Slashdot Mirror
Cheap and Capable Video Monitoring Server?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "The company I work for is looking to invest in some security/surveillance technology. We are currently using an out-of-the-box, purpose built solution, but for the price it's pretty unreliable and leaves a lot to be desired. The specific need is for cameras to monitor areas of a site, with motion detection, the ability to integrate with other systems via simple boolean conditional switches, and a video web server. Naturally I would prefer to use a PC, as the reliability/price would be much better and the system would be more configurable. Zoneminder looks quite good, it's a Linux based OSS solution, but I'm not sure it's ready for a commercial implementation. Are there any good DIYish solutions around or are expensive consultants and esoteric hardware the only way to go?"
It sounds to me like the stuff you're monitoring is pretty important, so you need to make sure your surveillance is good. I'd go with hiring a consultant to deal with that so that even if it does screw up, he'll be accountable instead of you.
http://dorgem.sourceforge.net/
Dorgem has motion capture, but it will probably fall short on many of your other requirements.
Stop the world; I need to get off.
You might want to have a look at Motion. It is an application written for GNU/Linux that can capture video from several sources, has builtin motion detection (hence its name), can execute commands when motion is detected and a has lot more features.
:w!q
Check out:
http://www.overview.co.uk/
They are a CCTV specialist firm that I have dealt with, and believe they may have a product coming that you could find useful.
March Networks is a company that does video stuff, you should look into them...
http://www.securityspy.com/
Security spy is a mac program that is cheap and quite effective http://www.securityspy.com/ and it will email you upon motion detection, etc..
Republicans are jackballs...there, I said it!
Take a look at Smartsight, now owned by Verint. They have networked video transmitters (and recievers if you want them), but typically you'd have the transmitters send video to a PC running their nDVR software. This is a digital solution, so assumes you already have a network in place. If not, you might just be better off with traditional analog.
I've setup their systems a couple times. They work very nicely. One of my customers has p4-1.5 Ghz PC with standard IDE disks for their nDVR server. It supports over 30 cameras.
The transmitters support any kind of camera. You can also get a traditional security camera and have pan/tilt/zoom control.
You can view/control cameras from the server or any PC.
If you want audio, you can do that.
Costs are something like 1500$ for the server software, which supports up to 6 cameras and 2 viewers. More cameras or viewers are 150$ each. The transmitters are about 500$ each. If you have multiple cameras running to the same location, you can get a multiple input transmitter, which reduces the cost somewhat.
If you're reasonably intelligent you don't need to hire anyone to set this stuff up. I did it without any training or support.
Hasn't x10.com contacted you already?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Does your city have any local vendors who put together systems for just this use?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
email me and i'll send you details.
i dont know what your budget is but my box is plug and play and costs $2500 or so with 4 cameras bundled. uses linux and customized versions of motion and java for control.
i also use a BT848 chipset to do the capturing.