ZoneMinder Forums

I've been Googling for a while and haven't found much.

I am looking for something like this https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRGTRL8A11E-US/ that I can install ZM on. Hikvision also makes an "embedded Linux" PoE NVR that is priced in the $450-$500 range.

The biggest thing I'm after is a small appliance sized machine. Something the size of a NVR, network switch or small 1U server. If it has PoE and the ability to add memory, I'll take a look at it. Alternatively, I'd take a look at a 1U Mini-ITX chassis with an add-in PoE module. I've found some older Cisco and Barracuda 1U appliances with 8-port 10/100 PoE modules (for phone systems) but nothing in the 8-10 port range that is PoE and gigabit.

I'm not that worried if the OS is a SquashFS image that extracts into memory, I've dealt with similar before. My biggest hurdle is that Intel PoE quad cards are $200-$250 each. By the time I built a DIY ZM machine in a 2U or Desktop/Tower form-factor it would run me upwards of $1,000 which is why the look/size/form-factor of the Solid-Run or Hikvision NVRs look like a decent option. There are also some other types of rack-mount appliances that have standalone PoE injectors inside the chassis but I think those might be passive PoE (not af/at/bt) therefore they cannot negotiate as 802.3af/at/bt can.

Thanks!

Also one more quick question about event processing and identification:
Has anyone used Intel Coprocessors instead of CUDA? How about Intel dev/fpga accelerator boards?

There are options. If you want low power you probably want an ARM based board that has POE ports. Check linuxgizmos.com or some such similar site. But this limits how many cameras you can use.

e.g.
https://linuxgizmos.com/linux-powered-n ... poe-ports/

If you have more than a few cameras, then an x86 board will work. Again, linuxgizmos (and probably some other sites) have options. For the poe cards, you could purchase used equipment if price is a concern.

With hardware acceleration in ZM, it's at an early stage, and not recommended for the average user. An FPGA could be used, but you will have to do some legwork. Or you can throw money at the devs. I've considered the FPGA angle before and it's interesting, but it's a project. It's not likely to happen unless someone invests money/time for it. Plus, it's not just encoding that has to happen on the FPGA. Passthrough already handles this. It's the motion detection that needs to be done. Which is a different animal than simply encoding. Better than all of this would be some ASICs, which might happen if the low cost OSHW fabs ever come to light.

Has anyone tested ZM on one of these ARM based systems with PoE onboard to power the cameras?

I wonder if we need the Intel branded CPUs that have the QuickSync. QuickSync is an evolving feature set that supposedly speeds up video at basically no power. But not sure how to know in ZoneMinder if the setup is taking advantage of it? Which revision of QuickSync does ZoneMinder / ffmpeg need to fly?

I would much rather buy AMD which has "Video Core Next."

Are there any ARM based systems with a similar video encoding acceleration feature set?