Install MediaMTX on Raspbian Bookworm

For a number of years, I’ve been using MotionEyeOS on my CCTV cameras, exclusively for the “Fast Network Camera” mode that enables RTSP for low bandwidth ingress to the MotionEye (running on CentOS) while maintaining good image quality.

Finding more uses for these Pi’s necessitates moving to Raspbian with MotionEye as the OS version is very bare bones by. Moving from the OS also means losing the Fast Network Camera and streams on the network jump from 2 Mbps to 25 Mbps.

Over multiple camera’s this really adds up, so I need a way replicate the low bandwidth, high quality streams with the versatility of Raspbian. The solution found is to install MediaMTX (formally rtsp-simple-server) …

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Working From Home – Pi Camera as Windows Webcam

Hopefully the mad dash for home working is over, and now everyone who can has settled in to a comfortable home setup with new knowledge of what a VPN and remote desktops are all about.

I thought my established home setup was great, however I didn’t envisage words like Teams and Zoom to become the buzzwords of companies the world over.

This posed an issue for myself. Even though my 2017 Dell XPS has a webcam ready to go, it spends its home office days docked with the lid closed. When opening the 4K screen combined with the Full HD monitors, Windows implementation of scaling rears is appalling head and just looks terrible. Combined with the Dell’s decision to locate the webcam below the screen to give maximum nostril-cam angle, its not something I like to use.

Buying a USB webcam didn’t seem worth it for what is (hopefully at time of writing) a temporary solution.

So in comes another Pi project, this time using a spare Raspberry Pi Camera module connected to an aptly placed Pi, that can be used on a Windows machine for the software likes of Zoom, Skype and Teams…

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Automated Timelapse: 2019 Update

I like this time of year, a chance to reflect on the last 12 months and take stock of accomplishments and realise the achievements. And something I like to gauge a success on is the longevity of a solution, and a time-lapse comparison 6 months apart is seemingly my go to example.

To elaborate on this achievement, earlier this year was the setup of a homebrew CCTV solution using an array of Raspberry Pi’s with cameras, and a VM Cent OS server acting as a PVR host. A surplus Pi W Zero was pointed at the hills and used as a time-lapse experiment.

The real achievement is that since its conception in early June, it has been stable enough to run in the background, capturing footage for such an occasion.

So here I present my latest time-lapse, a split screen video on the difference between a June day and a December day:

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LibreElec – Pi Camera Mjpeg Streaming

Following the setup of a Cent OS CCTV server, I’ve been using Raspberry Pi’s as video sources. But what if there was a Raspberry Pi in perfect situ for a CCTV camera, but was already in use as a media player?

A Linux system has always had the impression that it is versatile, so this should be an achievable task. A barrier would be how to get this done with the operating system installed, in this case it is LibreElec, an OS with the tagline “Just enough OS for Kodi”. Therefore, it would be more of a challenge than a usual Debian install.

The team at LibreElec saw this type of thing coming, and included the Docker service as a Kodi addon to allow the curious tinkerer to add more than Kodi to a Pi.

If you have the LibreElec based Pi in the opportune placement to add a camera, here is how to add Mjpeg streaming capabilities…

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Motioneye – Cent OS CCTV Server

If you’d ever searched for Raspberry Pi projects that involved a camera then the results would certainly include Motioneye OS, an easy to use self-contained operating system that is truly (write then) plug and play.

Looking for a CCTV project earlier this year I too was drawn in by this, and with my small abundance of RPi spares it was the cheapest choice, using a couple of RPi 3B+ for video, and a Zero W for time-lapse image capture. All processing was self-contained on each Pi with capture data passed over via SMB to a Windows file share.

This worked, but had a couple of problems that prevented it from being trustworthy. Firstly, it stops recording video after a few days of uptime, by creating empty files. And secondly the time-lapse camera seemed to reset every few minutes that created in white out image capture as the camera’s exposure setting recalibrated, ruining a time-lapse video.

Looking wider there was also the performance issue. In Motioneye OS’ default state of managing all features, the highest FPS seemed to max at 15 fps even on the Pi 3B+. Forums suggest this is due to the motion eye daemon handling all the image processing in software, putting a strain on the Pi’s modest CPU.

The idea and goal is to move the processing and IO responsibilities to my server, which would be far more capable than the then latest available RPi, and as I have chosen Cent OS to be my go-to Linux OS of choice, this is what I’ll be using.

A gateway to make this possible is an option in Motioneye OS, Fast Network Camera. This when set relinquishes the Pi of all processing duties and serves to just stream the camera capture as best as possible via MJPEG.

Here’s how to set up Motioneye on a Cent OS server to be a central data hub for a network of RPi Motioneye OS cameras.

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OSMC on Pi 3A+ Problems – Switch to LibreELEC

For years, since it was XBMC on the original Pi I have been using OSMC as my Raspberry Pi media player. And following on from a whole home Pi redeployment for to include a CCTV system the latest installment was to install OSMC to two Raspberry Pi 3A+.

Raspberry Pi 3A+

Raspberry Pi 3A+

The Pi 3A+ plus is the cut down little brother to the latest 3B+ much akin to the original Pi B and A models. Both have the same quad-core ARM v8 processor, Broadcom Videocore-IV GPU and importantly the 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi module for faster and stable WIFI out of the box. What’s cut down is the RAM, halved at 512MB, USB ports are reduced to one due to the removal of the onboard USB and gone is the ethernet port.

All the power without the ports make its perfect as a media player, all that’s needed to connect is the HDMI, with remote control provided via a CEC equipped TV.

The issue with OSMC

Here are the issues I experienced with OSMC on the Pi3A+, this is in no way a snarl at the developers who are doing an amazing job. I believe the 3 A+ is still a new and niche model so it’s understandable that development is slow for this product. I’m just hoping this will eventually be looked into and resolved, and putting it out there in case others have the same issue. Performance on the 3B+ is still exceptional.

From boot, selecting a 720p file (via Samba and h264 encoding) is fine, with subsequent auto-play files playing with no issues. However, with the next selection the issues start, selecting a file loads it but doesn’t play, having to go to the main menu and selecting Full-Screen to play the file. But then it buffers constantly. On the third play this workaround fails, and selecting Full-Screen results in a black screen.

In addition, even from boot any 1080p content fails to play with a black screen in its place, and playing h265 encoded files results in an immediate system crash.

480p content remains unaffected and plays perfectly.

LibreELEC to the rescue

Without resorting to buying a 3 B+, your media experience can still be made on 3 A+ by using LibreELEC, an alternative to OSMC that has the same goal of getting Kodi on the Raspberry Pi.

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Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera

A little treat when ordering the latest Raspberry Pi was to add a camera module to it, at a price of £7 for the Noir (Not French, just meaning No Infrared filter) it was easy to justify getting even if there was not a set purpose to it.

For the price the Pi Noir camera was generous on the specs, with a 2592 x 1944, 5 Megapixel sensor it seemed capable of capturing high detail images. However, the 5Mp tagline applies to still images only, with video capped at a still respectful 1920 x 1080p.

PiCam

The difference between the Noir and standard camera module is the lack of an IR filter on the lens, resulting in some washed out colours in daylight but still acceptable in a surveillance capacity, but has the ability to capture images in darkness with help of separate Infrared lighting.
Using the camera module on the Pi is pretty straight forward, connecting is done via a ribbon cable plugged into a dedicated port on the Pi board.

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Update: Raspberry Pi Temperature Display

With the cooler outdoor temperatures, a bug in my original code for the temperature display has cropped up:

IMG_6295

The DS18B20 returns temperatures with up to three decimal places, with the decimal point omitted, therefore a temperature of 10oC would be shown as 10000 by the sensor. To deal with this and for the display to show the temp to one decimal, I used this code:

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Getting Started with Electronics on Raspberry Pi

About fifteen years ago I did Electronics as a course in college, and at the time my younger self didn’t fall in love with the topic, set down to a culmination of issues.

Now with time at hand and a rejuvenation I felt when getting to grips with the Raspberry Pi I thought it time to get involved again. I must stress that this time these are baby steps, and the Raspberry Pi helps me as it does most of the work for you, with any electronics added considered to be more of a peripheral rather than a self-sustained product.

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Raspberry Pi Temperature Display

Nothing grand to start with, but as a first project I thought to combine a 20×4 LCD display with two DS18B20 temperature sensors to monitor indoor and outdoor temperatures. This would replace a cheap display I had been using but was sceptical on its accuracy.

Getting the basics right involved making the device blend in to the current setup without the usual mass of wires protrude. From the last round of the seam ably endless cable management war I used a shoebox base as a stand for the webserver and network switch, with the box hiding the various power bricks and extra cable, with most coming from the Xbox 360. Still having the shoebox lid I thought it would be good to use as a modular part to house the Pi and display.

Current Setup
Current Setup

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