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.

burger wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 4:13 am

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.

I understand your points, but its also a very modern gaming system, running 1 singular camera in 1440p. If it can't do that then idk what to say. I needed frames/analysis images for emailing jpegs of events. If settings are undesirable (or completely unusable) why bother even having them? Or have them be suggested on many different posts, or required for different functions to work properly?

I could sell my services if I got really good, sure, but I also took about 30mins to setup a Unifi Enterprise NVR for 45+ cameras and everything was up and working with no issues. With infinitely less stress, drastically higher usability for clients, proper notifications and alert systems, proper AI functionality, and many more.

I understand there is a place for zoneminder, and what this project has done is impressive. But it is far behind the times, in my very noobish opinion. Sure you could make a job out of it, but feels like theres much better ways to spend your time and skills...

wildfire wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 2:50 am If settings are undesirable (or completely unusable) why bother even having them?

An alternative question is "If this combination of settings is found to be unusable, why select them all when advised otherwise, and then wonder why stuff still doesn't work?"

The settings are there for flexibility. Not everyone's hardware is the same as yours. Not everyone's use case is the same as yours. Being forced into a single "optimal settings loaded, click YES to agree" funnel would alienate a huge number of users.

Creating analysis images is only really needed while tweaking motion detection, to see what ZM's idea of "motion" is in a frame. Having that switched on otherwise is a resource hog for no reason. Turn it off once you've finished playing with settings.

wildfire wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 2:50 am I understand your points, but its also a very modern gaming system, running 1 singular camera in 1440p. If it can't do that then idk what to say. I needed frames/analysis images for emailing jpegs of events. If settings are undesirable (or completely unusable) why bother even having them? Or have them be suggested on many different posts, or required for different functions to work properly?

I could sell my services if I got really good, sure, but I also took about 30mins to setup a Unifi Enterprise NVR for 45+ cameras and everything was up and working with no issues. With infinitely less stress, drastically higher usability for clients, proper notifications and alert systems, proper AI functionality, and many more.

I am able to email JPEGs of events with ZMES using passthrough, I don't think that is a deal breaker.

You are correct though, about commercial solutions being easier to use. It's a tradeoff. The benefits of commercial solutions is that they can (hopefully) 'just work'. There are downsides though. Such as A) after a period of time it will be unsupported B) Limited functionality to the backend to see what is going on, or to make custom changes. I mean, I would hate to use any commercial product that requires using the web browser to watch videos. That is just the wrong way to watch videos on a computer. You should be watching surveillance videos from a low level (coded in C) desktop player like VLC or Mplayer/MPV. And I wouldn't feel good about depending on a vendor's server hardware for cameras. These are not as common as used servers. ZM is built to last on the other hand. "Drastically higher usability for clients", will depend on how you configure ZM. It's easy to make custom webpages for ZM, I like exporting videos to the desktop.

Do you really expect the Unifi NVR to work 5-10 years from now? What if the hardware fails? What about 10-20 years from now? Where will you get software for it? What about website documentation? If something breaks, you will just have to buy all new equipment (hopefully not new cameras). And I think 30 minutes for configuration is an exaggeration. Any NVR will take at least a couple hours to configure the zones, motion/recording settings, etc... Did you backup the NVR HDD in case of failure? There's always a lot to do, if you are doing the job right.

Consider this argument with firewalls. If you were to argue that commercial firewalls were easier to use than OpenWRT, I would know you were wrong. Some popular firewall website interfaces are painful to use. They are obtuse web 2.0 trash on top of a Linux distribution. Whereas the config folder of OpenWRT is trivial to use. But you have to know how to use firewalls to use them. If you don't know how to use Surveillance software, then no matter what NVR solution you choose, you are going to have trouble.

And just some specific notes on the Unifi NVR, it doesn't support Motion detection or audio on 3rd party cameras. That is a little Vendor lock-in. See: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/2 ... Fi-Protect (will this website be available in 5 years? Doubtful). Software like ZM is important, because it sets a precedent that 3rd party cameras will always be supported. This helps to fight back against
competitors that try to do vendor lock-in. Options are good.

ZM is available in the Debian archive repos, and as long as the Debian repos don't get corrupted, or otherwise disappear, then you will be able to run ZM forever (though ZMNinja may be impossible to use on future phones, but that's a mobile phone ecosystem problem. The desktop Linux infrastructure is robust). I don't think you can say that about any commercial NVR.

So, no free lunch unfortunately. Either buy a commercial solution and hopefully it never breaks, or use something like ZM where you have to learn the ropes. ZM will naturally attract more avid computer users that enjoy the command line / terminal. And for those users, they won't mind learning a little bit about the software, as long as it's well documented (which I've tried to do in the dummies guide on the wiki, along with the official dos). And there are a number of folks on the forum/discord/irc that want to help people with this software, so support is available.

Anyways, it's not for everyone. And it could use some tweaks to make it easier in some respects, but it is still good software. Sorry for writing so much, but sometimes I can't help but be a little verbose.

There is a lot of work to do in cleanup up, improving, etc.

I think burger summed it up nicely.
ZM will always be available and will always be improving and won't lock you in.

I have several clients who pay me to support their ZM installs having come from unifi. (In order to use the new cameras you need the new version, but the new version doesn't support your old cameras so you have to replace all your old cameras).

mikb wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 12:53 pm

wildfire wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 2:50 am If settings are undesirable (or completely unusable) why bother even having them?

An alternative question is "If this combination of settings is found to be unusable, why select them all when advised otherwise, and then wonder why stuff still doesn't work?"

The settings are there for flexibility. Not everyone's hardware is the same as yours. Not everyone's use case is the same as yours. Being forced into a single "optimal settings loaded, click YES to agree" funnel would alienate a huge number of users.

Creating analysis images is only really needed while tweaking motion detection, to see what ZM's idea of "motion" is in a frame. Having that switched on otherwise is a resource hog for no reason. Turn it off once you've finished playing with settings.

Because I did try those settings.. and still had no improvement.. so i went back to what was working the best. I agree and understand there isn't a "One size fits all" but there is a middle ground here.

No where have I seen that analysis images we're only for diagnostics, but maybe I misread dozens of articles somehow.

Even using those recommended settings again, still the same issue is at hand.

I feel like ZM is in a weird spot where its for the nerds to do as they please, but only the ones that want to do it on their free time who are willing to dedicate a massive amount of time. Or as a full time job where the customer is barely going to use the UI as is, since viewing recordings of multiple cameras is quite the chore. I set it up at my work with 45ish cameras, and no one who had to use it over 2 years was happy or comfortable with it. They instantly picked up unifi, and yes, it was about 30mins-1hr of setup on it.