Time for IP Cameras - Recommendations

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Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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I think it is time to setup one or two IP cameras part for fun, part because when folks like Jeff stop by, my doorbell stinks. I would also like to be able to see when deliveries are made.

Looking for indoor and outdoor recommendations. PTZ is not important. Also, if anyone sees a good holiday deal, would be interested in that.
 

dba

Moderator
Feb 20, 2012
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San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
Hi Patrick, I have two recommendations and one sort-of recommendation:

Recommended:
1) Logitech Alert 750 cameras are relatively inexpensive and have surprisingly good quality - significantly better than most. They have indoor and outdoor versions. The outdoor versions have basic IR illumination built in and IR is optional for the indoor cameras. You can often get refurb deals on eBay for the indoor versions.
2) Arecont Vision cameras for ultra high resolution - up to ten magapixels (3648 x 2752). They are shockingly good quality.

Sort of Recommended:
1) Vitamin-D Software for motion detection and recording. For a low-cost software package this app has very advanced motion detetion algorithms that are 10x more resistant to false alarms than the almost-useless motion detection built in to most cameras. On the other hand, the developer stopped working on the product early in 2011 so it will soon become incompatible with your camera and/or operating system. It also requires a powerful (and power hungry) computer on which to run.
 

cactus

Moderator
Jan 25, 2011
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CA
My dad has a few Foscams(these). He had to RMA one about a week after he bought it because the IR cut filter got stuck. The software(embedded, no experience with the stand alone) is bad, you have to use IE for any multi camera or recording.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Interesting. That's the strange thing. Trying to figure out if I would see a huge difference between the $70-100 and $300/ea cameras.
 

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
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Always remember "Resolution is King"

Resolution has a direct impact on the quality of "frames"

Just because a camera is listed as 30FPS is not an indicator of good image quality

The higher the res, the better the image quality & the more $ it costs you (storage required goes up)
 

dba

Moderator
Feb 20, 2012
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San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
...Trying to figure out if I would see a huge difference between the $70-100 and $300/ea cameras.
There is a *huge* difference. Less difference than four or five years ago, but it's still huge. Further, it's not all about resolution. These days, even some very low cost cameras are megapixel, and yet they are usually awful. In addition to resolution, you need two less quantifiable features:
1) A high quality lens. Blurry megapixel looks pretty much as bad as blurry 640x480.
2) A "fast" sensor. With quick movement or low light, even a high resolution camera with a quality lens will yield blurry video unless the sensor is able to capture each frame with a very short exposure. Actually, even the $300 cameras don't do very well with low light. Maybe in a few years.

If you'd like to borrow a Logitech to give it a try, I can loan you one.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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And low-light sensitivity...the more "interesting" places you may want to watch are likely poorly lit. Even the cheap cameras come with a ring of IR 'illumination" LEDs, but in the cheap cameras the sensitivity is so bad that all those LEDs are doing is wasting energy.
 

sboesch

Active Member
Aug 3, 2012
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Columbus, OH
I setup an inexpensive IP camera system at work using Synology SurveillanceStation with one of my Synology NAS's and 5 TRENDnet Proview PoE TV-IP501P cameras. The Synology NAS's all come with one license for a camera, and I purchased 4 more from ebay for the additional cameras. All the video is of course managed, recorded, stored, and played back by the Synology NAS, it even has handy iOS and Android apps for remote viewing and management for voyeur mode!
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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I setup an inexpensive IP camera system at work using Synology SurveillanceStation with one of my Synology NAS's and 5 TRENDnet Proview PoE TV-IP501P cameras. The Synology NAS's all come with one license for a camera, and I purchased 4 more from ebay for the additional cameras. All the video is of course managed, recorded, stored, and played back by the Synology NAS, it even has handy iOS and Android apps for remote viewing and management for voyeur mode!
I might give those a try.
 

oliviamoya

New Member
Nov 12, 2013
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Dear Patrick,
According to your description,I will recommend Gigaeye. I have already used them for my home security system.Very cheap but useful ones.
I have searched on Amazon for you:
Amazon.com: gigaeye
 

vegaman

Member
Sep 12, 2013
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Auckland, New Zealand
I've just been thinking about the same thing. I'll probably need PoE (or a proprietary version), because running power to where I want the camera would be a hassle.
I'll have a look through the ones above.

The other trouble I'm thinking I'll have is that my front door is on the main street of town, so I'll get a lot of false alarms. Maybe I can add some kind of door sensor to improve that.
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
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get a DSLR and a PIR sensor. This is what NYC used for traffic cameras.

GLASS IS KING. Optics rule all. You can have a 640x240 cam but if it is rocking a nice 50mm f/1.4 lens you will get a good low lux image without a throw flash. If you have a 2megapixel camera with a plastic lens, you will probably get a smudge (not to be racist but you need a very fast lens for "tan" criminals).

Crappy old DSLR $100 with f/1.8 (think minolta) and a PIR trigger $15 would get you a good clean pic or two.

or a very good glass old camcorder. Carl Zeiss with color night vision (think sony dcr-dvd,trv11)

Modern IP cameras are crap quality truth be told.
 

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
482
16
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EU
I'm not sure if it was discussed here before but there are tools out there that can analyse streams in a smart way and save the stuff that triggers. Check out Zoneminder.
 

dba

Moderator
Feb 20, 2012
1,477
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San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
I'm not sure if it was discussed here before but there are tools out there that can analyse streams in a smart way and save the stuff that triggers. Check out Zoneminder.
I use Vitamin D, on the Mac, for video "analytics", which is an attempt to recognize and categorize objects instead of just movement. A full-fledged analytics software package can distinguish people from cars, animals from people, and objects with specific shapes like boxes. It can also look specifically for "left" objects like packages at the doorstep and "taken" objects like someone stealing your roses, plus specific types of motion such as "running", "loitering", etc. Vitamin D is analytics "lite", but is dramatically better than no analytics.

For my aforementioned doggy-doo problem, I also deployed a machine vision software toolkit and "trained" the software to look for a specific dog. The output was a string to my sprinkler system instructing it to turn on one specific set of sprinklers. It worked well (dogs have faster reaction times than humans, say my experimental results, but neither are fast enough) but was complicated and hackish so I returned to Vitamin D after the dog problem was solved.

While Vitamin D is 10x better than simple motion detection, it is still is not foolproof, and the authors seem to have stopped bringing out new versions, so I can give it only a half-hearted recommendation. Does anyone know of a high quality IP camera analytics tool that doesn't cost $500 or more?
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
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That kind of video analytics sournds very interesting. My problem isn't doggy-doo but deer. They happen to favor the new buds of roses, pretty much the whole plant on hibiscus and any other plant that my wife actually likes. I've tried the 'turn on the sprinklers' trick but - using only motion - it's either too trigger happy and wasteful or won't turn on until after the meal has been completed...

But if I could recognize deer and water them it would be perfect! The cameras are in place and I get great video of the munching but would love to safely chase them off too.

Not a fan of Mac, and whatever I do needs to fit into a VM on my server. Anything Linux (best) or windows (yuch but workable) would be much better.

OT: my wife thought that putting a pan of deer meal, a salt lick and a large pan of water off the end of our fence on the open space would keep them happy w/out needing to eat the pretty plants. Didn't really work. But a fairly smart coyote started camping out nearby and happily snacked on smaller animals attracted by the feeding station. Oops! I told her not to be upset - just that she was feeding more animals than she planned. For all you males out there...this response was not too well received ;)
 

dba

Moderator
Feb 20, 2012
1,477
184
63
San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
If you would like to give it a try, Vitamin D has a free single-camera starter version, and it also runs on Windows. If the motion detection works, the non-hobbled version is $60 for two cameras.

Using Vitamin D, you could set up a motion trigger that requires an object larger than x pixels to enter your detection area and then stick around for >5 seconds. That would likely eliminate 99% of the false alarms.

The software eats up CPU cycles like crazy, so definitely try before you buy.

That kind of video analytics sournds very interesting. My problem isn't doggy-doo but deer. They happen to favor the new buds of roses, pretty much the whole plant on hibiscus and any other plant that my wife actually likes. I've tried the 'turn on the sprinklers' trick but - using only motion - it's either too trigger happy and wasteful or won't turn on until after the meal has been completed...

But if I could recognize deer and water them it would be perfect! The cameras are in place and I get great video of the munching but would love to safely chase them off too.

Not a fan of Mac, and whatever I do needs to fit into a VM on my server. Anything Linux (best) or windows (yuch but workable) would be much better.

OT: my wife thought that putting a pan of deer meal, a salt lick and a large pan of water off the end of our fence on the open space would keep them happy w/out needing to eat the pretty plants. Didn't really work. But a fairly smart coyote started camping out nearby and happily snacked on smaller animals attracted by the feeding station. Oops! I told her not to be upset - just that she was feeding more animals than she planned. For all you males out there...this response was not too well received ;)