ZoneMinder Forums

Decoding still wasn't keeping up even though the errors had lessened, my filter wasn't triggering properly either.

I then created a substream monitor, tried doing mocord on that and linking it to the main one, still no success. Decoding STILL isn't keeping up on a 704x576 stream... so something is up with zoneminder then. I got no clue. This is a modern cpu: Ryzen 5 5600x, it should be blitzing through this...

Thinking of giving up and switching to getting a unifi protect machine and camera..

I only briefly read through the post but I noticed you didn't post all monitor settings, so please post those.

Here's an example of what I have that works. Notice that JPEG encoding is OFF (important for high res cameras),
the settings at the webgui of the camera should be h264, with perhaps 10FPS. On ZM, use passthrough, and the resolution
specified can be some lower resolution, that retains the same aspect ratio of the original camera stream (i.e. for
a 1920x1080 stream, you would multiply both values by 25% to get a mocord / modect resolution of 480x270 in ZM).

H265 doesn't work in ZM at the moment, so you don't want the camera to use that. You also don't want to encode to h265 in zm, as
there is some bug I ran into which escapes me at the moment (I think the browser plays back h264 better).

Encoding is only for cameras that don't support h264 (i.e. MJPEG or H265 cameras, and LibVNC) and if you use encoding you want to have
a lower resolution and framerate, as it takes significantly more CPU.

Maximum Image Buffer Frames should be set to 0.

Note that this is a 720p stream, but it is being analyzed at the low resolution. Because passthrough is being used, the actual videos are 720p. This also requires setting the date/time OSD on the camera.

This required an additional post for some reason.

Idk... I got it into a "usable" state, but it is still far from perfect. Analysis barely keeps up, but I'm exhausted from such a simple project for very unimpressive results. I understand this program can be very good and amazing, and is built by people with a passion... But I suppose it isn't for everyone. Here are my final settings I'll use for now until I feel the need to upgrade to a Unifi setup.

Other pictures

wildfire wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:09 pm Idk... I got it into a "usable" state, but it is still far from perfect. Analysis barely keeps up, but I'm exhausted from such a simple project for very unimpressive results. I understand this program can be very good and amazing, and is built by people with a passion... But I suppose it isn't for everyone. Here are my final settings I'll use for now until I feel the need to upgrade to a Unifi setup.

Please go back and review the earlier post. There are multiple items on your settings that are not desirable. For example:
- Lower the resolution
- Disable frames / analysis images. any JPEG encoding (especially on a 2.5K stream) will use a lot of CPU. Use only passthrough.
- Copy what I have for the buffer page. Although you can use 5 frames for the pre and post event count (that is the default I think).

You are correct that ZM is difficult to use for beginners. There is a learning curve. But, then again, you are venturing into a trade. I.e. people make a living off of installing and managing surveillance cameras, and that is what ZM is. Software for cameras: It's a tool that is applicable to a whole trade. If you are good with ZM, you could potentially sell your services. So you can expect a similar level of complexity that you might have to becoming an entry level HVAC tech or plumber.

Again, there is a learning curve. I've made a dummies type book reference, see my signature.