Defender PRO 600TVL cams

[West Slope]

Hi all..
I have Defender PRO 600TVL cams. I'm not having the best of luck with ZoneMinder. All I'm getting is a red output with all cams. Are there any users of the Defender brand of cams here and if, so did you get your cams to show right? If you have please let me know how you did.
Thanks

[bbunge]

Those look like analog cams which would mean that your issues may reside with the video capture card and not the cameras. Check here for more info on your video card: http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... ility_List

Make sure your video card is supported by Linux.

bb

[West Slope]

Thanks for coming back. The cams are analog. I'm running Mint 7.2 on a newer HP laptop and Mint is supported, but as far as capturing I have no idea. At least I didn't see it with the link you gave me, so I guess not.
Thanks again

[Gary S]

Analog cameras basically will all work as long as you have a supported video capture card and you have configured correct settings for the card to be recognized. As already mentioned, what model of capture card are you using?
Post that information here, and if it is supported, post up your configuration for your cameras. Somebody can send you in the right direction with that information.

[West Slope]

Thanks for coming back. This is my Graphics Card. Weather it captures, or not I have no idea.
Intel ValleyView Gen7 bus-ID: 00:02.0
1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768 at 60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
That's all I have and I hope that's what you're talking about.
Thanks again

[mikb]

That's your graphics card: (Output!)

What you need is an analog capture card (Input!)

You can get dedicated PCI/PCI express cards with 4-16 inputs better suited for CCTV. Or use an older analog TV card (like Hauppauge Win-TV cards).

If your Linux install supports them, USB capture dongles (like used for transferring DVD/VHS to PC) would work, but I don't think buying a bunch of them, one per camera, is a good move

Take a look for capture cards supported by Video 4 Linux (V4L2), although they are a bit old, BTTV (Brooktree BT848 chipset) cards are well supported, badged by many makers (Hauppauge included)

You will certainly need the physical hardware to connect the analogue cameras to.

[Edit: Better question: What are all your non-working analogue cameras currently connected to?]

[West Slope]

Thanks for the comeback. I have a newer HP laptop. No room for any cards. Express, or otherwise. My cams are hooked to my DVR and work good on my TV and of course windows handle my cams online. I only bring windows up when I need to. I was looking for a Linux app that would do the same, but I guess it can't be done for right now.
Thanks again

[Gary S]

I have no idea what brand or model of DVR you have, but as long as it has conforms to basic standards, you should be able to view it on your network using any browser like Firefox. If you happen to have a DVR that is Windows proprietary, you are probably out of luck.

Zoneminder is software that replaces a DVR, and it isn't really designed to view external DVRs. You don't need Zoneminder to view a standardized DVR, but again, if you have something that is Windows only, then it is Windows only. Study your DVR manual a bit and see if it acts as a standard HTTP server. If it does, connect to it with your Linux computer using Firefox and view it.

[mikb]

My cams are hooked to my DVR and work good on my TV and of course windows handle my cams online.

Oh! I was *not* expecting that, hence the general confusion here -- usually analogue cameras only connect to the PC running ZoneMinder directly!

Well that's another configuration to be aware of!

If the DVR exports the live feed/pictures/video over a web interface, then you could, at a pinch, treat the DVR as a big fat capture device. And then your cameras become "IP Cameras" to ZoneMinder, accessed across the network.

You seem to be breaking interesting new ground here, good luck!

[West Slope]

My DVR is hooked to the web with Cat6. Like I say I can see it on the windows side of my laptop, (dual boot) but not the Mint side. I wouldn't know how to display it here on the Mint side. It would be interesting if some of the coders could get it going. I'm not a coder, so I'd be no good for the job even if it could be.
Thanks

[Gary S]

You simply need to get your DVR exporting the security system as a standard HTML server like Zoneminder does and there is no need to run the Zoneminder server when all you need is a client.

[West Slope]

Please explain yourself and I'll try it. I know nothing about any of this.
Thanks

[Gary S]

How do you view the DVR output on Windows? Did you have to install proprietary software to do it? If you installed some proprietary Windows software as a DVR viewer, you need to research what format the DVR is outputting the data to that software. if it is some kind of standard format, then you can attempt to find Linux software that can read that output from the DVR.
Zoneminder isn't likely needed here as it isn't a DVR viewer. It is a DVR replacement where you put the cameras directly into a video capture card for Zoneminder to use.
It is possible that in the DVR setup there might be options to output the signal from the DVR as a standard HTML server which can be viewed by any computer with a web browser.
This is why I built my own security system using Zoneminder. It is compatible with all operating systems. The DVRs I looked into could not do that. They required special viewing software and were not compatible without it. They did not supply any viewing software for Linux, so they were not useful to me.
Your DVR owner's manual is the place to start. It should tell you if it can be made to work as a web server, and how to set it up to do that.

If I'm correctly understanding your situation, this question addresses it better than I can.
http://superuser.com/questions/603309/h ... rom-my-dvr

[West Slope]

How do you view the DVR output on Windows? Did you have to install proprietary software to do it? If you installed some proprietary Windows software as a DVR viewer, you need to research what format the DVR is outputting the data to that software. if it is some kind of standard format, then you can attempt to find Linux software that can read that output from the DVR.

It's proprietary and the format is AVI. I have tried motion.
How to Set Up Motion Detection Webcam in Ubuntu <-- Copy and paste to to google.
Tried to put a URL here. No go. Didn't work.

Zoneminder isn't likely needed here as it isn't a DVR viewer. It is a DVR replacement where you put the cameras directly into a video capture card for Zoneminder to use.
It is possible that in the DVR setup there might be options to output the signal from the DVR as a standard HTML server which can be viewed by any computer with a web browser.
This is why I built my own security system using Zoneminder. It is compatible with all operating systems. The DVRs I looked into could not do that. They required special viewing software and were not compatible without it. They did not supply any viewing software for Linux, so they were not useful to me.
Your DVR owner's manual is the place to start. It should tell you if it can be made to work as a web server, and how to set it up to do that.

There is nothing about a web server other than the widows app that came with it. The app only comes up through IE after you go in to the internet options. A lot of pushing here a poking there. That's why I prefer Linux. It's a lot safer too. Firefox doesn't use the active X, so no go. With windows, or Mint, when I type the local IP, it comes up with "You must install the windows app."

If I'm correctly understanding your situation, this question addresses it better than I can.
Took yours out too.

I went there and downloaded a couple of the Andriodx86 LiveCDs to see how that works Thanks for your help.

[West Slope]

How do you view the DVR output on Windows? Did you have to install proprietary software to do it? If you installed some proprietary Windows software as a DVR viewer, you need to research what format the DVR is outputting the data to that software. if it is some kind of standard format, then you can attempt to find Linux software that can read that output from the DVR.
Zoneminder isn't likely needed here as it isn't a DVR viewer. It is a DVR replacement where you put the cameras directly into a video capture card for Zoneminder to use.
It is possible that in the DVR setup there might be options to output the signal from the DVR as a standard HTML server which can be viewed by any computer with a web browser.
This is why I built my own security system using Zoneminder. It is compatible with all operating systems. The DVRs I looked into could not do that. They required special viewing software and were not compatible without it. They did not supply any viewing software for Linux, so they were not useful to me.
Your DVR owner's manual is the place to start. It should tell you if it can be made to work as a web server, and how to set it up to do that.

If I'm correctly understanding your situation, this question addresses it better than I can.
http://superuser.com/questions/603309/h ... rom-my-dvr

Hi Gary...
The Android LiveCD didn't help at all. I was going to try and install Yousee. An Android app from Google that would let me see my cams. What DVR system did you get?
Thanks