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What Is the State of Linux Security DVR Software?

Posted by timothy on from the peer-out-of-the-basement dept.

StonyCreekBare writes "I am wondering what slashdotters have to offer on the idea of Linux based security systems, especially DVR software. I am aware of Zoneminder, but wonder what else is out there? Are there applications that will not only monitor video cameras, but motion sensors and contact closure alarms? What is state of the art in this area, and how do the various Linux platforms stack up in comparison to dedicated embedded solutions? Will these 'play nice' with other software, such as Asterisk, and Misterhouse? Can one server host three or four services applications of this nature, assuming CPU/memory/disk resources are sufficient?"

2 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. begging the question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can one server host three or four services applications of this nature, assuming CPU/memory/disk resources are sufficient?"

    Uhm, by definition, yes.

  2. I rolled my own by Yossarian45793 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I have a 5 camera system (slowly growing) and I evaluated ZoneMinder and decided that it didn't meet my requirements, so I rolled my own. If you are good at C programming Linux has everything you need to write a simple capture/streaming application. I use USB video capture devices (Pinnacle Dazzle DVD Recorder) because they are cheap (no tuner), have excellent quality, and I have no shortage of USB ports.

    Linux natively supports these devices, and the V4L2 APIs make it trivial to reads frames. Using libavcodec from the ffmpeg project you can encode the frames to practically any format imaginable. I encode all 5 cameras to MPEG-4 at 30 fps using minimal CPU power. All of this is possible with only about 500 lines of C code. Of course in my own version I've added a lot of fancy features over time and the project has gotten quite large with support for low-bandwidth streaming, crude motion detection, time-lapse video, etc.

    I won't lie to you and tell you that the documentation for ffmpeg is any good. But there are tutorials out there that explain how to use libavcodec and everything else is a piece of cake. Don't overestimate how simple is it to get something basic working.