video surveillance with freebsd

Bart Silverstrim bsilver at chrononomicon.com
Sun Sep 4 08:57:20 PDT 2005


On Jun 4, 2005, at 9:07 AM, vittorio wrote:

> Alle 01:06, domenica 04 settembre 2005, nbco ha scritto:
>> On Friday 03 June 2005 23:56, vittorio wrote:
>>> The aim: with up to 4 small cameras connected to a pci board in a
>>> freebsd 5.4 box, scattered suitably around to guard, surveille a
>>> seaside resort flat *** remotely ***. The open-source software I'm
>>> looking for should: 1) manage the pci board & the cameras;
>>> 2) start,trigger a script for, e.g., a gsm connection to transmit
>>> images to a remote server via ppp  OR start an alarm *** whener a
>>> motion is detected ***.
>>>
>>> Is there any software in the ports satisfying these requirements?
>>>
>>> Ciao
>>> Vittorio
>>
>> Hhmmm I used to have a landlord like that...
>> .nbco
>
> Amusing but that isn't actually my purpose!
> Actually I was speaking of using some anti-burglar device for our  
> little
> family house house at the seaside resort placing in the garden cameras
> "sensitive" to people moving in it when my family and I are absent, 
> that is
> 10.5 months per year.
> Asking around for (anti-burglar)  alarm systems they asked me a mere 
> fortune.
> Having a spare old pentium and a much older  would like to use it for 
> the same
> purpose but a very cheap price.
> That's all!
> Any idea........?
> Vittorio

What about rigging up wireless web-cams that send info to a web page on 
the FBSD box inside the house?

I know most of them already have a built-in "notify" feature that will 
email you a warning and usually take a few minutes of video footage if 
motion is detected.

Unfortunately they cost something like $200, but it saves on having to 
rig up some other way of doing auto-notify and email as well as getting 
a reliable wiring setup.  You could set up the FBSD box to act as a 
data repository so it collects information from the cameras and then 
you go to the FBSD box for information (or have it collect and send 
info to you) in case your Internet connection to the house goes down.  
Having the cameras independent also means less chance of 
failure...i.e., if the FBSD box goes down you may still be able to set 
it up so the cameras can still work in your absence until the machine 
can be rebuilt/repaired.

-Bart



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