electric_eye

• ElectricEye

A network video recorder for multiple IP cameras using VLC.

[[http://mlug-au.org/doku.php/workshops/electric_eye_mpd][MLUG presentation slides on electric_eye]]

** History

I've been using Zoneminder & motion and these programs are either too large for my requirements (zoneminder) or don't work with the cameras I own (motion). What I did notice is all my cameras work through VLC with high resolution and VLC can record.

I started with VLC doing the recording up to 0.1.0 where I changed over to using ffmpeg instead.

** Requirements

• ffmpeg 3.x - recording & motion detection We are using 3.x for it's reconnect features.
• ruby 1.9.3 or above
• Linux (Tested on Debian 7, Xubuntu 14.04)

** Installation

Under linux install vlc xvfb & ruby

: sudo apt-get install ffmpeg ruby

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

: gem 'electric_eye'

And then execute:

: $ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

: $ gem install electric_eye ** Configuration

Enter your cameras into the JSON config file like so

: --- : duration: 60 : path: "/media/data/recordings" : threshold: 2 : cameras: : - :name: Reception : :url: rtsp://:@<camera's ip>/live2.sdp : - :name: Kitchen : :url: rtsp://:@<camera's ip>/live2.sdp : - :name: Workstations : :url: rtsp://:@<camera's ip>/live2.sdp

You should be able to view the URL through vlc before using this program.

The recordings directory will end up with these directories

: /media/data/recordings/reception : /media/data/recordings/kitchen

Files will be numbered up to your wrap figure. The wrap figure determines when the recording program should start from zero again. EG: If you select you duration as 3600 seconds and a wrap figure of 168 then you get a rolling recording over a 1 week period which would be divided up into 1hr files.

: reception000.mjpeg : motion-reception000.mjpeg : reception001.mjpeg : motion-reception001.mjpeg

The default is going to be 10 minute blocks, this can be overridden with the duration variable above in minutes.

** Configure ffmpeg location

Add the following to your ~/.bashrc file pointing it to your ffmpeg location : export FFMPEG_BIN="/opt/ffmpeg3/bin/ffmpeg"

To compile ffmpeg 3 into there do the following : ./configure --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg3 : make -j4 : sudo make install

** Rebooting cameras

Some people reboot their cameras everynight. This does not work well with electric eye at the moment. As a work around you have to stop and start electric eye in your crontab.

** Usage

First make sure you add your cameras

: electric_eye -a Reception

Now start the daemon to start the recording process

: electric_eye -s

Start with debug messages

: electric_eye -s --log-level=debug

Stop all recordings

: electric_eye -k

Usage in development mode

: bundle exec bin/electric_eye -h

Debug mode

: bundle exec bin/electric_eye -s --log-level=debug

** Start on boot

To start the service on boot (on a linux machine) add the following

Add the following to /etc/init/electric_eye

: #!/usr/bin/env ruby : # : # Electric Eye : # : # chkconfig: 2345 80 20 : # description: Network Video Recorder : : RBENV_DIR= '/usr/local/rbenv/shims' : APP_NAME = 'electric_eye' : : case ARGV.first : : when 'start' : system "su johnsmith -c "#{RBENV_DIR}/electric_eye -s"" : : when 'stop' : system "su johnsmith -c "#{RBENV_DIR}/electric_eye -k"" : : when 'restart' : system "su johnsmith -c "#{RBENV_DIR}/electric_eye -k"" : sleep 0.5 : system "su johnsmith -c "#{RBENV_DIR}/electric_eye -s"" : : end : : unless %w{start stop restart}.include? ARGV.first : puts "Usage: #{APP_NAME} {start|stop|restart}" : exit : end

Make executable & add to startup

: cd /etc/init.d : chmod +x electric_eye : update-rc.d electric_eye defaults

Replace johnsmith with your user where you have setup your camera profiles. NOTE: I cannot get it working nicely with the root user.

** Cleanup

Optional - This was needed for versions prior to 0.1.0, now it is only a precaution as ffmpeg does clean up after itself.

Cleaning up recordings. Put the following into your /etc/crontab per recording directory.

: 00 19 * * * root /usr/bin/find -type f -mtime + -exec rm {} ;

Example for cleaning up reception after 60days at 7pm everynight.

: 00 19 * * * root /usr/bin/find /media/recordings/reception -type f -mtime +60 -exec rm {} ;

** Contributing

• Fork it ( https://github.com/map7/electric_eye/fork )
• Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
• Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
• Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
• Create a new Pull Request

** TODO :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2015-07-01 Wed 16:37] :END:

• Add more testing

• Add post recording motion detection (use vlc)

• Make sure we cannot add blank cameras

• Create threshold as a variable

• Swap over to using ffmpeg

• Do post motion detection (using fmmpeg)

• Add a feature to clean up old recordings using a "period" setting (ffmpeg handles this) EG: 60 day period which could be set in the config file how many days you want to keep Then just call 'electric_eye --remove-recordings' within crontab This would iterate over all my cameras and remove old recordings to keep a rolling set of days.

• Adjust motion detection to date format : --.mpeg

• Allow motion detection to be turned on/off (default: off)

• Threshold should be per camera or have inside & outside thresholds There is a large difference in movement between indoor office cameras and outdoor cameras. With wind and rain comes a lot of motion!