?user=<USERNAME>@serv2.octro.net&fps=25
All you need to do it replace <USERNAME> with the one you just created!
I noticed that when you stop the stream on the phone, it will produce a 404 on the stream page. Because of this it will cause the source to go red when the stream is not present. After I started the stream I also notice it would take a couple of tries before the images would appear. I typically see about 5fps, but it certainly seems smoother than that. I have had the opportunity to play with it too much, I wanted to share it with everyone!
One thing to note is the fact that this service, since it is still in beta, automatically records all streams on their site. They are only accessible via your user and password, and at present there is no way to stop it or delete the videos. They are working on an interface to do so according to forums, but there is none available yet. The recorded videos are downloadable from their current web interface though.
The potentials are tremendous for this though. For example we have had someone coming by our driveway and checking our car doors for us! When they find one open they will also remove any loose items for us too!!! My idea is to hide my phone in the car, (plugged into the charger) and leave an empty "bait" laptop bag in there. Using this app, there is no cabling, and it's EASY to hide, and ZM can record the whole thing. Great since I have a good feeling that it's some punk teen in the neighbourhood. That or crusty jugglers.
Hopefully this isn't a repeat of anything, just thought everyone could benefit from this!
