Anyone have a cctv surveilance system running with sage?

[toony]

Just curious, sometime in the near future I am going to be adding a cctv system on my house. I plan on using the same server as sage is on.
It will consist of about 6-8 cameras and I will be using some capture/monitoring software, not sure which one though.

Anyhoo, I am curious if anyone has this running with sage. I don't want sage recording as I assume the cctv software will do this, but it would be nice if sage could pick up the feeds so I could switch to a channel and view the camera feeds, such as in apartment buildings where the tenant can switch to a specific channel to see who is in the lobby.

I plan on using wired IP cameras. and I am running WHS.

Cheers

[CollinR]

I do but all of mine is analog, unless you have quite a bit of $ to throw at this or you want little coverage I would highly suggest you consider analog BW or true 24 hour domes. Steer clear of cameras with IR LEDs on them, most problems in solution. I have a DVR (in a seperate 4U machine) I also suggest you have the DVR/NVR seperate from SageTV. My DVR provides a baseband mux output adjustable dwell and a quad processor. These go to Composite_1 and Composite_2 on both of my PVR500s. It also has digital IO and some basic logic building.

D1 and VGA are basically the same so unless you go megapixel (I have 2 of those too) you don't get that much more bang but it costs several more bucks.

I am a CCTV dealer in OK.

[Apap]

I have a simple 4 camera system on an old Athlon XP system not integrated with Sage. I didn't want to integrate it into the Sage server because it does eat processor cycles(pegs the XP2500) but it doesn't eat much disk space.
I did split the video output for the front door camera and feed it into a PVR 150 set to channel 1 in the program guide so we can easily check the front door if the doorbell rings.

[toony]

Originally Posted by CollinR

I do but all of mine is analog, unless you have quite a bit of $ to throw at this or you want little coverage I would highly suggest you consider analog BW or true 24 hour domes. Steer clear of cameras with IR LEDs on them, most problems in solution. I have a DVR (in a seperate 4U machine) I also suggest you have the DVR/NVR seperate from SageTV. My DVR provides a baseband mux output adjustable dwell and a quad processor. These go to Composite_1 and Composite_2 on both of my PVR500s. It also has digital IO and some basic logic building.

D1 and VGA are basically the same so unless you go megapixel (I have 2 of those too) you don't get that much more bang but it costs several more bucks.

I am a CCTV dealer in OK.

My server has a quad Xeon in it, I can drop a second quad xeon as well, part of the reason I got this rig was to be able to handle the cctv as well.
I have a friend in the cctv world, so I can get ip cams at wholesale. I was thinking of night time IR cams but I can always put motion detection lights near them as well, not sure whats best. I was considering sticking with b&w as it seems the picture is crisper and clearer. Besides I don't need colour to see who is at the front door.

[toony]

Originally Posted by Apap

I have a simple 4 camera system on an old Athlon XP system not integrated with Sage. I didn't want to integrate it into the Sage server because it does eat processor cycles(pegs the XP2500) but it doesn't eat much disk space.
I did split the video output for the front door camera and feed it into a PVR 150 set to channel 1 in the program guide so we can easily check the front door if the doorbell rings.

Are you using a specific monitoring software or just the feed of the 150 into sage? I am going with IP cams as I don't want to load my server with capture cards for the cameras.

[MavRic]

So i'm on the fence here.

I'd like to get IP cams since buying analog cams in year 2010 just seems wrong. I have some spare tuners in my sage server and the server has enough power.

I would prefer to not have a separate DVR type box since that just uses more power.

Is there any sort of sage plugin that lets you go to a website/IP cam stream of some sorts?

If it's a digital video stream from the cam i shouldn't be too hard to get into the a sagetv extender right?

[wayner]

Me too on this one - is there any reliable way of getting webcams or IP cams into Sage?

I have heard of folks using a loopback setup (getting a video card with TV out and sending the computer monitor output showing webcams and/or IP cams into a SageTV tuner) and I tried broadcasting a webcam feed using VLC that I planned to watch in Sage using WebFeedEncoder but I could never make that work.

On a related note - if you had multiple analog video feeds is there a way to get Sage to send IR commands to a video switch (that has IR control) to switch amongst the inputs to save you the hassle of needing a separate tuner card for every camera? This really isn't any different than using an IR blaster connected to a cable/sat box, is it (except different IR codes)?

But couldn't you just set up Input 1 as channel 1, Input 2 as channel 2, Input 3 as channel 3 (etc), tell Sage that you have a DCT3200 and change the IR codes in the C:\Program Files\SageTV\Common\RemoteCodes\USB-UIRT Transceiver\DCT3200.ir file to match the codes required for your video switch - assuming you can find those? Or even use Sage to learn the codes?

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by wayner

I tried broadcasting a webcam feed using VLC that I planned to watch in Sage using WebFeedEncoder but I could never make that work.

This was working for some WebFeedEncoder users - stevew and Jabroni.

The main issue was that network encoder tuning time is about 20 seconds even though there is a growing mpeg file from about 5 seconds (for reasons best known to SageTV).

So if you wanna see whos at the door they're gone before the video appears.

Michael

[rizzo]

To answer your original question (without getting into a CCTV which is better type discussion) Yes. I am doing exactly what you're doing.

WHS and Sage 7 with lots of plugins...and a 16 camera DVR PCI card (and it's accompanying software)

The card I use is the Eyemax DVB-9120. It works, but there are a couple of things to remember - these systems were meant to be run on their OWN computer with really nothing else. I use Sage as a service so it's not too bad, but the DVR software likes to take control of the entire desktop/Windows UI, etc. Most of the programs like to completely hide any evidence that they are running on windows, so it can be a pain trying to exit out of the CCTV application to do anything at all with the rest of windows/sage/etc.

It does work, but it's not real pretty. You will need plenty of horsepower to keep up with all that realtime encoding. I have found that I can't really use placeshifter when the CCTV application is running. Too much stress trying to re-encode HDTV on the fly to send it over the net while 4 cameras are running at the same time.

One neat thing I did do, though is hot-wire the VIDEO OUT from the DVR card to a VIDEO IN on one of my Hauppauge PCI tuner cards and set it up as Channel 1 on the Program guide. That way if the doorbell rang and I was watching TV, all I had to do is flip over to channel 1 and see who was at the door! Pretty cool

[Polypro]

My Sage Server is under the TV...meaning it is also the Client. While I can understand wanting Sage to do *everything*, in this case, you may want to re-think. I built my server in 2007 with a C2D E6600 and 2Gigs of RAM. I run Blue Iris Surveillance Software in the background and output the (currently) 4 cameras to a 21" LCD that sits next to the 52" Sharp. I'm running a Panasonic PoE, 2 Linksys 802.11N WVC 80s, and a MS 720p Webcam just fine. IMO, the camera images should be a glance away, not a few clicks.

Blue Iris: http://blueirissoftware.com/3.html

P

[mr_lore]

I have a 4 camera analog system that first goes to a multiplexer and then I use the pass through of the front door cam as one analog channel on sage and then the combined output (set to cycle all 4 cameras) of the multiplexer as a second channel.

I usually don't record anything, only when I am away on vacation I will set it to record.

[MavRic]

So clearly the external DVR type solution with the output connected to the input of a tuner which then becomes a channel in Sage is the easiest solution.

It just seems that for example a HD200 or HD300 is essentially a network media player and the IP cams put video streams on the network...there has got to be a way to take advantage of that.

Maybe some of the Sage writers can chime in on the possibilities.

[Polypro]

In my case, I would designate the Blue Iris storage folder as a Sage Import Directory...the software records to either xvid or wmv. But then what do you do, set your directory scans for 1 minute? That's even too late 'when it's real'. If you run an analog signal to a capture card, how is your motion detection handled, and alerting? and evidence recording?...and Sage is delayed by a few seconds as it encodes. A Sage solution is good for the nice delivery man waiting at the door for 2 minutes...not so good for the goblin that goes through the sliding glass door in seconds...IMO.

P