VLC Captured Video Way too big.

[nujinini]

Hello guys!

I was quite happy to learn how to caprure live videos using my webcam and vlc. Only to find out that the video output was several hundred MBs for about a minute of capture.

I was planning to try and record our front gate overnight and it would not be practical if the output is that large.

May I please know if it's possible to capture video at KBs instead of MBs and if it's possible too to take still pics instead say.......one shot every two or three seconds?

Thanks as always,

nujinini

[elija]

VLC sounds like overkill... Have a look at Zone Minder

[nujinini]

VLC sounds like overkill... Have a look at Zone Minder

Oh yes, I remember Zone Minder/ I came across it two years ago.

Will give it a try. Thanks elija!

regards,

nujinini

[nujinini]

Oh my.... this is going to be a little bloodier than I thought. I tried to install and it gives me this error report. I can't seem to understand what it's trying to say. Help please?

Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package mysql-client.
(Reading database ... 220607 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mysql-client (from .../mysql-client_5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_all.deb) ...
Unpacking mysql-server-5.1 (from .../mysql-server-5.1_5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_i386.deb) ...
useradd: cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later.
adduser: `/usr/sbin/useradd -d /nonexistent -g mysql -s /bin/false -u 120 mysql' returned error code 1. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/mysql-server-5.1_5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_i386.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server.
Unpacking mysql-server (from .../mysql-server_5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_all.deb) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/mysql-server-5.1_5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
Setting up mysql-client (5.1.62-0ubuntu0.11.10.1) ...
Setting up mythtv-common (2:0.24.0+fixes.20110908.1de0431-0ubuntu1) ...
useradd: cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later.
adduser: `/usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/mythtv -g mythtv -s /bin/sh -u 120 mythtv' returned error code 1. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing mythtv-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.1; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.1 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mythtv-frontend:
 mythtv-frontend depends on mythtv-common; however:
  Package mythtv-common is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mythtv-frontend (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mythtv-common
 mysql-server
 mythtv-frontend

[nujinini]

Don't know how to proceed from here, please.

root@jun:/home/jun# ls
anomos       examples.desktop        Music       utorrent-server-v3_0
Argentina    EyNIGHT MASTERLIST.xls  na          Videos
Desktop      Firefox_wallpaper.png   naa         xa
Documents    galaxy                  Pictures    yvonne
Downloads    games.pdf               Public      ZoneMinder-1.25.0
Dropbox      history_May172012       tab
dvdrip-data  history.txt             Templates
dwhelper     man                     Ubuntu One
root@jun:/home/jun#

root@jun:/home/jun# cd ZoneMinder-1.25.0/
root@jun:/home/jun/ZoneMinder-1.25.0# ls
acinclude.m4  configure     install-sh     NEWS     zmconfgen.pl.in
aclocal.m4    configure.ac  Makefile.am    README   zm.conf.in
AUTHORS       COPYING       Makefile.in    scripts
ChangeLog     db            misc           src
config.h.in   depcomp       missing        TODO
config.log    INSTALL       mkinstalldirs  web
root@jun:/home/jun/ZoneMinder-1.25.0#

root@jun:/home/jun/ZoneMinder-1.25.0# ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
configure: WARNING: You can call configure with the --with-libarch option.
    This tells configure where to find architecture specific libraries.
    The default of 'lib' is usually ok but 64 bit machines may require lib64.
    e.g. --with-libarch=lib or --with-libarch=lib64
configure: WARNING: You can call configure with the --with-mysql option.
    This tells configure where to find the MySql C library and headers if configure cannot
    locate them automatically.
    e.g. --with-mysql=/usr/local or --with-mysql=/usr
configure: WARNING: You can call configure with the --with-ffmpeg option.
    This tells configure where to find the ffmpeg root directory within which are the libavcodec
    and libavformat files that can be used to build true MPEG streaming into ZoneMinder. Ensure that
    your copy of ffmpeg has installed libraries as well as binaries (use 'make installlib'). If you
    are using a local install of ffmpeg you may have to remove or rename a previous real installation
    as the headers and libraries from that will probably be picked up before your local copy.
    e.g. --with-ffmpeg=/usr/local
configure: WARNING: You can call configure with the --with-extralibs option.
    Ordinarily you will need to use this option only when your copy of ffmpeg has been built
    with support for additional formats and you would use this option to detail which additional
    libraries ffmpeg was built with so that it is able to link successfully with ZoneMinder.
    You will need to wrap this option in quotes if it contains any spaces.
    e.g. --with-extralibs="-lmp3lame"
configure: error: You must call configure with the --with-webdir option.
    This tells configure where to install PHP and web files and scripts.
    e.g. --with-webdir=/var/www/html or --with-webdir=/www/vhtdocs/<site>
root@jun:/home/jun/ZoneMinder-1.25.0#

[atreyu]

so you are on some debian or ubuntu? in post #4, it looks like you are trying to install zoneminder via repos (which is what i was going to suggest), but it looks like you are not running it as root - at least you are getting permission errors. do you need to use sudo, e.g.:

sudo apt-get install zoneminder

or something like that?

[elija]

What atreyu said!

And for post 5 you need to add the appropriate options to the configure command. For example

./configure --with-webdir=/var/www/html

Edit: Also found this series of guides

[nujinini]

I think zm has not released a version for ubuntu 11.10 desktop. I tried to install and seemed to encounter no issues at all but sad to say, still not working

I guess I have to wait for them to release one. Not unless there are other options out there I can also give a try?

[atreyu]

How about a PPA version for Ubuntu? They're not "official" but you may find one that works.

[nujinini]

Sure thing atreyu!

I'll give it a try too. I'll be starting a new thread though on ffmpeg since I think I got it working but have some things to ask about it.

Thanks!