Security Camera pays off

[RFB]

Carl,

I also use a Mac (Macbook Pro), and I have a question re. Security Spy.

Does SS essentially allow you to use a portion of your hard drive as a "virtual" DVR?

I am thinking about installing 3 or 4 Panasonic BB-HCM371A wifi IP cameras.
(We live very rural with zero proximity to "war drivers".)
I have power to the camera locations but retro-ing cable runs would be impractical (2 outbuildings, etc)

Will SS and a Mac do this?

 

[woodlandfarms]

absolutely. You tell it how much of your hard drive you want it to use and it dumps the old files. Choose a flolder and it is all good.

Please keep me posted on how the IP cameras go, and the quality you get from them (a picture would be great).

Also, take a look at evocam.com. I have both softwares and liked SS a bit more, but evo was pretty good...

 

[RFB]

Carl,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I just migrated(last year) to Mac after 25 PC years. Real soon I am going to get rid of my last PC (my wife's) amd move her into an iMac.

That is the time when I will integrate SS and the camera system. I will post when I do this, but it will take a few months due to other in-progress projects.

On the outbuildings I am thinking of using an ELK-P412 power supply so as not to utilize wall warts for power.

Thanks again,

RFB

 

[Hookblock]

Woodlandfarms, Thanks for the info, yes it helps, it gives me a great starting point. ( I was on vacation sorry for the delay )

 

[fonman_4859]

You might want to get some large heat-shrink tubing and use it over the connections after you are satisfied with everything. It doesn't hurt to use the silicone one the connections before shrinking the tubing either. The phone companies use a splice cover that works the same way.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Here are some results... These are screen grabs so the resolution is a bit low.

Pix 3 and 4 are with the $40 camera. This has a 57 degree angle of view

Pix 5 is my original camera. This has a 75 degree angle of view

Pix 6 is the "expensive" camera - It has a 85 degree angle of view

The cedar park picture is a direct email from the machine


I will do some night stuff tonight but I can say already the cheap camera works really, really well....

 

[woodlandfarms]

Here are some nighttime raining pix. These cameras (the new ones) are really sensitive to light. I had to kill all the lights in the house to get an near honest opinion of the LED quality.

The 54 LED camera has a larger chip, which requires more light. So, I am hard pressed to find much of a difference between this bigger camera and the smaller...

 

[Skyco]

I am thinking about installing 3 or 4 Panasonic BB-HCM371A wifi IP cameras.
(We live very rural with zero proximity to "war drivers".)

One thing I found- I bought several wifi band (2.4GHz) wireless cameras. When they are in use you can forget using wifi on your computer, it interferes Note these are simple RF transmission devices that transmit to an analog receiver with video and sound output jacks. The true wifi cameras as opposed to wifi band cameras shouldn't have this problem. Caveat Emptor

I also just picked up this neat device sold by First Alert that motion detects and records to SD cards. They can be viewed locally on a monitor from the device or played back in a computer. I find no info on it on First Alerts website so I don't know if it has been discontinued or is new and not yet on the site.

I actually bought it at WalMart, stumbled across it by accident-

First Alert SD Recorder with Color Camera w/ Cable, 575 - Wal-Mart

The description on WalMart.com is also in error, there is no audio and the aluminum housed camera is plastic housed with an aluminum finish....I just got it yesterday and haven't played with it enough yet, it may be ok or it may be poor, I've only run it in the kitchen overnight as a test...caught me raiding the refrigerator and the wife thought it funny to flash it


I have a dilemna on my remote property as I have no AC power or internet access except through a cellular device when I'm there. This First Alert thing will allow me to leave it there and retrieve video when I return. It all runs off wall-warts with DC output so it will be relatively simple to power it off my 12V battery system and solar charger on site.

 

[RFB]

Skyco,

Another camera that I am looking at is the Linksys WVC200
Linksys.com - Products/Wireless/Home Control/Cameras/WVC200

both it and the D-Link DCS-6620G use MPEG-4 video compression cutting down bandwidth use a lot.

Also, a second Wifi router that is ethernet wired into the existing wifi router keeps all of the video traffic on a separate lan apart from the internet wifi.

Here's a link for one setup:

Connecting two routers wired - the definitive answer - Wireless Routers - Linksys Community Forums

 

[Skyco]

Yeah I want to dig into the wifi cameras...the analog 2.4Ghz cameras take up something like 6 MHz of bandwidth and will decimate wifi...