Zoneminder for a linux based home security DVR system
This is filed under security, but a slightly different angle than the usual computer security articles. I just ran across a link I’ve kept to Zoneminder. Zoneminder is a neat linux application to help you setup your very own DVR (digital video recorder) for a security camera type (CCTV ?) setup. I originally came across the page by way of a livecd that uses the mklivecd tools that I was working with for a couple projects. Typically a CCTV type security camera system can involve some expensive software for the monitoring of cameras.
Let me just give their overview from their homepage…
Welcome to ZoneMinder.com, home of ZoneMinder the top Linux video camera security and surveillance solution. ZoneMinder is intended for use in single or multi-camera video security applications, including commercial or home cctv, theft prevention and child or family member or home monitoring and other care scenarios. It supports capture, analysis, recording, and monitoring of video data coming from one or more video or network cameras attached to a Linux system. ZoneMinder also support web and semi-automatic control of Pan/Tilt/Zoom cameras using a variety of protocols. It is suitable for use as a home video security system and for commercial or professional video security and surveillance.
It supports IP/network webcams as well as a variety of USB webcams (including most every recent Axis camera) and a variety of capture cards. (I imagine it should be pretty much what V4L supports.) Of course, as I alluded to above, there’s also a livecd that will boot/install a fairly well configured, Mandrake (Mandriva) system for camera monitoring.
It looks as though there are some fairly good motion monitoring/detection/analysis features included as well as the basic record to disc capabilities. It also has a web frontend if your machine is web-accessible. Version 1.21.4 was released November 11th, which gives some interesting activity related graphing (events are marked on a bar graph timeline mousing over the events display images… sounds useful and neat. Also the ability to stream over https:// is now a possibility.) If/when I have a few webcams to play with and a spare pc….. I’m definitely going to give this a try.