On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 9:33 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
One more thing about zoneminder: after installing it on an FC19 system, I don't see anything that I could immediately identify as a driver. *HOW* does it get the video? In motion, the very lightweight package, it's using V4L2, and the drivers, gspca*, are part of the kernel these days. If ZoneMindar is using the same drivers, then I'd expect that it would occasionally, after an update, wind up with the same problems motion does.
That's why I suggested IP cameras earlier, as there is no driver. Or, figuratively speaking, the IP stack is the driver. Anything can break after an update, but basic networking functionality is one of those things I don't expect to break.
Also, why are you doing updates anyway? If you had an appliance, as you wanted, would you be doing updates on that? Probably not, if it's working. So why worry about updates? Put ZM on a dedicated server or VM, get it working the way you want, then leave it alone. Weld the case shut and disable remote logins and now you literally have an appliance.
Btw, I'm now also looking at lower-end video capture cards, like the Hauppage Impactvdb, model 188 (four bnc inputs). For that, what I haven't found out yet, is whether it provides the cameras one at a time, to be switched among, or if all four can stream at the same time, which is what we *must* have.
My personal experience with lower-end hardware is that it's the stuff most likely to break during updates. It's cheap so the release process is sloppy and documentation lagging/poor/inaccurate/non-existent, so you end up with situations where the drivers are chasing infinite subtle revisions, and/or reverse engineered, and/or some other kind of kludgery.
If you pay a premium, you can buy stuff that has official Linux support from the manufacturer. I was looking at Sensoray products for my home, but they are out of my price range. Probably beyond your budget as well (based on what you've suggested), but it appears that Linux is an explicit target for their products, not an afterthought or the dreaded unsupported/use-at-your-own-risk.
But again, IP cameras remove all this complexity