video security system- Should I save to a dedicated PVR or to a PC. What about remote viewing etc.

For a PC,

and other such programs work well with cheap webcams.

The better ones easily take as many feeds as you want, dump them to files on the HD for later review, can be triggered by motion (saving disk space), etc.

The all-in-one solutions like

more expensive, but they're just easy-to-setup IP devices accessible anywhere in the world.

I desire to set up a couple of security cameras at my home and the local church school principal asked me to make recommendations for a video security system there. Can you please give me guidance on any of the following questions that I have.

For purposes of conversation, I doubt that the school would want to spend more than $2,000 for the equipment (Recording equipment and three or four cameras) and they will install it themselves (money is tight in a self supporting school). For my home application I do not want to spend more than $1,000 for the same and it will also be DIY. A lot less at my home would be even better, of course!

Which is best for video with minimal to moderate hassle, on the low to middle of the price spectrum, and bang for the buck (value) perspective? A Network/Internet camera (one with a built in web server, not a USB webcam) or the traditional cameras that are not networked. My observations are that the decent network cameras are still quite expensive while you can buy all sorts of video security cameras on eBay for < $100. It seems like much of the time that I try to view a camera on-line it seems to not work at all or not work well, causing me to question their reliability. Also, in reading product reviews on Amazon.com and other sites, I see that a lot of people seem to have trouble with the initial configuration of such products thru firewalls and such. I'm also not sure if the video quality is generally as good as a traditional camera or not. Nonetheless, it seems like it would be nice to not have to route thru a PC and still make yourself directly available on the net.

What is the best hardware to record the video? You can buy 4-camera video capture cards with software on eBay for $20 - 50. You can buy a dedicated DVR to do the same for several hundred dollars. If one has a late model PC with a large hard drive and fast processor, is there a good reason not to use it for video surveillance? Does the software that's out there work good or is it bug and hassle prone? What are the pros and cons and issues here.

There is also a $100 device on eBay titled "IP Network web camera video server 9100A, DVR, AXIS" that looks impressive and supposedly turns regular cameras into a network based system. It can be viewed at

wonder if that would work well.

Is there something better that is beyond what I've spoken of here?

If anyone could speak to the pros and cons of the various options, including naming any makes and models of specific products and/or web links, I would be forever grateful. Without actually buying and trying all the options, it's so hard to know what is best. I hope that some of you on these newsgroups have gone before me and got it figured out and tested some of these products.

"David Jensen" wrote in news:3ZZ1e.7655$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:

Do you need full motion video capture? Or will stills do?

You can purchase a decent video server for ~300 - 400.00 USD. Hook your cameras to the video server and archive the stills to a FTP Server or File Servfer.

Video servers convert analog CCTV camera pictures into JPEG/MJPEG or a variety of other formats. Video servers can produce a better quality picture than IP cameras since the lenses and quality of CCTV cameras tend to be better than 90% of the IP cameras out there. Not to mention, CCTV cameras are MUCH cheaper.

There are several brands of video servers out there. I can't really tell you which is the best one, since each have their own feature set that you might find useful. One useful feature you might want to look for is compactflash slot on the video server - this allows the server to archive a backup copy of the still onto a local card... in case the remote server is down. I've seen one or two video servers with this feature.

BTW, you asked why not use an old PC? Since this is for security you probably want high availability. Unless your old PC an provide quick recovery, ease of use, etc, it's better off buying a dedicated recording device.

You really don't want to find out the next day after the school has been broken into that the PC you set up has crashed : )

Oh, might want to add a UPS to the recording device too!

And don't forget physical security for the DVR/PC/Recording Device! A perfect video of someone's face as they break in doesn't help if he steals the computer it's recorded on. . .

I would additionally suggest powering the equipment from a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), if you think there is a chance that someone might also cut off AC power.

This could keep the data collection going for a few minutes, depending on the chosen UPS and the load of the surveillance equipment.

Gino

On 3/29/2005, David Jensen managed to type:

I think that video would be preferable unless there were a large number of stills taken per minute. I would certainly hate to miss some action becuase it happened between frames. You are right though that a still picture can have a much higher resolution that a single frame from a video feed. Maybe one decent sill per second would be better than 30 FPS video, I don't know.

When I was talking about using a PC, I would referring to a current generation PC loaded with a large hard drive, a gig of RAM and plenty of excess processor time running a stable version of XP - that is to say, as stable as Microsoft is able to get it! A high speed Internet hookup opens up the opportunity to back up any images remotely, further increasing security. The truth is, every decision in life comes down to tradeoffs in one way or another. Yes, the PC might not be as reliable as a dedicated DVR server but if dollars prohibit purchasing a DVR for home use, perhaps a PC that is already sitting there in the office, doing nothing much of the time is a cost effective alternative. If it is up 80% of the time, you're still better off than not having any system.

Thanks for your input.

David Jensen

This is true. This is another reason to at least upload some of the video or still images to a remote server. Than there is basically nothing they can do to destroy the evidence unless they cut your phone line - which I ran underground and into the house instead of outside the house - to prevent this from happening.

David Jensen

If you already have a decent PC (PIII or better), I would recommend a Geovision video capture card. You can regularly get them on e-bay for 1/2 the retail price. Get a 4 channel model for $200 or less, and purchase some B&W Xanboo cameras that operate on a single Cat5 cable for video, audio, motion and limited IR, plus they're weatherproof. The cameras are around $70/each.

The Geovision software will allow you to remote monitor via the web, record on motion and/or schedules, send video or jpegs to your e-mail or cellphone on motion events, etc.

Robert

"David Jensen" wrote in news:vrd2e.126$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:

If you hook up your video system to your security system, you can do a smart (or motion) trigger. Basically the video system will archive pictures before the event and after the event and notify you via email or pager. Some video systems can do this without integrating into the security system by doing video motion detection but this is slightly less accurrate.

Most video servers allow upto 1 FPS when you're doing JPEG uploads... so it's quite a few frames. Otherwise they can also stream 15 - 30 FPS MJPEG video to web clients (not sure if all servers have the ability to archive MJPEG streams though).

Anyhow, just an option. For a school, I would opt for a video server, DVR, or a packaged monitoring system since these are easy to maintain without hassle. The video server option is probably the cheapest.

Thanks again for your input.

David