Use built in camera: /usr/bin/mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0 -vo png -frames 10
Run this script in an area zoneminder can access the png files, the first few will be blank while the camera loads. I take the 4th or 5th frame as a file type source in zoneminder, and have zone minder read that file into its db as a camera monitor, which creates events.
#!/bin/bash
cd /var/www/html
while [ 1 ]
do
/usr/bin/mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0 -vo png -frames 10 > /dev/null 2>&1
sleep 10
done
I tried using zoneminder to detect the camera natively with some zmu commands but gave up and just wrote the above mplayer script to create png images.
Another method which worked with a usbcam which didn't seem to like mplayer was:
avconv -f video4linux2 -s 640x480 -i /dev/video0 -ss 0:0:2 -frames 1 out.jpg
References and other notes:
http://defectio.blogspot.com/2012/09/connecting-webcam-to-zoneminder.html
failed capture commands with the eepc:
# zmu -d /dev/video0 -q -v
Error, failed to enumerate standard 0: Connection timed out
another failed attempt at mplayer:
# mplayer tv:// -vo aa -monitorpixelaspect 0.5 -quiet
MPlayer2 2.0-728-g2c378c7-4 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
Cannot open file '/root/.mplayer/input.conf': No such file or directory
Failed to open /root/.mplayer/input.conf.
Cannot open file '/etc/mplayer/input.conf': No such file or directory
Failed to open /etc/mplayer/input.conf.
Playing tv://.
Detected file format: TV
Selected driver: v4l2
name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
comment: first try, more to come ;-)
v4l2: your device driver does not support VIDIOC_G_STD ioctl, VIDIOC_G_PARM was used instead.
Selected device: USB 2.0 Camera
Capabilities: video capture streaming
supported norms:
inputs: 0 = Camera 1;
Current input: 0
Current format: YUYV
tv.c: norm_from_string(pal): Bogus norm parameter, setting default.
v4l2: ioctl enum norm failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Error: Cannot set norm!
Selected input hasn't got a tuner!
v4l2: ioctl set mute failed: Invalid argument
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.
v4l2: select timeout
v4l2: ioctl set mute failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: 0 frames successfully processed, 1 frames dropped.
Exiting... (End of file)
# v4l2-ctl --list-devices
USB 2.0 Camera (usb-0000:00:1d.7-6):
/dev/video0
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Hardware_Compatibility_List#USB_Cameras
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1939703
Another method of capturing I like is using a cheap pci capture card and normal CCTV cameras, 4 channels, and these zone minder settings.
source /dev/video0
video for linux version 2 capture method
device channel 0
device format ntsc
capture palette YUYV
768x480, 10 frames/second
All of this was done using Ubuntu 16.04 x86_64
