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?"

Comments

Go the high cost route

[77Punker]

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.

Dorgem?

[OneDeeTenTee]

http://dorgem.sourceforge.net/

Dorgem has motion capture, but it will probably fall short on many of your other requirements.

Motion

[JRIsidore]

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.

Re:Motion

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Motion is excellent.

I've posted here before on the subject, but I have a Motion-based production-quality system continuously monitoring my house. I have a handful of cameras, both wired and wireless, that cover various areas (yes, I'm being intentionally vague. Security by obscurity *is* sometimes helpful.)

I have a password-protected web server that allows me to check out what's going on, but for the most part, I just let it run. It's been going for years now.

It has produced footage and stills that have been used in a continuing police investigation.

Additionally, Motion has one of the top two most friendly mailing lists for projects I've worked with.

March Networks

[billapepper]

March Networks is a company that does video stuff, you should look into them...

Smartsight

[Jjeff1]

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.

Obvious...

[kent_eh]

Hasn't x10.com contacted you already?

Local vendors?

[kent_eh]

Does your city have any local vendors who put together systems for just this use?

i do this...

[Zurk]

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.