Picasso

Raspberry Pi DVR System

⚠️ WARNING!!!! ⚠️
These docs are unfinished and are not guaranteed to work

What is Picasso? Picasso is software that allows a camera operator to use the Raspberry Pi as a DVR/Capture Card for USB video devices such as capture cards, webcams, camcorders etc. It can be very useful for tapeless cameras as it was originally designed for.

How to use

Before you get started, please note that this software has only been tested on the Raspberry Pi 4B which has a hardware video encoder.

Installing this software is recommended on a fresh install of the OS but it should work if not.

Dependencies

1. python3.10+
2. python3-venv
3. python3-pip
4. ffmpeg
5. v4l-utils

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3.10 python3-venv python3-pip ffmpeg v4l-utils git

Install Picasso

mkdir ~/picasso_src cd ~/picasso_src
git clone {GIT URL} .

Setup virtual environment

python3 -m venv venv

Activate and Install packages

source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Configure the program

note: the config file will not appear until the program is ran first

nano ~/.configs/picasso/config.json

Run Picasso

Running Picasso can be done in 2 ways.

It is recommended to setup a daemon to have it run on boot and automatically restart in the event of an error or system failure

1. Directly

python runner.py

2. Systemd (or your preferred method)

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/picasso.service

Enter

[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn daemon for serving test-app
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=root
WorkingDirectory=
Environment=
ExecStart=
ExecReload=
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save, then, enable the service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload command # reload config
systemctl start test-app.service # start service
systemctl enable test-app.service # enable at boot