Bodycams

Configure, secure, and troubleshoot periodic local bodycam imagery on mounted displays.

The BODYCAMS page displays periodic live images captured locally from active, on-duty officers. It is not continuous video. Station Displays no longer uses the previous PeerJS/TURN viewer, remote image relay, or hosted bodycam URL.

The production four-tile renderer. This controlled capture contains no officer footage.

Requirements

• Start the core resource as sonorancad.
• Install and start screenshot-basic.
• Use a SonoranCADFiveM build with GetBodycamRuntime() and SonoranCAD::bodycam::RuntimeChanged.
• Enable the Sonoran bodycam submodule, put the officer on duty, and activate it.
• No viewing ACE is required; image delivery is limited to eligible nearby viewers.

Recommended resource order:

ensure sonorancad
ensure screenshot-basic
ensure sonoran-stationdisplay

If screenshot-basic is missing, the rest of Station Displays continues to operate and the bodycam page reports an unavailable capture dependency.

How local capture works

SonoranCADFiveM supplies authoritative bodycam active state, player source, and CAD unit ownership. A nearby DUI subscribes only to the feeds visible on its mounted display. The Station Displays server validates distance, routing bucket, interior, current page, service filter, on-duty ownership, and active state.

For each active subscribed officer, the server requests one client-local capture:

exports["screenshot-basic"]:requestClientScreenshot(source, {
    encoding = "jpg",
    quality = 0.55
}, callback)

screenshot-basic returns the image through its built-in FXServer HTTP upload handler. Station Displays validates the JPEG and keeps only the latest frame. It uses a rate-controlled latent event to deliver that frame only to eligible subscribed viewers. The DUI replaces and revokes its previous Blob object URL.

Several displays showing the same officer reuse the same capture. Display count never increases the officer's capture frequency.

Limits and expected bandwidth

• Capture interval: 4 seconds (15 frames per minute maximum).
• JPEG quality: 0.55.
• Maximum decoded frame: 300 KB.
• Maximum simultaneous visible feeds per viewing client: 4.
• Subscription heartbeat/expiry: 4/8 seconds.
• Stale frame timeout: 30 seconds.

The installed screenshot-basic API supports encoding and quality but not resize options, so capture uses the officer's native game-frame dimensions and the DUI scales it into the tile. Frames over 300 KB are rejected. At the hard limit, one feed is about 75 KB/s (0.6 Mbps), and four feeds are about 300 KB/s (2.4 Mbps) per viewer, before protocol overhead. Measure average and maximum JPEG sizes on the graphics profiles used by your community.

Layouts

Layout	Behavior
AUTO	One feed uses single; multiple feeds use grid.
SINGLE	One large feed per bodycam page.
GRID	Up to four feeds in a 2-by-1 or 2-by-2 grid.
FOCUSED	One large feed plus a narrow secondary rail.

Extra feeds create additional bodycam pages. These rotate independently using the saved bodycam interval (15 seconds by default). Page Down/Page Up moves between feed pages on the targeted DUI.

Overlay and states

The Station Displays overlay can show recording state, callsign, unit name, agency, status, assigned call, and capture freshness without depending on a baked-in label.

State	Meaning
CONNECTING	Active and subscribed, but no accepted frame yet.
LIVE	The latest accepted frame is current.
DELAYED	Capture is late; the previous frame remains visible briefly.
CAPTURE FAILED	Capture, validation, or decode failed.
OFFLINE	Inactive, off duty, disconnected, or past the stale timeout.

Security and privacy

The server chooses the source officer, capture interval, JPEG settings, and recipients. It does not trust client-submitted callsigns, agency labels, active state, viewers, or frame sequence. MIME, base64 form, ownership, size, freshness, and subscriptions are validated server-side.

Frames are never broadcast globally, written to data/displays.json, included in webhooks, logged, or returned by diagnostics. Diagnostics expose sizes, timing, sequence counters, source IDs, and subscriber counts only.

Bodycam imagery can contain sensitive roleplay information. Use intentional display placement, interiors, routing buckets, and short render distances. Avoid placing a bodycam page on a publicly accessible screen.

Troubleshooting

No bodycams appear

Check the bodycam submodule, duty/active state, service filter, enabled BODYCAMS page, GetBodycamRuntime() bridge, and viewer range.

Capture dependency unavailable

Start screenshot-basic before Station Displays and check the server console for SSD-BODYCAM-001.

Capture failed or oversized

Use diagnostics to inspect last attempt/success, upload duration, frame size, sequence, subscriber count, and malformed/oversized counters. Lower the officer's game resolution if quality-0.55 JPEGs repeatedly exceed 300 KB.

Delayed or stale

The previous frame remains briefly. Confirm the officer is initialized and not in a loading screen, pause menu, or screen fade. The frame is removed after 30 seconds.

A viewer receives no image

Confirm render range, routing bucket, interior, the mounted display's current page, service filter, and visible feed page.