laurent22/pmcctv

pmcctv - poor man's CCTV system in Go

This Go application captures images from a webcam. It supports motion detection, burst mode, and upload to a remote directory.

A Go worker captures frames at regular intervals using ffmpeg. Then ImageMagick's compare tool is used to check if this frame is similar to the previous one. If the frames are different enough, they are kept, otherwise they are deleted. This provide very simple motion detection and avoids filling up the hard drive with duplicate frames.

Optionally, a Go worker can be setup to automatically upload the frames to a remote server. Frames are copied using either scp or rsync, depending on what's available. Finally, another worker runs at regular intervals to clean up both the local and remote directory (by default, frames are kept for up to 7 days).

Normally, the program captures one frame per second. However, when motion is detected, a "burst mode" is activated, in which case frames will be captured as fast as possible for the next 10 seconds, or for as long as motion is being detected.

Installation

OS X

Install Go from https://golang.org/doc/install

brew install ffmpeg
brew install imagemagick
go get -u github.com/laurent22/pmcctv

Linux

Install Go from https://golang.org/doc/install

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
go get -u github.com/laurent22/pmcctv

Note: in many systems avconv (libav) is installed instead of ffmpeg. However since avconv video capture does not work well, only ffmpeg is supported.

Windows

• Install Go from https://golang.org/doc/install
• Install ffmpeg
• Install ImageMagick

From a command line prompt, run go get -u github.com/laurent22/pmcctv

Usage

Usage:
  pmcctv [OPTIONS]

Application Options:
  -m, --ffmpeg=              Path to ffmpeg.
  -d, --frame-dir=           Path to directory that will contain the captured frames. Default: ~/Pictures/pmcctv
  -r, --remote-dir=          Remote location where frames will be saved to. Must contain a path compatible with scp (eg. user@someip:~/pmcctv).
  -p, --remote-port=         Port of remote location where frames will be saved to. If not set, whatever is the default scp port will be used (should be 22).
  -b, --burst-mode-duration= Duration of burst mode, in seconds. Set to -1 to disable burst mode altogether. Default: 10.
  -t, --time-to-live=        For how long captured frames should be kept, in days. Default: 7.
  -i, --input-device:        Name of capture input device. Default: auto-detect, except on Windows.

Help Options:
  -h, --help                 Show this help message
  

To stop the script, press Ctrl + C.

TODO

• Command line argument to specify the threshold for a frame to be kept.
• Send an email when motion is detected.
• Record actual video in burst mode, using https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop

License

MIT