kaon 0 Posted June 3, 2009 Some IP cameras (like D-Link) support recording directly into shared storage space. i.e. There is no NVR / DVR software. What does everyone think? Pros: - avoids cost of NVR software and operating systems - NAS boxes are cheaper than PC's - less complicated, more reliable Cons: - Lacks advanced capabilities of NVR.. which are? - some software still needed to do multi-cam-playback, video search? It seems attractive to me. Or are there other major disadvantages? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sawbones 0 Posted June 3, 2009 I did this via FTP for a while with an Axis camera server and a SAMBA server... The directory was literally filled up with thousands upon thousands of individual JPEGs. The directory got so large that any attempt to browse it (explorer in windows) would literally choke/die/crash when you tried to open the folder. I've never tried it with a megapixel IP camera... but imagine how painful browsing that directory would be. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Monitor Your Assets 0 Posted June 3, 2009 This is a feature of Mobotix cameras - they are able to write to NFS or Windows shares, in addition to FTP. The folder structure is split into events where an event is a directory (integer) which may contain JPGs with or without a MxPEG video clip (with audio) - it's completely configurable. To view it, you can use their free Windows software and connect to share which will interpret and present the events. This allows customers to leverage existing Windows or NFS shares. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jhonovich 0 Posted June 3, 2009 Hi Kaon, I agree with your breakdown of the pro and cons of this approach. I would add that this is best for smaller camera counts. The other element is that very few manufacturers support this in their VMS offerings (D-Link and Mobotix being 2 of the exceptions). If you find a manufacturer that you like that supports this, it can be a very economical way of deploying an IP system. Best, John Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kaon 0 Posted September 18, 2009 I did this via FTP for a while with an Axis camera server and a SAMBA server... The directory was literally filled up with thousands upon thousands of individual JPEGs. The directory got so large that any attempt to browse it (explorer in windows) would literally choke/die/crash when you tried to open the folder. I've never tried it with a megapixel IP camera... but imagine how painful browsing that directory would be. The D-Links I tested could be configured to save video lengths at maximum of like 1 minute. So you do end up with many short files, though not as extreme as in your case. Since it would create folders for each day. I have not found anything better. Mobotix is too costly, D-Link is too buggy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cglaeser 0 Posted September 18, 2009 I did this via FTP for a while with an Axis camera server and a SAMBA server... The directory was literally filled up with thousands upon thousands of individual JPEGs. The latest Axis firmware fixed this problem by supporting ftp folder creation. The folder names are very flexible, and can be based on features such as date and time in various formats. I set it up to create a new folder each day. Works very well. Best, Christopher Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thewireguys 3 Posted September 18, 2009 Mobotix does this very well. They designed there system from the ground up to do this with there own codec. I forget all the techno mumbo jumbo but they write to the hard drive differently which makes things very efficient unlike using a Axis camera to FTP so a server. Also you don't even need a NAS or shared folder if you use a SD card and you don't need long term storage. They can support 32 sd cards now which is more then enough for most small business and residential setups. Also all of the cameras have a internal ring buffer so if the storage location becomes unavailable the camera will automatically storage the images in internal memory until the storage location comes back on line.... Perfect for WAN and wireless connections. I now have a M12 and a Q24 which I plan to test every feature possible ( gonna take forever) but it will be worth it. Right now I have both cameras recording to 2 internal 4 gig SD cards and it works perfect. To the person that said Mobotix cameras are to expensive you are correct if you look at them just as cameras but they are not. Mobotix cameras can do things that no other camera manufacture can. They are a state of the art integrated security system with one of the best images out there. You can scale there system from one to thousands of cameras, add VOIP capabilities, logic built in to cameras and you have a very powerful distributed security system. Just to give you guys an idea the M12 comes with 2 manuals one is 92 pages and the other one is 288 pages. These are just for the camera nothing to do with MxControlcenter. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ugolog 0 Posted September 22, 2009 I did this via FTP for a while with an Axis camera server and a SAMBA server... The directory was literally filled up with thousands upon thousands of individual JPEGs. The latest Axis firmware fixed this problem by supporting ftp folder creation. The folder names are very flexible, and can be based on features such as date and time in various formats. There still will be a problem of navigating through thousands of files. Your options could be - Creating a batch job to encode individual frames to AVI or FLV with ffmpeg - FTP directly to "Internet DVR" like ugolog.com or uguardu.com, both provide decent playback options for snapshots Alexander Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thewireguys 3 Posted September 22, 2009 I did this via FTP for a while with an Axis camera server and a SAMBA server... The directory was literally filled up with thousands upon thousands of individual JPEGs. The latest Axis firmware fixed this problem by supporting ftp folder creation. The folder names are very flexible, and can be based on features such as date and time in various formats. There still will be a problem of navigating through thousands of files. Your options could be - Creating a batch job to encode individual frames to AVI or FLV with ffmpeg - FTP directly to "Internet DVR" like ugolog.com or uguardu.com, both provide decent playback options for snapshots Alexander How do you get around bandwidth caps from ISPs? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zmxtech 0 Posted September 24, 2009 most good software will create folders on the fly with the month or day etc. I like using motion detection it cuts down on the amount of 'nothing pics' -But its still a good idea to have an overview camera that records 24x7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
