IP vs Analogue

[zkcerf]

Greets

Have just found myself in the position of setting up a camera system using ZoneMinder and am interesting in some ideas and info around making a camera/system selection.

Which is more preferable at this current state of technology, IP cameras or Analogue cameras? As I understand it, IP cameras are totally more friendly for setup, with jpeg/mpeg4 served from a local (camera) webserver. This is a good thing in my humble opinion as it means I can deploy cameras in remote areas with a single PoE cat5 cable and access the camera. But can I use the tilt/pan/zoom features of the camera? I seem to remember reading/talking to someone about this, and they said something about needing activex controls to use these features. Is this true, or is it all done from a cgi on the local (camera) webserver? Having never actually had an oppurtunity to play with a camera of this nature, I don't want to get a $2000NZD camera with zoom/pan/tilt and have it be no different to a $200NZD fixed camera in terms of the abilty to access it across the network from linux.

What about analogue cameras. Understandabilty these are the most widly supported as they have been around a lot longer, but then the whole video capture port/ serial port thing jumps up. While its totally possible to get a multi video capture card / serial port cards to solve the need for multiple cameras, once you go beyond a certin number (maybe 4 ports per card times 3 or 4 cards while leaving room on an average mainboard (with maybe 5 PCI slots) for a couple of multi-serial cards to control tilt/zoom/pan, thats maybe 12 mixed cameras. Probably more like 8 with tilt/zoom/pan. Or 20 fixed cameras. This is a pretty good number, but is also limited. What if I need 21 fixed cameras? You never know. Which is why the IP camera solution is preferable as I can drop 254 (well, 253 plus a server to route or grab info from the camers) cameras onto a /24. or: Roughly 4,294,967,296 (-1 for a server) on IPv4. 3.4x10E38 (340 undecillion - 1) on IPv6, if they support IPv6 that is. Which is a lot of IP cameras. And then multiply that by $2000NZD per camera...

Basically, what do people think? What are peoples experance with IP cameras. Why would I choose analogue over IP at todays current state of technology (knowing full well that tomorrow it will all be cheaper and more advanced). What cameras do people recommend for use with ZoneMinder? I will be sure to read the forums around this also, so please assume I have read the forums before saying RTFF to me. ;-)

Lastly, does anyone have experance of setting ZM up under OpenBSD?

Thanks in advance

Fletch

[jameswilson]

Unfortunatly my prefernce is for capture cards. Ip cam are coolb but if youwant high res highish fps etc and a few cams , thats some switch your gonna need. Aslo the cost is to high. From a serial port control point of view you waould only need 1 serial port to control all your cams (upto 64 i think). You convert from 232 (serial) to 485 and daisychain all your camera controllerws ont this wire. If you look in zm under the control heading you can see where the relevant info goes. Mind you this is pure theory on my part as i have yet to get my ptz dome working with zm. But as soon as i do i will let you all know.

James

[johabba]

Could you point me (links?) in the direction of some hardware that would do this? How would get many serial cameras plugged into one computer? I'm guessing (hoping) that the serial cameras would be usb cameras with usb-serial converters?

I too would like to setup zoneminder with one server but many (as many as possible) cameras. Right know it looks like 4 usb cams and get really long usb extension cables... or use network cameras with a ~200 cam limit. Yeah...that would be some killer switch to handle that....

[cordel]

I too would like to setup zoneminder with one server but many (as many as possible) cameras. Right know it looks like 4 usb cams and get really long usb extension cables... or use network cameras with a ~200 cam limit. Yeah...that would be some killer switch to handle that....

First thing is USB will get you about 15 feet from the server before the single is so degraded that it will not work. Next issue is that USB vs Serial USB has a much higher bandwidth than serial so that would not work.

Which is more preferable at this current state of technology, IP cameras or Analogue cameras?

This would depend on your system (server, network facilities, etc.) and your preferance.
IP cams are easy to integrate but it takes more system resorces to convert the JPEG image to be analized for motion. Both IP and analog cams can be run over cat5 cable as I do this here. all you need are the converters to do this and you can get them to run power down the line as well (I like this method and I can easely change things around in my patch panel as I need).
As for the number of IP cams that one sever can manage again depends on your over all system setup and your configuration. Don't expect to get more than 36 cameras on one server and even that number is pushing it.

But can I use the tilt/pan/zoom features of the camera?

Most likely. Not all IP cameras are supported as linux does not support ActiveX controls. You will need to do your homework to find what suits you. Panasonic, Axis, and a few others seem to do well for the IP cams.
Otherwise James would be correct that you only need one serial RS485 port and you daisy chain them and this is an industry standard although there are several different protocols.

As far as what camera, this also would depend on what you want and the enviroment that the camera is going to be setup in. I have a few deferent cameras my self. I use B/W cams outside with an extreamly low lux ability so they work in low light with color in areas that have constant light.

Regards,
Cordel

[jameso]

cordel

Any chance of some details/links of how you run analog cams can be run over cat5 cable.
Thanks

[jameswilson]

if you just want standard video on its own cable then you need something at both ends called a balun. There are many makes, active and passive ones. As long as the range is short, up to 300m, then passive baluns will suffice. We use NVT something like the 211A. But on short range the cheaper ones will do.