MediaSmartServer.net :: View topic - Surveillance Article Draft

jmpage2 wrote:

My WHS sits in my basement with a pretty heavy duty lock on it. The average thief would not screw around with it, or have the smarts to take the hard disks out.

Unless the thief is reading this thread :mrgreen:

Great post .. I have a whs so I think I'm going to give it a try .. I have 4 ip cams currently using dyndns.org for monitoring and remote setup.

Thanks for the info.

2 days later ... Ok ... I got blue iris on whs up and running ... my whs is a hp 475 with original processor but 2 gb ram upgrade. I tried installing 4 ip cams and it was molasses .. I removed 1 which was an outside camera view (at night) and it became more responsive.

Later today I'm testing saving the videos to a freenas in a closet and backing up videos to ftp ...

Thanks again.

Thanks for this informative post. My basic needs are the same as yours:

1 - Detect motion & record/audio video from 1-4 cameras
2 - View live and recorded video from web browser, cell phone, and TV

I understand that the Blue Iris software will address item #1 (while potentially taxing the WHS processor). My concern is regarding item #2. I believe that the Blue Iris web server allows for viewing live and recorded video via browser, but only Internet Explorer gets audio (please verify).

My questions relate to viewing live & recorded video/audio on a TV.

1 - Does the DLNA server capability of the MSS allow a DLNA-enabled TV to view live or recorded video?
2 - Can a Windows Media Extender (xbox 360) access live/recorded video via the MSS?
3 - Perhaps a better solution would be a camera that includes a DLNA server (not sure if this exists)?

Any tips for solving the IP Camera -> WHS -> TV piece of the puzzle are appreciated.

-HS

Author:	jmpage2 [ Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:42 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
dbone1026 wrote: jmpage2 wrote: My WHS sits in my basement with a pretty heavy duty lock on it. The average thief would not screw around with it, or have the smarts to take the hard disks out. Unless the thief is reading this thread Good luck finding my house! All you know is that it's brown and it snows here!

Author:	yowzer [ Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
jmpage2 Thanks for the reply. I should know these things but sometimes my brain takes a vacation without me. Thanks again for the tutorial and pointing to this software. yowzer

Author:	jmpage2 [ Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
toddlorensinclair wrote: Great post .. I have a whs so I think I'm going to give it a try .. I have 4 ip cams currently using dyndns.org for monitoring and remote setup. Thanks for the info. 2 days later ... Ok ... I got blue iris on whs up and running ... my whs is a hp 475 with original processor but 2 gb ram upgrade. I tried installing 4 ip cams and it was molasses .. I removed 1 which was an outside camera view (at night) and it became more responsive. Later today I'm testing saving the videos to a freenas in a closet and backing up videos to ftp ... Thanks again. Thanks for the info. If you are able to run 3 cameras with reasonable success on the older cpu of the EX 475 I would imagine that the newer series should be able to run 3-4 with no real problems.

Author:	jejagua [ Sun Jan 03, 2010 7:15 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
A helpful post. I setup a similar system and my experience has been mostly positive. I currently have one Panasonic BL-C131A and it works great. I intend to add up to three more cameras. Apparently, this model has been discontinued although they are still available online. Does anyone know what its successor will be? Price / model / features? Blue Iris is ok and works as advertised for recording but it is awful for remote viewing (poor quality, audio doesn't work, poorly implemented controls). Blue Iris' iPhone interface is also very poor. It is only a single video window with no other controls (no panning, etc..). On the plus side however, Blue Iris seems to be very stable running as a service on the MediaSmart. The Panasonic interface works great over the web and iPhone and I prefer it over Blue Iris...but just can't view recordings (only live video, or limited historical snapshots). As others have stated, audio is only available in Internet Explorer which is a problem for me since I run primarily Mac.

Author:	Hari_Seldon [ Sun Jan 03, 2010 6:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
Thanks for this informative post. My basic needs are the same as yours: 1 - Detect motion & record/audio video from 1-4 cameras 2 - View live and recorded video from web browser, cell phone, and TV I understand that the Blue Iris software will address item #1 (while potentially taxing the WHS processor). My concern is regarding item #2. I believe that the Blue Iris web server allows for viewing live and recorded video via browser, but only Internet Explorer gets audio (please verify). My questions relate to viewing live & recorded video/audio on a TV. 1 - Does the DLNA server capability of the MSS allow a DLNA-enabled TV to view live or recorded video? 2 - Can a Windows Media Extender (xbox 360) access live/recorded video via the MSS? 3 - Perhaps a better solution would be a camera that includes a DLNA server (not sure if this exists)? Any tips for solving the IP Camera -> WHS -> TV piece of the puzzle are appreciated. -HS

MediaSmartServer.net http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/

Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, etc) http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6448	Page 2 of 3

Author:	jmpage2 [ Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
Hari_Seldon wrote: Thanks for this informative post. My basic needs are the same as yours: 1 - Detect motion & record/audio video from 1-4 cameras 2 - View live and recorded video from web browser, cell phone, and TV I understand that the Blue Iris software will address item #1 (while potentially taxing the WHS processor). My concern is regarding item #2. I believe that the Blue Iris web server allows for viewing live and recorded video via browser, but only Internet Explorer gets audio (please verify). My questions relate to viewing live & recorded video/audio on a TV. 1 - Does the DLNA server capability of the MSS allow a DLNA-enabled TV to view live or recorded video? 2 - Can a Windows Media Extender (xbox 360) access live/recorded video via the MSS? 3 - Perhaps a better solution would be a camera that includes a DLNA server (not sure if this exists)? Any tips for solving the IP Camera -> WHS -> TV piece of the puzzle are appreciated. -HS Yes, the only way to get audio from Blue Iris is to use the native client app on the server itself (assuming server has soundcard, monitor, etc) or to use IE with Active-X since that is how Blue Iris would stream audio. Someone posted about something called DVBLogic and they say they use it to watch security camera feeds on televisions, however I think they would lose the ability to do surveillance type recording... still might be worth investigating for your needs. http://mce-plugins.ch/index.cgi?languag ... on=project Good Luck!

Author:	jmpage2 [ Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:14 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
Just wanted to post a couple of update items to my original write up. As I mentioned, I ordered a cover for my camera in order to "weatherize" it. I'm still not convinced that there is really any difference between the "outdoor" rated version of this camera and the "indoor" one other than the slightly different bits that come in the box. The cover, ordered from these guys (http://www.partstore.com/Part/Matsushit ... A/New.aspx) showed up today. It includes the rear cover with an integrated gasket as well as the little foam roll to keep the cables in place. I did discover that there is a difference in the camera bodies. The BB-HCM511A (the low cost one I bought) does not have the screw holes in place for the cover. Everything else however lines up perfectly. I was able to (carefully) drill pilot holes in the case and use some long thin screws to secure the weather cover in place and now I'm pretty much as weather proof as the $550 outdoor model. The BB-HCM511A is back in stock at Amazon so I have ordered another one for my rear yard. I will post an update when that is done later on in the next week or so.

Author:	jmpage2 [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:53 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft
Okay, it's been about seven weeks since I initially put this together and got the opportunity today to add a second Panasonic camera to the system. I wanted to provide some updated performance information. The 2nd camera is identical to the 1st, both are Panasonic BB-HCM511A which I have then added the weatherized cover too in order to make them a little bit tougher against the elements. The 1st camera (the one installed on my doorstop) has been going strong in temps as low as 0F so I think that these cameras are pretty much as tough as the outdoor rated ones. Someone earlier had asked me what these cameras look like, here's a picture. It's obvious the camera is there, but it's not too obtrusive (of course my wife hasn't seen this yet, so I might get shot later). Attachment: IMG_2374.JPG [ 97.72 KiB \| Viewed 15658 times ] You can see that after setting up the camera in Blue Iris I now have two cameras showing up in both the Blue Iris console as well as when I access via the web browser. It's worth noting that I set the video up to use MJPEG instead of MPEG4, as I find the quality with Blue Iris to be better this way. For the best video quality possible I can simply access the camera at its URL but I really don't find this to be needed. Attachment: screen-capture.png [ 918.96 KiB \| Viewed 15658 times ] Attachment: screen-capture-1.png [ 596.21 KiB \| Viewed 15658 times ] When I added the 2nd camera I also added another instance of iCamSource. This software lets me access my camera feeds via my iPhone with the iCam app from the app store, even over the AT&T 3GS network. I have set up iCamSource to run as a service. It connects to the iCamSource server and proxies my feeds out to the Internet so I can access them on my phone. Attachment: IMG_0135.PNG [ 75.13 KiB \| Viewed 15658 times ] The only downside to all of this is that with two instances of iCamsource running, as well as Blue Iris collecting video feeds (and doing motion recording) from two Panasonic cameras at 640X480, I do see a bit of a performance hit on the home server. average CPU load is hovering around 30%, but as you can see from the time lapse performance monitor below, it does spike up to 50-80% every 30 seconds to a minute. I'm not sure whether or not this would actually cause a problem if I was streaming video, etc, from the server, but I doubt it. It would result in taking longer for video encodes to happen, etc. It's also worth noting that I also run DC++ clients and Squeezebox Server on my machine as well. Definitely feeling good about bumping up to the dual core EX495 now! Next project, camera #3 for the back yard, then I'm calling it a done deal! Attachment: screen-capture-2.png [ 103.03 KiB \| Viewed 15658 times ]

Author:	jmpage2 [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:18 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, etc)
I should add that if I put cam#3 on the server and see too much of a performance hit I will be upgrading the CPU to get some more performance out of the box. I hope that is not necessary though.

Author:	jmpage2 [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, etc)
Updated BI to the latest version and rebooted. CPU use is now averaging about 20% with small spikes every now and then. In other words, much more better!

Author:	yakuza [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 3:42 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, etc)
Nice setup, thanks for sharing your updates and it's really interesting to hear that the new version of Blue Iris made significant performance improvements.

Author:	T-Bone [ Tue Dec 28, 2010 10:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, e
jmpage2, How is your camera working after so long. I saw this at bestbuy and thought of your project: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... k=BL-C230A I also saw a iphone app for the sony camera. that seemed neat with my new server I thought Id tackle a project like this also. Here is that app: http://www.eyespyfx.com/support.html#sony_cams

Author:	dlaflamm [ Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, e
I have been wanting to setup a home surveillance cam for quite a while and finally picked up a camera on sale at Newegg. I bought the Trendnet wireless TV-IP422W Pan/Tilt Day/Night with 2-way audio. It comes with SecurView software that looks good on paper. Two quick questions: 1. Anyone tried SecurView on the MSS and what was your experience? Server 2003 is not a listed supported OS (Win2000/XP/Vista). 2. Anyone using an Android app they like to view their cam(s)? IP Cam Viewer by developer Chou looks very promising. I'm not opposed to getting a Blue Iris license but figured I would at least give SecurView a try first since it came bundled. Looks pretty feature-laden but who knows... Thanks in advance!

Author:	TommySharp [ Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, e
Hey guys, just wanted to add that I've been running 3 cameras using Blue Iris for about 18 months now after a series of break ins and have nothing but good things to say about the software!

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Author:	aaronwt [ Thu May 26, 2011 12:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Surveillance Article Draft - Updated (2nd Cam Install, e
So will this Blue Iris work with any of the Panny cameras? I use ten of the lower end Pannys,(BLC210, BLC111A, and BLC121) Currrently I'm only having them email me pictures when there is movement but it sounds like Blue Iris might work with a dedicated PC. I don't plan on using my WHS but I would use my TiVo Desktop server which has several terabytes of free space and a quad core CPU.