IR Camera's??

[tian]

Hi!

First of all, excellent piece of software! :-)

Has anybody tried using IR camera's with ZM? The aim of using ZoneMinder would be to monitor during night-time as well. Since webcams don't work too well at night :-(, an IR camera set-up seems to be the only solution.

Well, my question is this, has anybody using ZoneMinder tried using some sort of IR camera setup? Does it work? What camera(s) did you use?

Thanks! And happy ZM-ing!

[zoneminder]

Hi,

I have IR cameras on my setup and they work just fine, assuming you mean normal video cameras with an IR assist for the dark. Anything that produces a regular video stream that can be captured by a BTTV card should work just fine.

Regards,

Phil,

[tian]

Hi Philip

Thanks for the quick reply :-) !

OK, I am admittedly not the most informed on video camera(surveilance) technology :-), so please don't take offence to a few not-so-smart-questions:

1.) What kind of cameras do you use, are they webcams, connected to USB ports, or "real" cameras that you connect through video capture(PCI) boards? If possible, could you mention the model numbers, as well as the capture card(s) you use? I would like to research some more and find good places to source such hardware.

2.) Can you use the same cameras for day and night, i.e. use the IR functionality only at night, and in the day, use the cameras in "normal" daylight mode?

3.) Maybe more as info to other users than a question - using "GNOKII", one can send SMS'es by using Nokia phones. This will be very handy if you are away and ZM can send you an SMS if an alarm/event is triggered. Will ZM be able to interface to "GNOKII", maybe via a text string that can be used in a Perl script?

Congrats again on ZM, a great piece of SW!

Regards
Tian

[mmartach]

Hi tian,
i am using a very cheap IR-CAM (which is designed for cars when
driving backwards). The cam has got two cables:

1. power (12V DC): i am using a small external power supply
2. video out: which is diretly connected to my standard pci tv card

The cam has two modes:
at day the cam deliveres color pictures
at night the cam switches automatically to ir mode (you will get some kind of black an white)

To get good pictures at night you need a cam with a low 'LUX' value.
Should be less than 1!

I have bought my cam via ebay for about 60 USD.

Regards
Martin

[tian]

Hi Martin

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it, sounds like a really good setup, one cam for day and night :-).