Whats the Best OS to use on PC for DVR?

[drnick 0]

Hey folks,

 

I have 2 BNC cameras that are installed frrm a previous DVR system (the DVR broke a while ago).

I'm trying to build a new computer to hook these cameras up to, I may add 1 or 2 more IP cameras, but that would be down the road.

 

I'm looking to buy a reasonably priced PCI or pci express capture card to put in a computer any suggestions on what I should look for in a card? or more importantly, which ones to avoid? I want to be able to remote into the camera system to check on it, our last dvr box sucked... even before it broke. it took forever to do anything. how powerful of a computer should I be building? I have a pentium D lieing around I could reuse. give it a 2TB hard drive and 4 GB ram, should that work? or is that overkill? (could i use an Atom of fusion based computer?)

 

Software: is there any good open source software? if not, any suggestions on something thats simple to use yet powerful? the main feature im looking for is motion detection.. so we dont' have hours of useless video footage to sift through if something were to happen. I was trying to find something that maybe has an all inclusive operating system and camera software in the same ISO. We run a linux based Trixbox phone system and this was very simple to install because of this....but im not a linux guy at all. I could build a windows 7 computer if its easier to find software. whats the best way to go with this?

 

I'd appreciate any help i can get with this, bottom line, I just want something that works without spending a ton of money. I own a computer repair shop so the computer parts itself I probably already have lieing around my shop. (with the exception of the capture card) I just need to knwo how powerful of a computer I need and what software to use.

 

thanks in advance for any help!

 

Nick

[Soundy 1]

The first thing you should be looking for is software that fulfills your needs... THEN consider the hardware (most "better" software will work only with its own capture cards) and OS (most will work on WinXP, some with Linux, a few with both).

 

Hardware requirements should not be extreme - I have systems in the field running on embedded XP on a basic P4/2GHz/1GB RAM that have been happily chugging away for 5+ years, some of them with up to 16 cameras. You can build something really wigged out, but it's really not necessary.

[drnick 0]

Thanks for the info. Any suggestions as to where to check out some DVR software? or a certian software you could personally recommend? my needs are pretty basic, just need it to record video when motion is detected on the cameras. and it needs to work with my 2 BNC cameras and and additional IP camera or 2. I'd also like to check the cameras remotely.

[TinAU 0]

Hi drnic,

 

I use Motion (just google for 'motion lavrsen' and it should come up as the first link). It's an open source project which runs on linux. Several linux distros have packages available so installing is not too complicated. I bought a 25 dollar dvr card on ebay which has been working fine with 3 BNC cameras. Motion also works well with IP cameras.

 

Another open source option is ZoneMinder, it has a better web interface than Motion but I found that Motion does better motion detection.