[hackerspaces] Webcam setups, for security and community?
ma...@redecho.org
this list and have found it difficult to search through the archives.
I am affiliated with Air Light Time & Space here in Seattle. We want to
set up some webcams, both as a security measure and as a way of promoting
community engagement. We think that people will be more likely to "just
stop by" if they can check in first and see what to expect.
Commercial security camera systems look complicated and expensive. We were
thinking that we could get a bunch of cheap USB webcams and plug them into
a cheap PC and run some free software on it. Of course none of us actually
know how to do this, which is why I am asking for advice.
Have any of you set up such a system? Can you give me any pointers on
hardware or software that I should look into? What is the state of Linux
camera drivers - are there certain models which should be favored or
avoided? Is there such a thing as a weatherproof USB webcam? How far can
you stretch a USB connection? (It'd be cool to put a camera over the front
door, but that's a good 80 feet from where the PC would live.) Video
would be great, but we would be happy with still frames.
Thanks for any pointers you can offer!
Mars Saxman @ ALTSpace
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Will Bradley
length of about 20 feet, but IP cams can end up being more expensive
than a closed-circuit system. Check out live.heatsynclabs.org to see
what I've done with two $100 webcams from Amazon, but be warned it
isn't easy to set up.
As you know, hackerspaces are more about tinkering and doing things
yourself versus simply purchasing a plug-n-play solution; this might
not be what your museum wants and so the hackerspaces mailing list
likely isn't the right place for you. Especially because this list is
more for discussing national hackerspace things, not necessarily our
personal projects. At the very least, find your local hackerspace on
hackerspaces.org and talk with them; but I suspect you should start by
contacting a local security camera installer unless you really want to
get your hands dirty.
Chris Hardee
Pierre Emeriaud
It looks like a quite complete CCTV linux solution, however I never
had the time to set it up, so I can't speak about ease of install/use.
-Pierre.
Chris Hardee
Christopher J. Pilkington
> As you know, hackerspaces are more about tinkering and doing things
> yourself versus simply purchasing a plug-n-play solution; this might
> not be what your museum wants and so the hackerspaces mailing list
> likely isn't the right place for you. Especially because this list is
> more for discussing national hackerspace things, not necessarily our
> personal projects. At the very least, find your local hackerspace on
> hackerspaces.org and talk with them; but I suspect you should start by
> contacting a local security camera installer unless you really want to
> get your hands dirty.
Being that Mars is from the local hackerspace, I don't see what sense
this makes. Museum? Huh?
Being a general Hackerspace discussion list, asking for help with a
hackerspace project sounds about as on-topic as they come.
I'm interested in this thread, please don't attempt to exclude it.
-cjp
Joe Ferguson
- Joe Ferguson
http://www.midsouthmakers.org
Will Bradley
bad! Props on having an Air and Space hackerspace!
Heres my amends, the script source for extracting snapshots from an IP
cam that requires a password. A hootoo brand webcam (or anything that
looks similar to it, they're all from Tenvis) is what this code is
based on. For other brands you might need to find the equivalent of
their snapshot.cgi -- Camera9 is also beta code for dealing with
motion jpeg.
http://live.heatsynclabs.org/snapshot.php.txt
See the frontend HTML at live.heatsynclabs.org
ma...@redecho.org
> bad! Props on having an Air and Space hackerspace!
Oh, I see, you were thinking of something like the Smithsonian "Air &
Space Museum". Alas, we're not so cool as all that - it's "space" as in
"work space" or "meeting space", not "outer space." The name is actually a
reference to a Bukowski poem about making art.
<http://www.airlighttimespace.org/>
In any case, yes, we are definitely intending to get our hands dirty with
this project! Unfortunately none of us have any particular experience with
webcams, thus my inquiry here.
-Mars
Ben Brown
in the hall. I had tried to get zoneminder to play ball (along with some
regular USB webcams) but no dice. For now we're using the DVR software
the cameras came with. Seems to work well enough, plus we have two weeks
of motion-detected video if we ever need it.
However you'll never beat the quality of a commercial surveillance
system... expensive as hell, but you do get what you pay for.
Ben
Mars brown
Didn't have any issues... and used a wide variety of cams/quality of cams w good results.
I just did some desoldering on an old motherboard to get some usb female sockets (or the female socket to extension wire for the motherboard to case front usb socket - that make any sense?) and use twisted pairs from the cat5.
I've run up to 3 seperate cams at once this way with success. worth a shot since it's practically free.
I did it for an event series for a university astro observatory to promote a few years ago.
just a thought. btw... neat to see someone else go by the name/moniker 'mars'. :)
legal name? Dont answer that. anyhow good luck.
- mars (from NOLA)
ps for security - there's lots of good mobile applications to monitor webcams on the cheap.
The Doctor
Hash: SHA1
On 11/03/2011 01:57 PM, Christopher J. Pilkington wrote:
> Being a general Hackerspace discussion list, asking for help with
> a hackerspace project sounds about as on-topic as they come.
>
> I'm interested in this thread, please don't attempt to exclude it.
This just showed up on the HacDC Blabber mailing list:
http://moofi.woot.com/moofi/rollinrollinrollin
- --
The Doctor [412/724/301/703]
PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/
"Excuse us, we have to go on a secret mission now!" --Kurt Harland,
20080105
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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psy...@alphaonelabs.com
Nathaniel Bezanson
> you stretch a USB connection? (It'd be cool to put a camera over the front
> door, but that's a good 80 feet from where the PC would live.) Video
You can probably stuff a USB webcam into an outdoor enclosure, but they're
generally not built to cope with freezing temperatures. Shouldn't be a
problem, though, and for a few bucks it might be worth a try.
You definitely can't make a single USB link go 80 feet, but plugging
active extension cables (basically 1-port hubs) together can probably get
you there no problem. Funny thing is, 4-port hubs are actually cheaper, so
just get a handful of those and some longass cables for in between.
Another option is a USB-over-IP device server. Most of these products
specifically exclude isochronous frames (the type of USB message used by
webcams and audio devices), but I've found that the IOGear GUIP-201 does
handle them, and handles them well. The pricetag on such a gizmo is
nontrivial, but it should work with any device you plug into it.
You're probably better off just using a regular NTSC camera, which are
trivially available in all manner of outdoor-rated designs. If you already
have a box of cat-5 and would rather not invest in a box of coax too,
simply run twisted-pair to the camera, and use a pair of video baluns to
transform the signal at either end. I've had surprisingly good luck with
the cheapies from DealExtreme. Bonus: Signal fits on one pair. Use two
more pairs for power. That leaves a spare pair for whatever you can dream
up.
Choice of video-capture device is largely a question of drivers, just like
choice of webcam. Pick a model that's well-supported in all the OSes you
might run on the capture station. I can't tell you how many
perfectly-functional webcams I have relegated to the scrap bin because
they're "obsolete" and unsupported.
One other option is a native IP camera. Getting live video from one may be
an exercise in frustration (codec what?), but pulling still frames is
generally pretty easy, and used models are affordable. Software is really
the sticking point here, so do your homework before buying anything. I'd
investigate the Ubiquiti AirCam, since it's all standard protocols (the
official live viewer is just VLC, for instance) and quite cheap.
Ultimately, your software/server goon will have more to say on the
subject. Good luck!
-Nathaniel-
Peter Smith
USB cameras very easily. It doesn't have lots of bells-n-whistles or
an overly "finished" look, but it can get the job done with very
little horsepower. Set up an Apache server at the spot where it dumps
its pictures and/or videos for really easy access. On the intertoobs
there's PHP scripts and what-not to make it a bit more fancy.
Regardless, it works well. You can assign arbitrary TCP ports to cams
for a pseudo-webserver-like camera image access too. The NTSC capture
cards are usually pretty well supported under Linux and are *very*
inexpensive, so that's a pretty decent way to go as well.
P
Charlie X Wallace
trying various cameras on our pick and place machine and I use an active
cable for development, half the cameras appear as a device but don't
transfer video.
There are a bunch of waterproof usb bullet cameras. most of them are low
res/quality
ebay as always is a good source
Mars
But how important is it this project? I'd say webcams one the ubercheap and wired netcams from eBay... I got a bunch - well a few- of 2003 dlink net webcams and I think they have wee wittle net servers built in... Or at least some minimal http interface. A little research and ya might find some ancient netcams that can be refirmwareloaded w some open Linux based stuffamagoo.
Dunno... Just thoughts.
Sent from my iPhone
Arclight
Linksys web cams at for off-site storage. It gets FTP updates whenever
one of the cameras detects motion, then stitches the frames together
into a flash player.
He says he'll open-source it if there is interest. He just doesn't
have time to maintain it.
Anyone interested in a first world-wide hackerspace infrastructure project
Regarding security and monitoring who is there, I think the best
approach is to combine a hardware-based access/alarm board with a
Linux server that monitors and ties in with video. Being able to see
who came/went, status of all of the doors (did someone leave the front
door unlocked?) and having an IP-based alarm system that you don't
have to pay for (we use an SMS call-out list) really gives you the
best of all worlds. Sensors and embedded hardware for real-time
operations, and video for auditing, verification of alarms, and
general "what's going on?" questions.
Anyone want to work on video software?
Arclight
Yigit Ozkan
thanks!
happy hacking
y
~Yigit OZKAN
“The best thing about music is that when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
b.m.
Arclight
year. It's a server back-end that manages the files uploaded by
Linksys and other FTP-enabled webcams. It sorts the incoming files,
and then assembles them into a flash movie with sliders and time
markers.
Check out:
http://observer3.com/observer3_20111107.tar.gz
http://observer3.com/observer3_ftpd_20111107.tar.gz
You can see a demo here:
He's recently open-sourced it as a public domain work, and does not
intend to maintain it any more. Anyone interested in working on
improvements/integration with security and access systems?
Arclight
23b Shop
On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Mars <itcamef...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yigit Ozkan
happy hacking
y
Arclight
Here you go:
http://observer3.com/observer3_20111107.tar.gz
http://observer3.com/observer3_ftpd_20111107.tar.gz
Download the stuff,, and feel free to set up a Google Code site or whatever.
Arclight
23b Shop
Eric Stein
There is a video of the presentation and some further links (to the github and the installation) on my blog here:
http://cons.truct.org/archives/lidless-chipy.html
Eric