Logging webcams for RaspiOS

On 10/20/21 21:00, bob prohaska wrote:


I would imagine that a RaspberryPi camera is sensitive enough to IR that  
using an IR LED for light would be sufficient.  I don't have any IR LEDs  
or I would try it.  Then you could use some software for the motion  
detection.

knute...

I'm looking for a standalone camera; the Pi will simply be used to
control the camera and look at the video clips recorded.

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska

On 21-10-2021 05:37, bob prohaska wrote:


Looks like you may not want another DIY project which I can understand,  
so this is probably not helpful. Also without some clever customisations  
raspi cams need a lot of attention to keep going, in my experience. But ...

You could put a RasPi NoIR (no-infrared filter, also noir=black, get it,  
har har... argh) camera on a RasPi Zero, attach a PIR sensor and some  
infrared LEDs, record to SD card or to network, download files to your  
computer and view them locally. The camera is not really cheap, though,  
for a hobby project.

On the other hand, I think off the shelf surveillance or webcam  
solutions now almost always use cloud storage with subscriptions, which  
is *definitely* not right for a hobby project.

Somewhere around the office, we have a pile of Geovision (?) IP cameras that
I was able to get working by pointing VLC at a port that hosted streaming
video.  They were wired cameras powered by PoE (if you have to run a cable
to it for power, you might as well put data on it too).  No motion
detection, but wouldn't something like Zoneminder have that?

I was able to find documentation for our cameras so I could get them to do
that.  Lack of documentation is a problem for most IP cams; they'll want by
default to send everything back to the "mothership," and corralling them
into doing your bidding is tricky.

If you don't mind putting something together from parts, you might look into
the ESP32-CAM.  They're dirt-cheap, include WiFi, and you can connect a PIR
motion sensor to trigger it.



They have a "NoIR" camera specifically for low-light use that lacks the
usual IR filter.  I used to have one on my 3D printer (happened to be the
camera type I had on hand); when I was using a halogen light bulb as a light
source instead of LEDs, what it did to colors was...interesting. :)

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Our Foscam FI8910W cameras can see in the dark using built-in IR LEDs. The  
resolution is only 640x480 which is poor by modern standards. I've run the  
camera from a large USB battery, via a lead that I made up with a USB-A plug  
on one end and a cylindrical plug for the camera end. The camera  
communicates by either Ethernet or wifi (2.4 GHz only) and it produces an  
MJPEG interface: you can set camera-monitoring software to poll URL  
http://<IP address>/videostream.cgi?user=<user>&pwd=<password> (substituting  
for IP address, username and password).

I've used it with iSpy on Windows, and I'm about to investigate equivalent  
software for RasPi. Some solutions (eg MotionEyeOS) require a special distro  
of Linux, rather than just being add-on packages installed on top of  
RasPiOS, which is a shame if you already have a Pi set up for running other  
software.

I would imagine a lot of IP cameras can be used in this way: all they need  
to present is a URL with MJPEG protocol (or something equivalent).  

The Foscam FI8910W would be a decent start. For live viewing a browser
will work. I'll still need some sort of logger, since the vermin are
most active when I'm asleep. That particular product is out of stock  
on Amazon, but a version with optical zoom is offered as substitute.
It's unclear just what sort of software is required for control. There
is a note from the seller that it doesn't support "MJ stream", but I'm
not sure if that's significant.


If you find something useful please post. If I have to buy a more  
costly camera to get standalone (no cloud) operation so be it.
  


Is MJPEG the same as MJ stream? if so the Foscam Z2 1080P FHD won't help.

Thanks for posting!

bob prohaska
  

On 21/10/2021 11:34, NY wrote:


Although it can be a steep learning curve the package "Motion" runs well  
for me on raspbian / rasp OS.

apt install motion

Motion installed without visible difficulty. The man page suggests
that network cameras are supported, but didn't list any particular
cameras. The key seems to be RTSP or RTMP compatibility, terms I've
never seen before. It'll take some searching to locate a suitable
camera.  

Thanks very much for posting!

bob prohaska

On 24/10/2021 04:23, bob prohaska wrote:


IIRC VLC supports RTSP

It's fairly common with e.g. TV dongles etc.