USING ZONEMINDER WITH DVR DEVICES

indianbrothers · Post by **indianbrothers** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:56 pm

hi,
iam intereseted to know whether Zoneminder can be used with one or more DVR BOXES/DEVICES? i.e., instead of using Capturecard..can we use DVR BOXES?

(Pls Note: iam having three retail stores connected with three different DVR BOXES from different manufacturers. iam intereseted in connecting all the three DVR DEVICES under one roof with Zoneminder)

waiting for valuable reply...

Cheers,
Anantha

coke · Post by **coke** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:08 pm

Do the DVR's have seperate outputs for every channel? If the boxes have to continue exist, you need to have this. If you can just replace them, get capture cards for your zoneminder machine.

indianbrothers · Post by **indianbrothers** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:26 am

hi ck,
thnx 4 ur reply, yes the DVR box (COLOSSUS Pro DVR) has individual input for all analog camera (16 camera in this sense), i cud view using their client software- HCNet Client.,

Manual of COLOSSUS Pro DVR (http://www.digitalvideos.co.uk/support/ ... Manual.pdf)

Any help will be appreciated,

Cheers,
Anantha

indianbrothers · Post by **indianbrothers** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:32 am

"Pls read as Individual Input and Output"

coke · Post by **coke** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:36 pm

From the manual, "Support 2-ch synchronous playback. Support play forward, backward, pause, frame by
frame, etc." This indicates to me that if you have more than 2 cameras, it's not going to stream more than 2 at once over the web interface.

I didn't read far enough to find out how it streams, though I'd assume it involves an OCX and wouldn't work anyway, but if it only supports 2 at a time, that's going to be a problem.

If the camera has outputs for each input, you could run those outputs into a capture card on a local zoneminder box. That's probably your best bet. Not sure what this would do to video quality (test it with 1), but you can probably split the incoming video, so it goes both to the DVR and your zoneminder box's capture card.

Figure out how many cameras each DVR currently has plugged into it, and someone here (not me, I do IP cams) can tell you which capture cards you'll want. You'll need a ZM box per site.

If your PDF viewer's find feature is more cooperative than mine, see if you can find MJPEG or MPEG4 (ideally the former) for streaming options. See if you can view an individual camera stream in firefox.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:56 pm

out of interest whats wrong with th eunits you have? And what are you trying to gain with zm?

If you can pm me the access details to one ill have a look.

James

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