Surveillance camera based on BuildRoot and Motion

[Thaui]

I want to introduce a nice pice of software to all camara board enthusiasts. By accident I found this software and it worked right out of the box. I gambled arround with the RPi camera interface from Silvanmelchior but the motionPie image meets all my requirements. The software can be found here https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/wiki. Just download the latest stable version and follow the installation instructions and voila the new webcam is working. I would say "well done" and many thanks to the developer Calin Crisan for this excellent piece of work. I hope he will find a lot of followers and get pushed to continue his work by many positive responses.

[mikerr]

can't get past the rainbow screen,
I've tried 2 releases and 2 different sd cards..

How fast was boot to first picture ?

[Thaui]

can't get past the rainbow screen,
I've tried 2 releases and 2 different sd cards..

How fast was boot to first picture ?

Just jump to this link https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie/releases
Download the latest stable version.
Unpack the File and write the image to an SD card.
For me it took 5 minutes and the system was up and running. What else you need more?

[paulcaseyjr]

I'm hitting the same problem - tried all 3 releases from https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie/releases to 2 different SD cards.

Running on Model B. Got a brief green on OK LED and then the rainbow screen, Momentary green on FDX and then nothing for over 30 minutes - still on rainbow screen and no visible activity. Plugged into powered USB hub - keyboard & mouse. Nothing in USB. HDMI connected that works for normal Pi connection.

Removed USB hub - same thing

[ccrisan]

Hi,

The reason the rainbow never disappears is that there's no video driver compiled in at all. However things should work "in the background" and your PI should listen on port 80 within a minute or two at most. Further boots are a lot faster. Debugging output can be found in /log/ on third partition or on serial console.

Calin.

I'm hitting the same problem - tried all 3 releases from https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie/releases to 2 different SD cards.

Running on Model B. Got a brief green on OK LED and then the rainbow screen, Momentary green on FDX and then nothing for over 30 minutes - still on rainbow screen and no visible activity. Plugged into powered USB hub - keyboard & mouse. Nothing in USB. HDMI connected that works for normal Pi connection.

Removed USB hub - same thing

[mikerr]

Hi,

The reason the rainbow never disappears is that there's no video driver compiled in at all. However things should work "in the background" and your PI should listen on port 80 within a minute or two

Ah makes sense when you explain it like that,
A frozen rainbow screen looked like a boot failure.

[edit] newer builds now have a video driver

[jbeale]

Does this custom build do anything that the RPi camera interface from Silvanmelchior does not? Faster boot time, more reliable, other features?

[Thaui]

Does this custom build do anything that the RPi camera interface from Silvanmelchior does not? Faster boot time, more reliable, other features?

You should know that better than me because you more familiar with this stuff. I am gambling around with SilvanMelchior's software since 7 months. This one is more like a firmware of a netcam. For sure I will change because it's more reliable and the programmer is doing continious improvements. Try it and you will find the difference.

[sav25]

This looks great - will have a go myself this weekend

[Thaui]

This looks great - will have a go myself this weekend

Let us know your results. I have found a Google Chrome app named CCTV View. If you have serveral cameras you can easily see the stream of each camera in you standard browser window. A small icon is showing that the app is installed and with one click you will see the camera stream.

[sav25]

Ideally I'll get this working on the ipcam app 'TinyCamMonitor Pro'.

I currently have an IP camera and it would be nice to use my spare Pi as a monitor.

[paulcaseyjr]

[quote="ccrisan"]Hi,

The reason the rainbow never disappears is that there's no video driver compiled in at all. However things should work "in the background" and your PI should listen on port 80 within a minute or two at most. Further boots are a lot faster. Debugging output can be found in /log/ on third partition or on serial console.

Calin.

Brilliant - unplugged the HDMI and started with ethernet and up and running - searching the house for a spare camera!

[tuttomatto]

Hi everybody,

This is a massive work !!! Thank you Mr Crisan !

I tried so many times to work with Motion & RasPi & never being able to work correctly ... Perhaps I am a too young newbee. But MotionPie is just what people like me need, take a look & enjoy. And the guy is really kind, MotionPie is a highlight, I think his *.img should be released with Noobs just because his work has become a really must-have for anybody who wants to make the RasPi for videosurveillance. Just try it & love it.

Ps : don't forget, this just work through local network first (you can tune it after as your needs)
ssh (with Putty or another) RPi ip:22
http administration (with Firefox or another) RPi ip:80
http streaming (with Firefox or another) RPi ip:8081

[tuttomatto]

Don't forget too his work is still in developpement

Perhaps some wifi controllers shouldn't work alongside, but it will be remedy in an early future, so please be patient, there is no unresolvable situation, ain't it ?! ; p

Thank you Calin


T.

[Thaui]

There is an update available
What's new:
• added a writeimage.sh script to ease the preparation of an sdcard
• updated kernel to 3.12.25 and the RPi firmware/userland to latest versions available
• the absence of a wifi adapter (when configured) no longer results into a reboot loop
• removed useless packages and files to reduce the size of the image
—
View it on GitHub. https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie/re ... g/20140802

[sav25]

Just looking at the install instructions - do I need to write that image to my SD card i.e. writing over my current Raspbian image?

[Thaui]

You need a new SD card with 4GB and write the image to the card. Put it to your PI. Start the PI and after approx. 2-3 Minutes you can connect via browser to the IP adress and you are done. Happy testing

[RichShumaker]

OMG and Awesome.
10 minute setup and you have a surveillance camera / system.

Thanks for building this ccrisan.

It is super awesomeness that is easy, fast, fun, and incredible
Multiple cameras on the same screen automagically is perfect.
Web setup is great and I think anyone could handle it.

I have been using RPi Cam Web Interface and it has more features like full sensor video recording but it certainly not this easy and I thought it was bulletproof easy.

I will be adding FTP via SSH so I can keep files local to the Pi and easily transfer them to another system.
The web interface is good for a few images or videos for me but not great to try to get them all at once.
I will probably shift to a NAS for direct recording to avoid having to FTP in the future.
Funny enough I just saw a dropcam advertisement on TV and thought the Pi is better and cheaper.

Are you still developing this? Can we add ideas to the github?
Thanks again.

[RichShumaker]

I will be adding FTP via SSH so I can keep files local to the Pi and easily transfer them to another system.

No need to set up FTP as it is already built in.
U:root
P:Pi serial- which is the name on the web interface 'motionPie-YourSerial#'

Why am I not surprised this was already set up.
Simply dead simple easy.

[ccrisan]

OMG and Awesome.
10 minute setup and you have a surveillance camera / system.

Thanks for building this ccrisan.

It is super awesomeness that is easy, fast, fun, and incredible
Multiple cameras on the same screen automagically is perfect.
Web setup is great and I think anyone could handle it.

I have been using RPi Cam Web Interface and it has more features like full sensor video recording but it certainly not this easy and I thought it was bulletproof easy.

I will be adding FTP via SSH so I can keep files local to the Pi and easily transfer them to another system.
The web interface is good for a few images or videos for me but not great to try to get them all at once.
I will probably shift to a NAS for direct recording to avoid having to FTP in the future.
Funny enough I just saw a dropcam advertisement on TV and thought the Pi is better and cheaper.

Are you still developing this? Can we add ideas to the github?
Thanks again.

Hi Rich,

Yes, the project is still in development and yes, of course you can come up with ideas and propose them on github or wherever you want. I am open to suggestions and I'm willing to improve motionPie (and motionEye) as much as possible. The only limited resource is my time

Edit:
If you don't want to keep media files on the SD card, check out the "network share" option for the storage device. It can place the files on any local network share through SMB. It should work with most NASes available these days.

Calin.

[RichShumaker]

If you don't want to keep media files on the SD card, check out the "network share" option for the storage device. It can place the files on any local network share through SMB. It should work with most NASes available these days.

Calin.

Yep I saw that and again I say awesome.
What I like is the 'ease of use' for the end user.
I am not spending time learning a new system I am demo'ing or working with that system.
I like the realtime adjustments on the camera and I am going to explore that more with this and other software.

Thanks again, off to write up some ideas, I will post them over at GitHub.

[larry104]

This is really cool! Runs out of the box within minutes - Great work! - Very much appreciated!

Here are some suggestions after playing with it for a while:

• Automatic Brightness: It behaves strange in low light situations (flickers between dark and bright) - if you turn it off it keeps staying in some random state (too dark or too bright). Some more control like the RPi Cam Web Interface has would be great.
• Streaming: I have problems getting streaming to work with IP Cam Viewer (iphone) - Anyone tried that?
• Capturing video during the night: It would be nice to have a lower framerate/longer exposure stream
• A reboot option would be nice to have
• Motion Detection: An easy way of defining keepout/include areas would be great
• A way to turn off the Cam LED

[RichShumaker]

This is really cool! Runs out of the box within minutes - Great work! - Very much appreciated!

Here are some suggestions after playing with it for a while:

• Automatic Brightness: It behaves strange in low light situations (flickers between dark and bright) - if you turn it off it keeps staying in some random state (too dark or too bright). Some more control like the RPi Cam Web Interface has would be great.
• Streaming: I have problems getting streaming to work with IP Cam Viewer (iphone) - Anyone tried that?
• Capturing video during the night: It would be nice to have a lower framerate/longer exposure stream
• A reboot option would be nice to have
• Motion Detection: An easy way of defining keepout/include areas would be great
• A way to turn off the Cam LED

I added this to the Github wiki
https://github.com/ccrisan/motionPie/wi ... e-versions

[RPi85]

[*]Streaming: I have problems getting streaming to work with IP Cam Viewer (iphone) - Anyone tried that?
[/list]

Make: Generic URL
Model: Generic URL

Works on Android.

[Retired Bob]

Fabulous program!

I am also having problems with streaming! But have possibly found a part solution.

On my Widows netbook streaming will not work with Chromium or Opera but it does work with Firefox.
I did'nt try Internet Explorer.

Unfortunately I can't load Firefox onto my Smart TV, which is where I started investigating the problem.

This is a first class application already! What will it be when development is complete?

For myself and only as suggestions.

I would like to see messaging/notification facilities added, as per the guide posted by Kean Walmsley at the following link.

"http://through-the-interface.typepad.co ... art-2.html".

I think that I have got this working in Wheezy! He used Python to achieve this. So if Python were to be accessible too then "The world would be my oyster.". As they say. Exposing the full potential of the Pi.

A shut down button would be nice too, just turning it off will surely create some corruption eventually?

Bob.