ZoneMinder Forums

I'm thinking of getting 4 Axis 223m cameras. As I'm sure you know, these are 2 megapixel cameras. Will zm be capable of handling these cameras? Does anyone see any problems that may arise? Will I be able to use them at full resolution? I'm planning on using them with a X2 skt AM2 Athlon on SATA II drives. Thanks.

Capturing the image with Zoneminder should _not_ be a problem with these cameras.

I have captured images from cameras with a 1280x960 resolution using Zoneminder successfully. Your Axis 223m is defiantly higher resolution, but you should be fine.

As for CPU horsepower required, you may find your processors quite busy (they are big images). Also, don't expect a great frame rate. (2fps max maybe?)

Your biggest problem will be that you'll have to set the "shmall" and "shmmax" kernel variables high enough for the cameras. For information on this, read the "troubleshooting" section of the ZM manual.

--Pathway

agreed the axis will be fine, i have used zm with 206m's in the past with no issues. Frame rate will be limited by network and server

I have another site using 6 analog cameras at 620x480 on a single core amd 3700, and it is at its limit. I figure that 4 on an x2 5000 brisbane will be fine, what do you guys think? They'll be on a dedicated gigabit network. I'm not going to be able to use PoE, sadly the switches are too expensive.

Depends how many fps you want. x2 5000 is about as fast a normal PC as you can get though. I run 25 ip cams on a x2 4600, but that's half at 640 and the other half at 320, b&W and low fps. (2-3)

PoE: Costs about £40 per cam. You DO NOT NEED PoE SWITCHES:

Take the cat5 out towards your cam as normal. When you pass your last chance for power, insert a PoE injector. (The Buffalo ones are fine). That adds power to the cat5. Continue the cat5 (containing power also) to the camera and plug it into a PoE splitter (I use the Dlink ones cos they're cheap). You may need to fabricate a power lead from that to the camera of a few inches as my dlinks didn't come with a power out that fitted, but otherwise it's simple, cheap and far less bother than running power out to a remote spot.

PoE switches are only really economical if you have a number of PoE devices being fed from a single location. My setup is such that I have a PoE cam here, another one at the other end of the site and one or two at other extremities.

You could skip PoE injectors altogether as well by wiring your power cord right into the ethernet on an unused pair (like brown). Kinda hackish, but it saved me on a couple old cameras of mine that had expensive injectors.

AmmarossDanan wrote:You could skip PoE injectors altogether as well by wiring your power cord right into the ethernet on an unused pair (like brown). Kinda hackish, but it saved me on a couple old cameras of mine that had expensive injectors.

Since I saw this twice, I had to interject. There is more than one type of POE. Very old style is 12v on the unused pair. Current style is 48v on the unused pair. POE switches detect which kind you need. If you are making your own, you better check!

Good point Lee - but there's also another voltage in use.

The injector/splitter route also offers 5v as a choice at the dlink splitter - if I remember right the axis 205's I'm using that isn't designed for poe (unlike the 211's and above) needs this.

Point taken. It was never a part of the standard, but that didn't stop companies from using it!