ZoneMinder Forums

Yes, I would like to finish the audio stuff for the next release. It's not all that complicated really just a bit fiddly.

Hi man.


maybe this is a good point to make something like MPEG recording of events... it should be nice to have this as this saves a lot of hard disk and mpeg events is a good way to incorporate audio, as libavcodec have many utilities to deal direct from v4l.


Thanks

Victor Diago

We have been here before rgarding mpeg and yes it does save alot of space but to alot of people mpeg recording is usless to us. I think personally the way to progress it if its really needed is to carry on jpeging and converting and imediatly deleting the originals but jpeg's technically are the only thing thats allowed. But there is the framerate and horsepower argument i will do some experiments between resource requirements of mpeg and jpeg recording.

I would like to install ZoneMinder at my client's small office. However, his requirement
is to have sound recorded as well. Audio and video will be recorded in separate places,
will not be connected, and will be kept for different periods of time (video will be used for
security monitoring, audio is need to record conversations in offices).

One of Phil's posts says he plans to implement mutual triggering of audio
and video, etc. Although such features would be indeed great to have, for some
situations, like mine, it would be enough to have a very basic sound recording
and searching capabilities. The only thing I really need is the ability for a client to play
what mike #2 recorded at a specified time, using his web browser. Maybe this part
of audio support is already finished and can be released? I would be happy to
participate in testing.

If not, while ZoneMinder is getting close to it, I may use some other
application. Does anybody know any Linux software for this purpose? There is
a project phpdvr.com, but it does not seem to be actively developing (alive at all?)

In my situation, sound recording is a requirement, so I either need to find audio
software co-existing with Zoneminder, or just buy a full commercial solution.

Also, it is not clear to me, if a particular multichannel video/audio (4 ch audio +
4 ch video) capture card is supported by v4l, does it mean that its audio part
is supported as well? Will it just generate appropriate number of audio devices
from which sound can be captured, or support of audio part by Linux should be
mentioned separately?

Thanks,
Alex

Until we see i dont really know how it will work, and i think it will use the soundcard(s) so you will need multiple mic inputs for each source. I dont know of any projects sorry.

kopts wrote:I would like to install ZoneMinder at my client's small office. However, his requirement
is to have sound recorded as well. Audio and video will be recorded in separate places,
will not be connected, and will be kept for different periods of time (video will be used for
security monitoring, audio is need to record conversations in offices).

One of Phil's posts says he plans to implement mutual triggering of audio
and video, etc. Although such features would be indeed great to have, for some
situations, like mine, it would be enough to have a very basic sound recording
and searching capabilities. The only thing I really need is the ability for a client to play
what mike #2 recorded at a specified time, using his web browser. Maybe this part
of audio support is already finished and can be released? I would be happy to
participate in testing.

If not, while ZoneMinder is getting close to it, I may use some other
application. Does anybody know any Linux software for this purpose? There is
a project phpdvr.com, but it does not seem to be actively developing (alive at all?)

In my situation, sound recording is a requirement, so I either need to find audio
software co-existing with Zoneminder, or just buy a full commercial solution.

Also, it is not clear to me, if a particular multichannel video/audio (4 ch audio +
4 ch video) capture card is supported by v4l, does it mean that its audio part
is supported as well? Will it just generate appropriate number of audio devices
from which sound can be captured, or support of audio part by Linux should be
mentioned separately?

Thanks,
Alex

If card is bt878 sound inputs should be supported - one per chip.
You can create mp3 every 10 minutes, and configure browser to send link to winamp that will open the stream.

maciekc wrote: If card is bt878 sound inputs should be supported - one per chip.

Any recommendation for a particular card?

I have found so far only Provideo PV-153 (I need 4 channels of video and 4
channels of audio), but I cannot locate a reseller in US or Canada. The price
is less important for the client than shipping time.

What are CPU/RAM requirements to handle 4 streams witn ZM with PV-153?

maciekc wrote: You can create mp3 every 10 minutes, and configure browser to send link to winamp that will open the stream.

After getting the hardware, I will try to run listener daemons, like one from
http://www.vanheusden.com/listener/ , together with mp3 encoders.
Then it should be trivial to write a PHP interface to concatenate mp3 files and serve
them over the web. Hope it will work.

I would recommend using Speex.org for audio compression.

We normally use Zoneminder for all of our in house surveillance. Recently, we had a requirement of 4 cameras that record audio and video. Since Zoneminder's audio recording isn't quite ready yet...we purchased a Dell PowerEdge 860, 4 Axis 212PTZ, and the new version of Axis Camera Station 10 user license. It works pretty good. It can only record audio in mpeg4 format. I thought that I would post in here and mention that if anyone is shopping systems that will record audio and they are remote to the recording server...you might not want to use the Axis Camera Station software. We have a little more than 1.5Meg of symmetric connectivity and they playback is very slow. It has to load the entire 50MB event clip before it can play it. I spoke with the Axis techs and they said that there really isn't a way other than going to motion based event recording to trim the event sizes down. I asked that they look into and integrated streaming server process for playback over Cable/DSL/T1. He said they would look into it.

I have a feeling that from what I am hearing about audio features in future versions of Zoneminder, the Camera Station Software will be short lived once audio support in Zoneminder is workable.

The Axis 212PTZ cams are pretty cool...PTZ without moving parts.

Any updates on this?
Wish I was a developer...

What is the standard for IP cameras to capture audio? Do they only do so when they embed it into an MPEG4 stream? Or is there some other way to capture the audio that is standard on most IP cameras that support it?

I'm fairly new to this forum, so I haven't read all the arguments for/against MPEG4 support in ZM. Personally, I am partial to neither. I could see a great advantage to some of the space savings which MPEG4 could offer, but if it is not significant, or if it compromises quality too much... then there is a reason not to use it.

But it seems that most network cameras are moving tward MPEG4 as an accepted data format. Could we see the day that jpeg and mjpeg dissapears from cameras? If so, ZoneMinder would have to move to the new standard anyways.

--Pathway

I'm also interested in the status of the sound support. In particular, support for the PV-153, PV-183, and PV-183 cards available from Bluecherry.net.

Thanks!

skow wrote:support for the PV-153, PV-183, and PV-183 cards...

Have you looked at the PV-183 card at all?

Yes, the cards have sound support and now we just need software support to be able to record it within ZoneMinder.

Just a heads up. For users in the USA.

I believe that recording audio in locations that are not public may be a violation of wiretapping laws in the USA. I have read in some places where recording video (or images) is tollerated, but when you include audio (or record audio alone) it may be forbidden. Which is why all of the Security cam systems do video only, I suppose.

For public areas, I have used: "listener" as found on freshmeat.

Listener does not integrate with ZM, but I have found that to be a bit of an advantage sometimes too, as there are noises that are sometimes not associated with movement as seen in a video. The noises can be very interesting (a helicopter flying low overhead, for instance).

I can relate the recorded sound files with the ZM captures via the date/time stamp.

I hope this helps...