Surveillance Video on Intranet?

[domingo3]

I'm pretty much a newbie at this stuff, but I am considering setting up a video surveillance system, and want to integrate it with my home wireless network.

What I would like to do is have a wired connection to my main PC which acts as a DVR and also broadcasts over the intranet, so I can access the video feed from a laptop on my wireless network. If it could broadcast securely over the internet, too, that would be an added bonus, but I wouldn't want to pay much to add that capability.

I'm thinking this must have been done a lot by other people, but maybe I'm searching the wrong things. I can't tell the difference between a $199 capture card and one I found that's $14. It's also hard to figure out what software I need, and if there are free options.

If anyone can shed some light on this for me, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[WayneW]

I can't tell the difference between a $199 capture card and one I found that's $14.

That is one of the great mysteries of life. Most of us have purchased a $14 style card at one time or another and hoped for the best, figuring we couldn't lose much. Some work better than others and it is very hard to tell the players as they are usually cheap imported unlabeled unbranded clones. They usually had weak documentation and software. They often have no tech support. Sometimes the software is great, but only if you can get the right environment and get it working for you.

It all depends upon how much you want to play and learn in the process and what your budget is. If you can afford the $199 card and it has a money back guarantee and tech support available, it may be your best investment.

 

[electron]

Welcome to CocoonTech!

I am currently reviewing the Avermedia n5000 PC based DVR kit, hopefully I can post the results in a week or so. So far it's looking pretty promising, and it's very user friendly.

 

[Zang]

Well, I can give some experienced advice. Without the info about the $199 or $14 cards, I can't tell you the difference. I can tell you that likely either one will pretty much SUCK! You get what you pay for and cheap cards are a pain in the @$$ and give a LOT of headaches! If you're gonna do it, do it right! You would think it's a simple thing but there are a lot of factors! Your best option may be to get a network camera and just use it's server on your network. I would steer clear of cheap cards. Just my opinion but good luck with what ever you decide to try.

 

[IVB]

Welcome to CocoonTech!

I am currently reviewing the Avermedia n5000 PC based DVR kit, hopefully I can post the results in a week or so. So far it's looking pretty promising, and it's very user friendly.

Google returns some odd results - is that a card, or an entire pre-configured DVR system?

 

[stereo_freak]

don't rule out wireless webcams.

I realize they are not the best cameras, but I have several D-Link wireless cameras around the house and an old laptop running as a DVR

My website allows direct viewing of the cameras (or you can go to the camera's built-in web page), using Windows' built-in FTP server I can download hourly clip of what the DVR has recorded, etc...

The hardest part of the whle thing is forwarding the correct ports on your internet firewall.

It works perfectly for me... I can sit at work and see waht's going on at home.
and if anything appears to have happened while I am away, i can go back to the DVR to see what has hapened. It still freaks my wife out when I call her to ask why she's running late for work though

 

[electron]

Welcome to CocoonTech!

I am currently reviewing the Avermedia n5000 PC based DVR kit, hopefully I can post the results in a week or so. So far it's looking pretty promising, and it's very user friendly.

Google returns some odd results - is that a card, or an entire pre-configured DVR system?

Sorry, I meant to type nv5000:

http://www.aver.com/2005home/product/dvr/w...00/nv5000.shtml

I will probably evaluate their hardware based solution soon as well.

As for the wireless cameras statement, I am sure they work ok if all you want to do is record a snapshot every x seconds/minutes, but if you want to record video based on motion, then wireless is no longer an option.

 

[ver0776]

Here was my progression:
1 Web Cams (WebcamXP for server) (Mounting distance problems, USB extenders suck)
2 Swann 4-Channel Loved the card as it was stable. Bought a second one, both worked great in one machine. But only 320x240 (More on that later =)
3 Digiview 4-channel Card also worked fine, but specs threw me, thought it was a 640x480 card, but it was 640x240! What the hell would ya do with that? I don't have wide angle cameras or anything!
4 Kodicomm 8-channel 240fps clone from ebay. Granted it is a shady card, but awesome AWESOME bang for the buck. I get flakey video in 640x480 mode though, so I am still at 320x240! Should have kept the Swanns! OOooohhh wait, Now I have security video on my PDA! Swann could not do that, so I am still happy with my Kodicomm clone.

I was happy with all of the options to a degree, but since I am trying to create a showhome out of my trailer (joking) I wanted the best features. If PDA support is not a big deal, Q-See, Swann or any of the $75 4-channel cards will be fine for you.

Stand-alone units? Not for me. The bang for the buck on them is SAD. I like to throw bigger hard drives in and run little automation/security apps in the background.

I did pick up a 1280 hour time-lapsed VCR (Sony) from a warehouse site for $60 that I might hook up as a secret failsafe recorder. It has sensor inputs to control recording, and quite a few of them. It was like a $700 VCR new. So for $60, something like that might make a good backup option.

If you go webcams, I really like WebcamXP Pro. It drives 10 webcams, upstreams from multiple computers, has a web server that creates Java, HTML or Flash pages, email notifications, etc. It will also monitor non-camera sources like streaming your desktop to the webserver... Don't forget Geeks.com has $9.99 IR Color webcams! Can make a 10 camera system for $100!!! (Plus software and USB extensions =)

Vaughn

 

[Skibum]

Try the Hauppauge WinTV USB2 if you want to stream 640x480.

 

[ver0776]

I have the Hauppauge USB cable and it works ok, but for 1 channel it costs as much as a 4-channel DVR card. I also bought a 4-channel Composite to USB cable, but it is like 30fps total, so is unusable for anything more than animated stills..

I bought www.RoadRageVideos.com and am looking to products like that for my car computer to record driving footage. But you miss out on all of your security features like Motion detections windows and Webservers that you would need for the house.

So they are cool products, but I don't think they replace any home security systems. Although it might compliment them... having one nice camera feeding to an analog monitor for watching the driveway or something.

Something I have been meaning to test is whether any of those composite to USB cables will actually allow it to be treated as a standard USB webcam so you can use high quality CCTV cameras with Webcam software like WebcamXP... I have just used the crap software that comes with the cables...

Vaughn

 

[Skibum]

Do you have the USB or USB 2 version. There is a huge difference.
I've yet to find a better input device for video, up to and including some $400 cards.

 

[IVB]

Now I have security video on my PDA!

Can you expand on that? One of my "very much like to have" requirements is the ability to pull up a camera on my wifi PDA when I'm not near my house. [i.e., wife&I go to the movies, there's a wireless internet cafe next to it, pull up the video to see how the kids are doing].

I had presumed I could that since there was a web browser interface on all these cards, and I could just pull up IE on the PDA. Is that possible on the Kodicom? [btw, i have an eBay search - nothing has been listed for a few weeks now. Dang!].

Electron: I see "PDA handyview" on that card - have you checked that out?

 

[electron]

That's next on the list, the hard drive failure set me back.

 

[ver0776]

The Kodicomm stuff is not web browser based. It is a Small PDA app that installs on the PDA in about 3 seconds. Then you put in IP information, site name and password and it will connect to the main application and show you any camera in a browse mode or a full screen mode. You can only look at one camera at a time, but that is expected with the low resolution on all the but newest PDAs.

It is pretty fast via my local 54g WAP, the frame rates are good enough I don't miss anything when cars drive down the street, they flow by quite smoothly. Now with the $40 setup (streaming 4 webcams to a website via WebcamXP) you could see the footage on your PDA without installing anything using Internet explorer. But it is barbaric compared to the streams that the Kodicomm card will put out.

Now I have not be able to access the system with the PDA through a WAN yet, but I am sure it is just some port-forwarding issues or the Firewall from work here. You should be able to check your cams from a WiFi access point.... I will work on my settings so I can review that feature better.

Vaughn

 

[stereo_freak]

As for the wireless cameras statement, I am sure they work ok if all you want to do is record a snapshot every x seconds/minutes, but if you want to record video based on motion, then wireless is no longer an option.

I have full motion video with motion activation and it works great.


I am considering running CAT 5 up to the cameras while wiring my alarm system in an effort to tie up less bandwidth on my wireless router, but everything works flawlessly as it is.