Server/Client DIY Home Surveillance

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ptweasel

ptweasel

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  • #1
    I've participated in a lot of the home surveillance threads both here in DIY, as well as in AV. I haven't seen it come up in a while, but I've been meaning to post my experiences for a while now.

    I should note up front that this is mainly my experience with outdoor home surveillance using a local server. Most of the posts I've seen about indoor surveillance, whether using motion detection or not, are much simpler.

    Outdoor surveillance is a fun hobby, but can be frustrating if you're wanting to do motion detection. If you're not doing motion detection, then just throw the biggest HDD at it that you can afford and let it record all day. If you're short on storage space and want to do outdoor motion detection, be prepared to do a lot of tweaking. Wind, clouds, tree branches moving, insects... everything sets off motion detection unless you set the threshold so low that you miss the motion you actually wanted to capture.

    When I first got into home surveillance as a hobby after someone drove their car into the side of my house and drove off (I'd have to find the Lounge thread from many years ago), I put up some cheap Foscam cameras and built an inexpensive MiniITX headless server that lives in a corner in my basement.

    I don't care for the cloud based systems like Nest cams, and I didn't want to be locked into a single brand of camera, as they don't fit every need. Running my own server, I can have as much storage as I want, and even the cheapest cams will support some sort of output that I can use. As long as I can connect to a camera through VLC using RTSP, ONVIF, MJPEG, JPEG, etc, then I can use it with any surveillance software.

    As of now, I have 7 cameras of various brands, from no-name Chinese dome cams to a nice Hikvision PTZ outdoor camera. And, for indoor, I can just plug in any cheapo USB webcam to any computer in the house and add that as a source as well.

    Since I started with this hobby, I've tried tons of different software, trying to find one that's good for me, since I'm willing to run my own server.

    Software I've tried:
    • iSpy: This was the first one I bought into. It's open source, and has a ton of user knowledge on their site as far as connecting to obscure cameras. It actually has one of the best databases with info on how to connect to different cameras, and even other software companies will refer you to the iSpy camera database if you have trouble connecting to a generic camera. However, the "open source" part only extends to using it on your LAN. If you want to view your cameras externally, or on mobile, or get alerts, you have to pay for the proprietary bits.

    • BlueIris: This is one of the most recommended ones I've found. It does work really well, but there's only a trial. After that, a single camera license is $30, and it jumps to $60 for up to 64 cameras. And, the interface is horrible IMO. The mobile and web interfaces are even worse, again IMO.

    • Netcam Studio (used to be Netcam XP): I was using this for the last two years. $50 for 4 camera sources and $75 for 15 camera sources. I was actually pretty happy with how well this software worked, but I still kept trying out other options. The web interface is definitely the best I've found. It has a neat timeline view that highlights things you might want to look at.

    • ZoneMinder: The main contender for linux. I haven't run a linux desktop or server in several years. I definitely don't want to discourage anyone from trying it, but even with a decent amount of experience with linux, I found it to be way more effort than I was willing to expend.

    • Synology Surveillance Station: I guess this is the home user version for Synology. I actually have no experience with it, but I've seen it recommended in the AV forum. I have no idea what it costs or what the user experience looks like.

    • Luxriot EVO Complementary Edition: This is the software I ran across several months ago, and I've been running it ever since. It's a pared down version that allows 9 camera sources for free versus the enterprise versions that allow indefinite cameras for far more money than I would be able to spend. They don't really advertise the complementary version, but I've been really impressed with it so far. I'm actually pretty surprised they give this away for free, but I guess it gets their brand out there.

    Anyway, I said I would write this up several months ago, and then got sidetracked with a Raspberry Pi 3 HTC situation. But, hopefully someone finds it useful.
     
    Carhole

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  • #2
    Always a topic of interest to me, so oranging.

    If it weren't for your need to work with various camera makes and models then Unifi Video would probably be at the very top in terms of UI and functionality--both mobile and browser based--as well as DiY appeal in rolling a server on a Win10 or Linux (16.04LTS) boxen as the NVR is just a service, so setup and Linux headaches in general can be avoided. But, you are locked into their camera ecosystem which is good up to a point, then the real PTZ and vandal proof offerings smoke Unifi's optical side of the picture.

    Nice list as a resource. Any thoughts on expanding on your thoughts and walking through a build? Something starting with a simple boxen with appropriate and cost effective OS implementation, then some simple LAN architecture info followed by the IP setup side of things? What about taking a Raspberry Pi 3 camera module and turning a RPi into a little multi-tasking smart node?
     
    ptweasel

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  • #3
    Carhole said:
    Always a topic of interest to me, so oranging.

    If it weren't for your need to work with various camera makes and models then Unifi Video would probably be at the very top in terms of UI and functionality--both mobile and browser based--as well as DiY appeal in rolling a server on a Win10 or Linux (16.04LTS) boxen as the NVR is just a service, so setup and Linux headaches in general can be avoided. But, you are locked into their camera ecosystem which is good up to a point, then the real PTZ and vandal proof offerings smoke Unifi's optical side of the picture.
    Click to expand...

    Totally agree on Unifi. Knowing what I know now, and if I was starting this project at this point, I probably would go with a more all-in-one solution. When I started out, I was looking for something that allowed me to use cheap, off the shelf cameras like Foscams, but I wanted to house the recordings myself. I'm not that keen on uploading every recording of my personal property to a cloud based service, and using the built in microSD storage on most cameras is an awful experience.

    Nice list as a resource. Any thoughts on expanding on your thoughts and walking through a build? Something starting with a simple boxen with appropriate and cost effective OS implementation, then some simple LAN architecture info followed by the IP setup side of things? What about taking a Raspberry Pi 3 camera module and turning a RPi into a little multi-tasking smart node?
    Click to expand...

    I will definitely work on that if you're interested. When I first started, I was using an old Core2 Quad desktop as my server, and even with just a couple of 720p or higher cameras it would run at 80%+ CPU usage doing nothing but running the VMS service with motion detection. So, taking advantage of deals at the time, I built a MiniITX server with an i7-4770S and one of the free Win 10 upgrade licenses.

    I knew I was going overboard (justified as "future proofing" in my head), but now I know it's much more about the VMS software being used. My little i7 server now has 4 HD cameras (2x720/960/1080) as well as a smattering of other random cameras, and it runs at about 3% CPU usage using Luxriot.

    As for things like the Pi 3 camera, I have a Pi 3 that I currently use for my HDHomerun, but haven't tried out the camera module. But, I don't see why it wouldn't work. That's one of the reasons I've explored so many different pieces of software. There are a lot of really nice VMS suites out there that are free, but they only have a hard coded list of cameras that they work with.

    The good programs for someone like me are the ones that have the option for things like "Generic ONVIF" or "Generic MJPEG" as a source. As long as I can use crowd-based resources on the internet to find the right URL, I can use pretty much anything I want. Not trying to be a Luxriot shill, as I just started using it a couple of months ago and it definitely has a learning curve, but it has a lot of options for manual configuration without being complicated.

    As an example for using non-typical IP cams, for a while I used an unused Android phone as a camera source in my detached garage. I had to find one that would let me plug it into power and then remove the battery so it wouldn't overheat trying to charge the battery while running as a camera source. But, it worked like a charm, and the VMS software handled the motion detection and recording. I've since upgraded to an actual IP camera for the garage, but for someone that wants to set up something like indoor pet cams, it's a really easy way to repurpose old phones.

    Anyway, thanks for your suggestions and sorry for my rambling :) If you have any more feedback or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #7
    bkaral said:
    You might want to add Xeoma to that list. It's fairly inexpensive, and worked well for the brief time that I tried it, using a few dome cameras 4 or 5 years ago.

    Licensing, by no. of cameras, is quite flexible.
    Click to expand...

    I did look into Xeoma a while ago when I was hunting for new NVR software. It actually doesn't look bad, but it's also $99 per year for 8 cameras. Not that bad, but hard to justify when there's other software that's $0 dollars for 9 cameras. And, Xeoma is definitely from a non-english dev company (I couldn't figure out where, I assumed China or Vietnam). No, I'm not saying that's a negative per se, but it means that the documentation is pretty badly translated, and you won't find much talk about it other than their own website.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #8
    CUclimber said:
    Have you tried Ubiquiti? The server software is free, and there are zero costs other than the cameras themselves. Motion capture is really easy to set up on them too. You can view live footage remotely, and go through recordings easily even if you're just using your phone somewhere.
    Click to expand...

    I don't actually have any experience with Ubiquiti. I thought it was in the same vein as other proprietary solutions where the software was free, but you had to use their specific cameras. If that's not the case and their free software can be repurposed otherwise, I'd be glad to hear about it. I was going more for software that will allow you to use any old piece of hardware you have lying around and still integrate it into a nice DIY solution.

    For example, I have this ancient TrendNet IP camera from a company I used to work for that went out of business. I think it's from like 2007 (TrendNet TV-IP100).

    It's basically worthless. It's only VGA with no IR, but it's perfect for my detached garage where the lights are always on. The camera doesn't have IR, but I don't need it. I added it to may cam group using the generic JPEG/MJPEG profile using http, and the server does the motion detection and alerts.

    A lot of the professional NVR software only has profiles for specific cameras, so finding good software that allows hooking into generic cameras is a big plus IMO.
     
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    Xelas

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  • #9
    ptweasel said:
    CUclimber said:
    Have you tried Ubiquiti? The server software is free, and there are zero costs other than the cameras themselves. Motion capture is really easy to set up on them too. You can view live footage remotely, and go through recordings easily even if you're just using your phone somewhere.
    Click to expand...

    I don't actually have any experience with Ubiquiti. I thought it was in the same vein as other proprietary solutions where the software was free, but you had to use their specific cameras. If that's not the case and their free software can be repurposed otherwise, I'd be glad to hear about it. I was going more for software that will allow you to use any old piece of hardware you have lying around and still integrate it into a nice DIY solution.

    For example, I have this ancient TrendNet IP camera from a company I used to work for that went out of business. I think it's from like 2007 (TrendNet TV-IP100).

    It's basically worthless. It's only VGA with no IR, but it's perfect for my detached garage where the lights are always on. The camera doesn't have IR, but I don't need it. I added it to may cam group using the generic JPEG/MJPEG profile using http, and the server does the motion detection and alerts.

    A lot of the professional NVR software only has profiles for specific cameras, so finding good software that allows hooking into generic cameras is a big plus IMO.
    Click to expand...

    Ubiquiti's system is 100% only compatible with their cameras. In fact, it does not allow recording any other feeds from any other sources. I thoroughly explored this option, and even chatted with a Ubiquity engineer about a project where I needed dozens of systems with cameras for a large deployment but also with the ability to record from re-encoded VGA or HDMI source (cameras + live stream from a kiosk), but was told that this won't work. Their hardware NVRs also don't have the option of hooking up an external monitor to view "live" footage, the way almost every other NVR on the planet can do.

    Total turn-off.
     
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    xsvtoys

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  • #10
    I am also interested in everything you have to say on all aspects of this as I am working on a similar setup.

    One thing I would like to know more about in detail is the setup of VPN to allow full internet access while maintaining some degree of security for the whole mess. Also, any details about maintaining all of the cameras and the server on a separate network or separate part of the current internal network, again for security. (To prevent unwanted access into the current network via insecure cameras for example).
     
    ptweasel

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  • #11
    Xelas said:
    Ubiquiti's system is 100% only compatible with their cameras. In fact, it does not allow recording any other feeds from any other sources. I thoroughly explored this option, and even chatted with a Ubiquity engineer about a project where I needed dozens of systems with cameras for a large deployment but also with the ability to record from re-encoded VGA or HDMI source (cameras + live stream from a kiosk), but was told that this won't work. Their hardware NVRs also don't have the option of hooking up an external monitor to view "live" footage, the way almost every other NVR on the planet can do.

    Total turn-off.
    Click to expand...

    Yeah, I dug into that the other day, just to see if it was possible to use their software for my own purposes, and it's a big NOPE as you said. Obviously, they know what they're doing, but I was surprised at the number of people in their forums asking for a way to connect off-brand cameras. In almost all cases, it was because they don't offer any PTZ cameras. I guess they've determined that the ROI on offering a PTZ camera isn't worth it.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #12
    xsvtoys said:
    I am also interested in everything you have to say on all aspects of this as I am working on a similar setup.

    One thing I would like to know more about in detail is the setup of VPN to allow full internet access while maintaining some degree of security for the whole mess. Also, any details about maintaining all of the cameras and the server on a separate network or separate part of the current internal network, again for security. (To prevent unwanted access into the current network via insecure cameras for example).
    Click to expand...

    I'm definitely not a networking guru, but I do try to avoid being another IoT victim. I have all cameras and the NVR server on a separate VLAN, then blocked all cameras from accessing the internet. The NVR is still accessible externally through a forwarded port, which I'm sure isn't the greatest, but the NVR and the cameras can't access my actual home network. None of the cameras have remote admin enabled, UPnP is disabled, and none have default passwords.
     
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  • #13
    ptweasel said:
    xsvtoys said:
    I am also interested in everything you have to say on all aspects of this as I am working on a similar setup.

    One thing I would like to know more about in detail is the setup of VPN to allow full internet access while maintaining some degree of security for the whole mess. Also, any details about maintaining all of the cameras and the server on a separate network or separate part of the current internal network, again for security. (To prevent unwanted access into the current network via insecure cameras for example).
    Click to expand...

    I'm definitely not a networking guru, but I do try to avoid being another IoT victim. I have all cameras and the NVR server on a separate VLAN, then blocked all cameras from accessing the internet. The NVR is still accessible externally through a forwarded port, which I'm sure isn't the greatest, but the NVR and the cameras can't access my actual home network. None of the cameras have remote admin enabled, UPnP is disabled, and none have default passwords.
    Click to expand...

    I hear you, I'm no networking guru either, and the more I read about this stuff, the more confused I get although everyone seems to think it is simple. From what I have read your setup with the separate VLAN is good, but the port forward out to the internet will be always be a potential problem. Only VPN access from outside will be secure, again from what I have read, I don't know how accurate this is. Still trying to figure it out.
     
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  • #14
    xsvtoys said:
    ptweasel said:
    xsvtoys said:
    I am also interested in everything you have to say on all aspects of this as I am working on a similar setup.

    One thing I would like to know more about in detail is the setup of VPN to allow full internet access while maintaining some degree of security for the whole mess. Also, any details about maintaining all of the cameras and the server on a separate network or separate part of the current internal network, again for security. (To prevent unwanted access into the current network via insecure cameras for example).
    Click to expand...

    I'm definitely not a networking guru, but I do try to avoid being another IoT victim. I have all cameras and the NVR server on a separate VLAN, then blocked all cameras from accessing the internet. The NVR is still accessible externally through a forwarded port, which I'm sure isn't the greatest, but the NVR and the cameras can't access my actual home network. None of the cameras have remote admin enabled, UPnP is disabled, and none have default passwords.
    Click to expand...

    I hear you, I'm no networking guru either, and the more I read about this stuff, the more confused I get although everyone seems to think it is simple. From what I have read your setup with the separate VLAN is good, but the port forward out to the internet will be always be a potential problem. Only VPN access from outside will be secure, again from what I have read, I don't know how accurate this is. Still trying to figure it out.
    Click to expand...
    As someone who does do networking for their job, this is 100% correct. Use VPN, don't just put forward to the NVR. The firmware on most of them is not maintained well from a security perspective.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #15
    Xelas said:
    As someone who does do networking for their job, this is 100% correct. Use VPN, don't just put forward to the NVR. The firmware on most of them is not maintained well from a security perspective.
    Click to expand...

    I figured that was the case. In this case, we're talking about NVR server software running on a Windows PC rather than those dedicated NVR black boxes. With those, you're totally at the mercy of the manufacturer to update the firmware and not have things like telnet enabled by default. LINK

    Fortunately, I don't think many people are scanning for LuxRiot EVO instances running a port in the 30,000+ range with a complex password. At least, I hope :)
     
    stevenkan

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  • #16
    Has anyone here gotten XProtect Essential+ working? They also have a free edition supporting up to 8 cameras, which is more than enough for me.

    I installed it on an old PC, but I couldn't figure out how connect a client to it. I could get server to see my gaggle of cameras, but that was as far as I got.

    If people here have used it successfully I'll give it another shot.

    Presently I have 3 Reolink cameras, on Micro7 camera, a Raspberry Pi3 with the camera module, and an ancient Axis 205 (MJPEG FTW!), so I need multi-vendor support.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #17
    That's actually another one I tried at one point and forgot to add to my list. I can tell that all of the Milestone stuff is professionally done, but I just couldn't get it set up and working correctly.

    Like you, I need to be able to work with random camera models because that's what I have on hand. IMO, iSpy is still king in that regard, as tons of people upload their configs to the iSpy camera database. iSpy still has the best web interface I've used, but it's not free. I guess it's technically open source and "free", but not if you want to use the web/mobile interfaces from outside your LAN. Still can't say I won't go back to it eventually. And, the camera database is open for anyone. I've actually seen other software vendors refer people to that database when they're trying to set up a random camera.

    You might give the LuxRiot one I'm using a spin. It looks to be a pared down version of a commercial suite, but it's free for 9 cameras.
     
    M

    math_g

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  • #21
    continuum said:
    math_g said:
    Regards,
    math_g
    Click to expand...
    /// OFFICIAL MODERATION NOTICE ///
    math_g, please note that signatures are not permitted under the Posting Guidelines, compulsory rules #5.

    Thanks for your participation, and welcome to Ars Technica!
    Click to expand...

    Thanks for the heads-up, obviously I didn't read the guidelines. How wrong I was.

    p.s.: the URL you posted links to forum.kodi.tv, fat-fingered something? ;)
     
    ptweasel

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  • #23
    math_g said:
    Have a look at Contacam ( https://www.contaware.com ): Windows based DVR software with a web-interface for remote viewing. I’m using it for several years at work to monitor our reception-area. No issues at all.

    Software is opensource and in active development.

    Regards,
    math_g
    Click to expand...

    I had looked at ContaCam a while ago. I don't mean any offense to the community that develops and supports it, but it looks really dated. Things like a timeline view where I can quickly see when motion was detected are must-haves for me.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #24
    I'm still content with Luxriot Evo, and it seems to be really stable. I've had zero issues, and the CPU load is unbelievably low with 9 cameras (the max the free version allows) versus other NVR software I've tried. I probably posted in the OP, but with 9 cameras, my fairly cheap Mini-ITX box sits at about 20% CPU usage.

    That said, I really want to try https://shinobi.video/. It's GPL, there's no restrictions on how many cameras or anything, but the learning curve is really high. I'm fairly decent with linux, but as with anything linux related it seems, it's never just a self contained program.

    I started messing with it tonight by setting up a VM with Kubuntu. I managed to get it up and running and working with one of my cameras, but then made the mistake of trying NVIDIA hardware acceleration and completely broke everything.

    Maybe I'll try setting it up on a dedicated box, because damn, it's sexy.

    x0BtJ6U.png
     
    ptweasel

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  • #25
    Just so anyone that finds this thread from Google or wherever, this is the list I'm using to try out different NVR suites:

    https://ipvm.com/reports/free-vms-software-directory

    As I posted yesterday, I've set up some virtual machines, and for testing I just disable a couple of the non-vital cameras from my "production" server so I can have cams available when I try out new software in the VM.

    Earlier today I tried out Herospeed VMS for Windows. According to the link, I guess there's some evidence that parts of it were stolen from another VMS program, but I thought I'd check it out anyway.

    The install was normal, and setting up cameras wasn't horrible, but you're really just poking buttons and flying blind. It's all really badly translated from Chinese. I managed to get two cameras set up and could view them, but could never figure out how to set up motion detection, so I uninstalled pretty quickly.

    So, I went back to messing with Shinobi. The Shinobi developer says he created it because Zoneminder just didn't suit his needs anymore. I messed with Zoneminder very briefly, but everything was so manual and archaic that I gave up pretty quickly, so I understand his goal.

    I have to admit that I'm really enamored with parts of Shinobi. It definitely won't be a good choice for anyone that isn't comfortable dealing with linux, config files, etc. I'll keep playing with it as a side project, but I don't see transitioning all of my cameras from Luxriot at this point.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #28
    Thanks, I appreciate that! Even if no one did reply, I'm going to continue testing them anyway, but I'm glad to know others are interested.

    I had moved two of my cameras over to Shinobi running in a VM, but I've now moved them back to my Luxriot server.

    Shinobi Pros:
    • Beautiful website with decent documentation
    • Beautiful web interface, if you can figure out how to use it. The actual NVR software is just command line programs that you run on the server, and all administration and viewing is done through a web browser
    • Seems like development is moving along quickly, and there's a dedicated forum, but lots of posts have no replies.

    Shinobi Cons:
    • In true Linux style, it's not a single comprehensive "app". First you install a SQL database, then a database query program, then the "right" version of ffmpeg, then the "right" version of node.js, then finally Shinobi. There's some install scripts that make things easier on Linux distros, but on Windows you're on your own. I tried Windows at first, and got it up and running, but there were too many things where the documentation only was relevant to Linux, so I switched to Kubuntu.
    • Motion detection has only recently been added as a default option. Up until then, it was up to you to install one of the pre-existing motion detection libraries available in linux and figure out how to get it to work. I used the newly built in version, but could still never get it to work. There's config files, API keys, etc to set up, and in the end, it all feels like this big, fragile spider web of stuff that I'd never be able to troubleshoot.
    • Sometimes I'd go to check a camera, and it would show that it's live streaming, but it's just showing a still image from hours ago. This is something I've run across with lots of NVR software and RTSP streams. If I'd log directly into the camera, it was working fine, but the NVR software at some point lost track of the stream and doesn't recover correctly.

    So, my summary of Shinobi is that I'm going to keep watching it pretty closely. It has so much potential to be exactly what I want, but it's just too much time commitment at this point. It was giving me flashbacks of using linux in the early 2000s.

    [Edit]
    Forgot one of the biggest cons, as if another was needed. There's no dedicated mobile app. Despite what the author says, the viewing website does not work gracefully on mobile devices. Mobile viewing is big for me, even when I'm at home, because I always have my phone in my pocket. Being able to pull up the Luxriot app and view the full camera grid, click on a single camera to just view that one, use PTZ, turn audio on/off is pretty much a requirement to me at this point.
     
    thekaj

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  • #30
    Scifigod said:
    Toss is something I've been meaning to do for a while now too. Would a raspberry pi be enough machine to run a couple of cameras or is something a bit larger recommended?
    Click to expand...
    Depends on the frame rate you're looking for. I've got one that can run one camera hooked up to the camera port, running at a custom resolution between 720 and 1080 that streams roughly 20 FPS. Multiple cameras, pretty doubtful you'd be able to get anything passable. Although since they're so cheap you could use multiple Pi Zeros, each with a camera, to stream to a central computer acting as a DVR.
     
    ptweasel

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  • #31
    I have a Pi 3 that I thought about trying with the camera module, but it's also running Kodi for my garage/man-cave, so I haven't been willing to take it offline and repurpose it yet.

    That said, I can't see a Pi being anything other than a cam streamer, if that makes sense. Motion is a linux program that can do motion detection and looks like it can be configured in a ton of ways, but it also looks like a huge time investment to set up. And, I can't imagine a Pi would be able to keep up with anything more than a single stream, if that. For a small setup, it would probably be fun to play with, but I think I'd end up back with sending the streams from the Pi to more powerful hardware to do the actual motion detection.

    On a different topic, ONVIF is awesome, but really frustrating. If you're ever looking to buy a network camera, definitely buy one that claims to support ONVIF. The stated purpose, in a nutshell, is that a camera can be queried by a standard protocol and will return what it's capable of.

    In some cases, especially with more expensive cams like HikVision, it can work really well, But, unfortunately, it always comes down to the NVR software you're using. For example, I have a camera that I really like from a no-name company named Sumpple Link. It's a 960p camera with an external microphone, and pretty much every NVR software I've tried that can auto-detect ONVIF finds the camera stream and the audio stream automatically.

    But, I have another camera Link where ONVIF detects the video streams, but just can't figure out the audio. In my current NVR, it acts like it detects audio, but it's just really loud static. If I log directly into the camera, the audio works great, and offers AAC and two other codecs, but Luxriot just can't seem to figure it out.

    And, when Foscam says ONVIF on the box, what they mean is, "haha, we were just kidding"
     
    ptweasel

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  • #33
    I don't personally have any experience with Dahua cameras. They look like pretty standard Chinese cameras, so I'm sure there wouldn't be anything wrong with the image stream, as long as you can figure out how to access it. The iSpy database has a pretty list of possible stream URLs for Dahua. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a single Dahua cam on amazon with more than 10 reviews, and their product descriptions are all really poorly translated, which are both red flags.

    I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I had posted somewhere above about the first Amcrest cam I purchased. They're about the same price range, and the company is based out of Texas. I've been really impressed with the firmware on that camera.

    As for fish-eye, most of the software I've tried has a mode for that. I remember the setting in iSpy, and Luxriot has a "dewarp" config section that has options for fish-eye and "ImmerVision", which is assume is some company-specific wide-angle mode.

    Can you give more detail on what you mean by "virtual cameras"?
     
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  • #34
    ptweasel said:
    I don't personally have any experience with Dahua cameras. They look like pretty standard Chinese cameras, so I'm sure there wouldn't be anything wrong with the image stream, as long as you can figure out how to access it. The iSpy database has a pretty list of possible stream URLs for Dahua. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a single Dahua cam on amazon with more than 10 reviews, and their product descriptions are all really poorly translated, which are both red flags.

    I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I had posted somewhere above about the first Amcrest cam I purchased. They're about the same price range, and the company is based out of Texas. I've been really impressed with the firmware on that camera.

    As for fish-eye, most of the software I've tried has a mode for that. I remember the setting in iSpy, and Luxriot has a "dewarp" config section that has options for fish-eye and "ImmerVision", which is assume is some company-specific wide-angle mode.

    Can you give more detail on what you mean by "virtual cameras"?
    Click to expand...

    I've heard good things about the low-light sensitivity of some of the Dahua bullets on some forums (their "starlight" feature). It could be that other vendors also have those sensors and are just low-key about it.

    By "virtual cameras" I meant that some stand-alone DVRs can multiple views from a fisheye, dewarp them, and then work with them as if you are using multiple individual cameras. I have one such setup in a small shop where a single fisheye on the ceiling is providing 3 views as "virtual cameras". It can cut down on the recording space because you are only recording the portions of the camera view that are important to you, and you can set up things like thresholds, motion triggers with masks, etc to be different for each virtual camera.
     
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  • #36
    Another update on yet another free VMS program I ran across called Ivideon. It looks really slick, doesn't cost anything unless you want cloud hosting, and has server and client software for pretty much every OS.

    And... the first camera I tried wouldn't work. The whole point of buying an ONVIF camera is that the software can query the camera using the ONVIF spec, and the camera will respond with everything the software needs to set everything up automatically.

    It's supposed to go:

    Software: Hey, ONVIF cam, what do you have to offer?
    Camera: Well, I can output a 1080p RTSP main stream from this URL, and a 720p RTSP sub stream from this URL. Oh, and I have a built in mic that you can access. And, I'm PTZ capable.
    Software: Great, that's all set up

    Unfortunately, the vast majority of software I try does horribly with ONVIF. Even a lot of the enterprise-grade software I've tried is horrible at it. They just seem to create templates for the specific (usually expensive) cameras that they want to sell you. Which I guess I understand. A lot of these VMS suites I'm trying are free because they've making their money off of hardware and custom installations.

    But, c'mon man, the whole point of ONVIF is that we don't need templates or databases to figure out how to connect to a camera.

    So, I end up right back where I was with my top three for doing DIY, home-server based IP surveillance using random cameras (that's a lot of stipulations, I know)

    • iSpyConnect - still the king of being able to use any possible network camera, web camera... well, basically anything that can output anything at all. I tried the latest version of iSpy in a VM just to see how it would handle this particular cam again after not using iSpy in a year or so, and it set everything up perfectly.
    • Blue Iris - also great support, but lacks a lot of things I'd like, such as certain types of hardware acceleration. It currently only supports QuickSync.
    • Luxriot - what I'm on now. I'm still kind of into it because it's free and seems to be working well, but I go back and forth on jumping back to iSpy or BlueIris

    All of that said, one of the people on the Blue Iris forums put together an opt-in program that allows him to collect and display data about different BlueIris setups people are using. It's not perfect, as you don't know what external factors might be involved on any particular server, but it's pretty cool data. You can see what CPU, how much RAM, how many cameras, CPU load, Avg FPS, etc. And, you can click on any individual server to get more specifics about their setup.

    I'm not the author of this, but I thought it might be useful to someone looking to set up a cam server.

    https://biupdatehelper.hopto.org/default.html#stats
     
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  • #37
    ptweasel said:
    Another update on yet another free VMS program I ran across called Ivideon. It looks really slick, doesn't cost anything unless you want cloud hosting, and has server and client software for pretty much every OS.

    And... the first camera I tried wouldn't work. The whole point of buying an ONVIF camera is that the software can query the camera using the ONVIF spec, and the camera will respond with everything the software needs to set everything up automatically.

    ...
    Click to expand...

    Their site is confusing. One some pages, they state that up to 15 cameras are free, but then there is this page:
    https://www.ivideon.com/help/start/activation-key/

    It does look really slick, though, with decent-looking mobile apps.
     
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  • #38
    The activation key is for a feature that you couldn't pay me to use. On certain Hikvision and Microdigital cameras, you can replace the camera firmware with firmware from Ivideon. It basically replaced the need for a local server, and the cameras do the work and record to their cloud.

    3rd party firmware and recording to the cloud? All a big 'nope' from me.
     
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  • #39
    I might need to put this in the A/V forum instead, but I'll put it here for now in case anyone has any ideas.

    Most IP cams I've used have a few cables coming out for hooking them up. It's usually an ethernet port, a reset button, and an input for an external microphone, as most high-end outdoor cams don't have integrated mics. I'm in a state where it's legal to have a mic on my cameras, so I decided to add one to the camera that faces my driveway. My driveway is right up against the street, and we have a lot of foot traffic and crazy BS goes on during the night, including someone rifling through my Jeep last weekend when I forgot to lock one of the doors.

    Anyway, this is what the connectors for some cams looks like:

    LzDRDhq.jpg

    You have ethernet, the reset switch, the AC connector if you're not using PoE, and then, in that image, there's two connectors for audio. I couldn't find the image I wanted, but most cameras I've seen only have a single female RCA for an external microphone.

    So, I bought a cheap weatherproof mic kit from Amazon that had really high ratings.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M5P7HCW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    It works fine, but it's so sensitive that it totally blows out the audio any time a car drives by. I can hear a dog barking 12 miles away, so I have that going for me, but it's just way too sensitive.

    I looked at RCA attenuators, but man they're expensive, and I don't even know if that would be a good solution.

    https://www.amazon.com/Harrison-Lab...qid=1534566277&sr=8-3&keywords=rca+attenuator

    There's also RCA volume controls, but that seems like such a kludge.

    https://www.amazon.com/PAC-LC-1-Remote- ... me+control
     
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  • #40
    ptweasel said:
    I might need to put this in the A/V forum instead, but I'll put it here for now in case anyone has any ideas.

    Most IP cams I've used have a few cables coming out for hooking them up. It's usually an ethernet port, a reset button, and an input for an external microphone, as most high-end outdoor cams don't have integrated mics. I'm in a state where it's legal to have a mic on my cameras, so I decided to add one to the camera that faces my driveway. My driveway is right up against the street, and we have a lot of foot traffic and crazy BS goes on during the night, including someone rifling through my Jeep last weekend when I forgot to lock one of the doors.

    Anyway, this is what the connectors for some cams looks like:

    LzDRDhq.jpg

    You have ethernet, the reset switch, the AC connector if you're not using PoE, and then, in that image, there's two connectors for audio. I couldn't find the image I wanted, but most cameras I've seen only have a single female RCA for an external microphone.

    So, I bought a cheap weatherproof mic kit from Amazon that had really high ratings.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M5P7HCW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    It works fine, but it's so sensitive that it totally blows out the audio any time a car drives by. I can hear a dog barking 12 miles away, so I have that going for me, but it's just way too sensitive.

    I looked at RCA attenuators, but man they're expensive, and I don't even know if that would be a good solution.

    https://www.amazon.com/Harrison-Lab...qid=1534566277&sr=8-3&keywords=rca+attenuator

    There's also RCA volume controls, but that seems like such a kludge.

    https://www.amazon.com/PAC-LC-1-Remote- ... me+control
    Click to expand...

    There's no way to adjust the gain on the camera? Something that looks like this (screenshot in article):
    https://www.microseven.com/product/IP-C ... P-MIC.html
    and
    https://www.cctvcameraworld.com/how-to- ... ip-camera/

    Looks like the intention is for you to use software to adjust the sensitivity.

    Also, honest question to take at face value - why do you need a mic? What value does it provide? If the camera was, for example, in a warehouse or a closed lot, I can see the mic being used to trigger something if there is any noise at night or on weekends, but I can't see the value for when it's facing the street.

    Also looks like attenuators aren't rocket science. Here's a DIY that uses about $5 in parts, tops, and requires extremely basic soldering skills. Blobs are fine. Since it'll be outdoors, I'd slather everything in a layer of hot glue to protect it.
    https://www.instructables.com/id/Homema ... ttenuator/

    EDIT: Looks like Luxriot just has a checkbox to enable Audio, but no way to adjust gain. Hmm. Just guessing here - is that something the IP camera would control? Perhaps the camera has a utility that lets you tweak these kind of settings?
     
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