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Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 7:07 pm
by adamf
Hi, apologies for the newbie quetion

I have Zoneminder all setup on Centos 7 (HP ML 110 Base, 2Gb RAM, 250Gb HDD (will add more later))

ZM v1.34.1

i'm in the web GUI and have added a camera, which is a Hikvision IPC-D120H

I can view the stream fine thru the cameras web gui and also using VLC player entering the stream rtsp://user:password@192.168.0.31/Streaming/Channels/1 *user and password redacted)

When i add the camera in ZM, it adds and in console view i can see the camera but it records nothing, if i go into the camera i get a broken image placeholder and the message "Monitor is not capturing. We will be unable to provide an image"

I have the camera added as

Server none
sourec type ffmpeg
function record
enabled yes
source path as above
method tcp

thats about it ?

where am i going wrong ? i must be missing something :/

TIA

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:40 pm
by CountyLine
I don't use the Record function, so can't help much. But as a swag, you might be running out of memory with only 2 gig of ram. What is your /dev/shm reading?

Any other applications running besides ZM and its dependencies?

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:55 pm
by adamf
/dev/shm is empty

i have changed to monitor, and same thing.

TOP shows there is plenty of RAM available

this is a fresh install, nothing else running

cheers

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 9:18 pm
by bbunge
You forgot to mention resolution and that needs to be spot on. Since you have VLC, use it to check the resolution the camera wants to use.

Camera resolution in Zoneminder does not match camera output. Use VLC (Tools, Media Information, Codec) to check camera Display Resolution.

Use the resolution reported in Source - Capture Resolution (pixels). You can also halve the resolution (640x480 down to 320x240 for example)

Keep in mind the higher resolution the more shared memory Zoneminder will use. Although the 1.34.x version uses less shared memory than prior versions.
As for the Record may I recommend you use Mocord until you get Zoneminder working. Record can fill up a drive quickly. Also use x264 and disable jpeg's.

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 9:33 pm
by adamf

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 10:47 pm
by CountyLine
By /dev/shm is empty do you mean it reads 0 or there is nothing there (blank) ? What does the df -h command show for /dev/shm? It should match ZM's web browser reading.

The OS allocates one half of the machine's memory to /dev/shm. As far as I know top does not show /dev/shm.

As an example, I am currently running 6 1920x1080 5 fps cameras in Modect mode on a system with 16 gigs of ram. 8 gigs is allocated to /dev/shm. ZM reports /dev/shm at 9%. With your 2 gig of ram and presumed 1 gig /dev/shm you should be showing substantial usage, even with only one camera.

Maybe I missed it, but have you set your camera's fps down to something like 3 - 5 fps for testing. It must be done in the camera's own web interface, not in ZM (leave those fields blank). If your cameras are running wide open, that could explain it.

Re: Adding first camera

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:49 am
by iconnor
You said you can view it with vlc at rtsp://user:password@192.168.0.31/Streaming/Channels/1
but in your monitor you seem to have left off the /Streaming/Channels/1