FTP server suggestion, space and number question

[bspooky]

Any suggestions on some good, low priced ftp servers to use to upload video too? There are lots of hosts out there I assume.

Also, I know it is hard to say, but how much data should I be thinking about in sizing a plan? Assume a typical house setup with 3 cameras and average movement. Also need to make sure I have enough hard drive space.

And I know it is hard to say, but on a 2.8 ghz iMac 24 Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM...think I can get 2,3,4, or 5 cameras going on it while still being able to use email and light web surfing?

Hopefully my airport extreme can handle that many cameras too.

[Bspooky]

Ok, got the 2 camera plan so far but still similar questions:

1) defaulted to 25GB. Is this just a set default roman intelligent default based on camera? I bumped it punt 100GB.

2) Two cameras set to 640 resolution recording. I see two vitamin d processes taking up 8-12% CPU each when idle, jumps to 20s sometimes, assuming when it does something. So can I assume if I add more cameras they willmadd another 8-12% when idle?

3) still can't find a decent FTP host, and I guess you just manually delete off ftp server when it gets full?

[ryan]

Hi Bspooky,

Glad to have you as a customer!

The 25gb default is something we thought would be reasonable for a one camera usage scenario; store a few days of cache and a fair number of clips. Definitely bump it up space permitting and depending on your needs! If you aren't as interested in reviewing cache I'd suggest setting it to one day, this will ensure more of your space is used to preserve clips.

I would assume you could run 5 cameras on that machine and still do light web surfing, especially given the processor usage you reported in your second post. If you are using the same cameras/same resolution/same type of scene they should be roughly the same activity. The more cameras you add the more your hard drive will be active as well, but for email/web browsing this likely wouldn't be an issue with the number you're seeking.

It's good your thinking about your bandwidth as you add cameras - I think you'd be fine with 5 cameras on your airport extreme, depending on how many other wireless devices/computers you're running, but if you have the option of using ethernet rather than wifi for any of them definitely do it.

FTP space - this really depends on what rules you configure to use ftp, how often they fire, etc... One thing to keep in mind with this is your internet connection's upload speed - average broadband connections can upload a few gigs a day, some more, some less.

FTP hosts - I'm not really comfortable making any recommendations as I haven't done much research into it. I have a personal website hosted with dreamhost, and they provide 50 gigs of ftp backup space which I use for a few high priority rules that shouldn't ever fire (people INSIDE my apartment when I'm not home, vs people coming up to the front door or people in the backyard). Right now you do currently have to manually delete items unless your host is configured to start deleting things for you. Automatic maintenance of this is something we'd like to add in a future release.

Hope that answers your questions, let us know if you have any more.

[Bspooky]

Good thought on only having some cameras FTP up to a server, that would help.

Discovered I have two problems with motion detection though. The Axis cameras work great until it gets dark. One detects motion in all the noise patterns out front, not completely dark as there is a street lamp but in the shadows I can't seem to stop random noise from triggering Vitamin D. Looking at maybe a Y-Cam Black SD now for that spot to see if it can do the IR through the window and eliminate the noise.

The second problem is similar (when dark outside) except that since the camera is pointing through a window it catches the reflection of people in the room when the light is on. Grrrrrr. May have to find another spot for this guy as well. I really wanted to monitor out that window as it is to our back courtyard. But no camera I know of that is reasonably priced (under $600) can go outside there (we get to be minus 10 below F in winter usually). Back to the drawing board with that one...or maybe I will test the Y-Cam there too in case the IR can see through the reflection. Hmmmm.

is there a time method for rules? in other words, only trigger during the hours I would set, which would be daylight?

[ryan]

Different cameras certainly generate different levels of noise in different situations. The axis has a beautiful image in well lit scenes, but in darkness can have lots of active noise which can sometimes be difficult to filter. If you can turn on a porch light or something similar it might eliminate this problem for you.

To set a schedule on the camera go to the monitor view and select click on the camera whose rules you want to edit. Under the live display you should see a list of all rules for that camera. Next to the rule names there should be some blue text that says something like "Every day - 24 hours". If you click that a scheduling dialog will pop up allowing you to pick specific days and times to run that rule.

For your reflection issue, how far away from the window is the camera? If you can have the camera lens touching or very close to the glass you can often eliminate this effect. If it isn't possible to get your camera close enough to the window you might be able to set up some sort of enclosure (cardboard box?) that encases the camera and that part of the window preventing reflections.

[bspooky]

Thanks for the feedback. Getting the camera to the window (instead of to the screen) has helped a lot with the reflections. Not sure how I missed that scheduling! LOL

Good stuff.