ZoneMinder Forums

well, the small grocery store(deli) that i grab lunch from during my lunch hour has placed me on a mission.

during a recent conversation with the owner i noticed his cctv system had huge blind spots. now im NO security expert, but i told him u about the blind spots. i told him i was using a cctv system in my home that was running off my windows file server, i just plugged in a couple webcams to it and i was using i-catcher.

he was amazed and wants that in his store, however, i want to give him something that will better help him, and at the same time provide me with more security in getting side jobs from him.

so now im researching linux software and came across ZM.

so tell me, from scratch, if i was to purchase a box, the cards, the cameras, whats going to give me the best results. i saw the hardware compatability list, but what are YOU GUYS using, and what cameras are going to give me the best results,

can ZM output its capture to a format that i can convert to dvd for use of playback for the police?

ive been playing with linux for about 2 years now off and on, currently i have a box with the latest release of ubuntu on my network at also have damnsmalllinux on my xbox. thats why i want the reliability of linux

IS ZM being used in any stores currently?

important things to know are... (just to scratch the surface)
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• what res you want captures in.. 640x480 320x240 (or their PAL counter parts) (check your cameras lines if a composite, that will tell you the most you will need) (IP cameras are a little different and use a little extra cpu power)
  
  what is the maximum frame rates you want to capture at.
  
  will you be doing continuous capture or motion or both. (continuous only uses less cpu... motion (SUCKS IT DOWN.... well it does use more)
  
  How many remote streams you may want to allow at once and at what max frame rate.
  
  How long you want a record history to last.

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These will define the processing/memory/storage requirements you will need

We are upgrading a P4 1.7GHZ 1MB 160G HD because it is not handling our 12 camera 640x480 system with 5FPS view and a 15 FPS motion capture using one camera per bt878 chip. (the system was pretty good at the lower res and at 2 FPS)

going to use a low end core 2 duo with 2 gigs ram.. we don't need the hd space since we have a script that off loads data to a remote fileserver at night.

reduced resolution really eases up on the cpu usage but the customer doesn't want that.


I am also setting up a system at home with 4 cameras on a single chip 4 port .. 1 camera on a 1 chip 1 port and 2 usb cams. Tell you more how that works out later when its working. (all cams are at 352x240 max)
that system is to figure out which of our 11 cats is PISSING on my STUFF!!!

this is were we buy our cards http://store.bluecherry.net/category_s/63.htm or at a flea market 2nd saturday of the month pulling cards out of bins for a $1 and hoping they work... (so far they have)

So if we have a better idea what is needed in the setup, a better idea of hardware needed can be figured out. You may not need much if its 3-4 camera system

Zoneminder is great at what it does and its only going to get better. You can get one of the live distros to try it out. I built mine on Archlinux but thats not a user friendly linux.