IP-Alarms

Has anyone used the Grandstream or Mobotix cameras that now support SIP (VoIP) ? I see some good advantages in being able to have voice accompanying video when verifying events.

I don't use it myself, but most things I've heard about it are positive. One negative thing is that it reportedly does not work very well with alarm system monitoring in many areas

I find that DIYSecurityForum is the best all round alarm forum, but this one is also popular... www.diyalarmforum.com There was one in the UK called SecurityInstaller, but I'm not sure if is still around.

Have you considered renting your own Virtual Private Server (VPS) ? I don't know how much you were paying per month to Mike, but there are some decent VPS's available from around $18 per month.

Matt, I take back what I said about the cameras having to be sub $200, so thanks for the command.

Guys, I am in charge of integrating IP cameras into our Virtual Monitoring platform and the way we do this is via the use of snapshot commands. For example, when recording from Axis cameras we use something like: http://123.456.78.90/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?camera=1 or... http://123.456.78.90:8080/jpg/image.jpg For Pansonics we use something like: http://123.456.78.90:8080/nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240Quality=Standard We know the commands for Sony, Y-Cam, Vivotek, D-Link, Toshiba, Pixord and Stardot but would like to add to our list. I'm not really interested in cameras that cost over US$200, but if you can share any snapshot commands for your favorite lower end IP Camera then I would really appreciate it

It's soooooooo difficult to get a simple snapshot command from a lot of IP Camera manufacturers, it makes you wonder why? Anyway, I'm interested to find out how you get on and I'd be interested to know what the snapshot commands are for their cameras

That's to the point Is that based on what you've heard, or based on experience of working with the equipment ?

I have no experience recording to SD, but I do have problems with Live View where the browser locks. I have been unable to get any joy from the manufacturer, so does anyone on here have the API/SDK for the Y-Cam ?

I am currently reviewing an NVR. I will report back with my findings and hopefully provide you guys with a login to view images.

Thanks Craig, I will look into your suggestions. We are familier with CSS, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for your reply - much appreciated. Could you wait another day or so whilst I make some changes based on your feedback and then try again before posting your screenshots ? I will update this thread once I've made the changes

We provide an alarm and camera monitoring platform to security installers worldwide and every so often I have to investigate what cell phones people are using and how recorded JPeg images display on those phones from our intentionally simple cell phone interface. It is simply not possible to build an interface for each device, so we have to try and strike a balance between older, small screen phones logging in via a 38K GPRS connection and our geeky customers logging in with their iPhones and Blackberries. Conscious of limited bandwidth requirements, we currently display the list of images for the last alarm event as thumbnails with the idea that the user clicks to enlarge the thumbnail. It sounds lazy, but that is often 1 extra click that some people do not want to make. If any of you geeky kids out there have time to log into our platform and have a look, I'd appreciate your feedback on how it looks and what you would suggest for improvement for your particular brand of phone. The URL is http://www.ipalarms.net/cell.aspx and you can use ID: 1 and Password: dem0 (that's a zero not the letter 0) to log in. Questions I need to answer are: 1. Is the list of events and list of thumbnails too simple ? 2. What percentage of your screen do the thumbnalis cover and what percentage does the full size image cover. 3. Do the larger 640x480 images display OK ? 4. Could you get Live View to work ? Oh, the main login for computer browsers is http://www.ipalarms.net/login.aspx - you can use the same login credentilas and it would be interesting to hear if the full interface is workable on a mobile device. Thanks in Advance for any help you can offer.

Craig, Have a quick look at my Kiwi web site http://www.alarm.net.nz and provided you don't view me as a competitor, I'd be very interested in talking to you about your plans for iPhone apps. Please use the email address from any of my web sites if you decide to get in touch Steve.

You would need some logic on the server to handle this, but I see no reason why it would not be possible. You would transmit both triggers to the server, check the time between them and send a command back to the device to trigger the outputs accordingly. Contact me via email (address on my web site) if you have any further questions as I might not get chance to visit the forum regularly.