my new (first time user) setup help suggestions needed....

[chevelle67]

Hey guys, hopping to get some ideas and help on my attempt at this, I will get right to my question before I start babbling too much. Can I use an old linksys router (non-wifi) and hard wired with cat5? My length is about 55 feet. I am thinking and read wired direct is a bit better for less lag time I think?? I also need to buy 4 cameras, but money is a little tight and I need to make sure I can get the right kind so any suggestions on these two items would really help. BUT then I wonder since I am using an older PC, maybe cheaper analog cameras and a cheap capture card might be a better solution but I am not sure. My last item I think will be a second larger hard drive my current one is not large enough its only 100GB.

Thanks for any suggestions!

My system and setup goal details:

1. Dedicated older Win98 pc w/ Debian 8
2. Outside Home Security
3. Motion Detection
4. Recording
5. 4 cameras

[mikb]

Two thoughts:

Tech: Analogue cameras and capture cards are old technology. Cheap they may be, but IP cameras are getting cheaper all the time as that's what people are using now. Second hand IP cameras can work too!

Network: Hard wired is going to be faster and more reliable than WIFI. It's also more responsible than wasting good airtime, precious radio resources, with your camera's endless babbling IP stream And 55 feet is easy, even if you are a bit incompetent with the wiring quality and connections, so don't worry about that ... you can indeed use a router to "group" a number cameras into one single "uplink"/"downlink" cable back to your main computer or network if that's more convenient for you -- it depends on where your cameras are relative to the computer.

[chevelle67]

Cool, thanks for the info, I like the idea of direct cat5 hard wire too. I been wanting to learn more about networking also and going with IP cameras would help me learn so I guess its a win win situation.

Now the IP and camera hunt begins!

[bbunge]

What are the specs for the "old WIN98" PC you have?
If you have Debian desktop running on it I recommend dumping that for a command line (non-gui) version as the graphics can rob resources. You may want to bump up to 4 GIG RAM if you want to run camera resolution above 640x480.

If you want to stick with Debian the WIKI guides are here: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Debian

[chevelle67]

AMD Sempron 3100+
1.8 MHz
cache 256 KB
and
1.9GB of RAM
HD is also only 100GB

I have a feeling I need a better PC right?? About RAM, I thought win 98 was limited but then now that I have Linux on maybe I can add more but I am not sure. What distro that is only command line would you recommend? Presently ZoneMinder is installed but just waiting on my first camera to test it out and nothing is configured. I did install it from the link you posted and those instructions seemed well done. I have no idea if the camera I just bought will even work, but here it is:

https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-1280x720 ... 1253504011

[bbunge]

That camera looks like a Foscam knock off so should work with Zoneminder.

Your PC is not a total loss. If others can use a Raspberry Pi with Zoneminder you should, too.

As your resources are limited I recommend a very minimal install of Linux. My choice would be Ubuntu 14.04 (as it has some support time left). Install using the Ubuntu net install CD made from the mini.iso from Ubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/14.04/ With your processor use the 32 BIT version. When you do the install and get to tasksel choose only standard system utilities, OpenSSH Server, and LAMP Server. This is the minimum that is required to set up and run Zoneminder and does not load other apps that are not needed.

Here is a link to instructions for Ubuntu 14.04 Zoneminder
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Ubuntu_Serv ... e_easy_way
You can use this for the 32 BIT version of Ubuntu, too. I find it easier to do the install from another PC. I use Windows and a program called Putty. Then I copy the commands from the WIKI page and paste (right click) into Putty (http://www.putty.org/).
Your camera is ONVIF capable so you should be able to use Zoneminder to scan for camera settings. If not, we can try to help you...

bb

[chevelle67]

bb, thanks for the info and I did exactly what you recommended, and the putty suggestion was great! One question so far, what should I use as a browser for this minimal setup?

[bbunge]

bb, thanks for the info and I did exactly what you recommended, and the putty suggestion was great! One question so far, what should I use as a browser for this minimal setup?

Whatever you want to use. Firefox and Chrome both work. Microsoft Edge seems to be OK.

[chevelle67]

Had trouble launching it from the terminal. So I then figured it was not installed and I ran the command to install firefox and then I got an error that said gdk_backend problem maybe I missed installing a base package? This is my only issue so far.

[bbunge]

Had trouble launching it from the terminal. So I then figured it was not installed and I ran the command to install firefox and then I got an error that said gdk_backend problem maybe I missed installing a base package? This is my only issue so far.

No, you can't run Firefox or most other web browsers without a GUI or desktop version. Use another PC to view.configure Zoneminder.

[chevelle67]

Thank You.
So I ended up with Debian 8 but with no GUI at all, and I was able to launch ZoneMinder from another PC using hostname@"my IP"/zm I ended up guessing at this path/connection string after a few failed try's I need a book on Linux for dummies, but I am happy I got this far! Still waiting for my Amazon orders to ship with my new camera to test this out.

I did notice some issues though during the wiki installation setup and I actually had to then follow and load from the other one bellow for what ever reasons but it looks like its working so far.

https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Debian_8_64 ... e_Easy_Way
http://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... ebian.html


I did not do this:
Note: you may want to set MySQL to use innodb_file_per_table.
I did not do this:
Optional: Install Cambozola

[chevelle67]

Update: I got the camera now working <for camera details see the Amazon link in my earlier post> and initially I did struggle but I finally got it working using Ffmpeg. After I also was able to get it working using the Preset option for H.264 as a Foscam FI8620 type initially this would have been the best way to start.

Question was (now solved), after a while the watch window went BLUE and has stayed all blue now no picture and I am not sure why? Load now is 1.05, but goes from 1.8 and 2.0 at times the disk is at 23%. I am not recording or doing any alarms. The reason was I discovered was that I had changed Maximum FPS from 18 to nothing but placing a value in there drops my Load back to 0.2 - 0.5 range. And I think its the cameras software that is acting up because when I try and log into it through the web I am getting a half loaded interface that is hanging up and timing out even my browser and I suspect that is my problem in ZoneMinder as well. The question remains though why was it running OK before for at least 45 minutes and maybe now that the outside temperature has dropped into the low 30's F. At this point I am thinking I am going to return this camera for another one and I might even try a capture card and a analog camera at this point.

For anyone interested in the details that got me this far I am going to post some info about what I had to do and since I did not want to use the camera software like installing the stuff that came from China It may have taken me longer and I may have to eventually load their software but for now I got it working without doing so.

1. To find the cameras IP address I used ping and followed the tips here see post #11 https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel- ... twork.html
2. Then I read the camera documentation in it they show you connection strings using the cameras IP.

The pictures are what I used on the first successful connection but when I used Presets the Source Path was:
rtsp://<username>:<pwd>@<ip-address>:554/11

[bbunge]

Lower your resolution and try again. 640x360 If you get a blue screen again use VLC to view the image from the camera - Tools, Media Information.
remove values from Analysis FPS and Maximum FPS
set reference image blend and almrefimageblend to the same value 6.25%

[chevelle67]

I made the changes thank you for the tips; I also had to re-boot the camera, not sure why I did not think of this sooner. With those FPS text box's empty the Watch window now shows about 12.0 fps and the load is 0.48 - 0.62.

Update:
I started testing in Modect, and I must say I am very impressed with this system and how it organizes the motion detection events in a nice user friendly interface my hats off to the developers! My system load is now at 0.87 I am thinking this means my CPU is almost maxed out? Edit: user doc says A load of 1.0 means the processor has “just enough to do right now”.
http://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/stable/faq.html

[bbunge]

Set the FPS in the camera down to 5 FPS. You seldom need more than that for most systems. Under The Config tab uncheck CREATE_ANALYSIS_IMAGES.