ZMVIDEO(1)

💖 ZMVIDEO(1) 💖

okay bestie, so this one lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section of the manual, and honestly? it's a whole little video-making era. it's zmvideo.pl, and yes, it's giving ZoneMinder. let's get into it 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

zmvideo.pl — the ZoneMinder Video Creation Script. that's it, that's the name, and it's iconic for it 💅

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

here's the whole vibe, verbatim, no cap:

zmvideo.pl [ -e <event_id>,--event=<event_id> | --filter_name=<filter name> | --filter_id=<filter id> ]
           [--concat=filename]
           [--format <format>]
           [--rate=<rate>]
           [--scale=<scale>]
           [--fps=<fps>]
           [--size=<size>]
           [--overwrite]

so many little brackets. she's flexible. she contains multitudes 🦋

---

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so what does this script do, you ask? she makes MPEG videos of events. that's the whole job. those videos go on the web pages, or they get yeeted straight into an email as attachments. that's it. main character energy, zero filler ✨

---

👑 OPTIONS 👑

okay this is the part where we list every single one, because we do not skip. we do not summarise. we do not leave a single flag behind. periodt 💖

• -c[=filename], --concat[=filename] — when you're making videos for multiple events, this also makes a concatenated video. the whole mashup. and if you don't pass a filename? it just takes the filename from the filter name. cute and convenient 🎀
• -e<event_id>, --event=<event_id> — which event are we making the video for? this one. that's the one 🫶
• --filter_name=<filter name> — the name of a saved filter, and you're generating a video for all the events it returns. all of them. the whole squad 🌈
• --filter_id=<filter id> — same energy, but by id instead. the id of a saved filter, and you get a video for every event it returns 💫
• -f<format>, --format=<format> — what format should the video be in? default is mpg. heads up though: for ffmpeg only. ffmpeg girlies, this one's for you 💅
• -r<rate>, --rate=<rate> — relative rate, bestie. 1 = realtime, 2 = double speed, 0.5 = half speed, etc. math is fun when it's video speed 🔥
• -s<scale>, --scale=<scale> — scale it. 1 = normal, 2 = double size, 0.5 = half size, etc. same pattern, different dimension ✨
• -fps, --fps=<fps> — absolute frame rate, in frames per second. no relatives here, we're being precise ⭐
• -size, --size=<size> — absolute video size. WxH, or whatever other specification ffmpeg is willing to support. she's open-minded like that 🦋
• -o, --overwrite — whether to overwrite an existing file. and ngl, it's off by default, so nothing gets clobbered unless you say so. respectful behaviour 💜
• -v, --version — outputs the currently installed version of ZoneMinder. a little "hi, this is who I am" moment 👑

---

lowkey important reminder: --overwrite is off by default. don't come for me when your old file is still sitting there, because that's literally the documented behaviour 🙈

---

and that's the whole page, bestie. no notes. this was written by perl v5.40.1 and dated 2026-02-01, so shoutout to perl for the timestamp and the whole manual-page situation 🧚‍♀️ bye, love you, go make some videos 💖💅🎀