IPcam Monitoring software

E

ennywohn

Young grasshopper
Nov 7, 2022
35
2
florida
hello,

newbie here. i have an outdoor setup consisting of several PtZ WiFi cameras that are the dahua/generic type. the ip addresses are static. this is a rural area, so these are used for security as well as wildlife photos. presently these are monitored by ipcam on a browser. this is a photos-only usage.

it would be nice to upgrade to software that will download photos locally for more rapid browsing/archiving.

this can be done with a linux or windoze machine. there is a linux server that can operate 24/7 if necessary.

any recommendations? thanks.
 
Try Blue Iris VMS on that Windows machine.

There's a 14 day trial for you see if you like it. IMO, it's THE best value for the money when it comes to VMS software. Lots of support here on IPCT.

store.ipcamtalk.com

Blue Iris Software - IP Cam Talk Store

Blue Iris is one of the most popular video surveillience recording software solutions on the market. Buy Blue Iris here at a discounted price!
store.ipcamtalk.com store.ipcamtalk.com
 
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ennywohn said:
i downloaded the evaluation this morning. i checked the ipcamtalk purchase link & the message was SOLD OUT on ipcam site.
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I'm sorry, man.

I'd say if you don't get a response in a time reasonable to you and you need to buy it soon then go right to BlueIrisSoftware.com :cool:

When purchased they'll send you the license key to remove the "Evaluation Version" watermark.
 
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It isn't out of stock, but rather Mike just needs to reset the counter.

And is pointed out, that just means to purchase it here, it is still available for purchase at BI and other sites.
 
wittaj said:
It isn't out of stock, but rather Mike just needs to reset the counter.

And is pointed out, that just means to purchase it here, it is still available for purchase at BI and other sites.
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thanks. will BI offer the ipcamtalk discount? thx.
 
ennywohn said:
thanks. will BI offer the ipcamtalk discount? thx.
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I doubt it.

But WHATEVER you do, don't buy it from Amcrest, even though it's advertised on Amazon. Tons of activation complaints....best to buy directly from BI or from IPCT (when it's "back in stock" ).
 
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TonyR said:
I doubt it.

But WHATEVER you do, don't buy it from Amcrest, even though it's advertised on Amazon. Tons of activation complaints....best to buy directly from BI or from IPCT (when it's "back in stock" ).
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thanks. after using it in trial mode yesterday, while it is good for switching between cameras, it takes way too many photos. i have set the size to fairly large. it took 10k photos on 6 cameras in 3-4 hours while it was raining. so far this is unusable. i wanted the software to collect photos the cameras take so i don't have to use ipcam from a browser - an arduous way to collect them.
 
Do the cameras have AI in them, if so use that to trigger.

If not, consider loading CodeProject into BI so it will scrub the image for whatever it is you are wanting to detect.

Many of us using BI eliminated most of the false triggers prior to any AI being available.

Mine got to the point prior to AI that if triggered and sent me a push, I knew a person or vehicle was on my property.

AI just took it the next step further and eliminated the few additional false triggers, AND made it less reliant on taking the time to dial in the motion settings.

The biggest thing is increasing make time - most field of views only Superman is getting thru it in under 4 seconds LOL and yet many have it set to 0.1 seconds LOL

Pay some neighborhood kids to walk thru the field of view and run thru the field of view and time it. That can give you a baseline time for motion detection.

Min object size is the next. Don't get greedy with a field of view trying to identify people way out in the distance.

Zone crossings are the next thing to work on.

For some checking the box about an object moves X number of pixels helps.

Edge Vector instead of simple.

There are ways, it just isn't done in 2 seconds. It takes some time to dial each camera in, but if you take the time, you can make it very reliable without all the fancy GPUs and top of the line computers.

Or just update cameras to ones with AI and be done with it LOL.
 
thanks for the tips. it seems that a bit of trial & error is required on this. most people probably use video mode; i use snapshot mode. don't need a bunch of video around. photos are fine. these cameras are pre-AI.

what i decided to do was not buy this software for these cameras, but to use ftp transfer to a linux server since they are on a LAN. this will hopefully give me the ability to scan each photo taken by each camera & save the good photos.
 
ennywohn said:
i use snapshot mode. don't need a bunch of video around. photos are fine
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Basically that is what all of the consumer wifi cams like Nest, Ring, etc do. Motion activated recording which typically misses a whole lot of action. Disk storage is relatively cheap. BI is cheap. Recording 24/7 is the way to go. You can still have snapshots for motion, and you have the entire video for inspection to get the best shot of the perp. Otherwise you are hoping to get a great money shot with one snapshot.

See these threads that touch on the benefits of continuous recording.

samplenhold

Thread 'Why I like Continuous Recording (aka 24/7)'

So a guy came to the door yesterday, and while my wife did not open the door, it kind of spooked her out. She said he seem suspicious saying he found a driver's license on the lawn and wanted to know if it belonged to her. So when I got back from the range, I checked out the cams. This is one reason that continuously recording video, not just when triggered, is important. It helped us to understand the situation.

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samplenhold

Thread 'Use of Overview and LPR Cams to Document Midnight Vehicle Distributing Offensive Flyers on Lawns'

We were out of town and I was checking my cams remotely one morning and noticed one of the Deputies that regularly patrol my subdivision had been at my front door. She has come to me a few times requesting video as she knows I have fairly good coverage of the streets at my corner. I noticed that as she walked down my walkway, she stopped and picked up something on my lawn. Since I knew her, I sent an email asking what was up. She replied later in the day that there had been an incident in the neighborhood and wanted to know if I had video from the night before.

I answered her that I was...
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samplenhold

Thread 'LPR Case Study: Scoping, Planning, Proof of Concept, Installation, & Results'

Introduction

This thread is about my journey into LPR (License Plate Recognition) after having about 18 months of experience with IP cams and having quite a bit of my system finished. I am not an expert on LPR, or IP cameras either. But I have spent a lot of time working with my system and interacting on IPCAMTALK.

Some things to realize as you read this. I am retired so I have time to not rush the work and I do it all myself. This took almost a year from inception to working cams. Part of the reason is that both my wife and I had some medical issues and both had surgeries during...
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good video on the DL. this is a setting in urbania. i live in the country down a dirt road with 200' distance to the house. the yard is fenced.

so this rural environment is hugely different & i have 7 cameras. the problem in reading the photos from the SD cards in the cameras is that it takes too long to do so, being able to only download them one at a time for viewing. with the ftp server approach i will be able to go from one to the next radpidly & save the ones that are 'suitable'.
 
Time is money.

A well set up VMS system would be way more efficient.

Many of us it takes less than 30 seconds every morning to scrub the video of the prior day to see if anything worth looking at further - and that is usually if something happened at a neighbors.

I get an alert and know if anybody or vehicle is on my property, so I only scrub the video every morning for the benefit of the neighbors.
 
ennywohn said:
good video on the DL. this is a setting in urbania. i live in the country down a dirt road with 200' distance to the house. the yard is fenced.

so this rural environment is hugely different & i have 7 cameras. the problem in reading the photos from the SD cards in the cameras is that it takes too long to do so, being able to only download them one at a time for viewing. with the ftp server approach i will be able to go from one to the next radpidly & save the ones that are 'suitable'.
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Country, city....so ?

After reading (again) what you expect and want to do and at the risk of repeating myself, here goes:

TonyR

Post in thread 'IPcam Monitoring software'

Try Blue Iris VMS on that Windows machine.

There's a 14 day trial for you see if you like it. IMO, it's THE best value for the money when it comes to VMS software. Lots of support here on IPCT.

store.ipcamtalk.com

Blue Iris Software - IP Cam Talk Store

Blue Iris is one of the most popular video surveillience recording software solutions on the market. Buy Blue Iris here at a discounted price!
store.ipcamtalk.com store.ipcamtalk.com
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wittaj said:
Time is money.

A well set up VMS system would be way more efficient.

Many of us it takes less than 30 seconds every morning to scrub the video of the prior day to see if anything worth looking at further - and that is usually if something happened at a neighbors.

I get an alert and know if anybody or vehicle is on my property, so I only scrub the video every morning for the benefit of the neighbors.
Click to expand...
there is a bit of wildlife here, so the alerts are not practical. these PtZ cameras are pretty good, but no AI.
 
If the cameras don't have AI, there is codeproject within BI, which is AI for the "dumb" cameras LOL.

That alone could knock out 1,000 photos you may get due to clouds LOL.
 
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