Email video clip on driveway entry

I have an Elk M1G with an existing driveway sensor that trips an M1 zone. I want to install a video camera (IP or analog) that covers the driveway, and when that zone trips, send an email with a short video clip (10 to 30 seconds) showing the vehicle that entered.

I am also running Elve on a 24 hour PC and am running a Geovision hybrid DVR (IP and analog cameras).

Has anyone ever done anything like this? What additional components might I need?

I have Vivotek IP cameras that do this internally through motion detection, and e-mail out text, snaps and/or clips.
They also have digital IO to force this action from external sensors.

I don't have a manual or access to docs on that unit at the moment....too lazy to contact their reps right now, but.....

You could do through motion detection on the DVR usually, triggering an event which emails, or conversely, a lot of DVR's have "alarm" inputs, which can do a couple of things, typically they increase the resolution and frame rate while the alarm event (as configured in the DVN) is active. It may or may not email directly, also may not output the event directly to a clip format.

What you may want to consider doing is have the M1 trigger the alarm input on the DVN, changing the recording section, then have the M1 email the event and then view via remote software of the DVR, or if it allows offloading to another smart media. I can't comment on elve, not something I touch.

Near as I can tell the Geovision DVR does not have the capability to directly output or email a video clip based on an input.

Desert_AIP, do you have a specific model that has those capabilities?

I wrote a little script that runs on a linux box adjacent to my elk. Anytime someone rings the doorbell it grabs a jpeg from my front door camera and push messages it to my iPhone. Doing so with a video (perhaps a gif, for easy/instant smartphone viewing) wouldn't be that much more scripting.

I use Blue Iris, it has this functionality. Pretty reasonably priced software. I can't remember, but the free single camera version of Vitamin D might email you a clip as well.

Sounds like best bet might be to find an IP camera that's compatible with your DVR, but also has some of these features built-in... There are lots of models out there that have trigger inputs and actions they can perform based on an external trigger, so even if your DVR itself can't handle this, the right camera can and still integrate with your DVR seamlessly.

It's hard to recommend a camera without knowing your budget and quality requirements; as well as what kind of lighting the camera has to perform within.

I'll check the Blue Iris software, might be able to use that along side my existing DVR system.

In regard to requirements:
Budget for camera, less than $600
Quality: Megapixel IP preferred, 1.3 to 2mp, must be capable of operating in total darkness, either with internal IR illuminators or a stand-alone illuminator.

Thanks for your insights.

LakeHouse said:

Near as I can tell the Geovision DVR does not have the capability to directly output or email a video clip based on an input.

Desert_AIP, do you have a specific model that has those capabilities?

Click to expand...

I'm using the older IP7361 and FD8361 Dome.
All of their newer series cameras have the same web based software. The newr cameras have more RAM (longer clips) & faster processors.

The IP7361 is 2MP PoE, but doesn't have H.264 compression, so it uses a bit more bandwidth (MP4).
The FD8361 and all the newer cameras have H.264.
They all have 4 simultaneous streams, push recording, e-mail, motion detection, onboard SD/HD card (I'm using 32GB cards), web based control, etc.

The newer version of the IP7361 is the IP8362. The IP8352 is a special low light version.
The new cameras are around $620 street price. The IP7361 can still be had for just under $500.

Forgot to say what I'm doing with my script and Elk is actually using BlueIris as the central point where I snag the images from. You could do this entirely within BlueIris also and its probably the most bang for your buck as far as DVR software goes - its $50 for what many $200+ programs do.

chedemefedeme, can you tell us a bit more about what you are doing and how you are doing it?

I have my Elk set up so that whenever the door bell rings, I get a voice announcement and when, armed away, an email that someone rang the doorbell. I've been playing with Blue Iris, and it evidently takes a digital input for camera triggering. I want to have the Elk send that digital input to BI when the doorbell rings, trigger a recording in Blue Iris, and then have have BI (or CQC) send me an email with a clip of the recording (or even just a snapshot). The BI website is not really clear on how to send the digital input/output or how BI even receives such an input (since it is software not hardware), and I couldn't figure out if that input can be sent by Elk or if I need to experiment with the two devices suggested on the BI site (a Sealevel SeaDAC or an Arduino board).

Any thoughts you (or others) have would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

My setup consists of:
- ElkM1 + Elk Ethernet + doorbell attached to elk
- Cameras running in BlueIris (but they can really be even just one standalone IP cam, so long as it supports jpeg stills)
- A copy of debian with perl, apache, php and such common things installed
- The ElkM1Control perl library

I wrote a custom script using php/perl that polls the Elk for a change in the doorbell zone. When a change is detected PHP goes out over http (theres about a dozen functions between one and several lines to do this) and snags the current still image from the door camera. Again this could be directly from the camera if it supports jpeg stills, or from BI, ZoneMinder, or any other jpeg supporting camera software.

Finally it takes that snagged image, saves it in a folder visible to the web thanks to apache, and push messages a link of it to my iPhone by using SMTP to send the brief text of the link and event description to the Prowl API.

Result is pretty awesome; within a few seconds of someone pressing the doorbell my phone buzzes and i click one link to see the image of who's at the door.



It could use some improvement; i could eliminate php from it entirely, but i'm way more competent in php than perl so i wrote as much in PHP as i could and only used perl for talking to the Elk. Additionally I could spruce up the deliver URL's destination page to be written in PHP rather than just a link directly to the jpeg, and provide side by side views of the still image, the live feed from the camera, and even status of the Elk.