jasauders

Not to cloud your options but I chose the path I did based on the lack of annual costs. I use Bluecherry for my system. When you buy a license with Bluecherry, that license is good for that major version. Example, they're on version 2 right now, and will be for some time yet. Upon the release of version 3, you can upgrade from 2 to 3 for 50% of the cost (according to their docs). The alternative is to just stay on version 2 for life. There's no force-upgrade-march involved. The software is very much a server+client relationship. Server is Linux based, with most of their focus on Ubuntu. The client is a separate component which interfaces with the server, allowing you to use an actual interface instead of having to VNC/RDP/whatever to the server/NVR itself to view feeds and whatnot. While the server is focused on Ubuntu, their client is cross platform - Windows, Mac, Linux. I run continual recording on mine with six 3 MP cameras. Current server load is 0.00, so basically, next to nothing. Not bad for a low wattage i3 processor. Motion of course would spike it up a bit, but overall the software is pretty light. Unfortunately, no mobile app yet, though it's not difficult to get the live feeds interfacing with something like TinyCam, which is primary what I use for remote view. If playing back previous feeds via smartphone is a necessity then this may be a bust, though between my upload speed at home and bandwidth capabilities out and about, even remote view is a blessing. Not sure how this aligns with your needs, but if nothing else, just an idea.

Just to follow up, a new (to me) one I've been tinkering with lately is Bluecherry. I read into the history of Bluecherry a bit. If what I read has been processed in my mind properly, they have been contributors to the main Linux kernel for some time. They're a front runner in Linux compatible capture cards for analog systems. They also have a server solution, which has proved to work quite well in my experience. The server requires Linux. Ubuntu is their primary target. They also have a client which is open source. This client works on Mac, Linux, and Windows. BSD support is on the radar. Their Linux client targets Ubuntu, however RPM packages for Red Hat/Fedora are available. I was able to use debtap from the Arch AUR and convert the bluecherry-client.deb file to a pkg for easy installation in Arch. The software is not free. For 50 bucks you get a 4 pack of home licenses to use with the cameras. Licenses are stackable. I purchased a 50 dollar 4 pack and later, when I went from 4 cameras to 6 cameras, purchased a second for 50 dollars. So I have 8 slots; 6 currently in use. The server software is very light. The interface is very easy to use. The development team has been very responsive in my experience. I am doing full time record with all six cameras, all are 3 megapixel, all 10 FPS, and my low end/low wattage/several generation old i3 is all but asleep. They support motion detection, which seems to work well. I just personally prefer full time recording so I only tinkered with motion detect for a short time. Just another idea. I tinkered with the 30 day demo and liked it so much I went all in with it. I was even happier that I could just dump it so easily on my existing Ubuntu Server that I have running in the basement. That server is simply a large backup/centralized file server. I added a 2TB WD Purple and installed Bluecherry. I was up in minimal time. There is no mobile app available for Bluecherry, though if you look through their docs, you'll see instructions for setting up mobile view with IP Cam Viewer. I had a better experience with TinyCam Pro and use that. I wrote up a guide and sent it to developers, which was posted to their docs/wiki page within 2 days of being sent (kudos for being so vigilant, Bluecherry team!) Anyway, just another idea. I'm a fan of it.

(My response translated to Spanish) Hola. Estoy utilizando Google Translate para este mensaje como yo no hablo español . Una cantidad preocupante de cámaras requiere Internet Explorer con un plugin ActiveX para ver la transmisión en vivo en un navegador web . Esto bloquea a menudo fuera sistemas basados ​​en Linux , Mac y, a menudo , el acceso a transmisiones en vivo a través del navegador . Es frustrante , exasperante , y francamente estúpida que en el año 2016 , todavía estamos tratando con esto. Tal vez algún día que va a cambiar . (My response in English) Hi there. I am using Google Translate for this message as I do not speak Spanish. A disturbing amount of cameras require Internet Explorer with an ActiveX plugin in order to see the live stream in a web browser. This often locks out Linux based systems, and often Macs, from accessing live streams through the browser. It's frustrating, maddening, and downright stupid that in 2016, we're still dealing with this. Maybe someday that'll change.

By chance is there a QR code in the manual? I just picked up a Foscam indoor camera to act as a baby camera for our 2nd daughter. It had minimal things in the package but in the documentation it had a QR code for app setup. Just a thought.

ZoneMinder recently went through a face lift. New web site, updated version of ZM itself, etc. Looks like the team is doing a great job. I installed ZoneMinder on a spare system at home and it's been working great. Tonight I plan to move it to my main server, which is otherwise just a file server to host our main files/backups/etc. There's a few nuances with ZoneMinder that I had to tweak. I think they were 1) Check in options to enable ffmpeg as my cameras had issues with direct RTSP, 2) put in the path to the ffmpeg executable in the options menu where prompted, which I think was /usr/bin/avconv, or something similar, 3) added sleep 15 to the startup script to enable auto start of ZoneMinder on a fresh boot. I forget where I found this, just some blog post that I dug up on Google. It's very nice to see this project doing a good job. Excellent team. Open source. I can use whatever hardware I want. I can tweak it however I want. No proprietary mysteries. (Just my 2 cents)

Hello friends. Been a while since I posted here. Recently my dad asked me to help him with setting up a home CCTV system. He wants two cameras and to be able to hold feeds for at least a week. Easy, right? I don't have much experience in the CCTV field, but I do have a setup that works pretty gosh darn well for my own system at home. I'm on the fence between the two worlds of a custom computer based setup vs a prefab home kit. Here's some more background info. My setup at home consists of two Vivotek IP8332 bullet cameras. I have a Linux server running in my basement. This server handles many purposes, so when I had the idea of adding cameras I preferred just throwing a 2TB drive in there and mounting it as a surveillance feed drive for the cameras as opposed to opting into an NVR based setup with another box running 24/7. Installed on the Linux server is a program known as Motion. Motion simply pulls in the MJPG streams of the cameras and based on your threshold of pixel sensitivity, it tracks motion events and records them. I don't care for motion detection much at all, as I have difficulty putting full trust in my security into software deciding what is motion and what is not. I have Motion set up to take only one singular JPG snapshot per event, with each event lasting in 10 second intervals once motion is triggered. At the same time, the Vivotek cameras are recording H264 feeds at 10 FPS to the server using the camera's onboard "Save to NAS" feature. This combination provides me with JPGs to hit "next/next/next/next/next" in an effort to sift through false triggers vs actual events, with the full time feeds right there in the next directory should I need to review something in the full span. This process allows me to blast through events very quickly. Every night at midnight, I have a custom bash script which deletes the feeds that are over 30 days old. I'm on the fence because I look at my setup and think, okay, so that's kind of a custom job thrown together. You take a Linux server, some network cameras, Motion, and the Save to NAS feature on the cams and what you're left with is a series of JPG images to identify the events and MP4 files for the full time records. I hesitate to replicate my setup for somebody else because I'm the one who manages my server, and that's fine. But the up-beat catch to this is my setup works pretty much flawlessly. In two years I haven't had any major issues with it (not kidding - it's actually a very boring project of mine that I thought would be exciting and keep me busy, but it just kind of keeps working). Using a computer as an NVR, for me at least (IT guy speaking), simply makes sense. Any hardware issue I know how to fix. NVR/DVR wise, not so much. Perhaps this is a limitation of my knowledge with CCTV gear, but I'm relatively certain I can more easily track down a motherboard (or whatever) for the computer-based server as opposed to a board for an NVR - and likely cheaper at that. On the flip side, perhaps a pre-fab kit is the way to go. I mean, some of these kits have 4 cameras, POE, decent resolution, etc. They're sold as a kit, so everything needed is included. They'd be a bit cheaper than the setup I'm looking at for my dad with the computer side of things, but not by much, and at the expense of treading into unknown territory with whatever manufacturer I may go with. I simply don't know enough about, say, Zmodo, or Lorex or any other brands that are commonly seen around (I suspect some of you guys may (or may not) be cringing at those name drops right about now ) Benefits to the computer system: -The configs are done on my server -- as a result very easy to replicate on his. -Parts are wildly easy to come by with a computer based system in the event of a hardware issue. I can pick up a new drive, board, PSU, etc on NewEgg/Amazon/whatever with ease. Not sure how easy it is to find a replacement part on xyz-brand NVR. -Easy to use, as I would share out the surveillance drive via samba (file server service), making it accessible from his laptop while anywhere else in the house (I suspect prefab systems might offer some functionality like this, but one vendor to another can be so different, hard to articulate a common ground for expectations on the prefabs) -Given my IT job/hobby, I already have a small low powered rig at home that would serve nicely as the server. A server distro OS comes at no cost. AKA, only hardware/software that will cost money is the cameras, a UPS, and a small POE switch. Benefits to the prefab system: -Some setups I've seen appear to be cheaper despite the computer hardware savings, but I question their quality vs my computer based setup mentioned above with more expensive cameras and a no-cost server. -Customer support (I guess?) I left price out of the equation intentionally. I'm sure my dad wouldn't have an issue spending upwards of a grand as he simply wants this done. I just want to maximize the value of the dollar he's spending, but my knowledge and background really isolates me into a different camp than what I'm sure most folks here would side with. It's an issue I fully acknowledge - hence my presence here asking the experts. What say you, folks? What sort of solid, reliable, network based NVR/CCTV setup would you recommend to rival my proposed computer based setup? I have a hard time sifting through the countless makes, models, pros, cons, etc and being able to identify what is solid and what is lackluster. This is largely what sends me back to doing the computer based build since it's predictable - I know exactly what to expect out of it and I know how well it'll work. Thanks for any and all insight.

Thanks for your response, Securame. I understand CCTV is not operating in a way to benefit the YouTubers of the world. I guess what it comes down to is I simply... have my stance. Whether it be a CCTV topic or not, I just feel (quite strongly) that technological things like this only complicate matters when things are intentionally designed to be unnecessarily complex. I did some reading on CCTV legalies before. My understanding is that for it to be upheld in court, the date/time stamp must reside on the embedded video itself - otherwise it's useless. I didn't read of any other requirements -- not even one mention of the exclusive formats being beneficial in any way on a legal ground. If that'd be a thing, that'd be news to me, especially given my .MP4 save-to-NAS feeds from my Vivotek cameras were used to put two guys back in jail (again) for digging through unlocked cars at night. My last understanding was despite the 100-or-so cars they hit, I was the only one with a video feed of it. Years ago when I worked IT in a different school district, some kids broke into the school to do some sort of senior prank. The DVR/NVR they had (DVR with network/web browser access) actually had no export option (I'm not kidding). Best I could do was run a screen recorder program while playing the live feed back in regular watching speed, then stop the screen record when I got to the end. That file dumped into an AVI. That file as well was handed over to state police, which escalated matters in that case against the students since the students somehow associated a lot of internal damage to the school somehow being a "senior prank". Securame - I'll PM you my email. Thank you very much for that suggestion of testing a Hikvision export within Ubuntu. That'll help put some of these considerations to rest. The only other thing I'd be curious about is whether Hikvision's save-to-NAS feature records videos in one of those exclusive formats or a more flexible format that would be easier to work with. Do you by chance know how they are saved? Thanks again for your time. P.S. - I'd be surprised if VLC on Windows had more functionality than VLC on Linux, though it would make for a *very* interesting test. A big reason why VLC is not included by default on an Ubuntu installation is the fact that VLC supports a multitude of codecs bundled with VLC itself that cannot be legally distributed automatically, but are still legal for utilization pending a manual install was done (automatic meaning already available by default on a free OS install such as Ubuntu). Other Linux distributions get away with this due to their smaller size, making them a smaller target, and also being a community driven distribution instead of one with the face of a company supporting them (consider the differences between Canonical's relationship with Ubuntu, whereas for example, Linux Mint just has some Mint developers from who-knows-where in the world working on the code - no official company to target with legal pursuits). The ultimate test for this would be to play the videos using Totem in Ubuntu (the default player) vs VLC media player (installed in Ubuntu manually). EDIT - Securame sent me the sample feed. It worked just fine using Totem and VLC on Ubuntu 15.04 (for anybody curious). Thanks Securame!

Curious if someone can further clarify something for me. I was browsing around and found a discussion comparing Dahua and Hikvision. This post was from a year ago, however, it was as follows. "Hikvision does require their software to view them in the browser. I didn't like that but oh well. I mainly view my cameras on my phone with the app IP Camera Viewer Pro." This immediately concerns me. This gets into a long story, but my dad has had a lot of issues on Windows which ultimately churned to his curiosity for "hey, that doesn't look like Windows on your laptop" and lead to him running Ubuntu - which is something he couldn't be happier with. Naturally, I question that this need for "additional software" just to work with the Hikvision to come with the assumed requirement of "Windows." It's probably worth mentioning that of course anything that requires ActiveX is an immediate "no" on the list of potential candidates. Can anybody confirm if Hikvision requires any sort of special application, or perhaps an operating system dependent plugin for a web browser? Even if it works in Firefox, Chrome, etc., fine, but if it requires a plugin for said browser, that's still something I'd want to investigate. Bottom line, I want something that works in any major web browser without futzing around with additional software and whatnot. I hadn't heard in all of my reading until now that this was ever a concern with Hikvision, but this comment has me wondering. EDIT - It's also worth mentioning that exported feeds that come out of whatever NVR setup I may choose need to be in a non-exclusive format. I understand Dahua, for example, requires a specific video player to play their specialized feeds. More and more I am liking the idea of just going the NAS route (by NAS I mean low power PC hardware + a Linux server OS). If nothing else, I know Vivotek can do NAS-based video dumps in MP4 format to a samba share. Then I can, you know, play them on any normal video player. So in a worst case scenario, I'll go that route, as I know it'll work with ultimate flexibility and minimal headaches. It's just I keep thinking that NVRs exist for a good reason, yet as I dig into this it's one headache/"oh a new major thing to look out for" after another. To summarize, looking for an NVR setup that addresses the following needs: 1) Equal cross platform support (Linux included), or better yet, cross browser support 2) Pending cross browser support exists, does not require a specific plugin only available on a particular platform (which nukes the credibility to saying it's cross browser support, but worth mentioning) 3) Is not locked to ActiveX/Internet Explorer in *any* capacity 4) Does not export files in an exclusive format requiring a special video player to view 5**) Allows the live feeds to be played in standard video players, i.e. VLC, etc. **While Hikvision sounds like it requires a Windows/Mac only plugin for Firefox to view live feeds, I can easily circumvent this with custom VLC.desktop (application launcher) files designated for each camera pending that Hikvision cameras support #5 -- playing live feeds in a regular video player. I do this in my current setup, as I can just click "rear cam" and boom - VLC launches already streaming the rear camera URL, etc. Pending that I cannot find a solution that fits the above parameters, I'll go the camera-PC/NAS route and call it a day. But that comes with some requirements of its own, namely that the cameras do not save-to-NAS in an exclusive format (#4 above). My Vivotek just does save-to-NAS in .MP4 files, and it's wildly convenient. (fun fact - when a situation last year came up and I handed my footage over to police, they expressed surprise that they could just "double click the files and they work", making me suspect a lot of the footage they get requires that police install other exclusive players to play these locked down formats they get from other folks). If the PC hardware/NAS route is the chosen path, it seems I need to make sure how well supported the save-to-NAS functionality is. I heard reports that Hikvision cameras were only able to see Samba shares that were less than 250GB in size due to a firmware bug... haven't seen any reports on whether that's been fixed or not. Sorry for the long post, edits, etc., but cross-OS/cross-browser/standard-exported-format support is important (critical) to me on not only a technical level given what OS is running on the client systems, but a philosophical level. I just can't bring myself to support companies that don't support end user flexibility.

Ha, you posted just as I edited above where I removed my mentioning of Amazon. I took note that Amazon's Hikvision is not official. I found myself on WrightwoodSurveillance.com, which from what I've read in the few minutes I've been reading online reviews, suggests it's a legit site to purchase from (I'll let you guys be the judge, though). The prices on this site aren't that bad. They're not as low as "Amazon" but certainly not in a range that makes my heart skip a beat. Just curious, if I were to go the Hikvision route and do full time recording, what's the interface/playback look like to the end user? The idea behind my Vivotek/server setup was to have a way to quickly identify when events happened despite having full time recordings (hence motion based JPG snapshots + 24/7 recording via save to NAS). If a Hikvision NVR can record 24/7 but still have some sort of listing of when events happened, and therefore, a quick way to replay those events when actual motion took place within the full time recordings, that'd be a total win. P.S. - Sounds interesting with the calendar idea. I may have to brew something like that up. I wonder about doing a split screen thing too, perhaps with a note taker on one corner of the screen where we can type things in (or just full screen both and have a keyboard there for a quick alt/tab), such as "need at the grocery store: ketchup, mustard, hot dogs, rolls" that syncs to our phones. Then when at the grocery store, we can pull it up. Sounds like an Evernote oriented task, or perhaps Google has a note taker within the Calendar UI somewhere. Same idea either way, but might have to explore around. Appreciate the added insight.

Thank you for your very detailed response. It gives me a lot of insight and a lot to consider. I think the biggest issue with my stance is I simply didn't know what pre-fab solutions made the most sense when it came to bang vs buck. Without any further insight coming from somewhere such as this forum I wouldn't feel even the slightest bit confident to pursue a pre-fab solution knowing full well the setup I could do would be darn near bulletproof. The one area that concerns me is if my dad would want to change anything about the setup. Honestly, I don't believe he would. He's a set it, forget it, etc. kind of guy. *But* if he would want to change anything it would almost certainly require my presence (or at least a TeamViewer session so I can remote in, then after SSH over). In terms of actual maintenance though, that's pretty straight forward. Server will pull in security updates automatically and require nothing from him whatsoever. I would prefer that he have the ability to change settings on the fly, though I really don't see that being an actual "thing" with him. He literally tasked me with "Find me something, let me know what I need to buy, and help me install it - that's it." But there again I hate to recommend him a route that limits end user preference changes. I've heard Hikvision mentioned before, but I didn't really know how well they scaled in terms of being a good product. I'll keep them in mind and do some searching around. I'm just quickly scanning online and feeling like I'm seeing a wide range here. There are some 8 channel NVR kits with cameras that are well over a grand. 8 channel is kind of obnoxious for his uses (his property isn't that huge to begin with), though I found some Hikvision cameras to be in a *very* acceptable price range while the 4 channel NVR is 300 bucks (without HDD). Likewise, these NVRs are POE anyway, which would eliminate the need for a POE network switch. There's still more of an up front cost with the NVR given the computer/server is "paid for" being a decommissioned rig, but the HDD expense exists either way, and the Hikvision cameras look cheaper than what I thought, which softens the overall financial blow. The one and totally irrelevant to CCTV benefit that he would get out of going the computer/server route is the fact he mentioned he wanted to set up some sort of backup procedure. With a dedicated server, I could just drop in another drive and bingo - CCTV drive, backup drive, winning. I have enough small book-sized Intel Atom based systems sitting around though - I'll get him hooked up on something like that as a home backup server if I go the NVR route (which based on what I'm reading here, I'm strongly considering). While I *love* my current setup with my CCTV, I'm looking at these Hikvision prices and really beginning to wonder if I should go this route when the time comes to upgrade my setup. I was just going to add two more Vivotek cameras, but being a creature of habit I was going to use the exact same make/model camera (to the tune of 299 per camera). That would give me 4 cameras total, but no NVR, still running off my server. Anyway, getting off topic to the original point of the thread. Bottom line is I have you, zr1, to blame for making my mind wander into other avenues when my future upgrade comes. P.S. - Excellent idea mentioning the Google Calendar display. I might consider whipping up the same thing. Are you rocking a full size LCD or going the route of the ras-pi LCD they just released?

ZoneMinder is great software, but just be advised that it is a little resource intensive. I would not advise running ZoneMinder on a raspberry pi. To be completely honest, I wouldn't imagine that any sort of motion detection based software would run all that great on a raspberry pi, including "Motion", which is an alternative option to ZoneMinder, which in my experience has been lighter weight, but at the expense of not running a local database or a web interface. That said, I suppose you would be able to work with full time recording using the save to NAS feature on the cameras (assuming the cameras have that feature, though in my experience, all decent cameras I've looked at in the last year have this feature). I have a low wattage i3 server at home. It runs an array of different things. As a result, I wanted to trim the CPU processing back as much as possible as I didn't want my CCTV software to be thrashing the processor. My cameras support multiple streams, so what I did was I set up a 10 FPS H264 stream and a 2 FPS MJPG stream. I let "Motion" on my server pull in the MJPG stream to take singular JPG snapshots of motion, which saves to my "motion" directory. Simultaneously, the cameras use the save to NAS feature, recording 24/7 feeds at 10 FPS to my NAS to the "video" directory. That way I always have full time feeds, but I still have a series of JPGs I can flip through to get an idea of what happened throughout the day/night/etc. Since Motion is only running at 2 FPS, it runs lighter than it would if I were to push it at 10 FPS. The nice thing about Motion is it's config file based. Sure, it takes a little to get it set up, but then all you have to do is back up your 3 KB config file and your settings are backed up. Server blows up, no big deal, copy the file back and you're ready and rolling. Couldn't be easier. It may be worth it to try a setup like mine that I described above, though I am doubtful the raspberry pi would have enough processing power to stand up to that. Perhaps it does, though. If you bypass on motion detection altogether, your chances of the raspberry pi working go up considerably, as 'save to NAS' is simply a continual disk-save over the network, which requires so little CPU power to accomplish it's unreal.

Hello! I have two Vivotek ip8332 cameras. I've recently suspended my hunt for an NVR after I realized the cost would be more then I can handle right now. After messing around in the interface I realized these cameras can save the feeds directly to a network location, which means I can save the feeds to a folder on my Linux Samba server. This is the definition of awesome. I successfully set up full time recording without a hitch. The problem comes in with motion detection. Even with it enabled, the window mask set up, etc it won't save anything at all. I noticed a lack of decent activity in the motion detect window, despite the sensitivity being super high and the percentage parameter being very low. Even dancing in front of the cameras doesn't trigger anything. If I switch back to full recording things work great. Has anybody had trouble setting up the onboard motion detect? For the life of me I cannot figure it out. Any insight?

Realistically, DDNS can be run on any device on your network. It doesn't have to originate from the DVR. My home server runs a DDNS client, so therefore anything hitting my domain gets routed accordingly. It sounds like you have three service options on your DVR, all of which don't sound appealing to you. Aside from those three options you're pretty much stuck unless you pull in the capability from a different device, whether it be a home server, router, or something else on your home network that stays running 24/7. As a result, I'd take a look at your router. Perhaps your router supports more services. Worth checking into. I understand not everybody runs a home server (though if you like your data, I highly recommend it), so my above option of what I use might not be up your alley. If you're technically inclined and want to throw around a few bucks, something like a raspberry pi makes for an extremely low powered computing device on your home network. You could always spin up a DDNS client there. The DDNS client I use (ddclient) supports who-knows-how-many services, so I just put in my info accordingly and it works great. That last idea is something I would consider to be a last resort, but nonetheless, it WOULD work if you had (literally) no other options. You have three options on the DVR, all strikeouts, and in my case I only have two options on my router, also strikeouts (for me). If nothing else it's at least worth mentioning, though it's also worth mentioning that it may require a bit of finaggling to get going.

I can understand not wanting to use Android. It's a pretty weird workaround, admittedly, but it works remarkably well in my experience so far. Another idea is to utilize VLC as a streamer. I'm not sure how adept you are with command line related things, but I had a discussion with some VLC developers the other day about running VLC from my Ubuntu Server (which is entirely command line based) to pull in the feeds and offer a stream to clients. That way the stream is being replicated by the server, instead of 10 clients connecting having to pull those 10 feeds from the cameras directly. You can do this through the GUI too, but anybody who works on servers knows that command line is, nearly all of the time, a more bomb proof solution. I haven't actually gotten this working as my honey-do list is ridonkulously long right now, but I intend to look into this a bit further. Given that VLC is cross platform, I'd be willing to bet that it can run from a Windows box acting as the streamer too. This is all speculation though as I haven't DONE this to verify it, but the VLC developers made it sound like it was a decent solution. Given how nice VLC is, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they're right. Anyway, just sharing thoughts.

In recent times I've had some frustration with this given that you cannot embed RTSP streams in HTML. Like the above user, yes, total WTF. I hope this changes in the future. For now, I did a weird workaround, but it seems to work for my needs. I'm not sure if this will apply to you but I figured I'd share just in case it strikes an idea. I have a dedicated desktop in my office specifically for streaming my cameras. This is largely due to the fact when I'm in my office I often have my music at ear bleeding levels (my office is in the basement of my house), so if people come to the door, which is frequent given I live down the street from my parents and within sight of two very close friends of mine, they're easy to miss. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm always tinkering in the Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever world of computing. Given that I had issues embeding the RTSP stream in HTML, I had to look to other means. Last night I got curious about Android, so I installed Android x86 on this computer. I removed the lock screen (feature within system settings) and installed TinyCam Pro + some sort of Autostart app. Now when I kick the system on, it loads TinyCam and begins streaming my cameras. Android may feel a little weird on a desktop, but given this unit has one purpose and one purpose only, it does the job nicely thanks to TinyCam. FYI if it matters - I've been a long time IP Cam Viewer user, but I cannot seem to make IP Cam Viewer respect the aspect ratio of my cameras, nor can I get it to utilize H264 streams. As a result, I'm sticking with TinyCam for the moment. In the very near future (as in, probably tonight since my wife and kiddo are away for a few days), I want to look into adding a video streamer to my Ubuntu Server. Maybe then I can utilize a web page, which would be nice for my laptops and whatnot, which right now are just utilizing the individual camera streams via VLC with bookmarks I have set for them.

Indeed. A large number of cameras I looked at came with FTP and SMB functionality. It's growing increasingly rare to see a camera that doesn't include those features actually (unless it's a crazy low end camera), which is nice for users like myself who just want them to record. A few days have passed since I posted, but I have to say this is the best setup I've had so far. It's crazy braindead simple. Cameras just record to NAS. There's no extra fluff on top to worry about. (I say fluff in the most respectful way possible as I know there are situations out there that may require certain functionalities) It just works and it works predictably well. The only semi minor 'meh' factor is that I have to make changes to each camera individually. This is hardly anything to write home about, because it's easy to pop into the web UI's of each camera and make whatever change I wanted. Given the export/import features, this would make things that much easier if I were setting up a dozen cameras like this and wanted them to all have the same config. This hasn't been a big deal for me since I pretty much set them once and forgot about them, but if you're somebody who wants to go in and tinker with the FPS on this camera, or that camera, etc., I can see it being a little more tedious. At the same token, you're STILL making changes while sitting on the couch with your laptop, whether you're connecting to multiple camera web UI's or connecting to each camera within the NVR software, so it can be argued to be quite similar anyway. I mentioned earlier that I utilize Motion (the software application in the Linux repos) specifically for taking JPG snapshots when motion activity occurs. I just found out (probably should have realized this sooner) that my cameras support motion detect and will actually take single snapshots and send them to the network share accordingly, along with the full time feeds. While I really like Motion and will likely continue to use it, I might have to tinker with the onboard functionality of these cameras. I remember motion detect recording was pathetic on the Vivoteks. I cannot stress that enough, it was just bad. But hey, if it's only taking single snapshots, maybe it won't be so bad. Worth at least trying anyway. This is the IT side of me speaking, but I quite like the fact that the cameras are using something generic, i.e. samba/file sharing services. Samba is something I can spin up in a hot second on literally any sort of Linux distribution or Windows install. That way if my server were to downright tank, I could plug in a spare that easily. Given that I actually have a secondary server on my LAN, this would be a quick adjustment of the IP settings and boom - done. This became somewhat apparent as the CCTV NVR at the one building at work tanked hard last week, and they're still waiting on a replacement to come in. Meh. CCTV isn't something I deal with at work (that falls under grounds/building crew instead of the IT department), but seeing it first hand certainly raised my eyebrow a bit. As mentioned before, use what works for you. I just wanted to report my findings over my new setup. I had some hesitancies but they've all been pretty much curbed since I finally stopped procrastinating and switched things up to see how they'd work.

I've tinkered for many years with home CCTV but didn't really begin to dive in until the last year or so. I'm by no means an expert, a professional, or anything of that nature. I am however a technically inclined user given my personal interests that simultaneously align with my day to day job in the tech field. But at the end of the day, I'm just a dude who wanted to keep some eyes on his property, so I'd like to share some bits of information here that I ran into in case it helps anybody else out there. I'm a heavy Linux user both at work and at home. I have a little home server I set up a while back running a low end i3 with a large tower to accommodate a bunch of hard drives for storage. Naturally, a Linux based CCTV choice makes sense for me, so after I received my (2, soon to be 4) Vivotek IP8332 cameras, I set up ZoneMinder. ZoneMinder is a fantastic project, however due to a few years of lack of development, there are a few issues. A new breed of developers are actively working on ZoneMinder now, so it goes without saying it has an incredible future ahead. That being said, ZoneMinder felt a little heavy on my server, and I later had some change of opinion (unrelated to ZM) that slightly redirected my home CCTV goals. More on that later. Moving along, I ended up adopting a different application known as Motion. Motion is a daemon based utility available right witin the repositories which has no graphical interface. It's all based on config files (text files) to control how Motion operates. I've heard it said (and understandably so) that Motion is a bit more difficult to pick up for some users, however I've seen some very difficult to use and set up GUIs for CCTV appliances out there, so that argument can go both ways. A huge advantage to Motion being config file based is easy backups. With a few kilobytes, you can copy the config files and bam - your entire CCTV setup, excluding feeds, is done. Since Motion records files to the file system and not a database, a simple copy of the folder can 'back up' those feeds elsewhere if you so desire. Motion is MJPG only, which may or may not be favorable depending on your use case scenario. ZoneMinder is also largely MJPG driven, though it does support H264 feeds in the development branch. I started to consider a few things in regard to motion detection. Motion detection is great, but in some ways, I feel as though it's (personal opinion) somewhat overrated. It has its uses, don't get me wrong, but it can be a little tedious to dial in. If you dial it in for night mode, it could throw day mode settings off, and vice versa. Couple in a few other factors, such as blowing trees (I have a lot of them on my property, but I hate to mask out my entire property to get the trees out of view), along with the fact we're on a corner lot. Anybody who lives on a corner lot will understand this, as when cars turn down the street, their lights cut across our yard right within view of the front porch which I DO want in the shot. See where I'm going with this? Again, all personal opinion, but I have yet to see a motion detection setup, even in multi thousand dollar NVRs that I've used through different jobs that really lands a home run. Don't get me wrong, there are some that make it to 3rd base, but I have yet to be jaw-on-the-floor wow'd by one yet. I had Motion set up to be motion detect (that's kind of the point of 'Motion'), and I had configured it so it was very sensitive at night and just accepted the higher likelihood of false positives during the day. A few months ago we had an issue where some guys walked around the neighborhood going through unlocked cars. The movement was admittedly minimal in the dark distance, and it was not enough to trigger motion. I did however capture it via Motion's timelapse feature, which records 1 FPS 24/7 in a separate stream. This at least caught (at an admittedly poor framerate) what took place. I've read other stories about users who switched to full time recording because they would see a car arrive, then leave an hour later, but in that hour time span in between there wasn't enough movement to trigger motion. This leaves a question up in the air - what happened in that time? As a result, I've re-worked my setup a bit to better accommodate what I'm after. I've switched to full time recording. Motion is not doing the full time recording. Instead, I am simply using the cameras onboard "record to NAS" feature. So far, I'm wildly happy that I switched to it. It uses more hard drive space, yes, but that's one of the few (in my case, the only) downside. Given how cheap hard drives are these days (2TB for less than 100 bucks, say what?!), it makes the need for more storage an easier pill to swallow. After all, if no motion is picked up, I'm left wondering what happened. If I'm full time recording, that's not a concern. I'm still using Motion, but in a different way now. Motion has a lot of nice features. It's running now with a 15 second gap at 1 FPS. It does not transcode the images into AVI videos as it once did. Now it simply captures individual JPGs and lets them alone without making them into a video. So at 1 FPS, it's picking up an analyzing frames whenever movement occurs. It's set to save only the 'center' JPG during a motion event. I can tweak it to save all motion JPGs, the 'best' JPG, etc, but this fit what I was after. These images dump into a folder specifically for images. This allows me to go in, click on the month, day, and then the first image of that day, then hit next/next/next/next to page through all of the images to see what took place. If something took place, I can go to the videos folder where the cameras save directly to the 'NAS' over Samba/SMB/CIFS 24/7 @ 10 FPS, H264 stream, 1280x800 resolution. The lack of needing to transcode anything has cut down on server load considerably, and I'm using far less bandwidth on my LAN with the 1 FPS Motion MJPG and 10 FPS H264 continual streams as opposed to the 10 FPS Motion MJPG streams I used prior. While bandwidth isn't really a concern for a home gigabit LAN, it is nice to see lower numbers as I do intend to scale this up a notch or two yet. I particularly like how the save-to-NAS functionality saves the videos in folders by date/day/time, as in 20140701 >> 12 >> 45.mp4, which allows me to watch the 60 second clip that took place at 12:45 on July 1st 2014. Speaking of which, is this functionality common with other vendors too? I would hope because it'd be chaotic without this feature. This makes for easy retrieval without needing any sort of database/NVR software on top. If I was not utilizing Motion to have a broad semi generic bird's eye view of what took place throughout the day, full time recording would be admittedly a little tedious. I mean, I COULD just que up all of the day's video files into VLC and kick up the playback speed to burn through a day's recordings in a few minutes, or I could simply do what I almost always do (don't bother with watching feeds unless you notice something on the property that looks a bit off), but the inclusion of Motion is a nice advantage. Total cost was pretty much free given that Motion is free and open source software and the save to NAS functionality is a feature built into my cameras. As I camera shop into the future I'll be sure to make sure they have this functionality. I see a lot supporting FTP as well (one or two had FTP but no SMB), which seems decent (I could always set up an FTP instance on my server, I suppose) but given that I *already* run Samba for file sharing, backups, etc., Samba/SMB/CIFS support is pretty much a must-have for me. I already owned my server and the hard drives inside so that came at no additional cost as well. Given the current network and CPU load of a setup like this, if I were in a situation where I did not have a home server and I wanted this functionality, I'd probably consider one of the cheap 50-100 dollar SOCs (like the $35 Raspberry Pi but maybe with a bit more horsepower) and a 2TB USB HDD for storage connected. Not a shabby solution overall. With all of this said, I know this scenario does not plug in to all scenarios out there. I just wanted to babble on about what I've done recently in my learning process over the last year or so in case it helps any other users connect the dots for their specific scenario. I like keeping things as simple (yet as effective) as possible whenever I can. Mileage varies. All that matters is that your solution works for your needs. The above was simply my solution that fit my needs.

Hello friends. I was reading some random search results last night and found an interesting post. It talked about how a super cheap way to incorporate a low scale DIY CCTV system is to utilize an old tablet and a wireless camera. The tablet itself basically acts as the NVR thanks to the app in question, IPCam Viewer Pro. Further research suggested that TinyCam Pro has similar capability. Basically the pro versions of these apps sound like they have motion detect capability and all of that fun stuff. It makes me wonder how 'good' it is. I plan to fire up a little test setup sometime soon on a spare desktop at home with Android X86 to see how far I can take this. I know it sounds a little crazy and I know the wireless cam comment already has people doubting it (myself included), but I just can't help but to think that this might be an incredible thing assuming it works fabulously - something I have yet to confirm. I'm envisioning a little quad core Android stick with an ethernet port or some sort of low powered computer with Android X86 running on it along with one of the above mentioned apps. Everything hard wired. If the motion detect of the app is great and the recording features work in a predictable manner, this could be a wickedly awesome low cost solution for users. I still have an extreme amount of doubt since a wild number of uses I THOUGHT tablets would be great for inevitably fell short very short of what a true laptop or desktop is capable of. But still... I wonder... So with that said given that I won't be home for quite a number of hours yet, I figured I'd post here to see if anybody has recently attempted this and what their results may have been. Any thoughts?

Hope this doesn't come off in an annoying way to any users here who have been in this field for decades, but I kind of wanted to, well, randomly babble about my setup, my thoughts, and see if anybody has any suggestions that maybe I did not consider. I'm a tech guy. Not a CCTV guy, not an A/V guy, but a tech guy. As a result, servers and networking are in my blood. I have a Linux based server in my basement running Ubuntu Server 12.04.4 64 bit. It runs a whole array of different things - file, backup, music/video streaming, ownCloud, etc. For the last year I've been running Motion with my cameras - two Vivotek IP8332 outdoor cameras and a single wifi camera indoors with a Foscam 8918 or something. This Foscam is simply a baby monitor, and when we go on vacation a living room watcher, but that's about it. Motion is an entirely daemon based utility for capturing camera feeds. It has no GUI utility. It has no web interface. It is a configuration file where you set your parameters, target_dir for saving the feeds, netcam_url for pulling in the streams, etc. And you know something? It works so reliably it's unreal. Despite months of uptime with my server, continual patching, updates, distribution upgrades, etc., it has never missed a beat. The downside? It's MJPG only. Is that a bad thing? Well, not necessarily, I suppose it depends on what you're truly after. Now as I said, I am a tech guy, so it comes naturally that I'm sitting on a fat series of hard drives. At the moment I have a 3TB mirror, soon to be a 6TB RAID 6, and I'm sure after that I'll upgrade even more. This is inevitable regardless of what CCTV setup I am using. Motion also has no GUI. Now, I don't really care about a GUI in terms of camera management. What I care about is ease of accessibility and a means to view multiple streams. I plugged this gap by routing my target_dir (where the feeds are saved) to my RAID array, which is shared over the network via samba. As a result, I can stream my feeds from any computer that can tap into a standard file server. It's really not a bad setup and works very well. As far as the multiple view thing (as I said, no GUI), I rigged up a very simple custom HTML page. It's only a handful of lines, opens in Firefox and Chrome, and gives me no issues. There is zero management, but that's fine - I just need viewability. <html> <body bgcolor=000000> <img src=http://192.168.1.20:5000/ border="0" width=49%></a> <img src=http://192.168.1.20:6000/ border="0" width=49%></a> <img src=http://192.168.1.20:7000/ border="0" width=49%></a> </body> </html> Recently I've been looking at ZoneMinder. I've used ZM years ago and it was fantastic, but ZM has had an interesting thing happen. Development stopped, no new code was patched, and new cameras with new technologies and new software were released, therefore kicking ZM into a troublesome territory. There's good news, though! ZM has recently been overtaken by a series of new developers (man, isn't open source software great?), which have been doing fantastic work with it. ZM is a beast, so it's not an overnight thing. I spun up a test server last night but still had issues with ZM, however a new decently-sized release is on the near-future agenda. In short, Motion is robust, reliable, MJPG only, no GUI, but thanks to samba file sharing and this mediocre web page, it works decently well. I'm sure to most of you, this wouldn't be an optimal setup, but for an absolutely free utility that works as well as it does, it's hard to argue. ZM in comparison is far more advanced, still MJPG only at the moment but with experimental RTSP streaming, but needs far more patching until it gets to where it needs to be for me to adopt it full time. Is it getting there? Yes. Very quickly. But we're kind of that hill climbing 4x4 that's 90% of the way up and beginning to spin out. Not there... just yet... I stumbled across some software known as Xeoma in the Ubuntu Software Center, so I installed it on my laptop and checked it out. This software auto scans the network for H264 based streams. It also supports MJPG and MPEG4 streams as well. To my surprise, it picks up my cameras and brought them right into the montage view. Nice! Xeoma is proprietary software, which for an open source hippy like me is a little mehhh but in the name of having a working system, it's whatever. Even still, if I got an NVR - guess what - proprietary software there as well. Anyway, Xeoma has a very intuitive GUI, but it's equally frustrating to get used to. From what I understand based on the FAQ page I read, it sounds like Xeoma can be installed on a headless (no GUI) server, and the remote utility can be used to pipe into the server and work with the cameras from there. It seems easy enough to use. The masking (block out certain areas from being motion detected, i.e. a street) looks wonderfully easy. There is a price to this software after the trial period @ 20 dollars per camera. Once you hit the 4 camera mark, it's cheaper @ 60 bucks total. The software is hardware bound, so OS reinstalls won't kill the license. Only question there is... what if I build an entirely new server? That's a question for their support though. Xeoma, feature wise, looks pretty decent, and I definitely saw an improvement in terms of the H264 streams working. This made me wonder if moving towards an H264 based solution would be beneficial. I run a gigabit network with CAT6 wiring in my house, but like any other techie, I would love nothing more than to see more fluid feeds. MJPG is nice and all, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice a speed improvement with H264 without (to my naked 20/20 vision) sacrificing any video quality. Then lastly, there's always the NVR option. I spoke to a user who used Vivotek NVR's, and they spoke rather negatively of it. This was offputting as I'm certainly not interested in spending a few hundred dollars to get an NVR that, based on user input, was rather lackluster. I understand Vivotek cameras can work with other NVRs, but there's always that "must read" list that says, Vivotek IP8332 works great with xyz features, but the IP8330 only works with x and y features. Meh. I understand there are a few Linux based utilities out there, such as Blue Cherry and Blue Iris, but their pricing is... astounding. Xeoma is *far* more attractive for the price. Realistically speaking, I COULD always spin up a Windows box to act as a server, but I'm really not interested in that in the slightest. I'd likely just stick with Motion or try my luck with Xeoma before I'd buy a Windows license and spin up another box. So anyway, that's it for my senseless babbling. If anybody out there has graciously invested the time to read this and has any sort of pointers, input, suggestions, or anything like that I'd love to hear it.

Well, I think I'll just keep using my current setup with Motion. Motion may not have a GUI, but all I really want out of a GUI is to view the live streams. That's accomplished easily by utilizing a custom HTML file. In fact, I even posted that info on their FAQ wiki in case it helps other users. The other thing Motion is missing is an easy flag in the config file to auto delete feeds over a certain age. There again, this is Linux, and you can manipulate so much with a simple command. There again, posted that on their FAQ wiki to help other users. With those two additions, it's a fully automated setup with a braindead simple viewable live stream. The other curve ball is Motion is MJPG only. I still struggle with the MJPG and H264 debate. Last night I read a lot about the differences, but it sounds like the vast majority of H264 surveillance cameras utilize an H264 profile that is quite inferior in some ways, while only super high dollar ones utilize the nicer profile where H264 does show some benefits. It sounds like more than anything else, H264 is used as a buzz factor. That's not to detract from its benefits, but as long as it's being talked up with its lesser profile, it just sounds like a meh factor to me. Just my 0.02 though. That being said, my server with both cameras at 20 FPS with MJPG enabled (1280x800) was only seeing about 5 MB/s of traffic, which is peanuts on a gigabit LAN. I bumped my FPS down to what I normally use, which to some users for home surveillance may seem like overkill, which is 10 FPS. It works. It does its job. It's incredibly reliable to the point I forget it's even running (that's how you know a tech product is good). It came in handy in October when two guys decided they would go through all of the unlocked cars in the neighborhood (forwarded those AVI's to the police), and also caught some punk kid stealing a bowl off my door step during Halloween. The fact that Motion does not utilize proprietary video formats (I cannot put into words how much that enrages me) is also a nice bonus as well. Just JPGs for image snapshots, AVI's for motion, and MPG's for 1 FPS 24/7 timelapses. Sure, there are some downsides, but it really sounds like I'll be trading off some things for others unless I really scale up my price range... something I'm not overly interested in doing given the fact I do indeed have a working solution, which aside from the price of my server (which I would have gotten anyway) and the price of the cameras (again, would have gotten anyway with any CCTV setup) is... free.

Yep - that HTML file works fine. All it does is pull in the source of that video feed. It actually works quite nicely if ALL you want is a simple way to view active feeds. The 49% widths are nice too, as I can use that same file on my desktop with massive monitors or my laptop with a much smaller monitor and it'll scale accordingly since it's not bound to a specific resolution. In the case of that example, what happens is I'm pulling the stream from Motion itself. You see, you can enable a webcam-view option within Motion. What's nice about this is I'm not duplicating the traffic coming from the camera. For example: Motion server + me viewing direct stream from camera's individual IP = duplication of bandwidth Motion server + me viewing stream from Motion = singular bandwidth from camera, feeds go to server, then get shot back out to the network for me to view. All this does is it ends up being a little less stressful for the cameras. 192.168.1.20 is the IP of the server, and each port is a port I specified in the thread (camera) files to the Motion configuration on the server. But yes, all in all, it works fine if you literally don't want.... well... ANY other features or options. My cameras were purchased about a year ago, and RTSP streams do indeed work fine. The double edged sword I'm running into is the available options that I would 'prefer' on Linux do not support this at all (or at best, experimental). That's why MJPG has been my pick. After all, it gets me out of buying an NVR, and works pretty okay otherwise... but lately I've just been wanting a more fluid setup... something that will be much smoother with playback, feeds, etc. Even at 10 FPS, these MJPG streams have their jerky moments.

I've recently been toying with ZoneMinder. Great platform, but I wanted to tinker with some other ones too. Being a Linux fan, and already having a Linux server running 247, it made sense to stay in the 'Nix arena for now. I heard of Motion before, which seemed completely braindead easy to configure (at least for integrated webcams in laptops and whatnot). But I heard it can incorporate network cameras, so naturally, I was curious. I have an IP network camera and I have the correct URL for the mjpg stream (VLC verifies it works). The way the program works is it's all config file/terminal based, however it seems rather straight forward. motion.conf = main config file. This is where your single camera is set up. If you have multiple cameras, this config file operates as the global config, which passes responsibility onto the thread config files. thread1.conf = thread1 config file, for camera 1. thread2.conf = thread2 config file, for camera 2. etc... So I hooked it up as such, with motion.conf commenting /dev/video0 (so my integrated webcam wasn't used) and uncommented thread1.conf at the bottom, so thread1.conf could be used. Then within thread1.conf, I put in the info for the IP camera I want to use. Here are my pastebins: motion.conf http://pastebin.com/yVU7wqrm thread1.conf http://pastebin.com/dayF0jph I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but each time I run Motion, it simply turns on my integrated webcam now, which baffles me since I have it commented out in motion.conf... I figured this may be a long shot, as most people on the forums tend to go for dedicated DVRs or higher end Windows based software, but I figured I'd try it. Motion looks like it 'could' (once I get over whatever issue I'm facing) be super braindead easy to use with minimal fuss and overhead. Plus, it sounds like it can export actual AVI video files instead of a blast of mjpg streams, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. EDIT - I think I found a lead to my issue. Within the motion.conf section, there's a netcam_url entry. If anything is in that entry, it takes priority over /dev/video0, which is the system default otherwise. So here's where my confusion comes in... if I'm using multiple cameras, I should be using (from what I understand) the thread1.conf, thread2.conf, etc files for each camera. Okay, fine. But motion.conf defaults to /dev/video0 if nothing is there. So what am I to put there in order to keep motion from using /dev/video0? Should I put the URL of EACH network camera there? I have a feeling this is where my snag is happening...

There's a hundred different possibilities on the table, and I'm of course trying to do this as cheap but logically as possible. I want to set up a baby monitor that is video based. It must be wifi enabled because I want to forward it through my router so my parents and my in-laws can punch in my DDNS URL:port# and see the current feed of the baby. I intend to put a camera at birds-eye-view. I was thinking about using an Atom powered wireless Linux nettop I have sitting on the shelf. I thought about perhaps attaching it to the crib with velcro or double sided tape and have it just permanently sitting there running. Then have a USB webcam hook up to the nettop for the feed. This option is taking a lot of assumptions into account... if you know the answer to any I'd love to hear it. The above is assuming that... - I can push the audio and video stream this USB webcam picks up on the nettop through my network. - That I can capture the a/v stream from the nettop-baby-monitor and watch/listen on IPCamViewer Pro (Nexus 7 tablet) OR through my Linux powered laptop with VLC media player. - That I can forward that stream so it's accessible externally from my network. Those 3 things above are really key to making this work, which makes me nervous that it won't fly too easily. An easier option is probably just to get an indoor camera with IR and an onboard microphone that doesn't suck. While I do have an indoor PTZ Foscam camera, it's microphone is downright terrible. I don't even know why it has a microphone because all you can hear is static noise. This is a current complaint with this Foscam camera, and they have evidently released a new ~200 dollar camera that's better, but it won't make my current Foscam work. I could however use the Foscam and just get an audio-based baby monitor, but I'd rather have a more integrated solution with audio and video controlled from one device. At least in that instance I know setting up the Foscam with port forwarding would be crazy simple to do. That way if my wife is home and wants to sit on the deck while the baby naps she can just bring the tablet or her laptop and fire up VLC to do the job. Do you folks have any other recommendations? Is there something I'm missing, or am I over complicating it? Perhaps there's even a super awesome indoor camera that could make this all happen with extreme ease that I just don't know about (hence why I'm coming to you guys. ) Requirements: 1 - Wifi based 2 - Infrared (doesn't need to be viewable from 100 meters or anything crazy) 3 - Viewable through Firefox *OR* Chrome *OR* VLC *OR* IPCamViewer Pro 4 - Very solid microphone PTZ is unnecessary, requirements for Internet Explorer or proprietary software installations on the client is an instant fail and won't be a considerable option. Any insight folks? I'd appreciate any ideas you might have!

...a baby monitor. With the news of our first on the way I began to consider things we'll need. Being a tech guy I of course was disgusted with the prices of actual baby monitors, but I know I can get a pretty sweet setup for significantly less if I go the video surveillance route. I currently have a Foscam fi8918w, which works very well video wise, however its audio is downright terrible. I even purchased an external mic (since it has an available mic port) but that made no difference. Some Googling suggested that this camera suffers from awful audio quality. When I would stream it over VLC I would hear an incredible amount of noise that just wasn't existent in the room the cam/mic was in. A lot of the time it sounded like someone had a bass guitar, strummed it, and it just ran indefinitely, drowning out at least 3/4 of what sounds you would hear anyway from it. It wasn't near any computers, fans, etc., just a quiet corner of the basement. Evidently Foscam released instructions to an array of users suggesting that if they solder some sort of internals together it fixes the issue, but not a single person reported it as working, and all of the users never heard a further response from the manufacturer. I understood Foscam to be a decent quality company, however they are one I'll absolutely be avoiding this time around. Everything else is wide open, though! As for the other side of the monitor system, I have a spare Atom based laptop with a 12 inch screen which I have Lubuntu running on it currently (Ubuntu + LXDE desktop environment). I plan to put this laptop on the nightstand and let it stream via VLC from the surveillance camera when we're asleep. That way based on the noise I can see immediately what's up and determine if the little guy/gal is just making some noise while sleeping or if I need to tend to them asap. As for the camera, here's my list of requirements: - At least 640x480 resolution. - Framerate of 10-15 would be optimal. - Wireless (at least G). - Infrared. - Microphone port for extended mic OR super super sensitive onboard microphone. - And of course, decent audio quality. - Capability to stream through VLC (haven't seen an IP camera that didn't, though) - Not Foscam. The single most important feature is the audio quality. I want to utilize my external, so a mic port is huge (unless there's one without a mic port that can pick up a pin dropping a half mile away, then I'd absolutely consider it). It seems as if these parameters are super easy to hit, especially even under the 100 dollar range (hell I found a truckload for under 75 bucks at that). But the only curve ball is I can't exactly test audio on these cameras before I purchase them online, and the fact that 98% of users are interested in the video quality, I figured I'd post here to see if anybody could recommend anything they've used. Appreciate it!

You folks with your CCTV systems, particularly home users, what kind of HDD setup do you guys have? Are you saving to a singular drive? Are your feeds backed up elsewhere? Being an IT guy, I feel exceptionally disconnected from how regular DVR/NVR systems work since my nature is to work with servers and IP based cameras. Do your typical DVR/NVR systems just have one hard drive? Do you folks typically rely on them, or do you find it necessary to synchronize all of the data in some sort of a RAID array or perhaps onto an entirely different box for added backups?