Grandstream

Grandstream Networks produces a line of IP cameras, many with full HD capabilities.

Setup instructions Instructions provided by Grandstream to set up one of their cameras on a VMS Zoneminder install.

GXV-3672-FHD & GXV-3672-FHD-36 IP Cameras

GXV-3272-FHD Full HD camera, nighttime capability, supports a power over ethernet connection. FHD model uses an 8mm lens, FHD-36 model uses a 3.6 mm lens for a wider field of view. FHD model has a BNC video connector. FHD-36 has audio input and output connectors.

Notes

Testing camera functionality

From Fedora 20, CentOS 6.5 or Scientific Linux 6.5 using vlc:

• vlc rtsp://<ip addres>/0 - The HiDef stream
• vlc rtsp://<ip addres>/4 - The LowDef stream

That showed me the camera was working well, had a stable stream with good resolution on both streams.

ZM Version

I started out using zm 1.26 and had a few minor issues that I was working through. Then I got ahold of the 1.27beta and pretty much all my minor issues were fixed. Now running under 1.27 things are working smooth.

Hardware

Using two GXV-3672-FHD cameras and two GXV-3672-FHD36 cameras on a home built Core i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 8 core, 16GB, Asus P8Z77-V motherboard, at idle (monitoring the four low def feeds, no alerts) I see a load average right around 1.5.

Camera Settings

Camera settings that appear to work well:

Primary Stream
Codec	H264
Resolution	1920x1080
Bit Rate	4096
Max Frame Rate	10
Secondary Stream
Codec	H264
Resolution	352x288
Bit Rate	384
Max Frame Rate	10

One oddity: the HiDef stream is detected by vlc as 1920x1088, that is what needs to be set for the monitor.

ZM Monitors

Create two monitors, one for each of the streams.

HiDef
Name	Cam1
Source Type	Ffmpeg
Function	Nodect
Source Path	rtsp://<ip address>/0?tcp
Width & Height	Match the camera's Primary stream settings
LowDef
Name	Cam1-low
Source Type	Ffmpeg
Function	Modect
Source Path	rtsp://<ip address>/4?tcp
Width & Height	Match the camera's Secondary stream settings

Link from Cam1 to Cam1-low. Cam1-low is where the motion detection happens. When it alarms and starts recording the HiDef feed also starts recording.

Leave "Maximum FPS" and "Alarm Maximum FPS" fields empty!. If you match the frame rate as set in the camera you'll likely get false events due to image smearing. I made that mistake and it took me a week to realize that I had inadvertently entered 10 for fps to match the camera.

API Document.

Sample snapshot