March 2016 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] linux security camera

by Tim Keller

I'm glad this topic came up because I've also been asked to setup four wireless security cameras. My thought would be to use a raspberry pi 2 (or 3!) and have it connected via USB to a external 250GB SSD then to use zone minder to capture the video. The questions I have are: 1. Knowing the USB's all share a single interrupt... will the pi have enough throughput to capture and storage the video? 2. How many cameras can a pi reasonably support? 3. Does zone minder have retention policies? Thanks, Tim.

March 2, 2016

Re: [Wlug] linux security camera

by Jon "maddog" Hall

Hi, One thing you might think about is how to supply power to all your cameras, computers, etc. If the electricity is turned off in your house, unless you have battery backup, you are out of luck. If you went the route of hardwired ETHERNET you could have a UPS at your main control computer and use Power Over Ethernet (PoE) to deliver up to 90 Watts of power to each node, plenty of power to run cameras, LED infrared lights, computers or other small devices. Most UPS devices can deliver a relatively huge amount of power by today's "Pi" standards, and you can buy switches that can power the leads going off. md On Wed, Mar 2, 2016, 09:27 brad <bkn(a)ithryn.net> wrote: > > > On Mar 1, 2016, at 09:30, Michael Voorhis <mvoorhis(a)cs.wpi.edu> wrote: > > > > On 03/01/2016 09:20, Frank Sweetser wrote: > >> * Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. > Wire is > >> pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and > it will > >> more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and > security. > > > > At some point you may decide that one shot every 20/30s isn't enough, so > > having a fast reliable network will become more and more important, as > > you add cameras and start increasing frame-rates. Depending on the size > > of picture you want to store (once again think about Frank's other list > > items -- image resolution & quality) you can saturate a low throughput > > network. If you're doing multiple cameras, or having multiple pictures > > coming into the server per second, post-processing of the images on the > > server end, you will end up with a CPU bottleneck. > > > > Look at the low-light performance of your cameras also. You don't want > > to record a blur ... you want a useful picture of a person that you can > > show to the authorities. Make sure the target area is well-lit. > > > > Thank you for the responses. It sounds as if the PI is a good platform. > The wired/wireless is a tradeoff like any other. I’m not sure i have any > network drops in the area the camera would be mounted. If only i had the > foresight it would have have network/power drops put on at the top of wall > which we just installed this summer. If i can find a way do it nicely w/ > wires i will. I will also investigate the frame rate. I specified 20-30s > frequency more to emphasize that i didn’t require streaming video. It will > take some experimenting. > > I do plan to off load the images on a regular basis (perhaps even > instantly) i assumed these devices were short on storage. I have a NUC on > site which i use as a VPN/SSH end point. i will likely offload images to > the NUC (and/or owncloud instance) then use mencoder (or something similar) > to create a timelapse video. > > It will be a fun project, hopefully i can carve out some time for it soon. > Cheers, > - brad > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

March 2, 2016

Re: [Wlug] linux security camera

by brad

> On Mar 1, 2016, at 09:30, Michael Voorhis <mvoorhis(a)cs.wpi.edu> wrote: > > On 03/01/2016 09:20, Frank Sweetser wrote: >> * Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. Wire is >> pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and it will >> more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and security. > > At some point you may decide that one shot every 20/30s isn't enough, so > having a fast reliable network will become more and more important, as > you add cameras and start increasing frame-rates. Depending on the size > of picture you want to store (once again think about Frank's other list > items -- image resolution & quality) you can saturate a low throughput > network. If you're doing multiple cameras, or having multiple pictures > coming into the server per second, post-processing of the images on the > server end, you will end up with a CPU bottleneck. > > Look at the low-light performance of your cameras also. You don't want > to record a blur ... you want a useful picture of a person that you can > show to the authorities. Make sure the target area is well-lit. > Thank you for the responses. It sounds as if the PI is a good platform. The wired/wireless is a tradeoff like any other. I’m not sure i have any network drops in the area the camera would be mounted. If only i had the foresight it would have have network/power drops put on at the top of wall which we just installed this summer. If i can find a way do it nicely w/ wires i will. I will also investigate the frame rate. I specified 20-30s frequency more to emphasize that i didn’t require streaming video. It will take some experimenting. I do plan to off load the images on a regular basis (perhaps even instantly) i assumed these devices were short on storage. I have a NUC on site which i use as a VPN/SSH end point. i will likely offload images to the NUC (and/or owncloud instance) then use mencoder (or something similar) to create a timelapse video. It will be a fun project, hopefully i can carve out some time for it soon. Cheers, - brad

March 2, 2016

Re: [Wlug] linux security camera

by Michael Voorhis

On 03/01/2016 09:20, Frank Sweetser wrote: > * Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. Wire is > pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and it will > more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and security. At some point you may decide that one shot every 20/30s isn't enough, so having a fast reliable network will become more and more important, as you add cameras and start increasing frame-rates. Depending on the size of picture you want to store (once again think about Frank's other list items -- image resolution & quality) you can saturate a low throughput network. If you're doing multiple cameras, or having multiple pictures coming into the server per second, post-processing of the images on the server end, you will end up with a CPU bottleneck. Look at the low-light performance of your cameras also. You don't want to record a blur ... you want a useful picture of a person that you can show to the authorities. Make sure the target area is well-lit. --MCV.

March 1, 2016

Re: [Wlug] linux security camera

by Frank Sweetser

A few random thoughts, based on the much larger scale surveillance system we run here: * Cameras are useless without storage. I would strongly recommend against storing the images on the Pi itself, as then someone could very easily walk off with them. Instead, check out a centralized video storage system like Zone Minder. * Think carefully about what kind of images you want - resolution, image quality, and frequency. Set up a test camera, walk around, do stuff in front of it, and see how much really gets captured. 30 seconds is a long time in between frames. With something like Zone Minder, you should also be able to set data retention and long term compression policies, giving you more flexibility. Once you have some settings you can live with, you can then translate those to actual disk sizes. * Assume wireless will stop working, because at some point it will. Wire is pretty cheap (you can get good prices on bulk wire at Monoprice), and it will more than make up for it's cost in reliability, performance, and security. This is doubly true for the 2.4GHz only wifi on the Pi3. * Are those pictures important enough to back up? Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong. Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken On 03/01/2016 08:39 AM, brad wrote: > W - luggers, > > I plan to rig up a security camera for my wife’s store. Recently a drunk person stumbled in and gave the sales associate a bit of a scare, fortunately nothing happened. > > A company quoted $4k, which i thought was unnecessary, so linux powered i will go. I recall hearing on the list about a linux security camera potential a year ago with a PI, and a search through old list messages confirms that. The market for these PI-like devices seems to be fast moving. The PI 3 was announced recently, and the wifi option is attractive b/c less wiring is desirable. I know of other similar devices such as, beagle bones, other PIs, and ODROID (mentioned on the list). These devices are out of my domain of expertise and there are many of them. I thought the PI 3 would make for a good choice, but i thought i’d ask the list if there is anything else to consider. > > Price is not really an option since all these devices are so dang cheap. The camera(s) will likely fire a shot once every 20-30 second interval, so its not a continuous stream. Infrared is desirable for when the store is closed and visible light is low. > > Thanks, > - brad > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

March 1, 2016

linux security camera

by brad

W - luggers, I plan to rig up a security camera for my wife’s store. Recently a drunk person stumbled in and gave the sales associate a bit of a scare, fortunately nothing happened. A company quoted $4k, which i thought was unnecessary, so linux powered i will go. I recall hearing on the list about a linux security camera potential a year ago with a PI, and a search through old list messages confirms that. The market for these PI-like devices seems to be fast moving. The PI 3 was announced recently, and the wifi option is attractive b/c less wiring is desirable. I know of other similar devices such as, beagle bones, other PIs, and ODROID (mentioned on the list). These devices are out of my domain of expertise and there are many of them. I thought the PI 3 would make for a good choice, but i thought i’d ask the list if there is anything else to consider. Price is not really an option since all these devices are so dang cheap. The camera(s) will likely fire a shot once every 20-30 second interval, so its not a continuous stream. Infrared is desirable for when the store is closed and visible light is low. Thanks, - brad

March 1, 2016