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High Definition IP surveillance

Discussion in 'Broadlands Community Issues' started by Mike-and-Kim, Apr 1, 2011.

  1. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    One way around the limited resolution of analog CCTV cameras (with other numerous advantages) is using IP cameras with greater resolution, which is the route we have gone. I've provided a typical diagram and costs (not including install). Disclaimer - I'm an engineer so like most things around the house (automation, security system) I've perhaps gone to extremes...

    We are still transitioning our system, we still have some analog cameras that we've converted to IP cameras (more on this later).

    These are becoming more affordable and eventually will become the norm in all but the lowest priced systems. In fact one can buy a 10MP IP camera these days for under $700 (e.g. Arecont AV10005). These have a pretty impressive picture during the daytime. Also check out the pics at

    http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11322&hilit=megapixel+demo

    My goals:

    Watch deer/foxes/wildlife around the yard. Yes, we have a camera on the bird feeder set up...

    Get notifications via email/cell phone of people only on certain areas (Vitamin D excels at this). I use this for package delivery notifications.

    Front of house: be able to capture license plates at the end of the driveway.

    I have mostly given up on analog CCTV because the picture quality of good IP network cameras is so vastly superior. I've got a Bosch 0620 ($500 analog camera) and the Axis P3344 blows it away in most regards (not low light performance however).

    Here is what I would recommend for an IP setup, based on my experiences.

    Axis P3344 or P1344 - 1.3 megapixel, 4x the resolution of any analog cameras. Phenomenal pics, no motion blur, no interlacing artifacts. Internal SD card for recording, computer not required or use as backup. $400 is occasional ebay price for new in box (retail is double this). Lighting in front of the house is probably adequate at night for most people. Rated at 0.05 lux at 1/6s, probably around 0.1-0.2 lux at 1/30s comparing to my analog cams.

    Vivotek IP8332 ~$300 new from distributors (disclaimer I have not tried Vivotek, but it has been reported to have decent low light performance). This is a bullet camera with built in IR.

    Linksys WRT54GL or similar that has Dyndns: simplifies remote viewing. I have one of these, there are newer models available.

    POE switch provides power to cameras.

    Illumination: this is the key (whether analog or IP). Use motion floods or add IR illumination e.g. CNB MIR-1000. The motion floods are nice, since when they are activated person looks in that direction and voila great face pic. The MIR-1000 is phenomenal and blows away what is in any analog camera, costs around $80-100. Rated for 60m, certainly does half this distance no problem.

    Realize that if IR is built into the camera it WILL attract spiders.

    Software: I use Vitamin D, which is very cool. Other people use Blue Iris for recording. There are a few other options out there. Download the free demo, hook it up to a USB webcam and play around.

    Other advantages:

    Access all cameras from web page on any computer on the house (this is straightforward to do). I can provide a copy of the html (obtained from Axis) which you can edit using notepad for your ip addresses.

    Access all cameras remotely. This is not as hard to do as you might think. If anyone wants to do this send me a PM and I'll send screen shots of the camera and router settings.

    Other thoughts: If you already have an analog setup you can skip the analog DVR, encode 4 analog cameras using Axis 241Q (4 channel encoder). Use Vitamin D to capture only events, the interface on this is incredible. The events can be easily reviewed at various speeds simply using the up/down arrow keys on the computer. Takes a minute to do what used to take forever on a Lorex system.

    Disadvantage of the IP approach:

    Recording: Computers take a bit of power, maybe 100-150W continuously. The flexibility and ease of operation is worth it to me. A NAS could be used, which tends to be lower power e.g. 30W. On the other hand you could skip that and use the built in SD card and motion detection in the Axis cameras.

    IP cameras are not as good as the BEST analog cameras for low light. This will change in the next year. The Axis P3344 is more than usable however with the lighting present on the front of the houses.

    Confusing to the average homeowner to install.

    Hope this helps someone, it has been a lot of fun learning for us.

    Mike
     

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  2. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    Here's how to make your own webpage. Save below to your desktop or wherever using notepad with a .html extension, e.g. example.html

    Works with firefox. Can also be edited to work with Panasonic cameras. Can be changed to work outside the house. 352x240 is the camera stream you are accessing. 264 and 180 are just the size it is displayed by your computer.


    <body bgcolor="black">
    <p>We set the background...</p>
    </body>


    <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

    // axis 241 #3 ************************************************************************************
    var BaseURL = "http://user@password@192.168.1.68/";
    var DisplayWidth = "264";
    var DisplayHeight = "180";
    var File = "axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=352x240";

    // No changes required below this point

    var output = "";
    {
    output = "<IMG SRC=\"";
    output += BaseURL;
    output += File;
    output += "&dummy=garb\" HEIGHT=\"";
    // The above dummy cgi-parameter helps some versions of NS
    output += DisplayHeight;
    output += "\" WIDTH=\"";
    output += DisplayWidth;
    output += "\" ALT=\"Moving Image Stream\">";
    }

    document.write(output);

    </SCRIPT>
     
  3. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    Which looks like this:
     

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  4. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    To get it to work with Panasonic BL-C210 replace the axis line

    var File = "axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=352x240";

    with this:

    var File = "nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240&Quality=Standard";

    If you have other camera types you can use google to find the stream name.
     
  5. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    how are the software interfaces on these now? Are they all web-based (Java, ActiveX, etc)? What about accessing/tagging/archiving motion-events?
     
  6. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    I'm not sure re the web based part. On the Axis you can get to the settings using Firefox etc (no ActiveX required, have never noticed the little java symbol like when I VPN into work).

    You can access local SD-card recordings (saved by motion sound contact closure etc) through the browser, or have it ftp somewhere else etc. I have not played with it much aside from basic setup. This is a de-centralized approach, i.e. the camera does everything (record etc) and you access each camera. Manuals are available online with more detail, computers are frustrating but I keep learning more somehow...

    I took a simpler centralized approach (for me) and use Vitamin D to manage events. It does analytics on the video (object vs. person in an area etc) and takes actions (e.g. email a photo) based on that. The advantage of this is review is super easy and it minimizes false triggers - DVR based motion sensing is terrible at this.

    It also saves all clips, this is such a cool program. Looking for the latest fox pic takes all of 30 seconds. I have ultra VNC running on a windows machine (3GHz quad core) and I use a Macbook with Chicken of the VNC to control and display the Windows computer on my Macbook.

    You can view the image stream using Firefox certainly, I've heard it works with others but have not tried. IE does prompt you to install "something" but I don't use that (only noticed when trying to have my Dad verify the remote view from Wisconsin). There are also dedicated streams for cell phones etc.

    I sidestep the built in live view part and just have the html file (see post above) saved on the computer, with a shortcut in firefox. So if I want to see all the cameras at once I just click that shortcut. It was so cool taking a trip and bringing up all the cameras at once!

    The other thing that is cool about the P3344 is you can remote focus and set the focal length, which simplifies setup.
     
  7. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    Example camera interfaces
     

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  8. nutria

    nutria New Member

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    I'm glad to hear that Vitamin D is working out for you. It's excellent technology for the money.

    If you are looking for a true NVR - embedded platform with ultra low power (6W) consumption - you might consider the Genetec SV-16.

    http://www.genetec.com/Products/Omnicast/Pages/sv16-en.aspx

    For a base unit with 500GB storage you would be looking at an MSRP of around $1,700 and a per camera license of $130, but you are then running the exact same video management platform as used by Target stores (50,000 cameras in a single system image), Chicago Emergency Management and NYPD, amongst others. I'm sure if you have the ability to buy from Anixter, Northern Video or someone like that you could get better pricing than above.

    And by the way, where are you getting the Arecont 10005 at that price?? That's below many resellers cost!!
     
  9. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    I think you originally mentioned Vitamin D, and for that I thank you :2thumbs:

    We've really enjoyed it, they need to hire some marketing people...

    Let me say also they have excellent tech support.

    I haven't bought the Arecont 10005, just dropped it in google and that's what came up on numerous sites (although that is likely w/o the lens).
     
  10. nutria

    nutria New Member

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    Vitamin D is pretty early-stage as a company, so I doubt that they can afford much marketing yet. Maybe you should offer to do a case study/testimonial for them in return for some freebies?

    You are probably right about the Arecont price being w/o lens, but that only add a couple of hundred dollars anyway unless you are looking for something very exotic! My company is just about to install about 50 of them at a NoVA location, including the 180 degree day/night models (4x 2MP in a single housing). Google has about 5,000 Areconts deployed around the country, so you can't go wrong with them in terms of price/performance and reliability.

    Now if they just made ultra low-light versions for some of our tougher deployments....

    Good luck with your system!
     
  11. jamesmkelly

    jamesmkelly Member

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    Milestone has a free version now that can do 8 cameras.

    www.milestonesys.com

    There is a splash screen that comes up for 10 seconds or so.
     
  12. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    http://www.milestonesys.com/downloads/free

    Thanks for the post, good project for an overcast Saturday...

    This was definitely not as easy to setup as VitaminD, but got it recording after a bit of playing around. Auto detected the cameras which was nice.

    Will be nice to have a means of recording all the footage. One of the limitations of VitaminD is that for small animals like a fox it only records the event for that area it detects, say roughly 20-30ft for a wide angle lens and a fox. It will be nice to have additional footage to see where the fox is going.

    Also nice that it looks like it has the potential to record audio (the Axis P1344 has a mic built in), VitaminD does not do that. For example the other night when we had all the lightning it would have been neat to capture any thunder. It's really cool looking at lightning events, it makes it like daylight if you stop on that frame just after the event.

    In the next 20 years it will be amazing what is developed, I read about a camera that could take pictures around corners. It did this by bouncing a laser off a door for example, then making an image off the light that had bounced around inside the room.

    I'm having tremendous luck with a Bosch LTC0495 at night, the fact that the camera has great low light to begin with which can then be increased using the "sense up" setting (lowering the shutter speed below default of 1/60 second) is extremely useful. Only needs the tiniest amount of light, this is a very well thought out camera.
     
  13. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    Well, I tried Milestone on Kim's old computer in the office. Around 2.5GHz single core and 1GB RAM, unknown video card (Dell). 3 HD cameras pretty much bottomed it out. They recommend:

    Minimum 2.4 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM (2.4 GHz dual core processor and 2 GB RAM or more recommended). Graphics Card: AGP or PCI-Express, minimum 1024 x 768 (1280 x 1024 recommended), 16 bit colors.

    So going to write that attempt off as a fail.

    Maybe tomorrow I'll try it on the computer I bought for Vitamin D, a 3.2GHz quad core ZT systems with 4GB RAM. That computer is a rocket, bought it on sale at Costco for $500. Odds are still will not run both programs at full res with all the cameras so may try setting up some smaller streams.

    Can't beat the price...they are smart to offer this as a freebie and get people using it. In a few years I would be surprised to not see other free solutions that are decent as people transition to systems that have more resolution and flexibility.
     
  14. fidothedog

    fidothedog Member

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    Mike - Thanks for all of the posts on this topic. I have been considering cameras and I am still pretty confused by all of the options out there. I have 5 quotes from vendors to do installation of systems and the prices are all over the place and (of course) each of them say their product is the best over the other vendors.
     
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  15. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    My pleasure, it is confusing at first but the information needed can be found with persistence. Happy to take a look at the quotes (PM me for email), and offer suggestions where I have experience. You may also find this quote interesting:

    http://360systemsga.com/VideoSurveillance.aspx

    "Once you find an integrator you feel you can trust, ask them to provide test shots of your facility and the surveillance area target fields of view. Since the project will require several thousand dollars, this is not asking too much. A short video clip of a car driving through your lot should be part of the bid process so the end user knows exactly what quality of images they are getting."

    "When evaluating and purchasing a video surveillance system, be sure to invest not only money but time as well. Be certain to identify needs by using proven metrics, such as pixels per foot and frames per second. Make sure to discuss these needs clearly with the integrator. The resulting video surveillance system will not only fit within a desired budget, it will meet and likely exceed all expectations."
     
  16. hornerjo

    hornerjo Senior Member

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  17. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    I put together this chart for those who like to think in DSLR terms.

    Eventually we will see the convergence of photo cameras and cctv, really they just have some special settings to allow them to work without constant user adjustment etc.

    A lot of it still comes down to light sensitivity (where a camera does not do as well as cctv), exposure, shutter speed and lens. And just like better photo cameras, the better cctv cameras give you better sensors and control.

    IP cameras are really just cameras with a video server built in that you can access at an IP address on your network (although some have much greater resolution than analog cctv which is limited to roughly VGA).

    In fact some pro cctv like Avigilon (pricey) allows you to fit a Canon lens to them.

    Note that cctv cameras with interchangeable lenses are usually CS lens mount these days. If you buy a $2 C-CS adaptor ring you can even play around with Canon and other TV lenses, which are impressively built and pretty inexpensive ($10-$20).
     

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  18. hornerjo

    hornerjo Senior Member

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    Its neat stuff, I love reading about it all. I especially like the IP cameras with everything built in. Just wish I had the $$ to play with a few. :p

    Logitech, believe it or not, makes a decent IP camera system called the Logitech Alert.

    Amazon sells it also.

    For under $400 anyone can setup an IP camera with ease, and you don't even need a separate DVR. Its about as plug and play as you can get.

    Another nice one is the Sharx Security SCNC3605 which is very similar.

    Neither have the best resolution or night vision, but for the price and being so easy anyone can set one up its a great deal. The Logitech especially comes with lots of neat features right out of the box. They made a YouTube channel showcasing user-submitted videos of it (various versions) in action. I got a kick out of this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p42HKmePtqg&feature=related

    The 'Cat Playing in the Snow' video (under same user) is great too. One guy caught a bear on his in another.
     
  19. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    2 solutions under $75 to play with:

    http://www.broadlandshoa.org/hoaforum/showthread.php?t=22536

    Or buy a used 4 channel Axis 2400+ encoder off ebay for $50, connect it to an analog cam. Limited frame rate with 4 channels but use only one channel and will do ~8Fps which is adequate. See diagram attached for hookup to an existing surveillance system to add analytics and event capture. Really one only needs around 8-10Fps. 30Fps is overkill and takes proportionally higher storage. Not on list of supported devices for VitD but works with 241Q settings.

    Color only cams are around $20 used, e.g. Bosch LTC0455 ($175 new)

    Also, if you are going to be doing this you'll need ethernet cables. Parts Express sells new 50ft Belden in the closeout section for ~$5 (i.e. a lot less expensive than Best Buy).

    Other thoughts

    Buy a last gen Axis 2120, I bought 2 of these around $125 new in the box to play with. Resold 1 on ebay for same price.

    http://www.axis.com/products/cam_2120/
     

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  20. Mike-and-Kim

    Mike-and-Kim Member

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    One additional comment, the Bosch cameras mentioned are easy to hook up. They will run on 10.8-38VDC and are not sensitive to polarity of the supply. Get a wall wart on ebay: 12V 1A should be more than sufficient.

    They are quick connect like wall outlets, where you hold the tab down with a small screwdriver and insert the wire. One might even have one from an old dead external hard drive.
     

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