Security Cams & TV to Monitor them

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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Plan is to run Linux or Windows VM with browser to watch the cams... wondering if any issues I should be aware of?
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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Your planned solution is way different from what I used. You need to find somebody else to tell you about potential problems with your plan.

I can only tell you about mine. I use LG - they are better suited for hospitality applications. Many models have a serial port for remote control. For the player I used Raspberry Pi 2 (originally) and 3 (later) running Raspbian Lite. I have not tried RPi4 yet.
I had to buy the codec license keys to enable hardware GPU accelerated playback. Then I wrote a very simple web app (using python/flask) to orchestrate multiple omxplayer instances each playing its own separate stream from one of 8 cameras. The app lets me control the TV (power on/off, change volume and set input) and choose between showing cameras 1-4, 5-8 or any one of them in the full screen mode. It has been working rock solid for many years now.
 

Nugget

Member
Jul 13, 2017
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Tejas Hill Country
keybase.io
I use a Raspberry Pi for this, pulling the feeds directly from my Axis cameras (although any IP camera should work). My code also uses omxplayer underneath, but it's designed for simplicity. Fires up on bootup and doesn't require an active login on the box.

The raspberry Pi is velcro'd to the back of the TV, powered via PoE, and HDMI straight into the tv input. It's fire and forget.

nugget/rpiaxiswall
 
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BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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My code also uses omxplayer underneath, but it's designed for simplicity. Fires up on bootup and doesn't require an active login on the box.
My code is way simpler than yours :p
If anything yours looks needlessly over-engineered. Systemd is more than capable of doing everything your wrapper script did on its own. For flexibility and customization just use systemd's EnvironmentFile directive to point to your config file.
 

Nugget

Member
Jul 13, 2017
32
25
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Tejas Hill Country
keybase.io
My code is way simpler than yours :p
If anything yours looks needlessly over-engineered. Systemd is more than capable of doing everything your wrapper script did on its own. For flexibility and customization just use systemd's EnvironmentFile directive to point to your config file.
I'm not a fan of systemd and I wouldn't want to write something that depended on it. If I ever decide that 49 lines of shell script is too complicated, I'll go in a different direction. :)
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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You can do the same with your phone.
I'm not going to hang my phone on the wall ;) I'd never be able to see what's going on.

This is for active monitoring not "check" when I want to check.