* 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  - recording & motion detection
- ruby
- 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://<user>:<passwd>@<camera's ip>/live2.sdp
: - :name: Kitchen
:   :url: rtsp://<user>:<passwd>@<camera's ip>/live2.sdp
: - :name: Workstations
:   :url: rtsp://<user>:<passwd>@<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.

** Usage

First make sure you add your cameras

: electric_eye -a Reception <url>

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 <directory to recordings> -type f -mtime +<days> -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

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

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

- [X] Add more testing

- [X] Add post recording motion detection (use vlc)

- [X] Make sure we cannot add blank cameras

- [X] Create threshold as a variable

- [X] Swap over to using ffmpeg

- [X] Do post motion detection (using fmmpeg)

- [X] 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.

- [ ] 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!