Hello,
I've heard that the PictureTel equipment is good stuff. I'd like any recommendations from people that have used PictureTel equipment with Zoneminder. I'd like to purchase some of this gear, there seems to be a decent selection on ebay from time to time. Looking for good picture quality and PTZ if possible.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
-Brian
PictureTel
Found these posts:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=PictureTel+site%3Azoneminder.com
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=PictureTel+site%3Azoneminder.com
Cordel,
Thanks, but I had already searched the forum and read every post about PictureTel, nothing useful besides the control script which looks great. I am interested in peoples opinions that have personally used picturetel equipment with zoneminder and the model numbers that work besides the PTZ2N.
Thanks!
Thanks, but I had already searched the forum and read every post about PictureTel, nothing useful besides the control script which looks great. I am interested in peoples opinions that have personally used picturetel equipment with zoneminder and the model numbers that work besides the PTZ2N.
Thanks!
I've been using various PictureTel cameras for a while now with ZM, but to be honest, they aren't the best for high end security systems.
The picture quality is excellent, but the cameras are not designed to be weather resistant or be used continuously like the commercial surveillance cameras are. The other short fall I found is that they don't have a very low LUX and cannot see at night with IR. They need good bright lighting.
They work great for PTZ controlling. In fact, I wrote the newer perl modules to control some of them...adapted from work done by others. They need to be in a climate controlled environment where you just need a peek once in a while.
I have them set up to sleep most of the time and wake up when I want to look around. They work well like this since ZM really needs fixed position cameras to shine and use it's magic to capture motion events anyway.
The picture quality is excellent, but the cameras are not designed to be weather resistant or be used continuously like the commercial surveillance cameras are. The other short fall I found is that they don't have a very low LUX and cannot see at night with IR. They need good bright lighting.
They work great for PTZ controlling. In fact, I wrote the newer perl modules to control some of them...adapted from work done by others. They need to be in a climate controlled environment where you just need a peek once in a while.
I have them set up to sleep most of the time and wake up when I want to look around. They work well like this since ZM really needs fixed position cameras to shine and use it's magic to capture motion events anyway.
MRD
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scapeghost
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:28 pm
I've been playing with a few PTZ-2Ns and an APTZ-1N. Coming from ebay, be prepared to have to do some repairs, unless the auction specifically states that it's been tested beyond just powering up and outputting video. I had to repair the APTZ-1N's tilt mechanism, but luckily it didn't need any new parts. Two of the PTZ-2Ns had broken tilt belts that had to be replaced.
I agree with mrd... these are cool little cams for the money, but not ideally suited to real surveillance. They won't work when mounted upside down, and require some sort of weatherproof enclosure to be used outside. You can point it out the window, but they're not too subtle.
They're a lot bigger than you'd imagine seeing the pictures... a PTZ-2N is maybe 8-10 inches wide, so keep that in mind as well.
The optical zoom is great though - 10X on the PTZ-2N, and you can remove the 37mm threaded 0.6X lens they come with and screw on a telephoto lens for even more zoom.
If you haven't already, check out Camerapad's web site... it's a shareware Windows utility for controlling the Picturetel cams and their brethren with a lot of good info about these cams. It's not much use in Linux (though I have gotten it to run in Wine), but it's the only way I've found to be able to use IR control or Limelight audio tracking. If you can catch the author's camera online ("Texas Backyard" under Demo Cams), you can see his outdoor enclosure: a clear plastic "ice bucket" mounted under an eave, complete with exhaust fan.
The author of BDLCAM (a free Windows utility similar to Camerapad for PTZ-2Ns and others) has a few demo cam(s) here, though I'm not sure if those are PictureTel cams or not.
Also check out Tony Sutton's PTZ-2N page for more info, including a photo gallery showing how to disassemble the PTZ-2N for repair.
I agree with mrd... these are cool little cams for the money, but not ideally suited to real surveillance. They won't work when mounted upside down, and require some sort of weatherproof enclosure to be used outside. You can point it out the window, but they're not too subtle.
They're a lot bigger than you'd imagine seeing the pictures... a PTZ-2N is maybe 8-10 inches wide, so keep that in mind as well.The optical zoom is great though - 10X on the PTZ-2N, and you can remove the 37mm threaded 0.6X lens they come with and screw on a telephoto lens for even more zoom.
If you haven't already, check out Camerapad's web site... it's a shareware Windows utility for controlling the Picturetel cams and their brethren with a lot of good info about these cams. It's not much use in Linux (though I have gotten it to run in Wine), but it's the only way I've found to be able to use IR control or Limelight audio tracking. If you can catch the author's camera online ("Texas Backyard" under Demo Cams), you can see his outdoor enclosure: a clear plastic "ice bucket" mounted under an eave, complete with exhaust fan.
The author of BDLCAM (a free Windows utility similar to Camerapad for PTZ-2Ns and others) has a few demo cam(s) here, though I'm not sure if those are PictureTel cams or not.
Also check out Tony Sutton's PTZ-2N page for more info, including a photo gallery showing how to disassemble the PTZ-2N for repair.
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scapeghost
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:28 pm
...I should mention that I haven't tried the APTZ-1N with ZM yet. It speaks the same protocol as a PTZ-4N, so it should work (if I remember correctly mrd made a control for it), but I'll try to report back when I do give it a shot.
The APTZ-1N is basically a PTZ-4N built onto a Limelight base. The Limelight base has 4 microphones it uses to compute the position of someone speaking and aim the camera at them. Neat for videoconferencing, not sure about ZM. Maybe if the intruder is very loud.
The APTZ-1N is basically a PTZ-4N built onto a Limelight base. The Limelight base has 4 microphones it uses to compute the position of someone speaking and aim the camera at them. Neat for videoconferencing, not sure about ZM. Maybe if the intruder is very loud.
I (and gneuf) did write a control ...or most of one for the PTZ-4N and the APTZ-1N, but I found that they didn't work as well for ZM. They seem to need more 2-way communication, meaning a response from the camera when commands are sent. I had trouble getting them to work well, but I'll get around to looking at them again.
In any case, I did write a perlTk and a tclTk application that works just like the CameraPad one, but for Linux. It looks similar and allows the cameras to be controlled by either mouse clicks, keyboard arrow keys or handheld remotes (but you need the correct one for the PictureTel protocol to work.
I'll dig it up and post it if anyone cares to play around with it. They are not the most polished things, but they do work for all 3 cameras. The last time I worked on them I was adding support for the Visca cams, but never finished.
In any case, I did write a perlTk and a tclTk application that works just like the CameraPad one, but for Linux. It looks similar and allows the cameras to be controlled by either mouse clicks, keyboard arrow keys or handheld remotes (but you need the correct one for the PictureTel protocol to work.
I'll dig it up and post it if anyone cares to play around with it. They are not the most polished things, but they do work for all 3 cameras. The last time I worked on them I was adding support for the Visca cams, but never finished.
MRD