This week I treated myself to digging into OCTV; I was implementing a new mechanism to connect to the recorders.
The recorders are VLC processes that transform the MJPG streaming from IP cameras into MP4 videos (or another modern format). Originally, OCTV communicated via HTTP, but the communication was unreliable, and events occurring in the recorders couldn’t be clearly reflected.
Now I’ve changed everything to communicate via Sockets, and the improvement has been significant. The main screen now quickly shows what’s happening in the recorders.
In addition, I’ve been updating the Look and Feel, as Javier criticized the user interface heavily. I decided to use Tango project icons—they’re beautiful and cover almost everything. I’m also revising all system messages because the previous ones were very improvised :s. Beto has been working on an excellent full-screen mechanism, and once he finishes it, we’ll integrate everything.
You can download the VLC sources from SourceForge, and you could even help us improve it.
To download the sources, you just need a Subversion client and execute the following commands:
To download the CORE:
$ svn co http://octv.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/octv/trunk
To download the Plugins:
$ svn co http://octv.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/octv/other
Copy the plugins into the CORE:
$ cp -r other/* trunk/
That’s it! Now you can open NetBeans and start working with OCTV.
In the configuration files, I left cameras 1 and 2 set up with two public Axis cameras, so those without cameras at home can still work with the program.