NOTE: This entire project is for the legacy pi cameras
NOTE: Legacy versions of this project are moved to the ‘legacy’ directory (These are the legacy versions of THIS project, not to be confused with the legacy versions of the pi camera)

Raspberry Pi security camera system.

A Raspberry Pi camera system with a live video feed, motion detection system, H.264 mp4 recording capabilities and a storage management system with support for remote storage.

The recorder supports pre-motion frame recording and no internet environments (e.g. Wildlife cameras).

Confirmed working on Raspberry Pi 3b, 3b+, 4. Other versions will probably work, but they haven’t been tested.

Features

Feature
- Live low-bandwidth H.264 Streaming to a local web page.
- Advanced motion detection system that records H.264 .mp4 videos when motion is detected.
- Even frames from before the motion triggering event are recorded, so everything will be on video.
- Detection sensitivity, recording length, and much more is all easily user configurable.
- Storage management system that automatically removes the oldest recordings when the storage is almost full.
- Recordings can be sent to a separate storage device on the network.
- As long as local storage is used, the camera doesn’t require an internet connection. So it can be used as a wildlife camera.
- Support for multiple cameras.
- The recordings and the live stream can be viewed from a Django web page.

Installation guide

• Install the Raspberry Pi OS on your Raspberry Pi.
  On the Raspberry Pi:
• Connect the camera and enable it in the sudo raspi-config menu.
• Install OpenCV by running the following commands:
  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install python3-opencv
  • To verify the installation, import the cv2 module and print the OpenCV version:
    • python3 -c "import cv2; print(cv2.__version__)"
  • If this outputs a version higher or equal to 3.0.0 you are good to go.
• Install ffmpeg with h.264 support. (This step is only neccessary if you want the recordings to be in h264 .mp4 format.)
• Clone this repository (You might need to install git first: sudo apt install git):
  • cd ~
  • git clone https://github.com/Ruud14/SecurityCamera.git

How to run

• Assuming you are in the cloned repository directory, you can run the full script by running python3 main.py. But first make sure all necessary packages are installed: pip3 install -r requirements.txt (python 3.11+ might additionally require this).
• If the default settings don’t fit your needs, you should follow the configuration guide below.
• Stream:
  • The live stream can be accessed on http://<local_pi_ip>:8000/index.html as long as streamer_active is set to true in the configuration file. Don’t forget to replace <local_pi_ip> with the local IP address of your Raspberry Pi.
• Storage:
  • If storage_option is set to local (default), the recordings will be stored in the local_recordings_output_path directory (assuming recorder_active is set to true).
  • If storage_option is set to be the IP address of another storage device on the network, you should follow the Remote storage receiver guide below the Configuration guide.
• Playback:
  • Recordings can be played using pretty much any modern video player or web browser (assuming convert_h264_to_mp4 is set to true).
  • Recordings can also be watched using this Django web page. (assuming convert_h264_to_mp4 is set to true).
• Run at startup:
  • Automatically running main.py at startup can be achieved with i.a chronjobs.

Configuration guide

The configuration of the camera can be changed in the config.json file, which looks like this by default:

{
 "streamer_active": true,
 "recorder_active": true,

 "camera_resolution": "1600x1200",
 "camera_fps": 15,
 "camera_vFlip": false,
 "camera_hFlip": false,
 "camera_denoise": true,
 "annotate_time": true,

 "stream_resolution": "1120x840",

 "detection_resolution": "64x48",
 "detector_motion_threshold": 20,
 "record_seconds_before_motion": 5,
 "record_seconds_after_motion": 12,
 "max_recording_seconds": 600,
 "temporary_local_recordings_output_path": "./temp_recordings/",

 "convert_h264_to_mp4": true,
 "ffmpeg_path": "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg",

 "storage_option": "local",

 "local_recordings_output_path": "./recordings/",
 "max_local_storage_capacity": 25
}

Name	Description	Type	Required	Default value
streamer_active	Determines if the camera can be looked at via http://<local_pi_ip>:8000/index.html.	Boolean	Yes	true
recorder_active	Determines if the camera will start recording when there is motion.	Boolean	Yes	true
camera_resolution	The resolution of the camera. This resolution can not be lower than stream_resolution and/or detection_resolution. Supported resolution and frame rate combinations can be found here.	String	Yes	"1600x1200"
camera_fps	The frame rate of the camera. Supported resolution and frame rate combinations can be found here.	Integer	Yes	15
camera_vFlip	Determines if the camera is flipped vertically.	Boolean	Yes	false
camera_hFlip	Determines if the camera is flipped horizontally.	Boolean	Yes	false
camera_denoise	Determines if noise reduction is active.	Boolean	Yes	true
annotate_time	Determines if the current date and time will be shown in the video.	Boolean	Yes	true
stream_resolution	The resolution of the live stream. This resolution can not be higher than camera_resolution. Try to use the same aspect ratio as camera_resolution e.g. 16:9 or 4:3.	String	Only if streamer_active is set to true.	"1120x840"
detection_resolution	The resolution at which motion detection is happening. This should be a really low resolution to make it less CPU intensive. Try to use the same aspect ratio as camera_resolution e.g. 16:9 or 4:3.	String	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	"64x48"
detector_motion_threshold	Threshold for detecting motion. The higher this number, the less motion is detected.	Integer	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	20
record_seconds_before_motion	The amount of seconds that will be recorded before motion is detected.	Integer	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	5
record_seconds_after_motion	The amount of seconds that will be recorded after motion. If there is more motion detected within record_seconds_after_motion seconds after the first motion is detected, it will continue recording until no more motion is detected or max_recording_seconds is exceeded.	Integer	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	12
max_recording_seconds	The maximum duration of a recording in seconds.	Integer	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	600
temporary_local_recordings_output_path	The directory where parts of recordings will be temporarily stored.	String	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	./temp_recordings/
convert_h264_to_mp4	Determines whether or not the .h264 recordings will be converted to .mp4.	Boolean	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	true
ffmpeg_path	Path to the the ffmpeg executable. The default value will most likely be the right path. If not, you can find the correct path using the whereis ffmpeg command.	String	Only if convert_h264_to_mp4 is set to true.	/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
storage_option	Determines how your recordings will be stored. Use the local IP address of a local storage device on which file_receiver.py is running for remote storage e.g. 192.168.x.x. Use local to store all recordings locally in the local_recordings_output_path directory.	String	Only if recorder_active is set to true.	local
local_recordings_output_path	The directory where recordings will be stored.	String	Only if storage_option is set to local.	./recordings/
max_local_storage_capacity	The maximum storage capacity that the recordings can occupy in Gigabytes. If this value is about to be exceeded, the oldest recordings will be removed.	Integer	Only if storage_option is set to local.	25

Remote storage receiver

This part is only necessary for users that want to use remote storage!

If you want your recordings to be stored on another storage device on the network, you should do the following:



On the Raspberry Pi Camera:

• In config.json:
  • Change the value of storage_option to the local IP address of the storage device e.g. 192.168.x.x.

On the Storage device:

• Clone the contents of the recordings_receiver directory.
• Run python3 recordings_receiver.py.
• The receiver can be configured in config.json which looks something like this:

{
  "recordings_output_path": "./recordings/",
  "max_storage_capacity": 25
}

The values can be changed according to the table below:

Name	Description	Type	Required	Default value
recordings_output_path	The directory where recordings will be stored.	String	Yes	./recordings/
max_storage_capacity	The maximum storage capacity that the recordings can occupy in Gigabytes. If this value is about to be exceeded, the oldest recordings will be removed.	Integer	Yes	25

• Automatically running recordings_receiver.py at startup can be achieved with i.a chronjobs.

Additional info

If you are having trouble installing or configuring, feel free to e-mail me!


If you come across any bugs or want to see a new feature, please let me know here.