Camera monitoring inside the house

I use Hikvision 2432-F-IW direct from Aliexpress from China.

These have good image quality and work pretty well with TinyCam Pro on android. They can also be configured to email or FTP images to a remote server based on various triggers, including rudimentary image movement detection and an inbuilt PIR.

However, they are still of the type that expect you to have a windows machine to deal with the activeX bollocks.

For a higher class device, look at Axis - but the cost will go ^^^

If you're proficient with HTML you can usually work out the URL to access the cameras streaming output.

Checkout the Zoneminder forums ...

Indeed - that's not the problem.

The problem is if you want to configure anything (including activating or deactivating alarms).

I refer you to my previous answer.

The ZM forums have quite a wealth of contributors. It was a combination of that, and 30+ years of hacking that helped me create a custom command file for the noname IP camera I bought off Amazon 3 years ago. Got the PTZ and low-light IR LED function working.

Wireshark may help too.

Beware that many of these network attached camera recorders have been completely riddled with security holes, allowing people to get back through your router firewall onto your home network. If you have the capability, at least put the thing into a DMZ of its own, so it can't see the rest of your home network or access your router's own address except for essentials such as DHCP and possibly DNS.

Good point. And I thoroughly endorse the use of Zoneminder, it does all that you appear to require of it.

The ability to turn off a camera's LEDs would be useful, now you mention it. I haven't done (wouldn't know where to start) any of that type of hacking, just worked my way around the ZM commands.

Onvif seems to be an open standard for that ...

The Hikvision claims to support ONVIF.

I tried. In reality "ONVIF" seems to be a standard rather like "MS Office XML" - it has a buzzword, but is actually about as useful as a fishnet condom.

I might be maligning ONVIF and maybe Hikvision are lying. Even Tinycam cannot get anything out of the Hikvision I have except a video and audio stream. It would be nice if I could remote switch the IR lamp on and off and other things.

For anyone wondering, the hikvision gives great video and passable audio at a great price and it does wired, Wifi, direct power and PoE which makes for flexible deployment.

It just has a useless web interface.

I might try zoneminder too (or similar).

IIRC turning off the IR LED on the Hikvision requires a reboot too.

Be aware that the Chinese ones may have issues with firmware upgrades that aren't Chinese.

I've a UK 2432 works pretty well but the regular timed FTP upload works you can't set the filename (which has the date/time encoded into it) and the path is restricted to parent and child.

Yep, I'll agree with that and the PIR/Motion detection and the IR illumination would make them good little security cameras. Which is after all what they are designed to be. B-)

But what do you do when the cameras contact you and you are 20 miles away? Watch the miscreants trash your place and crap in the Mrs's knicker drawer?

The Police might respond if you called 'em but I wouldn't bank on it. Send a neighbour round? Bearing in mind that the miscreants may well have some form of weapon or grab one of your kitchen knives to go through anybody trying to stop 'em.

I guess neighbour can look from a distance to see whats going on and call the Police saying "crime in progress, intruders still present". But whether they have anybody not baby sitting the city/town centre binge drinkers is another matter.

Real higher class is Mobotix... they'll really put the costs up. B-)

Configuration > Advanced Config > System > Service > IR enable tick box.

Clicking "save" toggles the IR LED as expected. BUT the rest of the camera thinks the IR LED should be on. I have a feeling it's a bit more complicated if the rest of the cameras thinks that the IR LED should be off.

The biggest annoyance is the manual, if covers every single feature on every singla camera but with no reference to which camera has which features. Mine doesn't have number plate recognition for example...

True - I can give you the link to one seller that reliably does the English FW (several do).

I think the main thing is peach of mind - when you check and nothing's happened. If something happens, you can't stop it but you can at least go over, get the police, and secure the property - which is better than not knowing and just leaving it.

If you are really lucky you might get some photos for the police.

You read the manual?

Yes please.

Yeah. I managed to end up in hospital and one of the neighbours who got some stuff from the house for me manage to leave the main door unlocked. Fortunately another visitor discovered that and couldn?t find me and told one of the other neighbours who fixed that, but a camera that alarmed me when someone was inside the house would have been much more preferable to that good luck.

- when you check and nothing's

Be interesting to see what would happen if you announce that you can see what they are up to, and claim that the cops are on their way, even if they aren't. Not clear if they would usually just leave or start trashing anything that looks like a camera etc.

but you can at least

Yes, and most of my neighbours are quite capable of checking what is going on without endangering themselves. I do that myself when the neighbours alarms go off.

Yeah, I have done that too. Gave them to a mate of mine who is a teacher at the local highschool and while the school wasn?t prepared to tell me who it was, they were happy to tell the cops who it was.

And got his dad frog marching him around once he discovered that the cops wanted to talk to him about what his brat had got up to.

Couldn?t justify those prices myself. The Hikvision class prices are fine.

Julia speaks perfect english and is very quick about returning messages (I wanted a different lens) - bear in mind she's in China so there's a big time difference.

I had mine about 3 - 3.5 weeks after order and most of that was the post.

Is it hd or not, the ad implies 600tvl which is nowhere near hd.

It is 2048 x 1536 (for real). I have no idea how that fits into the SD/HD/HD+ whatever marketing bollocks - I stick to pixels, me :)

upgrades

I have an EU market camera and the URL for the HIK Vision EU firmware pages. Which is pretty well hidden... What I really want is a decent contact into the support/firmware writers to try and persuade them that a simple single field for the FTP upload path and a configurable filename for a snapshot upload would be a Very Good Idea. I've had a dig about in the SQL databases and it looks like the variables are already in place you just can't get at them via the web UI.

Yes, I can see that for a holiday home, though I'd rather get to know the locals and have one or two neighbours keep an eye on the place as well.

One would need to check the rules that enable CCTV evidence to be admissable in court. Resolution, security of recordings, etc

Sit down first. B-)

HD is only 1920 x 1080 ... ie around 2 M pixels

"tvl" is how many distinct vertical black and white stripes you get in the horizontal distance equal to the picture height. ICBA to get me 'ed around non-square pixels and Kell factors this early in the morning.