24x7 Camera Monitor

[Biggus]

Hi,

I'm sure this has been asked before but I can't find the post.

I have my zoneminder setup, but what do people do regards a 24 hour camera split screen. I would like to mount a monitor on the wall what displays all my cameras.
I was thinking I could use a old PC with a monitor attached with a webpage on? if so does anyone have a prebuilt webpage their could share?
However I'm trying to be green here, I would love to use a raspberry pi for this but don't think it will have enough grunt to display 4 cameras? anybody have any suggestions on hardware?

[mikb]

Raspberry PI may well display 4 cameras in a web browser, not sure if it would run ZM and motion detect them as well though!

As to a big-screen display of cameras, it's more resource friendly to write your own montage page than make ZM do it. Simple HTML and maybe a touch of Javascript.

Depends how clever you want to get, a simple page that refreshes itself once every n seconds that grabs pictures direct from the cameras is easy.

Making them clickable images that lead direct to the live video stream (from the camera, again not ZM) is also possibility.

[Biggus]

I have a separate server with a ZM installation, the idea of this project is attach a few screens to the wall with a live split screen of my cameras, the same as what every cheap DVR unit can do so I can glance over at it. I'm thinking I need a montage webpage that will stream from the cameras direct, however once a second is too slow, I'd like to do it in real time.
I'm thinking that the Pi doesn't have enough power to do 4 streams at the same time, however I want this to be a low power solution instead of having a power hungry desktop at the ready.

Does anybody have a script available or am I going to have to write something from scratch?

[mythedoff]

An MK808B works. Just tried it with tinyCam Monitor free with 4 cams over the lan. Chrome on this device will also work and, for me, gives better image quality especially with my high resolution webcam. But tinyCam Monitor will space the monitors like you pictured. I didn't try the Pro version of tinyCam Monitor which I mainly use, just haven't set it up on the MK808B, but the latest version has just recently added chromecast suppport but only seems to work with a single camera.

[PacoLM]

Another cheap and more powerful solutions than a RaspberriPi:

CuBox-i2 -> http://cubox-i.com/
Odroid U3 (a beast!)-> http://hardkernel.com/main/products/prd ... 8745696275
Beaglebone Black-> http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone+Black

I have setup ZM in Cubox & BeagleBone and run much better than in a RPi...

Regards,

PacoLM

[Biggus]

Hi,

I've never thought to run a android with a app like TinyCam. My questions are as follows:

1) Is this reliable?
2) Will it run 24 hours a day?
3) Will it run 4x HD Foscam cameras in realtime

I currently use my iPad with the LiveCam pros app, it works fine for a while but the app crashes out I'm not sure if its using all the memory up or there is a bug with the app.

@PacoLM - Are you using any of your devices to monitor cameras like what I'm trying to achieve or are you purely running them as a ZM server.

I'm trying to work out what is the best solution before I spend some cash.

[PacoLM]

Hi,

I installed the server in those little beasts, usually with 2 ipcams, just to play with them.

Making a viewer using HTML should be really easy. Someone posted something similar time ago, try to find it.

Regards,

PacoLM

[Biggus]

Hi

Will a HTML viewer be able to view my foscams in Realtime (14fps) or will it only be able to pull 1 frame per second?

However I thought I'd investigate into the android route with the tinycam monitor app.

My first impressions are good. Since I don't have a android tablet and before I spend money on buying a Odroid U3 I thought I'd install android onto a old spare desktop.
I installed it via with http://www.android-x86.org/ (its strange running a tablet OS on a desktop but I kinda like it, simple)
Once the OS was installed I downloaded the tinycam monitor app I had the cameras setup within minutes, the app appears to do everything I want, including split screen, switching monitors, realtime streaming and even controlling the PTZ of the cameras, I think the bonus with this is that it looks better than a simple HTML page I could design.
I'm going to run with it for a few weeks and if proves successful I think I'm going to have a go at installing it on a Odroid board and mounting a nice monitor on the wall.

I'm now thinking do I really need to install a full Ubuntu or similar OS just for a web browser when android and this app works fantastic.

[PacoLM]

Congratulations!