What is Reddit's opinion of
ZoneMinder?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
13 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
I use Zoneminder with a few cheap IP cameras (about $45 a camera).
Zoneminder runs on top of Ubuntu Linux and on a old computer I had lying around. There is a small learning curve, but I have it setup with different zones and certain cameras will email me with a picture (it can do video too) when an event happens.
Best of all, its free!
I use Blue Iris, but if I was going to make that choice again today, I wouldn't do it. I thought it was going to come with a good support forum, but it turns out the people who run it are assholes.
The next time I set up cameras, it will be with Zoneminder, probably in a VM.
> Can you suggest recommendations/links on what you've found?
This is the software I recommend: https://www.zoneminder.com/
It's standards compliant, so just search for decent cameras that are compatible. There's a wiki that should provide some insight on the best cameras to use.
It may take you a bit of time to get it configured properly for your business, I haven't actually used it before, I just know it's the one all the FOSS nerds (a group which I proudly include myself in) use.
It is enterprise-capable but also works for small installations.
> I don't get why you are being downvoted
Well, my comment was somewhat off-topic to your question. However I thought it's something important that you'd need to include in your plans so I offered it up anyway.
> I checked the blue iris site. Sorry, maybe I missed it, what exactly does this software do?
Depending on how adventurous you are, I recommend Zoneminder as a free alternative to Blue Iris. Either one are excellent IP camera surveillance management software.
Dedicated system is always better but it can be done, you have to consider ip camera compatibility though. Various VMS vendors will have a compatibility list of cameras they can connect to. You might come across systems that say ONVIF compatible keep in mind that ONVIF is a somewhat broken standard and just because a both the camera and VMS says ONVIF compatible does not mean they will talk. To name a few software based systems, if you dont mind running linux in a VM there is zoneminder, Bluecherry, than there are these ones but they are not sold direct to consumer so you have to go through a dealer Exacqvison, Acti(software license is free for there cameras), Avigilon, Milestone. Also if your not concerned about viewing with a mobile app(itleast easily) many ip cameras will allow you to record to a network storage path.
Thanks so much for your offer, very kind!
I'm using qsee QTN8031B. I'm fairly happy with the camera, however the one lacking point i found was the on camera motion detection uploads one picture per 5 seconds when motion is detected. that's not nearly good enough.
The backend i setup is zoneminder. zoneminder queries the camera and writes the JPEGs.
> [adrian@freenas /volume1/zoneminder/events/2/16/10/22/11/40/00]$ file 04792-capture.jpg
> 04792-capture.jpg: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01, aspect ratio, density 1x1, segment length 16, baseline, precision 8, 1280x720, frames 3
so that's 8 jpegs per second. Now that I have a comparison, maybe theres some setting or transcoding changes that i can setup. However zoneminder seems to work with jpegs for recording.
10 minutes worth of data is 810M. ... when i export it to a h264 avi its 290M. I'm just experimenting with handbrake now...
My friend bet me I couldn't break into his place after he got his a few years ago. I got in and took his keypad as proof.
I 2nd BiggClay on the camera & motion sensors. I suggest you find a system that doesn't lock you into a subscription service AND you can download a proven secure app like ZoneMinder.
Hey, nzhappykiwi!
Zoneminder might be what you’re looking for. It works great (when configured properly) and allows the use of third-party plugins, giving you a lot of options for customization and troubleshooting.
If this doesn’t work or you need help setting it up, feel free to give me a shout!
​
On what?
Distro?
What release?
On PC? Mobile? Pi?
​
Looking for IP camera information?
" just a little viewer application that can view up to 9 cameras" ha!
so what are they? ONVIF compliant?
ZONEMINDER
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:iconnor/zoneminder-1.32
sudo apt-get update
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Flatpak / Flathub or SNAP have an ONVIF viewer
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Most IP Cameras companies have free/ restricted software.
Milestone/ acti / axis /
i cannot more highly recommend zoneminder ... its the software that will manage run and log data from your cameras works on linux and would require ip based cams and a spare pc / server to host ... https://www.zoneminder.com/ ... plus its free and opensource ;)
Hey there, ZM dev here. When did you last try ZoneMinder? While especially true with Ubuntu, installing ZM is easier than ever. If you need any help, stop by our forum or IRC channels.
For monitoring, I use zoneminder to record and some ubiquiti aircams. Aircams can do both h264 and mjpeg up to 30fps, PoE, decent iris and view range, and you can't beat the price ($250 for 3 of them). No IR or low lux, and the PoE is not the 802.11af standard (though they bundle a injector with the purchase). The non-domes claim to be outdoor ready, but I went with Axis since I live in some very cold parts.
Zoneminder is easy to set up on your favorite linux distro (tested on both CentOS and Ubuntu) and connecting to the rtsp stream is pretty straight forward. Depending on FPS/compression that you set on the cameras (and how many you have), you will be using a lot of disk IO and storage space. I opted for RAID 0, favoring throughput over retention. Zoneminder will automatically purge older events when the threshold you set is reached (i.e. 90% disk usage). Currently running the VM on an ESXi server with no problems.
You should look into alarm systems as well. Might be more costly, but I think that it would be money well spent for a little piece of mind.
Wifi should be able to penetrate the barn floor and cinderblock (though maybe not very well). Some signals will penetrate better than others. It will depend on if you are using 802.11 b/g/n/ac. If you find that it's not working well enough, then Cat5e isn't that expensive.
As long as the barn has power, then you could set up a local system. I'm a big fan of zoneminder because I found it relatively easy to set up. If you put in a router, server (old laptop, raspberry pi, etc), and some cameras, then you could have the system recording to the local server. An outside connection isn't required unless you want email alerts, FTP uploads, or something else that has to hit externally. Then every other day or so you could walk out there and check the recordings.
My setup involves the server (laptop) with a wired connection to one router and a wireless connection to another. Only the wireless connection has internet, and it allows the server to email and upload. However, if my ISP cuts connection, or if I unplug the wireless connected router or my modem, then Zoneminder still works and records as usual. Those emails and FTP uploads from the recordings will happen whenever the wireless connection can be regained.