"Always ask an expert" - Time Lapse Digital Recording

[GarethOnline 0]

Really basic question. All I need is a stand alone unit, with time lapse capability, and a start/stop timer (0700 to 1900).

 

On a tight budget... what do I want? I've no idea where to even start the search.

 

Thank you for taking the time,

Gareth Webb

[Soundy 1]

By "time lapse capability", do you mean constant (vs. motion-activated) recording?

 

The other feature you're talking about is generally called "scheduled recording" - a number of systems have it.

[GarethOnline 0]

Yes, constant time lapse digital capture. What would be an entry level 'no frills' brand to look at? Or what keywords, in a google search, should I use to identify the basic/low-budget models?

 

Thanks again,

Gareth.

[GarethOnline 0]

Looking further I can find time lapse standalone DVRs, and I can find scheduled standalone DVRs... But both in one?

 

Not yet.

[Soundy 1]

There are lots of options out there... although I deal mostly with higher-end PC systems, so I'm not familiar with them, but there are plenty of others here who can give you some specific suggestions.

 

Lots of additional questions, though:

How many channels do you need?

What resolution do you need?

What framerates?

How long do you need to store video for?

Do you need remote viewing?

Do you need to export to flash or CD/DVD?

 

By "time lapse" do you mean you want to record stills at particular time intervals? This is a standard function in almost all units; scheduled recording is less universal, but still fairly common.

 

A little more detail as to exactly what you're trying to do would help us narrow down the suggestions.

[GarethOnline 0]

Well, I have come to the cctv community to solve a non-security related video problem. I'll answer your questions first, then the rest will become clear.

 

How many channels do you need? 1 to 4

What resolution do you need? best we can afford

What framerates? ideally 25 fps PAL

How long do you need to store video for? not long, maybe a month at a time

Do you need remote viewing? no

Do you need to export to flash or CD/DVD? yes

 

Believe it or not, we are a bespoke furniture company in the process of improving our web presence. What we need to end up with is a 2 to 4 minute video file of the week's activity in the workshop for regular upload. If an excess of time is required to edit etc the project loses its financial viability.

 

Hence: solution.

= Hands off scheduled recording unit, standalone not PC.

= Time lapse capture.

= Ask cctv experts what our best option might be.

 

I'm not sure how often you get asked questions that relate to a marketing drive, but it comes down to a fundamental hardware question. Can the available hardware serve the purpose of the business. As for cameras and wiring (or wireless), it's the output format that matters here, and we'll look at getting whatever is most compatible with the DVR unit.

 

I hope that makes the question easier to answer, not more confusing.

 

Kind regards,

Gareth.

[Soundy 1]

That actually helps a lot, and in fact, opens up some other options you might consider.

 

For example: you might find it more efficient to use a camera (or cameras) that records internally, to flash memory - the card (usually SD) could then be taken to a computer to offload the video. Or consider a network camera that could be directly accessed by the web developer. If you do the web updates in-house, you could even set up your main PC as a basic NVR (network video recorder - many IP cameras include their own free software), and record directly onto the computer that you'll be using to process the video. Since you need the video to end up on a computer eventually, this would make that path more direct, and cut down the equipment count.

 

For web use, you're probably looking at keeping the video to CIF (352x240); although VGA (640x480) or 4CIF (704x480) would be doable, it's usually a good idea to keep the stream size down, not just for more efficient viewing, but to minimize your bandwidth. You can also limit framerate to 15fps and few people would even notice the difference.

 

Are you planning to covert the video into Flash, similar to YouTube? Or post it in Quicktime, WMV, or other streaming format?

 

If you really wanted to geek out, you could display a live "shopcam" on your website - no editing or ongoing maintenance required.

[GarethOnline 0]

The correct flavour of geekery is certainly the order of the day, and here's my thinking so far:

 

1) Periodic camera capture = good. No scheduling capability = bad. Hence, requires editing to cut out night time = bad.

2) PC DVR flexibility = good. Scheduling start/stop before and after people are around = bad (requires 0% off or standby time)

3) Direct stream = double bad. A/ The moment by moment ups and downs of a project are none of a clients' business; B/ Would be streaming clients if they visit the workshop (they like their privacy); C/ The point is YouTube, and a punchy attractive 2.4 minute clip that shows a flurry of activity hits all the right buttons.

 

We are indeed looking at an in house gig. A small company trying to achieve more customer/community/social network involvement than other companies in our sector even begin to consider.

 

Points 1) and 2) are what led me to look at standalone DVRs from the sphere of cctv. To my mind it can be set up, ignored and independent, and the DVD (or whatever) can be uploaded once a week. Low fuss, tidy result. And if it costs a few hundred for the hardware it is a single cost for an ongoing boost to our presence.

 

But that is still based on a bunch of presuppositions. If standalone DVR hardware is a dumb way to proceed... ?

[Soundy 1]

Not dumb... just maybe overkill, and unnecessarily convoluted.

 

Regarding editing, you're probably going to need to do that anyway - as it is, you're looking to capture a 12-hour period and cut out a 3-4 minute piece of that to use; at that point, what's the difference of you're snipping it out of a 24-hour period?

 

Of course, either way, you could set it to record on motion, and then you wouldn't have the non-activity periods at all. I can't speak for other DVRs, but using Vigil as an example, searches show "bars" on a timeline depicting where recording occurred... with motion recording, you get a broken blue bar - anywhere there's blue, there's been video recorded. Makes it dead simple to find a contiguous chunk of activity. Vigil's well out of your price range, but that just gives you an idea of one way to do it.

 

Now here's a thought to further streamline things: if you go with an IP camera and install the NVR software on your office/webdev PC... anytime you know there's going to BE a "flurry of activity" in the shop, you can just fire up the software, let it run for a while, then shut it off when you have sufficient footage. Then you have the clip right there, ready to work with. If you only need one new clip per week, it shouldn't take long at all to get several good "candidates"... and then you don't have to sift through 60 hours of video (12 hrs * 5 days) to find it.

[rory 0]

I dont want to sound like a broken record and Im in no way trying to push sales their way but ...

Dahua DVRs do all that. In fact many standalones do scheduling and or motion.

Time lapse these days could typically be known as continuous record. or regular record - you can set the FPS per channel and hence it becomes somewhat like a Time Lapsed recording.

 

I also mentioned Dahua as although they generally use a propriety format (.dav) they also have the feature to download the video as AVI, and even with the .DAV files they have (or rather I recompiled) a simple DAV to AVI converter which can be run manually or sent commands from another program. Also their AVI files can be viewed on any system with generic H264 codecs, quick and painless also to upload to Youtube or Facebook (unlike systems like Geovision). The recorded quality is not amazing but for what you need it should be enough. IF you need higher quality video then you may need to look at an Mjpeg DVR or Megapixel IP cameras.

[Numb-nuts 1]

IF you want a timelapse camera that will play back avi video of the sequence, you could seek out the Brinno range, garden cam.

It is a megapixel camera with seven frame rate settings (one user defined) so clips like flower buds opening in one video sequence are ideal.

Type Brinno into you tube and you may find one or two timelapse cameras as well as their famous door-viewer.

 

Oh by the way it has a built in DVR saving HD onto an SD card Click here to see their website

 

You should pay around £140 typically which is about = US $225