View Motion Mjpeg Streams as a Screensaver

Introduction

This is my attempt to create a screensaver for Windows written in C# that will display several Motion Mjpeg streams in a multiplexer format.

Detailed Description

The screensaver can accept from one to four MJPEG streams and several user options are available. Only 'true' MJPEG streams are valid, so streams from Motion will work as well as from some network cameras (some Axis models, but not others strangely).

Attached Files

MjpegScreensaver.zip: Contains the Visual Studio 2005 solution file, code, and compiled program.

Installation

.Net Framework:
1. Search online for ".NET framework download" and look for a current version (currently 3.0).
2. Download the correct file for your system.
3. Double-click the installer.

MjpegScreensaver:
1. Download the zip file.
2. Extract the zip file somewhere such as the Desktop.
3. Copy the program in bin\Release\MjpegScreensaver.exe to your 'system32' directory
   (either C:\WINDOWS\system32\ or C:\WINNT\system32\).
4. Rename MjpegScreensaver.exe to MjpegScreensaver.scr.
5. The screensaver is now installed! Just select it as your Windows screensaver and configure it.

Users Guide

1. Select the number of streams you wish to view from one to four.
2. (Optional) Select the background color to use, black will probably be least likely to cause burn-in.
3. Enter the stream urls separated by semicolons (';'), (i.e: http://192.168.1.100:8081;http://192.168.1.100:8082).
4. If you have just one stream, select whether you want it to be scaled to fullsize or centered.
5. Once all options are correct, press 'OK' to save the changes.

Comments and Bug Reports

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I now have it working with multiple streams (up to 4), but just need to do some cleanup, testing, and such.

-- AndrewHamilton - 27 Jan 2007

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I just uploaded my initial release. Let me know if you find any bugs, I'll try to fix them. I know the streams leave a border around the edge which may or may not be good to you. This is because it is somewhat complicated to cover the windows task bar apparently, so I just avoided the issue. This program includes the MJPEG parsing routine from Andrew Kirillov's 'Camera Vision' software: http://www.codeproject.com/cs/media/cameraviewer.asp (used with permission).

-- AndrewHamilton - 06 Feb 2007

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