Video Surveillance

[groovin]

im not sure if this is the proper forum, but i wanted to know if anyone had ever set up a surveillance system that records to a server (server implies network, so i stuck it in networking).

recording should be at good enough resolution to ID someone, frames per second are not important.

thanks!

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: groovin
im not sure if this is the proper forum, but i wanted to know if anyone had ever set up a surveillance system that records to a server (server implies network, so i stuck it in networking).

recording should be at good enough resolution to ID someone, frames per second are not important.

thanks!

There are digital video recorders that can do just this. Dozens of video inputs and the DVR records to hard disk.

 

[groovin]

spidey, i was just reading up on IP surveillance where ethernet/wireless enabled cameras can stream data to a computer, the computer in turn can capture the streams into some format.

but i am seeing that most resolutions are 320x240 which isnt very good.

 

[skyking]

320 by 240 is not bad with the proper lens and setup. They limit the size for streaming over the web, I think.

 

[onebadv6]

My buddy uses this. Has several cameras setup and It works very good

 

[WayneTeK]

Just get one of these.

D-link WiFi 802.11B Camera

 

[groovin]

waynetek,

yes i was looking at these as well. they seem like theyd work really well. i passed them up because i thought the resolution was only 320x240, but looking at the spec sheet again it says it supports 640x480. have you worked with these? any idea how much hard drive space recording for a few days at 640x480 would take?

thanks

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: groovin
waynetek,

yes i was looking at these as well. they seem like theyd work really well. i passed them up because i thought the resolution was only 320x240, but looking at the spec sheet again it says it supports 640x480. have you worked with these? any idea how much hard drive space recording for a few days at 640x480 would take?

thanks

well, depending on how many FPS you want it, recording at 640 x 480, you could probably end up using 100mb / hour or so.. it all depends... you can customize the settings on the FPS and quality or recording...

If you get a 120Gig HD, i'm sure you could record 1 months worth if you record 24 hours / day.

Besdies, 120gig HD is like $70 bux now, after rebate. =)

 

[Garion]

Originally posted by: WayneTeK

Originally posted by: groovin
waynetek,

yes i was looking at these as well. they seem like theyd work really well. i passed them up because i thought the resolution was only 320x240, but looking at the spec sheet again it says it supports 640x480. have you worked with these? any idea how much hard drive space recording for a few days at 640x480 would take?

thanks

well, depending on how many FPS you want it, recording at 640 x 480, you could probably end up using 100mb / hour or so.. it all depends... you can customize the settings on the FPS and quality or recording...

If you get a 120Gig HD, i'm sure you could record 1 months worth if you record 24 hours / day.

Besdies, 120gig HD is like $70 bux now, after rebate. =)

Video quality and file size is TOTALLY dependent on the codec you use to save it. I've got some mpeg files recorded from my TV tuner card in MPEG2 that are over a gig for 30 mins. I've got some DIVX movies that are 2 hours long that come in under 700 MB.

FYI, 320X240 is decent quality - That's the resolution of standard broadcast TV.

In all honesty, the video source is, by far, the easiest part. The largest problem is getting the stored and organized on a computer in an effective manner that doesn't take up 40+ GB per day. You'll probably want to find a program that's designed just for this specific purpose. It's also going to take a lot of horsepower. The MPEG2 files can be saved on-the-fly, but the more compressed DIVX files take somewhere around 6 hours to do a 2 hour movie (On my Athlon 1.3Ghz - Other PC's might be faster).

Edit: Did a quick google search, and found this product - Looks pretty slick. Digiview 2 - HW / SW solution

- G

 

[groovin]

Garion, yes i found that on google as well. There are lots of security systems on the market but no real way for me to see it myself besides their online demos.

The dlink camera looks nice because it supports wireless. looking at where the cameras need to go, i am not too sure if i can string wires around all over the place.

i hear you on the codec part. ill look into what I can record with. I tihnk the dlinks have their own software.