Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Hey Forum,

 

There are now a couple of free, cloud storage solutions: SkyDrive, Google Drive, DropBox and I am sure there are more. For the DYI'er it would seem like a good way to do a simple cloud based solution, but are there any systems (cameras or NVRs) out there that allows the camera to upload to any of these services?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A few brands allow writing to a CIFS amount other to FTP, so if you can set these up with FTP, NFS or CIFS, there's no reason you can't. The limitations with FTP is once they are full, they typically stop working and there's no playback from the camera. With NFS or CIFS some cameras like Axis, Mobotix even Hikvision in theory can manage the space and provide playback.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also, if your ISP account has bandwidth limits, uploading multiple cameras can cause you to hit that limit pretty quickly, depending on what you're uploading. YMMV, of course.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Record = video = if you have a data cap, you're going to hit it.

 

You'll be sending the data and then sorting/retrieving for playback/inspection. Maybe if it was one camera or lower resolution.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just so I understand fully,

 

I've got video surveillance here, but it requires a PC that must be up and running 24-7. If I have a PC running, I might as well record all the time, that way I don't miss anything (perhaps due to misconfiguration of motion detection). But on the other hand, I don't really need 24-7 video. If I am at home, I might need one or two cameras online, and the inside cameras do not need to record at all. Naturally, at night, and when I am not at home, I want the cameras to be online.

 

I have an access control system, that consists of a lot of PIR detectors around the house. These are cheap and simple to install. When I then leave the house, the system gets armed and the cameras kick in too - the PIR detectors work in darkness and don't trigger when the cat walks around the house. If they DO trigger, I can set it up so that the lights turn on, and the cameras start recording. I would imagine that 99% of the time, there's nothing going on, and so the cameras are not taxing the bandwidth. But if something were to happen, the amount of data uploaded would probably not cause me to hit the cap. I suppose I COULD set up the cameras to upload to an FTP server, but that requires a lot of manual fiddling it seems.

 

So I was just wondering if there was an app that would allow me to point to a camera and say "if you have motion, upload to my OneDrive" (SkyDrive is now called OneDrive... trademark issues ), and if there isn't - is there's no need for it either?

 

A little disclosure:

I work for a company that makes video surveillance software - as a developer.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't believe you can do what you want with ordinary cameras. Some let you FTP or mount to a CIFS, NFS or Samba mount, but Skydrive, Dropbox use WebDAV. So as a developer, you can write a program to use the API for Skydrive and get the RTSP feed from the camera, but you would need a platform to run it on.

 

Maybe what you want is a cloud enabled camera and there's a whole bunch of them out there. Dropbox is the original, but very limiting as they only make one camera and not an impressive one. Sony is releasing a nice system that allows for multiple cameras feeding into one that is cloud enabled. Also Samsung is releasing or has released their cloud cameras. These cameras record directly to the cloud and has the infrastructure to make it easy to view the cameras and recordings remotely. On the lower end, there's D-Link and Netgear jumping on this wagon.

 

Can't speak of network throughput as it depends on your activity for motion detect recordings. I don't even think it's as much as people may think, especially if you are using PIR motion detection which is pretty accurate and also indoors where there's less movement. For example, we keep a camera with PIR motion detection at our lake house and haven't had a false alarm in years and I know it works because my phone starts beeping like crazy as soon as I step inside.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you don't mind letting your PC run 24/7, uploading images/video to the SkyDrive is a no brainer - as easy as recording to a folder on your PC.

 

EDIT: I also can easily record video to local NAS, and make these files available for anyone outside my network to FTP, but I'm not sure if this is the solution you're looking for.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Hey Forum,

 

There are now a couple of free, cloud storage solutions: SkyDrive, Google Drive, DropBox and I am sure there are more. For the DYI'er it would seem like a good way to do a simple cloud based solution, but are there any systems (cameras or NVRs) out there that allows the camera to upload to any of these services?

There is a chinese manufacturer that is very similar to Dahua which are already making DVR with Cloud recording, however their NVR with this function is not ready now. Hopefully after the Chinese New Year holidays can get my hands on a demo NVR with Cloud recording.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×