Is ZoneMinder capable of ...

[Meindert]

I'm looking for a VMS like software that is capable of storing live streams from camera's in H.264 format and I need the following additions:
- Capability to synchronize the time of all the streams;
- Store the stream to disk in chunks of 10-20 minutes;
- Capable to stream the stored files to webpage with RTSP protocol;
- Capable to show a particular frame in a webpage;
- Retrieve the files from the storage directly (for processing purposes)

Please if my questions are not clear, to some of you, I will try to explain more deeply. I'm just starting to get knowledge of video / storage / streams / etc.

[knight-of-ni]

Yes and no.

By synchronize time, I assume you mean specifically during event playback. While ZoneMinder has Montage, which allows you to view multiple live views simultaneously, there is no native support for synchronized event playback of multiple monitors. Since this is open-soruce Linux after all, it is likely possible to write an export script to export multiple events and multiplex them into a single avi/mpg using ffmepg.

While your statement does not explicitly ask it, the following does seem to be implied. ZoneMinder does not currently store events to disk as video file(s). Instead, it transcodes every stream into individual jpegs and stores those to disk. There is an experimental h264 branch we are working on, which you can check out and build from our github site, but it is not complete.

ZoneMinder is not itself an RTSP server, so you can't retransmit the streams using RTSP protocol, but you can get ZoneMinder to stream to third party softwares using url's ZoneMinder is familiar with... it would essentially be an mjpeg stream.

Other than that, ZoneMinder can do everything else you said.

[Meindert]

But it is possible to select as source Ffmpeg, that sounds to me "sky is the limit" concerning the way files are stored etc.

[bbunge]

But it is possible to select as source Ffmpeg, that sounds to me "sky is the limit" concerning the way files are stored etc.

Image files are stored as jpg's. You can export to video in several formats.

[knight-of-ni]

But it is possible to select as source Ffmpeg, that sounds to me "sky is the limit" concerning the way files are stored etc.

Selecting ffmpeg as the source type, does not in any way determine the destination type.
ZoneMinder uses ffmpeg API calls to transcode the incoming stream into jpegs. This is not user changeable. You can of course use the ffmpeg binary to transcode the jpeg files, after the fact, back into a video container of your choosing, but that would not happen in real time.

[john3354]

While your statement does not explicitly ask it, the following does seem to be implied. ZoneMinder does not currently store events to disk as video file(s). Instead, it transcodes every stream into individual jpegs and stores those to disk. There is an experimental h264 branch we are working on, which you can check out and build from our github site, but it is not complete.

Do you have any idea when the h264 branch might be completed and merged? I am really needing a solution that has audio recording capabilities also.

[jbeale1]

Glad that ZM is under active development. Currently I am using a commercial app to record RTSP streams direct to disk. I would love for Zoneminder to have this capability, I hope it will eventually come to pass. I need to record 8 video streams from IP cameras 24/7 but most of the time there is very little change frame to frame. Saving separate JPEG files instead of the original H.264 stream does not seem the best use of disk space. Ability to record audio is also important.

[knight-of-ni]

Yep, that's what everybody wants, including those of us on the development team. We do this in our free time. As with any open-source project, the best way for an individual to make a difference is to find a way to plug in and help. Most do not need to know how to write code.

Storing all those jpeg's certainly is very inefficient by today's standards, but fortunately large hard drives are quite affordable.

Alternatively, we have an experimental branch that does record h264 to video container. It is not complete, and I forget where the instructions are if there are any. Try searching around this forum. If you can't find a resource, just pop into the zoneminder irc channel on freenode. There is always someone who is running the h264 branch hanging around in the channel.