camera control over internet

[hwan 0]

 

Hi folks,

 

I am completely new here and new to surveillance type cameras in general. I'm hoping to get some recommendations from you knowledgeable folks on something for my purposes. Here are my requirements:

 

- Must be able to pan, zoom, and tilt.

- 2MP is probably enough resolution (really just need something with similar resolution as a front facing camera on a smartphone)

- Must be able to be controlled and have video streamed over the internet.

- Must be able to stream video over the internet to multiple computers/smartphones/tablets simultaneously.

- Preferably have a way for me to allow/disable the internet streaming easily.

- IR night vision preferable but not required.

- Must have a microphone but sound quality not too important.

 

I think that's all of my requirements. My use case is probably somewhat unique. My wife and I have twin 5 months old girls at home. Our parents naturally want to see them over skype all the time (and I mean literally all the time). This is getting quite annoying having to skype all of them, as they all live in different places, and are never available at the same time. Furthermore, holding a phone near the babies not only distracts them, but makes it difficult for us to interact with our babies. We've been looking for a solution to our problem.

 

My idea is to have a webcam/cctv system set up in the living room. Then the grandparents would be able to view them on their own and not have to call us and have us hold a phone. Therefore, it needs to be able to pan, zoom, and tilt. The main thing I want is that they would be able to control the camera from their computer far away, so that we don't have to deal with that. Furthermore, I want all of them to be able to see at the same time. I suppose if such a thing doesn't exist, then I could dedicate an old laptop to use for controlling the camera, and have them access the laptop remotely for viewing and controlling.

 

As for image quality, we have a Galaxy S4, and for them, the front facing camera (2MP) is plenty good enough, even when it gets darker, which makes the video fairly noisy looking.

 

They need to be able to hear the sound coming through as well, but we don't need to be able to hear them. Finally, if it's possible for us to enable/disable the streaming or at least the sound at any time, that would be nice too, as that'll give us some privacy when we want it.

 

Thanks.

 

[ssnapier 0]

 

Honestly, only one of the two easiest options I can recommend will have pan tilt functions, but they should both work for you. If you are comfortable setting up port forwarding, then buy a Foscam wifi PTZ camera and be done with it. The next option would be to buy 3 or 4 Dropcam cameras and set them at good places around the house that would give them what they want. It would also give you rudimentary security cameras for future use if you want.

 

Anytime I discuss port forwarding on here, I post this same picture just to make sure you are tracking on how port forwarding works. There is no black magic to it, and PLEASE visit portforward.com for directions on how to set up your particular device.

 

 

 

[hwan 0]

Thank you for your suggestions and I'll look into them more. The main thing that I wanted that I couldn't find easily online is that it needs to be able to be controlled from an internet source outside of our router. From your drawing, it would seem like the software control has a web interface and doesn't require a dedicated program to run? Is this correct? And you are able to control the movement of the camera with the web interface too?