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scottlamb / moonfire-nvr

Moonfire NVR, a security camera network video recorder
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How can I convert the recordings to an mp4 format? #307

Closed jonathan84clark closed 5 months ago

jonathan84clark commented 7 months ago

Describe the bug This isn't a bug. I was wondering if you could help point me to some code that would allow me to convert the recording files into a standard .mp4 format?

I've been looking through the code and it's quite extensive. I haven't yet been able to find anything that can do this. Eventually I want to build a VS app (probably in C#) that can do this.

Anyway, if you can help me with this, that would be great!

Thanks,

Jonathan L Clark Software Engineer Special Services Group LLC

scottlamb commented 7 months ago

I think of Moonfire's server as a DBMS specialized in video. When you use a DBMS like PostgreSQL or Oracle or whatever, you wouldn't try to write your own code to convert their internal storage to some standard representation. You'd talk to their server via their protocol. Similarly, I consider all of Moonfire's storage (SQLite database and the sample file directory) to be a black box. You get what you want out through its HTTP API. And if the HTTP API doesn't provide what you need, file a feature request to extend it.

So my answer to your question is: use the GET /api/cameras/<uuid>/<stream>/view.mp4 endpoint.

jonathan84clark commented 7 months ago

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I'm still trying to wrap my head around moonfire. I haven't worked with a tool quite like this before (it's really cool by the way!). I need to think through this a little; determine if this solution will work for the specific use-case my organization is trying to solve. It seems like it would work...I told my manager that I could always have a process that just sits around and downloads recordings when they are finished. I'm thinking I'll build a prototype tool that does that and see if that meets the requirements. Anyway, thanks again for giving me a little more insight on how moonfire is intended to be used!

scottlamb commented 7 months ago

Welcome!

I told my manager that I could always have a process that just sits around and downloads recordings when they are finished.

A few related things that might also be handy for getting video live or near-live:

I'm totally open to extending the API as needed, although due to my time constraints it's likely more of an "I'm happy to review/advise on designs and PRs" situation than an "I can implement this for you on your desired timeline" situation for anything large.

jonathan84clark commented 7 months ago

Thanks for all the help! I was able to put together a script that can download .mp4 files using the web API. I have one other question. When I create a camera in the config file, a UUID seems to get auto-generated. I've seen UUIDs with hard drives before. If I recall, the UUID for a hard drive is created when the drive is formatted. Is the UUID for the camera just a randomly generated byte string? Is it just generated when the camera is added? Or does the UUID match up with certain characteristics of the stream?

scottlamb commented 7 months ago

It's currently a v4 (random) uuid, assigned on camera creation here.

jonathan84clark commented 7 months ago

Thanks for the information!