Hi,
This is some excellent software... but do you know of any wireless network cameras would work? I'm particularly looking into the hawking wireless network cameras (the say they work with linux...) but I'm curious how well it would work.
The general idea is that I could have 5 wireless network cameras recording to a Red Hat 9 box with a 160 GB HD - and I'd delete the contents of the folder every month or so (unless it would fill up by then...?)
Does this sound like a decent plan for a school security system?
Your feedback is greatly appreciated
Thanks a lot,
Matt Rose
wireless network cameras
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zoneminder
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Re: wireless network cameras
Hi Matt,
I have a D-Link DCS-1000W and I've got to say I'm not really impressed. It's a pain to set up and even at the lowest compression the images are very contoured and have lots of artefacts on them. Plus in bright light the whole image gets washed out white and in dim light it goes virtually greyscale.
I've never heard of the Hawking camera (do you have a link) but since they all use http any network camera should work fine with Linux or any operating system as they just appear as separate network entities.
Once you have them working you shouldn't have a problem with as many as you can get your hands on really as they tend to only capture at about 1 frame per second so there won't be much load on the server. Are you intended to record continuously or just on motion detection? ZM is really only designed for the latter. Also you can set up a filter to delete old events automatically so you won't have to remember to housekeep.
As for whether it is a good plan for a school system, I'm not sure. That depends really on what you want it to do. You're not the first person to propose using it in a school however so I'd be interested to hear how you get on.
Cheers,
Phil,
I have a D-Link DCS-1000W and I've got to say I'm not really impressed. It's a pain to set up and even at the lowest compression the images are very contoured and have lots of artefacts on them. Plus in bright light the whole image gets washed out white and in dim light it goes virtually greyscale.
I've never heard of the Hawking camera (do you have a link) but since they all use http any network camera should work fine with Linux or any operating system as they just appear as separate network entities.
Once you have them working you shouldn't have a problem with as many as you can get your hands on really as they tend to only capture at about 1 frame per second so there won't be much load on the server. Are you intended to record continuously or just on motion detection? ZM is really only designed for the latter. Also you can set up a filter to delete old events automatically so you won't have to remember to housekeep.
As for whether it is a good plan for a school system, I'm not sure. That depends really on what you want it to do. You're not the first person to propose using it in a school however so I'd be interested to hear how you get on.
Cheers,
Phil,
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matthew_rose
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 7:41 pm
Thanks a lot for your quick reply - it is very helpful.
We are only really looking for recording on motion detection... what we really want is the cameras to be used for 24 hour student access: the video would never really be used unless something was missing or damaged in the morning, in which case the appropriate camera's video files would be reviewed to see what happened.
This is the hawking camera:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/digitally-u ... c220w.html
I'm looking at it mainly because its a cheaper alternative - and we'd probably be setting up around 5 or 6 of them. What kind of machine would this demand?
Thanks again for your help,
Matt
We are only really looking for recording on motion detection... what we really want is the cameras to be used for 24 hour student access: the video would never really be used unless something was missing or damaged in the morning, in which case the appropriate camera's video files would be reviewed to see what happened.
This is the hawking camera:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/digitally-u ... c220w.html
I'm looking at it mainly because its a cheaper alternative - and we'd probably be setting up around 5 or 6 of them. What kind of machine would this demand?
Thanks again for your help,
Matt