ZM 1.29.0 My Opinion review bugs quirks.
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:49 am
I write this because it took so long to actually get it to work. Normally my reminders are one paragraph so I don’t know what happened. I hope you make it to the end, especially with my literary skills yet alone whining.
I understand that this will get negative responses and I hope so for I hope I'm wrong but this here is my experience with zoneminder when I only have 4 basic requirements. Now these notes are generally for me, though this one got out of hand. As such, I do this to remind me over time why I do or don't use something or quirks to remember, and I actually hope the people behind ZM actually read this even though it may be considered total dribble by all.
There is sarcasm but take it in jest, I have to...
My basic requirements:
1. Motion detection record.
2. Record -10 seconds and +10 seconds or other before and after a motion record,
3. Display moving thumbnails of captures to select an action in an event that you are looking for, and save it or some other quick method. Montage of moving thumbnails.
4. Being an out mind out of site system until something goes wrong I don't want to re-learn everything when you need to review it. User friendly/intuitive.
• I noticed I mention thumbnails a bit below. Creating small medium quality moving thumbnail gifs shouldn't be that difficult.
ZM Installation.
• I tried several guides including the 'easy way guides and none worked, always some error that cost hours/days to achieve zero outcome.
• Tried install on ubuntu server - failed - My fault, only have Wifi Internet and was unable to set up wifi for upgrading and downloading.
• Tried install on ubuntu desktop - failed - errors - causing hours to achieve no outcome
• Ubuntu Note: ubuntu server and desktop will not auto detect network or Wifi card, not worth the effort, this is an Ubuntu 15.10 bug, also selecting search on Desktop crashes Ubuntu. Mint and other flavours have no issue.
• Tried install on Mint desktop - failed - errors and again wasted hours for no outcome.
• Tried a couple of times on the above by restoring clean clones and starting again with no success. Cut and paste to console also same results, Matched Mint 17.2 to ubuntu base for guide to use, same result, errors.
Tried some more research and in the back of my mind there were no real user information just a lot of guides that didn't work and reviews done by what seemed non users. In one instance I came across an error with two posts I think, one from the attempting installer and the other from a responder, the responders comment was that the OP should not try to reinvent the wheel and should look at the link for the easy way install. I myself had tried the easy guides only to end up with errors. Now from my experience, so far with the above comments by posters it rings alarm bells that basically say. It's not worth the effort walk away. But I'm a masochist! I've wanted to try ZM for a year or so since it’s been around before 2005 I think. It must be good?
So after all the failed attempts above I finally came across lbuntu 14.04 with zoneminder 1.29.0 ISO and installed it.
1- It Lives.
FINALY, some life. Now all I have is an old USB camera that I will test before committing to cameras and the like.
Got the camera to work clicked on all the links and so forth read the manual and the like for some settings.
A. On the console my camera was green so I assumed it is working but how do I see it? Eventually if I click on my cameras name a pop up appears, eureka I have visual.
B. It also took a while to figure out that Cycle/Montage is camera related. Cycle threw me with a black screen. Cycle needs to display something ie; (No input) if it's on a camera with no input, say the cables cut, and or even better, the time the signal was lost. When I clicked on cycle I just get a blank screen for the first camera that is not available. I know that now, but can I manually move forward or do I just wait. I wait.
C. Considering everything is linked to something but Cycle is not? If cycling through cameras you should be able to stop it at that camera and or record for example or even scroll backwards and forwards to something that may have captured your eye..
2- Zones.
I figured out how to do it without time on searching.
A. Why multiple pops, Re use windows and put a back link and or quit link.
B. Presets - It always goes back to 'Choose Preset' - So how do you know what settings you used on existing zones?
C. Alarm colour - Really? Does anyone have a colour pallet in their back pocket? If you are going to use paint software conventions you could at least link a colour pallet to it. How about just a selection of 50 colours.
D. Not that I understand any of those settings but you can have two zones set up differently and yet most of those settings never change to correspond to the zone when it's selected. So what settings did I set for each zone?
E. Also, why not just a setting for 0 to 100% sensitivity as well as a live image rather than a still. This way you can live adjust a zone to compensate for tree shadows. I have branch that is swaying in the wind, occasionally appearing. It's not practical to set up in the current still image and preset set ups. I should also be able to click on button that says update and on the same window see if it's getting triggered under the new setting. Maybe I could but I'll be dead of old age in 40 years.
3 -Events –
So I have now about 50 events on the Console so I click on events...
A. I have 100 events? ok, so which is which, Events is the total number that's why I assume there is a day events total. Update: Running now for over 24 hours, Events 165 - Events Day - 164 - Events Week/Month 165 Events window 174? Ok, closed the pop up and its updated the console to 174 total but I'm still showing 173 events for the day. Day events actual 80. What gives? This seems to have rectified itself after several boots/It’s a dual boot system. Also applies to ‘B’
B. Suggestion: Between days in the events pop up have a coloured separator or each day/hour colour coded for quick reference. Even if I click on the 'Hour' I still gets the complete list numbering in the 10's of pages.
C. Figured out how to add thumbnails but what's the point they don't do anything it's a still image, click on it and you get a pop up of another still image that you can only cycle through frames? Average life span of a human being is 80 odd years.
D. Click on the event and you get a functioning image of sorts. You get an image then 'time to next event' and waiting, What for? The control buttons on the bottom, what for? Stream function is useless (morecord). It's only the montage of stills that give you anything useful.
E. So basically If I have 100 events and 99 of them triggered by artefacts there is no way I am ever going to find the actual one without wasting days on it. Those thumbnails should cycle through the event quickly so that you can catch the one you want.
F. Frame alarm, frames total score, avg score, max score. Who gives a *** spend more time making it useful. If somebody needs those things have them in a settings box on the top of the page. Who is ZM trying to impress.
G. View the time line? Still haven't figured that out, yet alone what it's supposed to do. Yep, hover the mouse, so? Still waiting? Maybe it works if you have a continuous recording?
H. The only way I managed to view a video of an event is by exporting an even then opening it in the browser. It doesn't help if you have to go through each event to find the one you want. I'm assuming I have to do this in on motion record due to events being short.
I. So I tried 'Record' instead of 'morecord' and it gives me one continuous recording so those controls on windows work. But how do you find an action in an event that is possibly days long? Granted they seem to be chopped up into 10 minute intervals but again find the action in the event in dozens of events.
J. Zoom, It loses track after about 4 clicks on the same spot, you also can’t traverse the image so you have to start again by un-zooming, Why not left mouse to select/lock a section of the image and scroll button to zoom in and out of that selection box. Right click to cancel all and return image to default. Try this, In Windows open up the magnifier from ‘Ease Of Access’ then Ctrl-Alt-L to set ‘Lens’ using say 300% and run it over the camera view. You can now magnify whatever section you want and traverse the whole view. Try it in Montage. Windows Key-Esc to cancel.
4 – Buffers Pre and Post Event
A. I need +10 seconds -10 seconds record or time. After searching all I found was that in the 'Buffers' Pre event and post event counts. Who knows this stuff? but wait, something about them being half the Image Buffer size??? But hang on 'Image Count' that's frames, if that's frames and my camera has varying fps then that Image count is useless for it's a constant variable?
Why not just simply have a setting for retain -10 seconds before and 10 seconds after an event. I don't even know what the other stuff is for.
B. I've been asked why: Well imagine you monitor your front yard and not the street to avoid false events. Someone parks in front of your house runs to your front door, steals a package and gets in the car. Those extra +/- 10 seconds may be enough to catch the number plate as well as the car type and colour.
C. I don't even want to look for the setting on how long to keep events or yet alone how much of the HDD to allocate. I don't think such a setting would even be in human legible form. How many binary bits expressed in octal would you like to allocate? Days to keep files, using ancient Egyptian calendar translated to Mayan as referenced by your horoscope. Yeah, I have seen through the filters dialogue and read the manual on it. How about, ZM detects 1TB HDD With 900GB Free- Space to allocate to ZM eg: 800GB. Days to keep files per camera eg: 7 days. Warn if 7 days quota cannot be met. Do not delete 'Archived' Files. Warn when Space allocated is eg: 90%. Simple, each camera will have 7 days history, Hdd max is 800GB archived files protected. You could even add email address and heading to send email to. Never have to think until I get one of those two warnings and simple to alter.
5 – Quirk ‘Low Bandwidth’
On the console it's always defaulting to low Bandwidth. I have a 1GB network avg speed 60MBs lbuntu/zm server to Mint Desktop > ZM Console in Firefox. Though it's a USB camera I can understand the low bandwidth but it doesn't make sense for that title seems to apply to the whole console? There is so much incomprehensible settings and other bits why not have zm place the bandwidth test for each camera next to each camera.
Example: (IP_camera_Garage_1 - Low B/W) something may be wrong with the network or Low for a USB camera might be normal, but Low for the whole console, what's it referencing?
Server and PC are a meter away, local ftp transfer average 60MB second, ZM on server Firefox 'High Bandwidth' PC Mint using Firefox 'Low Bandwidth’??? If 60 odd MBs is low what's like going over the Internet.
6- Pop ups
I'm in Montage, click on a camera, again those controls work but what are they for or do they only work for events > 20seconds? Anyway, I get a list of events, 142. So what's what, which is which, are they all artefact triggered, click on a random one since they are all uninformative. I get another pop up, with this black 'Time to next event' thing. Again what are those controls meant to achieve. Again, if I click on any links on that window I get another pop up all totally uninformative, why? because from the beginning I'm on a random event because I have no way of knowing if any of the events actually have anything as I'm also in a pop up porn site without the porn. If you are going to have a list of events give moving thumbnails so that you can visually scan and catch the action in the event and delete the false ones.
So I have 100 events of crows’ shng on my driveway and only one of somebody stealing from my mailbox. How do I find the one I need. The crows have already triggered the event. I have 100 stills of crows. Even in record, find the action in an event of 10 minute duration each.
7 - Video I'm not too sure about this comment.
why do I have to generate a video? That may explain why those pop ups are useless the whole thing is stills more stills and variation of stills, O' did I mention stills.. A video should be generated from all the stills, if anything give the user choice of options, Video, Stills, thumbnail stills generated in a video to quickly select an actual event, there are settings for everything else but not the necessary.
But! I noticed that if I generate a video for events then load them onto VLC in pause I can then drag the mouse and cycle through events looking for an action in an event 1000 times faster than using ZM. Not practical but shows me ZM’s failings especially when it seems you can only generate one event at a time.
Again I'm not too sure about this comment.
8 - Lets try it!
I live across from a school and on pick up there is a kid that sometimes runs to my mail box and likes to jump of it. Doesn't bother me, so I'll use him as the example, as an action within an event motion capture. Now the zones I set up to catch part of the street so cars would also trigger an event. A lot of events were captured but can I find the event with the kid jumping? no. Did he do it? I don't know for you can't quickly review events visually to find the one amongst a hundred or so. Not only that but you are looking for one action within a larger recorded event amongst 10's if not hundreds of events. A montage of moving thumbnails would quickly allow you to pick up the event needed.
It's dark now so my test USB camera can't see anything so I clicked on the camera and it gives me a list of events underneath. What's the point, it provides zero visual event information.
9 - Date quirk
The camera view displays the date as 16/03/16 Great, in Au that's how we read it. In the events lists of pop ups it's either displayed as 2016-03-16 or 03/16. It should be the same across all for quick subconscious visual search/reference. Note, I have not changed any date settings this is how it appears from install.
10- A File Browser
You have links and pop ups for everything. How about a file browser to access the system. In record my disk is filling up as such It would be nice to click on Disk, be presented with the home folder for example then folder for each camera broken down by Year/Month/Day/ etc... though I don't know how the data base works. Though being able to do a quick clean up would be handy.
11 – CPU Bug/Quirk
A. Local viewing sends CPU to Max cycling. I changed to just continuous record since it can't do what I need and PC prods alone viewing from Mint PC, next day I opened up a Firefox window in the lbunutu/ZM server and the CPU started cycling, I only know this due to the fan going nuts. I closed the servers’ Firefox windows and the CPU went down.
B. I opened Firefox 45.0 on Mint and loaded ZM no CPU rise. Average load on ZM local and remote states around 2 even with cpu jump. lbuntu/ZM Firefox 44.02 with Canonical 1 (whatever that is) Select on local > Montage > click on a camera > pop up > select event pop up. The more pop ups the higher the cpu load goes. Rebooted same result. Didn’t pursue it to see if it is a Firefox 44.02 issue.
12 - Bug/Quirk - Remote static
Remote static view on loss of server or camera. I noticed that if I have remote view say in montage and I reboot the server the images stay even if I unplug my USB camera, no indication of loss of server or cameras. Even the console stays static. That's not good.
By default any loss should be apparent on the screen. Assuming UPS on the server, if ZM doesn't it should be able to detect on UPS and send an email as well. Even possibly a browser plug-in to communicate with the server in the event of a failure/loss.
13 – Live Indication
ZM seems to provide a lot of pop ups and selections. A simple indication of 'Live' or something obvious that moves on the top right hand of each camera popup/montage/cycle would tell the user exactly where he/she is in the world of pop ups or just the montage. Referencing the time is not practical especially in high resolution monitors or having to cross reference the time on a pop up with the system time when traversing through an event.
Here's an example: Whilst reviewing my literary skills on this I've had the camera popup window on another monitor. I just noticed that for the past half hour or so it's been frozen. Why? I don't know? I must have clicked one of those controls. Had to click on the camera on the console again to bring up the fresh popup rather than messing around to see how I caused it yet alone if what I'm looking at is live or delayed. Yes, it’s operator error, but imagine you have your server in the basement and you monitor from work on a spare monitor. You lost your server early in the day and all day you have been looking at still images whilst your house gets ransacked.
You would think this is the end?
As an assumed rational person, I quit, as a masochist, it took me so long to get to this stage that I will persist up to the point where I know I'll never revisit zm again. If I'm not wrong, then my simple basic/common requirements will most likely never be introduced yet alone read by those that matter.
Having played with Linux on and off for the past 15 years I understand that it specifically goes out of its way to make things difficult in a false sense of elitism, but if you go to the time and effort to provide us with your work which I would pay/Donate too, then instead of making every bit and byte incomprehensibly configurable ask an average person whom knows their way around programs to install it/configure it and use it on their generic pc not yours, as also without instructions from someone who knows. If they can't then something is wrong yet alone in an hour to get to the basics. Software should draw you in to discover it not fight you all the way. Pay someone of the street a few bucks and see if they can get things going on their PC.
If confusion through complexity is the business model to gain paying clients then you may want think again. Possibly look at Freenas. I have been using Freenas for years and it's 10 fold more complex than ZM, yet it works and it's intuitive. They also have a Business side and the freeware side, from my perspective it works. You may also look at their model of providing a full operating system that can be managed by either a GUI remotely or console local and remote, add disks removed disks whatever, all with FreeBSD as the base.
My Scores
a) Installation success - 0/10 - Lost time, days. It would be interesting to see actual ZM users to downloads ratio.
b) Pre-built installation lbuntu/ZM - 9/10 - good but couldn't get wifi to connect to Internet. Local LAN only. It's minor shortfalls are my failings, not interested chasing Wifi driver. In this testing of ZM makes no difference.
c) ZM Camera detection - 10/10 - Picked my 10 + year old USB camera without issues and no drivers needed.
d) ZM Console - 6/10 - could do with live camera thumbnails and area grouping. Edit button is useless, it only brings up the camera settings of which there is already a link + there are many more settings for a camera, it needs grouping. Note: I did see a grouping window but I don't know for I only have one camera at the moment. They really need to rework how settings are handled. The window developer must really love pop ups. If he/she doesn't, they should go work for a porn site.
e) ZM functionality - 1/10 - One of the developers must work for a porn site - loves the pop ups and links.
f) ZM User Friendliness - 1/10 - There is none. They must be trying to impress businesses through confusion and complexity..
g) ZM Practicality - 0/10 - Lots of information and settings but not practical, does nothing I need. Go find an action in 100's of events. I've never seen Professional large scale surveillance software but it can't be as unintuitive and impractical as ZM.
h) ZM User familiarity after weeks of non use to find an action in an event. -0/10- Will always have to re-learn it. I can't find an action in an event now!
i) Do I consider ZM professional - It looks professional but No - If it's geared towards that arena then its complexity is intentional for fishing paid assistance, Fair enough, everybody pays bills. But if it's not practical or functional they probably lose 99% of would be clients and 99.9% percent of would be home users. I've spent days on it and can't justify the time. It's the kind of software you supply a customer you want to screw in a maintenance contract and hope you can extract the information when S** hits the fan, for your customer will never be able to. Charge by the hour would be the motto.
j) Does it meet any of my simplistic requirements - Only 1 but see (2 - Zones) above, as it makes it impractical, for you can waste time re-trying settings already tried. Especially without a live view or update on changes.
k) If it does and I'm to ignorant to know would it be viable to actually use it- No - It's a time consumer, not user friendly.
l) Would I install it or recommend it for family or friends - No - it would be abandoned quickly. Dummy cameras would be more cost effective or use alternative like the software that comes with Chinese cameras or Contacam on a Windows PC.
m) As it is would I Donate to the cause - no - I would rather pay for user friendly/practical software.
n) Would I Use it and pay for assistance - no - I would never get that far.
o) If It came as an embedded kit with cameras would I keep it not knowing what I know - No - It's short falls would be apparent quickly and I would return it and buy a different kit with different software.
Why am I still on this?
Note: In a windows machine at other premises I used to use Contacam, it is also freeware and open source I think. I have no affiliation or other with the developer/s but it is a program that the ZM developers seriously need view and to contact the developer and ask for assistance or permission to use/collaborate in it's conventions, and since Contacam is not ported to Linux there should be no conflict. ContaCam may be considered by some as simplistic but it walks all over ZM, not in its scale I suppose, but in it's out of the box functionality and practicality. In comparison to ZM I would give ContaCam from memory a 10/10 and ZM a 1/10 and that's only for effort. See its thumbnail montage of events, You can quickly pick out an action in an event in a browser packed of recorded events streaming. The USB camera used for CC is the same one used in ZM.
It annoys me that I have to abandon ZM after all the trouble to get here. If I'm wrong could somebody please correct me on how to do what I need.
I am actually for ZM, dedicated server based surveillance but like most Linux things there seems to be so much focus on configuration and manipulation that user friendliness is nowhere to be found, just like users for Linux, Only 1.2% of all Operating systems are Linux (not counting servers). So for an average person to install set and run then maintain a non gui server or for non initiated a Linux desktop then try and install and configure ZM with its zero intuitiveness before they can see if it's a viable tool. Good luck. Though not ZM even lbuntu/ZM didn’t come with a USB WiFi driver, average Joe downloads and installs lbunutu/ZM ISO and can’t connect. Try and get average Joe to know what’s wrong and do a manual install on Linux without internet in a wifi house. Who’s he/she going to blame?
I'm going to clone it now and use the PC for something else. I'll keep the clone in case the responses to this prove that I'm totally wrong and show me the light.
Well, if you got this far
The masochist in me had another two attempts at install on Mint 17.3 (Why Mint? Because it works) I got ZM up and running fixing a few errors along the way, only took about 4 hours, however, when it came to the camera showing an image/stream I got nothing just the controls and events links. And so, I'm broken with these two log errors I couldn't fix: "socket_sendto ( /var/run/zm/zms-110778s.soc ) failed: No such file or directory" and "getStreamCmdResponse stream error: socket_sendto (var/run/zm/zms-110778s.sock ) failed: No such file or directory - checkStreamForErrors()" And though I have no image, if I export an event I get the footage...
Oddly enough I also get the 'low Bandwidth' on the local machine now? So with the added bonus that one day I may have to do this all over again in a reinstall or if an update breaks things, yet it also doesn't seem to what I need it to. No, ZM I bow in defeat, you have won.
For the curious I did Mint 17.3 attempt twice, First install lamp in its parts and second was in a complete automated lamp install. In both cases I used the zoneminder.com documentation for Ubuntu 14.04 zoneminder install.
I’m Confused
What I don't understand is that most Linux files systems are same. Now if as lamp you have a one line install why can't zoneminder.
Here's an example:
1. You have 10 different distros installed on 10 generic PCs,
2. then install one liner LAMP on those 10 PC's "sudo apt-get install lamp-server^"
3. Install ZM on those PC's
4. Sort out the quirks, so 10 different distros on 10 different pcs with ZM working.
5. Create a script for one line install that will correct any conflicts.
I'm simplistic but if LAMP is installed in its defaults and ZM will be a dedicated system as Lamp won't install if already installed so ZM works with that, defaults.
Now even though my errors may have been/are LAMP/ZM associated they are all default installs. ZM is 100% dependant on it which means it has to correct its quirks. Why should ZM do that?
1. It's 100% dependant on LAMP
2. The more PC's ZM is installed on the greater the chances for a higher income stream. From my perspective if Linux is running on the PC then LAMP & ZM should have no issues with generic default installs. All I should worry about is Passwords, taken care on the install, cameras, settings and bugs.
Install to first camera view shouldn't take more than 20 minutes and not days (I am a masochist).
I’m Done.
Now if ZM actually did what I needed and I used it (Actually installed/worked) when a major upgrade is done an unobtrusive pop up for the admin could come up and request a casual donation through common payment schemes with a run once reminder. Foreigners would be the most reluctant due to exchange rates and credit card foreign exchange charges. But say an average of $3.00 USD over 100000 users ($300K) from non business users every 6 to 12 months, not much, but would you knock it back? So If I gave up after days, imagine how many others gave up just after an hour or so.
Quickie - Income stream?
ZM secure cloud based mirrored storage for last 24 hours or more. Say $40 per annum. My server mirrors it’s self with the ZM cloud. ZM cloud securely transfers mirrors holds the events, Nice app by ZM to seamlessly use the cloud. House destroyed/Server destroyed, events are safe.
Professional? Real estate agent/owner sets up quick camera with direct internet access to ZM cloud based, now dozens of vacant properties can be monitored in one montage.
Pay to download? Have ZM with 3 camera capable then if the user wants more a paid download will give them access to ZM unlimited. $10 for three year downloads
I want 10% of these ideas
But ZM has to work, be user friendly and intuitive and in my opinion, not in its current state.
The irony is that the time that I spent on ZM from the beginning if I had say gone to work being paid an hourly rate and used that money I could have bought a fully functional multi IP camera kit worth over 1K with TB hdd. So who's the clever boy then?
Like I said, I hope I'm wrong but I keep these type of notes to remind me in years to come if I revisit something even though I have gone over the top on this one...about 9 and 1/2 pages over.
Yes, all things are a work in progress, including me.
Finally, here is a fantasy > I have a 30" screen, now on that screen top to bottom on the console I could fit 60 odd cameras. So reduce that to 20 and under each camera along the length I have a series of events displayed as moving thumbnails gifs with arrows on either side for each camera so I can scroll forward or backyards on events. I could literally scroll/see all the events for each camera at once on the screen. Find the one I want > click on it > review it > save it/mail it etc... No muss no fuss. In a few minutes I could review an entire day of events for the entire cluster. On holidays? Connect your device to the hotels TV and same thing, Instead of: Sorry dear I still have 4296 events to review to prove our dog didn’t eat the neighbours’ cat, or did!
I understand that this will get negative responses and I hope so for I hope I'm wrong but this here is my experience with zoneminder when I only have 4 basic requirements. Now these notes are generally for me, though this one got out of hand. As such, I do this to remind me over time why I do or don't use something or quirks to remember, and I actually hope the people behind ZM actually read this even though it may be considered total dribble by all.
There is sarcasm but take it in jest, I have to...
My basic requirements:
1. Motion detection record.
2. Record -10 seconds and +10 seconds or other before and after a motion record,
3. Display moving thumbnails of captures to select an action in an event that you are looking for, and save it or some other quick method. Montage of moving thumbnails.
4. Being an out mind out of site system until something goes wrong I don't want to re-learn everything when you need to review it. User friendly/intuitive.
• I noticed I mention thumbnails a bit below. Creating small medium quality moving thumbnail gifs shouldn't be that difficult.
ZM Installation.
• I tried several guides including the 'easy way guides and none worked, always some error that cost hours/days to achieve zero outcome.
• Tried install on ubuntu server - failed - My fault, only have Wifi Internet and was unable to set up wifi for upgrading and downloading.
• Tried install on ubuntu desktop - failed - errors - causing hours to achieve no outcome
• Ubuntu Note: ubuntu server and desktop will not auto detect network or Wifi card, not worth the effort, this is an Ubuntu 15.10 bug, also selecting search on Desktop crashes Ubuntu. Mint and other flavours have no issue.
• Tried install on Mint desktop - failed - errors and again wasted hours for no outcome.
• Tried a couple of times on the above by restoring clean clones and starting again with no success. Cut and paste to console also same results, Matched Mint 17.2 to ubuntu base for guide to use, same result, errors.
Tried some more research and in the back of my mind there were no real user information just a lot of guides that didn't work and reviews done by what seemed non users. In one instance I came across an error with two posts I think, one from the attempting installer and the other from a responder, the responders comment was that the OP should not try to reinvent the wheel and should look at the link for the easy way install. I myself had tried the easy guides only to end up with errors. Now from my experience, so far with the above comments by posters it rings alarm bells that basically say. It's not worth the effort walk away. But I'm a masochist! I've wanted to try ZM for a year or so since it’s been around before 2005 I think. It must be good?
So after all the failed attempts above I finally came across lbuntu 14.04 with zoneminder 1.29.0 ISO and installed it.
1- It Lives.
FINALY, some life. Now all I have is an old USB camera that I will test before committing to cameras and the like.
Got the camera to work clicked on all the links and so forth read the manual and the like for some settings.
A. On the console my camera was green so I assumed it is working but how do I see it? Eventually if I click on my cameras name a pop up appears, eureka I have visual.
B. It also took a while to figure out that Cycle/Montage is camera related. Cycle threw me with a black screen. Cycle needs to display something ie; (No input) if it's on a camera with no input, say the cables cut, and or even better, the time the signal was lost. When I clicked on cycle I just get a blank screen for the first camera that is not available. I know that now, but can I manually move forward or do I just wait. I wait.
C. Considering everything is linked to something but Cycle is not? If cycling through cameras you should be able to stop it at that camera and or record for example or even scroll backwards and forwards to something that may have captured your eye..
2- Zones.
I figured out how to do it without time on searching.
A. Why multiple pops, Re use windows and put a back link and or quit link.
B. Presets - It always goes back to 'Choose Preset' - So how do you know what settings you used on existing zones?
C. Alarm colour - Really? Does anyone have a colour pallet in their back pocket? If you are going to use paint software conventions you could at least link a colour pallet to it. How about just a selection of 50 colours.
D. Not that I understand any of those settings but you can have two zones set up differently and yet most of those settings never change to correspond to the zone when it's selected. So what settings did I set for each zone?
E. Also, why not just a setting for 0 to 100% sensitivity as well as a live image rather than a still. This way you can live adjust a zone to compensate for tree shadows. I have branch that is swaying in the wind, occasionally appearing. It's not practical to set up in the current still image and preset set ups. I should also be able to click on button that says update and on the same window see if it's getting triggered under the new setting. Maybe I could but I'll be dead of old age in 40 years.
3 -Events –
So I have now about 50 events on the Console so I click on events...
A. I have 100 events? ok, so which is which, Events is the total number that's why I assume there is a day events total. Update: Running now for over 24 hours, Events 165 - Events Day - 164 - Events Week/Month 165 Events window 174? Ok, closed the pop up and its updated the console to 174 total but I'm still showing 173 events for the day. Day events actual 80. What gives? This seems to have rectified itself after several boots/It’s a dual boot system. Also applies to ‘B’
B. Suggestion: Between days in the events pop up have a coloured separator or each day/hour colour coded for quick reference. Even if I click on the 'Hour' I still gets the complete list numbering in the 10's of pages.
C. Figured out how to add thumbnails but what's the point they don't do anything it's a still image, click on it and you get a pop up of another still image that you can only cycle through frames? Average life span of a human being is 80 odd years.
D. Click on the event and you get a functioning image of sorts. You get an image then 'time to next event' and waiting, What for? The control buttons on the bottom, what for? Stream function is useless (morecord). It's only the montage of stills that give you anything useful.
E. So basically If I have 100 events and 99 of them triggered by artefacts there is no way I am ever going to find the actual one without wasting days on it. Those thumbnails should cycle through the event quickly so that you can catch the one you want.
F. Frame alarm, frames total score, avg score, max score. Who gives a *** spend more time making it useful. If somebody needs those things have them in a settings box on the top of the page. Who is ZM trying to impress.
G. View the time line? Still haven't figured that out, yet alone what it's supposed to do. Yep, hover the mouse, so? Still waiting? Maybe it works if you have a continuous recording?
H. The only way I managed to view a video of an event is by exporting an even then opening it in the browser. It doesn't help if you have to go through each event to find the one you want. I'm assuming I have to do this in on motion record due to events being short.
I. So I tried 'Record' instead of 'morecord' and it gives me one continuous recording so those controls on windows work. But how do you find an action in an event that is possibly days long? Granted they seem to be chopped up into 10 minute intervals but again find the action in the event in dozens of events.
J. Zoom, It loses track after about 4 clicks on the same spot, you also can’t traverse the image so you have to start again by un-zooming, Why not left mouse to select/lock a section of the image and scroll button to zoom in and out of that selection box. Right click to cancel all and return image to default. Try this, In Windows open up the magnifier from ‘Ease Of Access’ then Ctrl-Alt-L to set ‘Lens’ using say 300% and run it over the camera view. You can now magnify whatever section you want and traverse the whole view. Try it in Montage. Windows Key-Esc to cancel.
4 – Buffers Pre and Post Event
A. I need +10 seconds -10 seconds record or time. After searching all I found was that in the 'Buffers' Pre event and post event counts. Who knows this stuff? but wait, something about them being half the Image Buffer size??? But hang on 'Image Count' that's frames, if that's frames and my camera has varying fps then that Image count is useless for it's a constant variable?
Why not just simply have a setting for retain -10 seconds before and 10 seconds after an event. I don't even know what the other stuff is for.
B. I've been asked why: Well imagine you monitor your front yard and not the street to avoid false events. Someone parks in front of your house runs to your front door, steals a package and gets in the car. Those extra +/- 10 seconds may be enough to catch the number plate as well as the car type and colour.
C. I don't even want to look for the setting on how long to keep events or yet alone how much of the HDD to allocate. I don't think such a setting would even be in human legible form. How many binary bits expressed in octal would you like to allocate? Days to keep files, using ancient Egyptian calendar translated to Mayan as referenced by your horoscope. Yeah, I have seen through the filters dialogue and read the manual on it. How about, ZM detects 1TB HDD With 900GB Free- Space to allocate to ZM eg: 800GB. Days to keep files per camera eg: 7 days. Warn if 7 days quota cannot be met. Do not delete 'Archived' Files. Warn when Space allocated is eg: 90%. Simple, each camera will have 7 days history, Hdd max is 800GB archived files protected. You could even add email address and heading to send email to. Never have to think until I get one of those two warnings and simple to alter.
5 – Quirk ‘Low Bandwidth’
On the console it's always defaulting to low Bandwidth. I have a 1GB network avg speed 60MBs lbuntu/zm server to Mint Desktop > ZM Console in Firefox. Though it's a USB camera I can understand the low bandwidth but it doesn't make sense for that title seems to apply to the whole console? There is so much incomprehensible settings and other bits why not have zm place the bandwidth test for each camera next to each camera.
Example: (IP_camera_Garage_1 - Low B/W) something may be wrong with the network or Low for a USB camera might be normal, but Low for the whole console, what's it referencing?
Server and PC are a meter away, local ftp transfer average 60MB second, ZM on server Firefox 'High Bandwidth' PC Mint using Firefox 'Low Bandwidth’??? If 60 odd MBs is low what's like going over the Internet.
6- Pop ups
I'm in Montage, click on a camera, again those controls work but what are they for or do they only work for events > 20seconds? Anyway, I get a list of events, 142. So what's what, which is which, are they all artefact triggered, click on a random one since they are all uninformative. I get another pop up, with this black 'Time to next event' thing. Again what are those controls meant to achieve. Again, if I click on any links on that window I get another pop up all totally uninformative, why? because from the beginning I'm on a random event because I have no way of knowing if any of the events actually have anything as I'm also in a pop up porn site without the porn. If you are going to have a list of events give moving thumbnails so that you can visually scan and catch the action in the event and delete the false ones.
So I have 100 events of crows’ shng on my driveway and only one of somebody stealing from my mailbox. How do I find the one I need. The crows have already triggered the event. I have 100 stills of crows. Even in record, find the action in an event of 10 minute duration each.
7 - Video I'm not too sure about this comment.
why do I have to generate a video? That may explain why those pop ups are useless the whole thing is stills more stills and variation of stills, O' did I mention stills.. A video should be generated from all the stills, if anything give the user choice of options, Video, Stills, thumbnail stills generated in a video to quickly select an actual event, there are settings for everything else but not the necessary.
But! I noticed that if I generate a video for events then load them onto VLC in pause I can then drag the mouse and cycle through events looking for an action in an event 1000 times faster than using ZM. Not practical but shows me ZM’s failings especially when it seems you can only generate one event at a time.
Again I'm not too sure about this comment.
8 - Lets try it!
I live across from a school and on pick up there is a kid that sometimes runs to my mail box and likes to jump of it. Doesn't bother me, so I'll use him as the example, as an action within an event motion capture. Now the zones I set up to catch part of the street so cars would also trigger an event. A lot of events were captured but can I find the event with the kid jumping? no. Did he do it? I don't know for you can't quickly review events visually to find the one amongst a hundred or so. Not only that but you are looking for one action within a larger recorded event amongst 10's if not hundreds of events. A montage of moving thumbnails would quickly allow you to pick up the event needed.
It's dark now so my test USB camera can't see anything so I clicked on the camera and it gives me a list of events underneath. What's the point, it provides zero visual event information.
9 - Date quirk
The camera view displays the date as 16/03/16 Great, in Au that's how we read it. In the events lists of pop ups it's either displayed as 2016-03-16 or 03/16. It should be the same across all for quick subconscious visual search/reference. Note, I have not changed any date settings this is how it appears from install.
10- A File Browser
You have links and pop ups for everything. How about a file browser to access the system. In record my disk is filling up as such It would be nice to click on Disk, be presented with the home folder for example then folder for each camera broken down by Year/Month/Day/ etc... though I don't know how the data base works. Though being able to do a quick clean up would be handy.
11 – CPU Bug/Quirk
A. Local viewing sends CPU to Max cycling. I changed to just continuous record since it can't do what I need and PC prods alone viewing from Mint PC, next day I opened up a Firefox window in the lbunutu/ZM server and the CPU started cycling, I only know this due to the fan going nuts. I closed the servers’ Firefox windows and the CPU went down.
B. I opened Firefox 45.0 on Mint and loaded ZM no CPU rise. Average load on ZM local and remote states around 2 even with cpu jump. lbuntu/ZM Firefox 44.02 with Canonical 1 (whatever that is) Select on local > Montage > click on a camera > pop up > select event pop up. The more pop ups the higher the cpu load goes. Rebooted same result. Didn’t pursue it to see if it is a Firefox 44.02 issue.
12 - Bug/Quirk - Remote static
Remote static view on loss of server or camera. I noticed that if I have remote view say in montage and I reboot the server the images stay even if I unplug my USB camera, no indication of loss of server or cameras. Even the console stays static. That's not good.
By default any loss should be apparent on the screen. Assuming UPS on the server, if ZM doesn't it should be able to detect on UPS and send an email as well. Even possibly a browser plug-in to communicate with the server in the event of a failure/loss.
13 – Live Indication
ZM seems to provide a lot of pop ups and selections. A simple indication of 'Live' or something obvious that moves on the top right hand of each camera popup/montage/cycle would tell the user exactly where he/she is in the world of pop ups or just the montage. Referencing the time is not practical especially in high resolution monitors or having to cross reference the time on a pop up with the system time when traversing through an event.
Here's an example: Whilst reviewing my literary skills on this I've had the camera popup window on another monitor. I just noticed that for the past half hour or so it's been frozen. Why? I don't know? I must have clicked one of those controls. Had to click on the camera on the console again to bring up the fresh popup rather than messing around to see how I caused it yet alone if what I'm looking at is live or delayed. Yes, it’s operator error, but imagine you have your server in the basement and you monitor from work on a spare monitor. You lost your server early in the day and all day you have been looking at still images whilst your house gets ransacked.
You would think this is the end?
As an assumed rational person, I quit, as a masochist, it took me so long to get to this stage that I will persist up to the point where I know I'll never revisit zm again. If I'm not wrong, then my simple basic/common requirements will most likely never be introduced yet alone read by those that matter.
Having played with Linux on and off for the past 15 years I understand that it specifically goes out of its way to make things difficult in a false sense of elitism, but if you go to the time and effort to provide us with your work which I would pay/Donate too, then instead of making every bit and byte incomprehensibly configurable ask an average person whom knows their way around programs to install it/configure it and use it on their generic pc not yours, as also without instructions from someone who knows. If they can't then something is wrong yet alone in an hour to get to the basics. Software should draw you in to discover it not fight you all the way. Pay someone of the street a few bucks and see if they can get things going on their PC.
If confusion through complexity is the business model to gain paying clients then you may want think again. Possibly look at Freenas. I have been using Freenas for years and it's 10 fold more complex than ZM, yet it works and it's intuitive. They also have a Business side and the freeware side, from my perspective it works. You may also look at their model of providing a full operating system that can be managed by either a GUI remotely or console local and remote, add disks removed disks whatever, all with FreeBSD as the base.
My Scores
a) Installation success - 0/10 - Lost time, days. It would be interesting to see actual ZM users to downloads ratio.
b) Pre-built installation lbuntu/ZM - 9/10 - good but couldn't get wifi to connect to Internet. Local LAN only. It's minor shortfalls are my failings, not interested chasing Wifi driver. In this testing of ZM makes no difference.
c) ZM Camera detection - 10/10 - Picked my 10 + year old USB camera without issues and no drivers needed.
d) ZM Console - 6/10 - could do with live camera thumbnails and area grouping. Edit button is useless, it only brings up the camera settings of which there is already a link + there are many more settings for a camera, it needs grouping. Note: I did see a grouping window but I don't know for I only have one camera at the moment. They really need to rework how settings are handled. The window developer must really love pop ups. If he/she doesn't, they should go work for a porn site.
e) ZM functionality - 1/10 - One of the developers must work for a porn site - loves the pop ups and links.
f) ZM User Friendliness - 1/10 - There is none. They must be trying to impress businesses through confusion and complexity..
g) ZM Practicality - 0/10 - Lots of information and settings but not practical, does nothing I need. Go find an action in 100's of events. I've never seen Professional large scale surveillance software but it can't be as unintuitive and impractical as ZM.
h) ZM User familiarity after weeks of non use to find an action in an event. -0/10- Will always have to re-learn it. I can't find an action in an event now!
i) Do I consider ZM professional - It looks professional but No - If it's geared towards that arena then its complexity is intentional for fishing paid assistance, Fair enough, everybody pays bills. But if it's not practical or functional they probably lose 99% of would be clients and 99.9% percent of would be home users. I've spent days on it and can't justify the time. It's the kind of software you supply a customer you want to screw in a maintenance contract and hope you can extract the information when S** hits the fan, for your customer will never be able to. Charge by the hour would be the motto.
j) Does it meet any of my simplistic requirements - Only 1 but see (2 - Zones) above, as it makes it impractical, for you can waste time re-trying settings already tried. Especially without a live view or update on changes.
k) If it does and I'm to ignorant to know would it be viable to actually use it- No - It's a time consumer, not user friendly.
l) Would I install it or recommend it for family or friends - No - it would be abandoned quickly. Dummy cameras would be more cost effective or use alternative like the software that comes with Chinese cameras or Contacam on a Windows PC.
m) As it is would I Donate to the cause - no - I would rather pay for user friendly/practical software.
n) Would I Use it and pay for assistance - no - I would never get that far.
o) If It came as an embedded kit with cameras would I keep it not knowing what I know - No - It's short falls would be apparent quickly and I would return it and buy a different kit with different software.
Why am I still on this?
Note: In a windows machine at other premises I used to use Contacam, it is also freeware and open source I think. I have no affiliation or other with the developer/s but it is a program that the ZM developers seriously need view and to contact the developer and ask for assistance or permission to use/collaborate in it's conventions, and since Contacam is not ported to Linux there should be no conflict. ContaCam may be considered by some as simplistic but it walks all over ZM, not in its scale I suppose, but in it's out of the box functionality and practicality. In comparison to ZM I would give ContaCam from memory a 10/10 and ZM a 1/10 and that's only for effort. See its thumbnail montage of events, You can quickly pick out an action in an event in a browser packed of recorded events streaming. The USB camera used for CC is the same one used in ZM.
It annoys me that I have to abandon ZM after all the trouble to get here. If I'm wrong could somebody please correct me on how to do what I need.
I am actually for ZM, dedicated server based surveillance but like most Linux things there seems to be so much focus on configuration and manipulation that user friendliness is nowhere to be found, just like users for Linux, Only 1.2% of all Operating systems are Linux (not counting servers). So for an average person to install set and run then maintain a non gui server or for non initiated a Linux desktop then try and install and configure ZM with its zero intuitiveness before they can see if it's a viable tool. Good luck. Though not ZM even lbuntu/ZM didn’t come with a USB WiFi driver, average Joe downloads and installs lbunutu/ZM ISO and can’t connect. Try and get average Joe to know what’s wrong and do a manual install on Linux without internet in a wifi house. Who’s he/she going to blame?
I'm going to clone it now and use the PC for something else. I'll keep the clone in case the responses to this prove that I'm totally wrong and show me the light.
Well, if you got this far
The masochist in me had another two attempts at install on Mint 17.3 (Why Mint? Because it works) I got ZM up and running fixing a few errors along the way, only took about 4 hours, however, when it came to the camera showing an image/stream I got nothing just the controls and events links. And so, I'm broken with these two log errors I couldn't fix: "socket_sendto ( /var/run/zm/zms-110778s.soc ) failed: No such file or directory" and "getStreamCmdResponse stream error: socket_sendto (var/run/zm/zms-110778s.sock ) failed: No such file or directory - checkStreamForErrors()" And though I have no image, if I export an event I get the footage...
Oddly enough I also get the 'low Bandwidth' on the local machine now? So with the added bonus that one day I may have to do this all over again in a reinstall or if an update breaks things, yet it also doesn't seem to what I need it to. No, ZM I bow in defeat, you have won.
For the curious I did Mint 17.3 attempt twice, First install lamp in its parts and second was in a complete automated lamp install. In both cases I used the zoneminder.com documentation for Ubuntu 14.04 zoneminder install.
I’m Confused
What I don't understand is that most Linux files systems are same. Now if as lamp you have a one line install why can't zoneminder.
Here's an example:
1. You have 10 different distros installed on 10 generic PCs,
2. then install one liner LAMP on those 10 PC's "sudo apt-get install lamp-server^"
3. Install ZM on those PC's
4. Sort out the quirks, so 10 different distros on 10 different pcs with ZM working.
5. Create a script for one line install that will correct any conflicts.
I'm simplistic but if LAMP is installed in its defaults and ZM will be a dedicated system as Lamp won't install if already installed so ZM works with that, defaults.
Now even though my errors may have been/are LAMP/ZM associated they are all default installs. ZM is 100% dependant on it which means it has to correct its quirks. Why should ZM do that?
1. It's 100% dependant on LAMP
2. The more PC's ZM is installed on the greater the chances for a higher income stream. From my perspective if Linux is running on the PC then LAMP & ZM should have no issues with generic default installs. All I should worry about is Passwords, taken care on the install, cameras, settings and bugs.
Install to first camera view shouldn't take more than 20 minutes and not days (I am a masochist).
I’m Done.
Now if ZM actually did what I needed and I used it (Actually installed/worked) when a major upgrade is done an unobtrusive pop up for the admin could come up and request a casual donation through common payment schemes with a run once reminder. Foreigners would be the most reluctant due to exchange rates and credit card foreign exchange charges. But say an average of $3.00 USD over 100000 users ($300K) from non business users every 6 to 12 months, not much, but would you knock it back? So If I gave up after days, imagine how many others gave up just after an hour or so.
Quickie - Income stream?
ZM secure cloud based mirrored storage for last 24 hours or more. Say $40 per annum. My server mirrors it’s self with the ZM cloud. ZM cloud securely transfers mirrors holds the events, Nice app by ZM to seamlessly use the cloud. House destroyed/Server destroyed, events are safe.
Professional? Real estate agent/owner sets up quick camera with direct internet access to ZM cloud based, now dozens of vacant properties can be monitored in one montage.
Pay to download? Have ZM with 3 camera capable then if the user wants more a paid download will give them access to ZM unlimited. $10 for three year downloads
I want 10% of these ideas
But ZM has to work, be user friendly and intuitive and in my opinion, not in its current state.
The irony is that the time that I spent on ZM from the beginning if I had say gone to work being paid an hourly rate and used that money I could have bought a fully functional multi IP camera kit worth over 1K with TB hdd. So who's the clever boy then?
Like I said, I hope I'm wrong but I keep these type of notes to remind me in years to come if I revisit something even though I have gone over the top on this one...about 9 and 1/2 pages over.
Yes, all things are a work in progress, including me.
Finally, here is a fantasy > I have a 30" screen, now on that screen top to bottom on the console I could fit 60 odd cameras. So reduce that to 20 and under each camera along the length I have a series of events displayed as moving thumbnails gifs with arrows on either side for each camera so I can scroll forward or backyards on events. I could literally scroll/see all the events for each camera at once on the screen. Find the one I want > click on it > review it > save it/mail it etc... No muss no fuss. In a few minutes I could review an entire day of events for the entire cluster. On holidays? Connect your device to the hotels TV and same thing, Instead of: Sorry dear I still have 4296 events to review to prove our dog didn’t eat the neighbours’ cat, or did!
as well as help but it dosen't seem to do any of the things I need it to so I can't use it.