article in Tech
linux-unix-and-friends
Linux CCTV and security - watchdog for the geeks.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about how to do CCTV on the linux platform. I want something to secure my house as well as my office. It is important to me that such a system be as open as possible so that I may add features to it when need be. So... the best possible solution would have to be an open source CCTV solution based upon the linux OS. 
Gee... you didn't see that coming?!
First lets look at what is out there now in terms of CCTV for linux:
ZoneMinder
uFoscam: 2 Way Audio and Video Record
More to come soon!
Cameras
So I've been looking around. I really like the idea of PoE cameras, I mean that allow the best of everything, you can get your video and audio, and send any sort of data back to the camera. Which opens all sorts of new possibilities. Many of the cameras include alarm and I/O lines so that you can interface the camera to controls right next to the camera... very cool.
Anyways at this time, I'm not sure where the best source for PoE cameras are. Axis looks very promising, they seem to be the best known network camera makers. The AXIS211A looks very cool, it is an indoor/outdoor with intercom cap. and controls. However, there are other people in this area... more research is needed.
I like the idea of Elphel,Inc they develop open source cameras that include FPGAs onboard. This would allow you to implement some custom image processing in hardware... very nice. However, I think this would require much more time to get it to market.. since it seems to be something I'd have to hack up.
Some companies I've researched:
CCTV dynamics
Enabling Support for Your Bt8x8 Hardware in Linux
tibit.org รข?? Linux Video Hacks
Fedora and zoneminder
My latest machine is a Fedora 7 distro. So I thought I'd give it a try for CCTV. To install I used Fedora Core 6 Step-by-Step
Theres also chatter in Fedora ZoneminderWiki
# make sure you've got these rpms installed.
yum install mysql-server mysql-devel php-mysql pcre-devel perl-DateManip perl-libwww-perl perl-Device-SerialPort perl-MIME-Lite perl-Archive-Zip
#download and build zoneminder.
wget http://www.zoneminder.com/downloads/ZoneMinder-1.22.3.tar.gz
tar xvfz ZoneMinder-1.22.3.tar.gz
cd ZoneMinder-1.22.3
./configure --with-mysql=/usr --with-webdir=/var/www/html/zm --with-cgidir=/var/www/cgi-bin --with-ffmpeg=/usr/bin --with-lame=/usr/lib --with-webuser=apache --with-webgroup=apache
make
make install
#install service
install scripts/zm /etc/init.d/
chkconfig --add zm
chkconfig --level 345 zm on
#setup mysql
mysql mysql < db/zm_create.sql
mysql mysql
grant select,insert,update,delete on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';
quit
mysqladmin reload
service zm start
v4l2 driver FAQ
Enabling Support for Your Bt8x8 Hardware in Linux
Quick I want to see video from my capture card
xawtv -hwscan
xawtv -device /dev/video0
Created: 2006-03-07 12:19:41
Modified: 2014-09-06 18:14:52
