CCTV opinions

[R D S]

I could do with CCTV at work, four cameras, decent definition.

I have an old PC (P4 2.8 IIRC)doing nothing and thought about putting a capture card in that but it's only got 2MB of RAM and no scope for upgrade, would that be enough?

If that PC is no good and I need something better specced i'm wondering if IP cameras would be better and if so what CPU would be required to run

4 1080p cameras?

Any input regarding IP vs composite, system requirements and recommendations on capture cards/cameras would be greatly appreciated.

Ta

[Bob H]

I have 4 ip cctv cameras, and they take pictures and video of any specified movement outside. They are linked to an old desktop pc which I have upgraded, via a switch. The PC has a 4.2GHz Athlon x 2 cpu, and 8GB of ddr2 ram, and it runs 2 cctv programs 24/7. It also has 3 quite fans inside so noise is very minimal. I used to use a 17inch laptop with 4GB of ram and a 1.8GHz cpu, but it was getting quite warm to very hot at times, so that is why I now have a dedicated desktop pc.

[Davey]

I have an old Dell Pentium 3 desktop PC, with a capture card, and 2 cameras; plus one camera in the garage, linked via Wireless (IP camera). The PC runs an old Ubuntu 8.04, and has Zoneminder running all the time. Zoneminder will record motion, you can set up the trigger points however you like, and it will record from before the motion starts. It works for me, and the PC has memory of 512KiB. Set it up so that when the HDD is a certain % full, then it dumps the oldest records first. You can watch recordings and archive them so they stay on the disk. My only caveat is that the hard-wired cameras never falter, whereas the Wifi one occasionally hiccups, and then comes back online.

[Dave Liquorice]

For what underlying reason? Just to see what is going on or for identification of "wrong doers" and use in evidence?

If the latter I think you really need to do a bit of reasearch about the requirements needed for CCTV evidence to be admissible in courtNot forgetting any Data Protection implications as well.

[dennis]

A dedicated recorder costs about £100 and will save you that much in electricity over a year or two. Old PCs are scrap if you cost in the power to run them.

[Capitol]

That's my experience also with wifi.

[Adam Aglionby]

Avtech DVR here is past 4 years old, it sits there and sips power just reco rding with one small fan, the disk click is louder. Re-boots itself with go od grace from power fail. Network/mobile accesible.

Cams connected with exterior grade Cat5 and baluns either end.

Refurb time is coming and IP cams are not getting any more expensive and re solution is getting very impressive, POE and cable rather than WiFi for pre ference though.

Seems to be a few IP cam DVRs around now at less than moon launch pricing a s they were a few years ago.

Evidence can be of a level where not useable in court, it can be enough to be on the lookout for now known characters....

[philipuk]

I simply use an old Android phone I no longer require running the IP WebCam app.

Philip

[Lee Nowell]

As an experiment, I too set this up at home. Zoneminder on an Ubuntu 12.05 LTS and used an old web cam connected to a Raspberry Pi as the IP Camera. Seemed to work a treat.

[Davey]

I had no problem getting ZM to work with ver. 8.04, but I couldn't find the right combination of associated required applications to make it work with 10.04. Was the 12.04 version of ZM easy to install and get functioning?

[lee]

Yes.. 12.04 was a straight forward install. I only did it as a prototype but seemed Ok.

[lee]

Yes.. 12.04 was a straight forward install. I only did it as a prototype but seemed Ok.