IP Camera and Remote viewing

[renz05725 0]

I have a customer that wants to set up 2 ip cameras at his location. He wants to be able to log in with 3-5 other users at the same time and view what is going on at his location.

 

I am not sure how this works, will 2 frames per second be sufficent and not chew up his dsl bandwidth? He told me that another company had told him he would need at least 3mb of upstream off of his dsl to do this, which is basically pushing him to a t1 of internet... is this true/realistic?

 

What should i know or be looking at if i even attempt to get this project going?

 

I'm a newbie here and have found this place to be like Disney Land for newbies trying to learn...

[Soundy 1]

2fps should be fine over DSL, especially if the cameras have H.264 streaming. If the bandwidth is really limited (I know some providers limit the upstream to 128kbit), you could always push the video to a video streaming/hosting site, and the users can view it from that link instead of going direct to the cameras.

[renz05725 0]

does the amount of users logged in matter or affect bandwidth? This company has 768kbps upstream and 3mbps downstream as the speed of their dsl.

 

basically he wants to view his convienence stores in pecos, tx from dallas tx. He wants to view live video of them and see if they are working and where they are at in a given time. He wants to be able to access from where ever he is at (he is indian from india and wants access from india when he is over there). Plus he wants his gm's, local managers and himself to be all online at the same store discussing what is going on.

 

is this possible with this type of upstream at 2fps and is 2fps enough to give decent video at medium quality 320x what ever it is? No video storage is necessary, what they are really after is viewing the live footage.

 

What ip camera(s) would you recommend? Is there a way of getting these cameras linked up on one location (via internet) to be viewed as needed/wanted?

[Soundy 1]

does the amount of users logged in matter or affect bandwidth?

 

Yes, it's cumulative. If each user needs 256kbit (for example) for the stream he's watching, two users will need 512k, three will need 768k, and so on. There's not a way around that requirement, but using an off-site streaming server at least shifts the bandwidth hit to a larger pipe - then instead of the camera needing to feed each user an individual stream, all it has to do is feed a single stream to the server, and the server then feeds the needs of the multiple users.

 

is this possible with this type of upstream at 2fps and is 2fps enough to give decent video at medium quality 320x what ever it is? No video storage is necessary, what they are really after is viewing the live footage.

 

Framerate required will really depend on how much "action" he wants to see. If he wants to watch cashiers counting change out to the customers, he'll need 10-15fps or better. If he just wants to see if people are actually AT work, where in the store they are, and/or whether they're doing work or just sitting around, then 1-2fps should be fine.

 

What ip camera(s) would you recommend? Is there a way of getting these cameras linked up on one location (via internet) to be viewed as needed/wanted?

 

There are a number of different ways to do it. Again, using a single offsite streaming server is probably the easiest - then you just provide the desired users with a single website and login, and they'd connect there and select which camera they want to view - in practice, from the user's perspective, similar to looking at videos on YouTube. Sorry, I can't suggest one specifically, because I don't use one myself, but I know of others who do.

 

As to WHICH cameras, well, all I'm familiar with for IP cameras are megapixel models - getting something like that is extreme overkill if you're only going to run 320x240 video. The 1.3MP IQEye cameras I use most are 1280x1024 resolution. What might be more practical is to look at some of the PTZ IP cameras from the likes of D-Link - those are generally VGA resolution (640x480), but will allow you to control the pan, tilt and zoom remotely, so if you've got some mangers all watching the action, the owner can move the camera around to pinpoint what he wants them to see.

[renz05725 0]

how do all these daycares and adult daycares do this very thing? He actually saw this done while dropping off his dad at an adult daycare.

[Soundy 1]

how do all these daycares and adult daycares do this very thing? He actually saw this done while dropping off his dad at an adult daycare.

 

Probably something similar to what I've already described.

 

It's a little more extreme than your needs, perhaps, but take a look at Video Insight's demo page at http://www.demovi.com - that's a PC-based DVR with a web-browser-based client. It records video internally, and depending on the security settings, can allow internet users to connect and view the cameras and the recorded footage.

 

If this person's daycare facility has a surveillance system with an appropriate recorder (which is likely), chances are they've set it up in a similar fashion to allow clients to check in remotely.

[renz05725 0]

would that be a better method than going ip cameras?

[Soundy 1]

Kinda depends. If you only need a single camera per site and don't need to record things, but only view live action, it's extreme overkill and adds unneeded cost and complexity.

[renz05725 0]

Kinda depends. If you only need a single camera per site and don't need to record things, but only view live action, it's extreme overkill and adds unneeded cost and complexity.

 

are the bandwidth issues the same as logging into a dvr vs. logging into an ip camera?

[Soundy 1]

As far as outside viewing, yes, they essentially are. All the DVR is doing is providing a buffer - it's still connected to the outside world through the same pipe, and assuming it's not recompressing or in some other way changing the video, the video it spits out will require the same bandwidth.