camera-wall

Live view of Dahua IP cameras in a grid. It plays each camera's RTSP stream directly (no NVR needed), reconnects on its own when a stream drops, and fits the window to your screen.

Run it

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python camera_wall.py

The first time, there's no configuration yet: the app writes an example to ~/.camera_wall/config.json and tells you so. Put your cameras in it (below) and start it again.

The window opens at 90% of the screen it starts on. Each video is scaled into its cell, so you can maximize the window, move it to another screen or resize it freely.

The configuration file

{
  "grid": "2x3",
  "cameras": [
    {"name": "Main door", "ip": "192.168.1.101", "username": "admin", "password": "CHANGE_ME", "stream": "main"},
    {"name": "Parking",   "ip": "192.168.1.102", "username": "admin", "password": "CHANGE_ME", "stream": "main"}
  ]
}

config.example.json has a complete example with six cameras.

The app looks for the file in this order:

1. the path you give with --config, e.g. camera_wall.py --config ~/office-cameras.json;
2. the CAMERA_WALL_CONFIG environment variable;
3. ~/.camera_wall/config.json.

It holds your cameras' passwords, so keep it out of git (config.json is in .gitignore) and readable only by you: chmod 600 ~/.camera_wall/config.json.

Adding a camera

Add an entry to cameras. Cameras fill the grid left to right, top to bottom, in the order of the list.

Field		Default
ip	The camera's address (required)
name	Shown under the video	Camera N
username, password	The camera's login	admin, empty
stream	main (full quality) or sub (lighter: use it for many cameras or a slow network)	main
channel	The channel, for a camera or encoder with several	1
port	The RTSP port	554

Changing the grid

Set grid to rows x columns, from 1x1 to 8x8:

grid	Cameras
2x3	6 (the default)
3x3	9
3x4	12
4x4	16

With more cameras than cells, the first ones are shown; empty cells say "No camera". To try a grid without editing the file: camera_wall.py --grid 3x3.

More cameras at full quality take more network and CPU. If the video stutters, switch some cameras to "stream": "sub".

Status

The border and the line under each video show its state: grey while connecting, green when connected, orange while reconnecting, red when it keeps failing (check the camera's address, login and RTSP settings). The status bar counts the connected cameras.

A single-file build

.venv/bin/pip install pyinstaller
.venv/bin/pyinstaller --name camera-wall --windowed --onefile camera_wall.py
./dist/camera-wall

The build reads the same configuration file; nothing about your cameras is built into it.

Troubleshooting

• No video: check that the camera answers (ping 192.168.1.101) and that RTSP is on in its settings.
• "Error — check the camera": the login is wrong, or the camera allows no more RTSP connections (close other viewers).
• Stuttering: use "stream": "sub" for some cameras.
• Logs: run it from a terminal to see what each camera does (passwords are masked).

License

MIT