Advanced suppression/timeout of motion detection

Question

I'm controlling the de-/activation of monitors hanging in a secure server room based on motion if personal is passing by to show them the actual stats of the specific rack without granting them access to any hard or software intefaces. So, motion is herin more or less an improved version of a conventional "switch trigger" known from basic outdoor lamps, that switches a monitor through software commands on and off.

This simple task has just one more or less big problem: If you switch the monitor on under bad light conditions, motion triggers events from the reflections on the glass door of the monitor refreshes (e.g. when the monitor content changes) which leads you to an endless loop as motion retriggers itself by now. Due to the "bad light conditions" scenario setting the treshold higher makes motion detection impossible.

First I tried experimenting with the "gap" parameter and thought that it could help me out but it didn't as it doesn't suppress the detection of motion events (as I expected it to) once a event has been detected, and the gap timer is running. I checked this as I send Syslog messages to a SyslogServer each time motion is detected. So, a feature like boolean "disableeventsduringgap" switch is essential to calm down the whole situation once an event has been triggered.

Second I looked for a parameter that would give me a something like a "postgapeventsuppression" for a adjustable number of seconds but I've found none. This could solve the problem in my eyes as if I would be able to suppress/timeout motion detection for the amount of time that's need to switch of the monitor and to stabilyze the lighting condtions I'd perfectly be "over and out".

Thanks for any suggestions!

Environment

Motion version:	3.2.11 (standard Ubuntu Package)
ffmpeg version:
Libraries:	ffmpeg, mysql
Server OS:	Ubuntu 9.10

-- MichlSchmid - 27 Jan 2010

Answer