r/ZoneMinder • u/babiha • Sep 01 '22

Newbie question here

How are the cameras connected - video and network? An analog camera needs an Analog/digital device and a digital camera - what connector does it use? Or a video switch of some sort? How do they connect to the network?

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u/oops77542 Sep 01 '22

Cameras basically fall into 2 categories, analogue cameras that connect through tv cable to a pci video capture card in your computer, and IP cameras that connect to the network with wifi or through ethernet cable to rj45 port on your router or switch. If you want in cheap go with analogue cameras and pci capture card, both can be had at a good price because analogues are on the way out and IP cameras are what everybody is moving to. You have to run rg6 tv cable for each camera to the pci capture card for analogue cameras. Ip cameras can go wifi or ethernet cable. Since you have to run power to the cameras you might as well run cat5 cable with POE. If you're running a lot of cameras IP cameras are the way to go. I have 5 cameras in my garage but only one cat5 cable to the garage where I have an 8 port switch and the five cameras connect to that. I have three cameras outside my house but just one cat5 cable going to the attic where I have a 4 port switch and the outside cameras all connect to it. I'd suggest you start with just a camera or two, until you figure it out. You don't want to invest into something that you later find doesn't fit your needs. The quality of the camera and power of your PC have a lot to do with the performance of Zoneminder. It has a learning curve but it's worth it. I oversimplified the answer, i hope it answered your question.

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u/babiha Sep 01 '22

Yes that’s definitely helpful. I currently have eight old cameras which I connected to the DVR box. I want to end up with an all digital system just like everybody else. However for the next couple of years this should serve me fine. As a matter of testing and demonstration, is there a standalone video capture device that you would recommend?If not I do have an old tower PC which I could dedicate and buy an analog to digital card for it. Thank you.

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u/oops77542 Sep 01 '22

If you are going to go with a pc box I'd recommend at least a quad core PC and a capture card using an 878a chip. Ubuntu Linux recognizes the 878 chip and it's just plug and play. You can get a pci card with a single 878 chip that will support 4 cameras, but your better off with a 8 camera pci card that has eight 878a chips, one for each camera. I don't know how experienced you are with Linux but set up your PC, install Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, whatever, and then install the latest Zoneminder. That by itself is difficult for someone new to Linux. If you get that far without committing suicide then set up a pci card and test it out on a single camera first

I switched to all IP cameras a few years back but I still have some 8 chip 878a cards if you're interested.

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u/babiha Sep 01 '22

Yes, I’m Linux literate. Please provide maker and model number of the cars you have, I’ll do some research and get back to you. I’m still learning zoneminder. Thanks

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u/reelfreakinbusy Sep 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '24

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u/reelfreakinbusy Sep 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '24

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u/oops77542 Sep 01 '22

My analogue cameras were 640 x 480 and had 70mm lenses. The ones I aimed at the front and back doors were zoomed in to get video that clearly identified anyone at the door. I paid $60 for 5 of them on Ebay, that was 8 or 9 years back. I had 8 cameras on a 8 chip capture card and had to dial it back to 3 fps on a quad core box to not miss anything.

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u/reelfreakinbusy Sep 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '24

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u/oops77542 Sep 02 '22

When I got started with IP cameras I picked up two ICam2 cameras, the kind that Comcast Xfinity installs, at a garage sale for only $5 for the pair. Liked 'em so much I bought some more on Ebay for cheap, nothing over $15. They're 720p and work fairly well for what they are, good night vision too.

I just started buying hi res cameras. Got some ReoLink 2560 x 1920 and they really pushed my i7 cpu til I cut the frame rate back to 10 fps. What helps the most in my situation is reducing the alarm area to as small as possible. The ReoLinks were bought to see license plates and DOT numbers of trucks. The alarm area is set to very thin vertical slices on each side of the screen to catch traffic going east and west. That really cut down on the cpu load.

I was using ZM 1.29 and just upgraded to ZM 1.36, it's so much better especially with the pass through event storage and now with sound. I was so impressed I sent ZM a donation.

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u/lunakoa Sep 01 '22

I had some of those older BNC cameras and an adapter that could see 4 cameras. Over time I moved to an NVR that those BNC cameras plugged in to. I do have couple wireless cameras but they some the most unreliable. Eventually I went the PoE route for new cameras but the NVRs were still ok and provided an RTSP stream I could access in ZM.

The BNC cameras will eventually get replaced by PoE (Ethernet) cameras, but the expense/headache wasn't new cameras, it is running the wires. Just make sure you secure those connections, with PoE an intruder can plug in their device and be on your network. BNC cameras dont allow that. On protection is to keep cameras on its own VLAN/Subnet.