Very New,need some strategy advice & UK Based Cam Recomm

Mark Ward · Post by **Mark Ward** » Thu May 11, 2006 5:48 pm

Hello All,

I'm very new to this, I've yet to even see any software based CCTV systems.

I want to increase my home security and I need to buy some kit to try out this software.

I have many Dell Pentium III 450 systems that are redundant from my work, they run Suse Linux (9 & 10) just fine. Would one of these be sufficient for a dedicated ZoneMinder Server? I have some with of 768MB Ram and they'll take 4 x 200gb Drives. I'm prepared to build a more powerful PC for this purpose, but these are here, free and not really a lot of use for much else. If they could be used to asses the viability of a ZoneMiinder system it would be very helpful.

I'll buy a couple of cheapish (but half decent) IP cams to test out the software, I'd like to but ones that will still be useful in a multi-camera system it would be good. Any specific model recommendations I can buy in the UK? Indoor and/or outdoor will be fine for testing purposes.

I've quite a lot of land and would ideally like to end up with around 12 Cameras. I'd like to be able to see any camera over the internet and hopefully record on a motion detection basis. I don't know if this is possible, but I'm guessing IP bandwidth would be an issue if all IP Cams.

I have the cabling in place to run a simple starter system on an entirely independent network from my regular PC/Media Cat5 system. Would a dedicated Gigabit Lan running up to 10-12 IP cams be able to cope? or am I better off with another strategy? I'm concerned about reasonable long runs if running composite video cable.

I read the compatibilty list, but what I'm looking for is some specific kit recommendations.

Can anyone point me in the correct direction to get started?

Many thanks,

Mark.

Post by **cordel** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:01 am

Hi Mark,
The most popular IP cam's here are the Axis cams. I don't personaly have one but we don't hear any complants here from anyone that buys them. I run all composit cameras over cat5 using passive baluns and they work well for me. There are also active baluns that allow you to get even a greater distance. As far as having a gigbit backbone just for 12 cameras I think you should do fine as long as you use switchs that can store and forward you shouldn't run into any problems. The PIII 450 though you might be able to get a camera or two on it as long as you don't install any desktop and go compleatly headless. You will surely need a better machine though for 10 to 12 cams.

Regards,
Corey

Flash_ · Post by **Flash_** » Fri May 12, 2006 6:39 am

Aye, the Axis cams are good. I've had some minor trouble with the 207w recently, but I also have 2 211's and 4 206's which are all 100% perfect and have been for almost a year in quite demanding positions. They are NOT cheap but they ARE good. If you want cheaper I have no specific recommendation other than DO NOT BUY LINKSYS CAMERAS.
When you do buy, ensure camera can supply a MJPEG feed and preferably at least two concurrent clients (Axis are 20+) so you can be recording and viewing independantly. Also, as you'll be viewing outside - cameras with irises are what you're supposed to use as the ccd of internal type cams can get damaged and impact their lifespan. I have two Axis 206s without irisis looking outside and no problem so far, but as I say - less than a year so far.

Got most of them from Network Computing at http://www.shopaxis.co.uk/ who were by far the cheapest when I was looking. Delivery has always been prompt and reliable, and the one time a camera wasn't in stock (and this was clearly displayed on the sale page because the cam hadn't been launched yet) - they rang me up to confirm that I was happy to wait until Axis released it. A little thing, but customer care is something that's depressingly rare these days, especially with the low-budget suppliers.

A 450 will probably be ok for 2 cams for testing but for 12 and any kind of quality you'll be looking at something like a 64-bit 3mhz machine, or dual core somethingorother.

tech_fixer · Post by **tech_fixer** » Mon May 15, 2006 2:09 pm

Hi,
In my experience, Axis is THE BEST. But it is also the MOST EXPENSIVE.

I chose to go with the Gadspot IP cameras, namely the GS1000 model. They work great for me and my only complaint is that I cannot throthle the FPS in MJPEG mode.

That led me to use the old JPEG mode wich lets me grab up to 10 FPS (depending on your ZM server, network, camera, etc...). I currently use quite a few of these limited at 3 FPS doing motion detection. When an alarm is triggered the corresponding camera ignores the FPS limit and records as fast as it can.

These sell for around $104 USD. You can get them in the UK at http://www.gadspot.co.uk, and they sell for £104.99.

When using IP cams, go wired as much as you can. If you have to go wireless, make sure the environment is fit for wireless networking. I work in a factory were we use X-Ray machines, industrial motors, lots of stainless stell and water. This caused havoc on my wireless cameras and hat to wire them at the end.

You might be able to use that PIII 450Mhz computer for a while. If you go with the JPEG mode, at 320x240 resolution and low fps, and no GUI on the server, you'll probably be able to squeeze in 4-6 cameras before it runs out of CPU. Remember to have plenty of RAM!!

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Regards,
Jose.

Mark Ward · Post by **Mark Ward** » Mon May 15, 2006 7:01 pm

Thanks for the replies. I'm not going to try with the old Dell's I have based on opinions here. The Pentium III 450mhz machines would have been a chance to try out Zoneminder without making up a new dedicated PC for the purpose, but I'd rather give it a good try than a cheap but inadequate one

As for Cameras...I'll certainly consider the Axis if this turns out to be a viable security option for me, however from a testing point of view I really have to keep to around £100 Max per camera. I'll find a non-critical use for these lesser cameras in my bigger setup later, but if Zoneminder transpires to be unworkable for me I don't want to have coughed up £500+ on cameras to discover it's not for me.

I've an Athlon Barton 3200+ in an Asus Mobo that I was going to use for another desktop PC, but I reckon this'll now be my Zoneminder trial PC.

Looking at where I need to locate this machine I reckon a mixture of Network & regular Cams would be the best solution. I have a courtyard where I could easily get regular cameras to, I know I'll need an input board or 2.

Spec I already have:
Server Case
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Mobo
Athlon 3200+ CPU
1gb Ram
Graphics Card? Is it important how good it is? I've a few old ones lying around.
2 x 300gb Sata Drives

So On my shopping list for this week are 2 X £100 ZM compatible IP Cams (Hopefully external"ish"), or Input Card & 2 Regular Cams for around £200. I'll take a look at the Gadspot IP Cams, though if anyone has a cost effective alternative that will enable me to throttle the FPS in MJPeg that seems to me to be a more straight-forward solution.

Would my Athlon 3200+ do as a semi-permenant solution whilst I'm running less than 8 cameras? I see this as a modular project, I'm not in a position to buy everything I want to end up with right now.

Thanks,

Mark.

maciekc · Post by **maciekc** » Tue May 16, 2006 8:24 am

Hi mark!
Graphics card is not so important, if you want to use my viewer - xlib_shm it could be - I prefer matrox g450 for that. Also nvidia tnt1 works ok(but have higher cpu usage when displaying).
The athlon 3200 should be ok even for 16-20 local cameras(I have never used network).
1GB is very, very ok for 8 cameras.
Buy very good and fast disk, scsi 10K rpm should be the best.
I have some not very good experience with sata - it is not fast enough.
Some of you suggested that traditional ide disks work better than sata in linux.
Take a good look on support for your mobo chipset first in linux.

Mark Ward · Post by **Mark Ward** » Tue May 16, 2006 10:55 am

Graphics card is not so important, if you want to use my viewer - xlib_shm it could be - I prefer matrox g450 for that. Also nvidia tnt1 works ok(but have higher cpu usage when displaying).

OK, so I'm guessing I'd like to be using your viewer so ordering another graphics card looks likely. Without going too crazy, what would be an adequate Linux compatible card to go for?

The athlon 3200 should be ok even for 16-20 local cameras(I have never used network), 1GB is very, very ok for 8 cameras.

That's good, I really do want to use bits I already have as much as possible.

Buy very good and fast disk, scsi 10K rpm should be the best.
I have some not very good experience with sata - it is not fast enough.
Some of you suggested that traditional ide disks work better than sata in linux.

I have 2 Sata 300gb drives that I removed from my Linux Server as I couldn't get them to spin down when not in use. I wouldn't imagine this to be a problem in a CCTV system, you wouldn't want to park the drives anyway. I take it on board what you've said about fast drives, just how much data gets stored in these systems BTW? How big a drive would I need to buy for storage? I know that it'll be down to what you want to keep, what rate you record at etc., but what is a typical size to go for? Would 300gb be overkill?

Take a good look on support for your mobo chipset first in linux.

Not a problem there, I have already got a Suse Linux 9.1 FileServer running KDE with the exact same model Motherboard & CPU.

I'd like to place an order today for the multiple camera input board (for non-IP cams) and the Graphics Card. Any specific make & model recommendations for me that I could buy in the UK?

Thanks again for all your help,

Mark.

lazyleopard · Post by **lazyleopard** » Tue May 16, 2006 10:57 am

maciekc wrote:I have some not very good experience with sata - it is not fast enough.
Some of you suggested that traditional ide disks work better than sata in linux.

Yes, we had a lot of "fun" with early versions of the SATA drivers. I think the most recent ones may be better, but some of our systems folk still cringe every time anyone mentions using SATA drives on a linux system...

tech_fixer · Post by **tech_fixer** » Tue May 16, 2006 3:06 pm

Well, I use SATA on FC4 and I have not seen any problems with disk performance (yet)

I have a motherboard with a VIA SATA chipset... lsmod reveals the via_sata module as active. Here are my hdparm test results:

# hdparm -t /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 144 MB in 3.03 seconds = 47.50 MB/sec

# hdparm -T /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 1796 MB in 2.00 seconds = 897.24 MB/sec

# hdparm -T -t /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 1944 MB in 2.00 seconds = 972.63 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 166 MB in 3.02 seconds = 54.94 MB/sec

I use a SAMSUNG SP1604N 150Gb Disk.

Hope this is meaningful/helpful to somebody.

Regards,
Jose.

maciekc · Post by **maciekc** » Thu May 18, 2006 2:28 pm

OK, so I'm guessing I'd like to be using your viewer so ordering another graphics card looks likely. Without going too crazy, what would be an adequate Linux compatible card to go for?

Almost every ati/nvidia card is supported. I prefer matrox ones for very good driver - used g450 costs around 4$ on internet auction.

I have 2 Sata 300gb drives that I removed from my Linux Server as I couldn't get them to spin down when not in use. I wouldn't imagine this to be a problem in a CCTV system, you wouldn't want to park the drives anyway. I take it on board what you've said about fast drives, just how much data gets stored in these systems BTW? How big a drive would I need to buy for storage? I know that it'll be down to what you want to keep, what rate you record at etc., but what is a typical size to go for? Would 300gb be overkill?

300GB should give you around 4 months with 10 cameras in modect.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu May 18, 2006 2:37 pm

yeah 300 gb should be adequate i only have 80Gig in my home system but, i have systems with 1000Gb and are busy sites so are virtully always in alarm and i get about 3 weeks tops. I only use record or mocord modes mind.

Mark Ward · Post by **Mark Ward** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:38 pm

I do appreciate the help here....

OK, so here's where I am on Bits

I have:-

Motherboard & CPU
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Mobo with Athlon 3200+ (or Athlon 2500Mobile)
I know this works with Linux as it's currently running Suse 9.1 as a Media Server (Has also been succesfully tested on Suse10).

or

Intel Pentium4 (Prescott) 3.2Ghz for which I need to buy a Mobo (I'll need to buy one anyway.)

How important is a powerful CPU in ZM? Whichever one doesn't go in the Zone-Minder machine will end up in my Linux Media Server. Would the Media server or the ZM benefit most from the Intel CPU?

Graphics Cards
I currently have spare:-
Radeon 9500 128MB (non-Pro) fanless
Radeon 9200 256MB Fanless

But am happy to buy the optimum (but not overkill) GFX card for ZM, from what I gather here it won't cost much .

Composite Video Input Boards
I am stongly leaning towards the "Grand X-Guard" cards. I'll need more than 4 inputs however, so would I be better off getting more than one 4 Port or buying a 9 port? The FPS on the 9-Port isn't as good as on the 4-port cards. In addition I've yet to find a place to buy 9-Port in the UK.

Cameras
Don't currently know where to start here, I get the message that Axis is a good bet and I aspire to that, but for now I need to find 2 X reasonable but compromise cameras. I'll look into this in more detail when I've got the server up & running.

Hard Drives
As I mentioned before I have 2 X 300gb SATAs removed from my Media server as I couldn't get them to spin down when not in use under Linux. I've nothing to lose by trying them in ZM, however I will buy a FAST IDE if this turns out to be necessary

Operationg System
Due to the excellent Step-by-Step guide on installing ZM on Suse10 I found on these forums, together with my current experiences of using Suse & KDE, I'm most likely to try installing on a Suse10 Platform. Does anyone have a reason why this wouldn't be the best way to go?

Many thanks,

Mark.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:56 pm

Id go with the athlon for you zm as the intel will be better on the media front as intels are better at video creation (mpeg2 etc)
Graphics is more or less irrelevant as you only need small accel for maciak's viewer app
Composite boards is your call depends on the framerate you require and number of cams
Cameras i can help with but need to know what you want them to do
HD I personnally only use wd both pata and sata and as most drives can sustain 15-20 meg a second i dont see you throwing much more than this at them. You could always raid 0 them anyway (please i dont want to start a rais 5/10/01 battle as i know they are more secure)

OS I wouldnt use suse as there is less people on the forum that can help with it, but if you know suse well, i think you have answered your own question!!

PS cameras axis make ip cams so if your only using ip cams you wont need a capture board, depends on what you want resolution wise from your system

Mark Ward · Post by **Mark Ward** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:15 pm

jameswilson wrote:Id go with the athlon for you zm as the intel will be better on the media front as intels are better at video creation (mpeg2 etc)

The media server doesn't need to display any video at all, it merely stores files and sends Music, DVD & Recorded TV to my Projector via a HTPC and to my TVs via a Network Media Players (Snazio, Roku etc.)

Graphics is more or less irrelevant as you only need small accel for maciak's viewer app

Yes, I was wondering about that. I see this machine being kept locked out of the way for security purposes. There's not much use recording motion activity to hard disk if someone breaks in and nicks your Zone-Minder PC. I anticipate doing most of the monitoring via Firefox.

Composite boards is your call depends on the framerate you require and number of cams

I simply want sufficient frame rate to ensure a good chance of catching someone. The 3 to 5 FPS of the 4 port seems more workable than the 1.5 to 2 FPS of the 9 port version. 2 4 Ports cost around the same as a 9-port from what I gather.

Cameras i can help with but need to know what you want them to do

I see me using many and varied Cameras eventually, for now a couple of composite feed cams to understand how ZM works and what I can do with it. I will need a remote camera on my private road, this'll most likley have to be IP as it would be difficult to cable to, but will hopefully be able to record registration numbers and occupants of cars. I have a courtyard which is sufficiently close to the ZM machine to allow a couple of composite feed cams there, I think I'll end up with many more though. I see me ending up with 9 to 12 cameras, a combination of IP and Composite. I have a very awkward property to monitor with out buildings etc. My neighbour has been burgled 3 times in the past 2 years.

HD I personnally only use wd both pata and sata and as most drives can sustain 15-20 meg a second i dont see you throwing much more than this at them. You could always raid 0 them anyway (please i dont want to start a raid 5/10/01 battle as i know they are more secure)

If this works out to be a fully fledged system I already have a spare "RocketRaid" controller card that I could use. HDD costs really aren't that bad to buy, just getting good advice on ones that perform well is very sensible.

OS I wouldnt use suse as there is less people on the forum that can help with it, but if you know suse well, i think you have answered your own question!!

OK, good advice there then, which Linux is the most sensible to go for? I have used Suse for a couple of years, but have yet to work out how to even compile from source for it. To date I've only ever used Suse packaged RPMs.

I'm sure it's not difficult, but on my server I merely needed the ability to store files for the network, I never needed to compile any applications. I'm sure it's not difficult, I just never got around to learning. Something that will obviously have to change now I'm looking at ZM

PS cameras axis make ip cams so if your only using ip cams you wont need a capture board, depends on what you want resolution wise from your system

I originally intended all IP, however it soon became apparant from both price and network overhead considerations that running that many IP cams would be impractical. Now I'll go composite where possible and IP to more remote points. My guess is 8 Composite 4 IP, but as soon as I start this you can bet that'll change!

Thanks for your input

Mark.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:19 pm

lol no worries i see what you mean about the media server now i assumed a box under the telly not a file server.

Regarding os i think fedora is widely used on here but my preference is for pclos/mandrake, but thats just what i have grown up with i guess. If you go the fedora route you will get the benefit of Corey's excelent rpms and i think he is packaging a fc5 based zm distro at the mo