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 6.06 first, 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
<br><br>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.
<br><br>as for zoneminder's functions, that thing is practically limiltless <br>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
<br><br><br> 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
<br><br>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!)
<br><br>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<br> let me know if you have other questions
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/11/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">James Neff</b> <<a href="mailto:jneff@tethyshealth.com">jneff@tethyshealth.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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How easy/hard was it to set up?<br>
<br>
What cameras do you use? Ever set up a DVR capture board? If so,
which one?<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
Whats your frame rate for video capture?<br>
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Thanks again,<br><span class="sg">
James</span><div><span class="e" id="q_10f732d591243887_2"><br>
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Munjal Thakkar wrote:
<blockquote cite="http://midc06020850612111118g56a0a513g631b62c2ad1d81c9@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">ya i do, why whats up?<br>
<br>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/11/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">James Neff</b> <<a href="mailto:jneff@tethyshealth.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">jneff@tethyshealth.com
</a>>
wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Anyone
ever use Zoneminder?<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.zoneminder.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.zoneminder.com/</a><br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
James<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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</blockquote>
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