viewer

A nodejs application to consume your ipcamera video feeds and display on a webpage, also overlaying motion, linecrossing and notification events.

Table of Contents

1. About
2. Features
3. Installation
   • Docker Compose
4. Configuration
   • Example
5. Contributing
6. License
7. Contact
8. Acknowledgements

About

Previously I was using a Hikvision NVR, but this was limited to outputing the video grid to either the VGA or HDMI outputs on the back of the unit. There was a special "Channel Zero" which could stream the video grid but it was very low resolution. I had a need to show this video grid at multiple locations around my house.

This project is to allow the video grid to be displayed on a webbrowser. Tested on Chromium, Chrome & Firefox on linux, this viewer is currently running on Raspberry PI 4's connected to 3 televisions ar required around the house.

The sister project to this viewer, recorder, actually does the recording of the video sources.

Features

• Written in nodejs
• No installation necessary - just use docker-compose.
• Stupidly easy to use
• Works on Mac, Linux and (maybe) Windows

Installation

Currently its reccomended to use docker compose to run the application for easy install. If there is demand for alternate installation types can work on those.

Docker compose

docker-compose is available for OSX (macOS), Linux and Windows.

Create a docker-compose file similar to below.

version: "3.8"
services:
  nvrrviewer:
    image: ghcr.io/opnvr/viewer:latest
    container_name: nvrviewer
    environment:
      - TZ=Australia/Sydney
    volumes:
      - /path/to/config.yaml:/var/app/config.yaml:ro
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    ports:
      - 8000:8000
    restart: unless-stopped
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-file: "5"
        max-size: "10m"

Configuration

The following sections exist in the config.yaml file

root level

Name	Default value	Description
sources	[]	List of camera sources to be recorded
logging	NULL	Logging configuration
layout	NULL	Mapping the video sources to the grid

sources

Name	Default value	Description
sources.type	None	Type of video source, currently supported types are RTSP

sources[RTSP]

Name	Default value	Description
sources.type	RTSP	Type of video source RTSP
sources.id	None	id to be used as folder name to store this source
sources.ipAddress	None	ip address of rtsp camera
sources.authentication	None	Optional authentication configuration

sources[RTSP].authentication

Name	Default value	Description
sources.authentication.enable	true	Enable authentication for this source
sources.authentication.user	None	Username
sources.authentication.pass	None	Password

sources[*].notifications

Name	Default value	Description
sources.notifications.type	kikvision	Hikvision motion & linecrossing notifications

logging

Name	Default value	Description
logging.level	warn	logging level
logging.ffpmeg	warning	logging level for ffmpeg

logging:
  level: warn
  ffmpeg: warning

layout

Name	Default value	Description
layout.type	None	Screen layout, currently 2x2 or 3x3 layouts exist
layout.grid	None	Array of Array if the ids to be displayed in the position

layout:
  type: 3x3
  grid:
    - [ 2, 3, 4 ]
    - [ 5, 6, 7 ]
    - [ 8, 9, 1 ]

mqtt

TBA

Example

config.yaml showing defaults

sources:
  - type: rtsp
    id: 2
    uri: rtsp://192.168.1.202/Streaming/Channels/102
    authentication:
      enable: true
      user: myuser
      pass: mypassword
    notifications:
      type: Hikvision

logging:
  level: warn
  ffmpeg: warning

layout:
  type: 3x3
  grid:
    - [ 1, 0, 0 ]
    - [ 0, 0, 0 ]
    - [ 0, 0, 0 ]

mqtt:
  uri: tcp://192.168.1.53
  authentication:
    user: mqttuser
    pass: mqttpassword

Running

Visit the website at the docker-compose machine address port 8000 ie http://192.168.1.53:8000/

Known working

The viewer has been tested on the following OS/Browsers Ubuntu 21.x Chrome >= v92.0 ubuntu 21.x Firefox >= 91.0 Raspbian 10.x Chromium >= 88.0.4324.187

The following cameras are confirmed working as rtsp sources, most cameras will support RTSP feeds

• Hikvision DS-2CD2343G0-I V5.6.2 build 190701
• Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-I V5.5.53 build 180730
• Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-IS V5.5.82 build 190220
• Hikvision DS-2CD2342WD-I V5.4.5 build 170124
• Hikvision DS-2CD2365G1-I V5.6.2 build 190701

The following cameras are confirmed working for Hikvision notifications

• Hikvision DS-2CD2343G0-I V5.6.2 build 190701
• Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-I V5.5.53 build 180730
• Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-IS V5.5.82 build 190220
• Hikvision DS-2CD2342WD-I V5.4.5 build 170124
• Hikvision DS-2CD2365G1-I V5.6.2 build 190701

Contributing

Bug Reports & Feature Requests

Please use the issue tracker to report any bugs or file feature requests.

Developing

PRs are welcome. To begin developing, do this:

$ git clone git@github.com:opnvr/viewer.git
$ cd viewer/
$ node index.js

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Tim Bailey
Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Contact

Tim Bailey - timb@bailey9.com Project Link: https://github.com/opnvr/viewer

Acknowledgements

• Inspired by the proof of concept https://github.com/eventials/poc-mp4-websocket