CCTVplexer

This is a simple CCTV multiplexer for the Raspberry Pi.

With this you can view multiple IP cameras at the same time and switch between different views using your TV remote control.

If any of your cameras are PTZs then you might also be able to control them using your TV remote control.

Building

Install dependancies

sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev
sudo apt install libcec-dev
sudo apt install liblirc-dev
sudo apt install libconfig-dev

Clone repository

git clone https://github.com/SynAckFin/CCTVplexer.git

Build

cd CCTVplexer/src
make

Configuring

cctvplexer

The file config.cfg contains an example configuration for 4 cameras and 10 different views. The file user-example.cfg should be renamed to user.cfg and the username and passwords for your cameras added. The configuration file uses libconfig for its syntax. COnfiguring the plexer is a complex operation and for the moment I'll leave you to your own devices, but if enough people are interested in this I will create a wiki for it.

lircd

cctvplexer connects to the lircd socket and listens for remote control events so lircd needs to be running. cecremote simulates remote control events and injects them into lircd (which then passes them to cctvplexer) so the allow-simulate option needs to be Yes. The other option that needs to be set is release and this should also be set to Yes. Here is a sample configuration file /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf:

[lircd]
nodaemon        = False
driver          = file
device          = /dev/null
output          = /var/run/lirc/lircd
pidfile         = /var/run/lirc/lircd.pid
plugindir       = /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/lirc/plugins
permission      = 666
allow-simulate  = Yes
repeat-max      = 600
#effective-user =
#listen         = [address:]port
#connect        = host[:port]
#loglevel       = 6
release         = true
release_suffix  = _EVUP
#logfile        = ...
#driver-options = ...

[lircmd]
uinput          = False
nodaemon        = False

Running

There are 2 programs that need to run and they are:

cecremote

This connects to the HDMI bus. By default it doesn't need any command line arguments but you can see the available options by using --help. You might need to change the TV channel for your TV to give it focus.

cctvplexer

There are no command line arguments for this yet. It looks in the current working directory for its configuration file.