[SGVLUG] Zoneminder

[Munjal Thakkar]

It was very hard, at first but after much googling, ubuntu forums, and the
zoneminder forums its been very easy. I recommend trying with ubuntu
6.06first, and then
6.10 after you manage to set it up, if you suck at the command line, for now
to sacrifice performance do a full GUI install instead of a server insteall

Cameras, you can use anything, cameras all normally have a BNC connector and
there adapters to make them regular component cables if you want to use it
with a capture card that has that type of input, but the primary thing you
want to research is that you want your cameras to use a CCD sensor over
CMOS, do some googling on CMOS Vs CCD, while cmos is a lot cheaper, ccd is a
lot clearly, resolution of lines the camera captures, its low light lux
sensing, IE .5 or .7 lux is the minimal amount of light the camera needs to
produce a picture, and  to make sure it works on 12Volts, these are  the
basics, theres a lot more you can look into, such as infrared cameras and
PTZ (pan tilt zoom, very expensive), if you're looking  into to some
cameras, feel free to ask me as i know one guy who happens to be  quite
cheap and reliable.

as for zoneminder's functions, that thing is practically limiltless
it can do constant recording, motion recording (mocord), image capture on
motion, or even both modes, you should read up on it. Zoneminder even allows
motion on cameras to trigger other cameras to start recording (can reduce
cpu load), so say if a door opens, that motion triggers a camera down the
hall from the door to start recording, etc etc


i havent been doing much with capture, just viewing so my frame rates ill
have to get back to you on that, however at the standard resolution of 320 X
240, my card is supposed to support 30 fps per channel, for four channels

as for my card, i use the pv-149 card found on bluecherry.net- followed this
site from zoneminder and they sell tons of DVR stuff that is all linux
supported, this card was auto recognized in ubuntu 6.06 and beyond, and no
configuration was necessary, very easy (go ubuntu!)

all in all, you'll have to create  a mysql database and config apache a
little and a little in zone minder to get yoursetup perfect, the first
attempt takes a lot of time
 let me know if you have other questions
On 12/11/06, James Neff <jneff at tethyshealth.com> wrote:
>
>  How easy/hard was it to set up?
>
> What cameras do you use?  Ever set up a DVR capture board?  If so, which
> one?
>
> Am I correct in understanding that you can set Zoneminder to only record
> (save to hard drive) video if there is a motion on the video?  Or for video
> capture is it on all the time?
>
> Whats your frame rate for video capture?
>
> Thanks again,
> James
>
>
>
> Munjal Thakkar wrote:
>
> ya i do, why whats up?
>
> On 12/11/06, James Neff <jneff at tethyshealth.com> wrote:
> >
> > Anyone ever use Zoneminder?
> >
> > http://www.zoneminder.com/
> >
> > --
> >
> > James
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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