Trendnet TV-IP311PI and Ubuntu 14.04
The TV-IP311PI is
the first HD IP camera I've run into for a reasonable price from
a semi-well-known brand, and
is said to work with Zoneminder.
So I picked one up for $175, along with a 4+4 port PoE switch (
TP-LINK TL-SF1008P, $45).
Total outlay with tax: $239.
Network Connection
I wanted to control this on an isolated network (don't want the camera
phoning home without permission, nor do I want anyone but me to be
able to try connecting to it), so I plugged it into the ethernet port
of my laptop, told Network Manager to configure the ethernet port
statically, installed isc-dhcp-server,
and after a fair bit of cursing and restarting dhcpd and eth0,
got it to issue an IP address to the camera. (I could tell, since
the address showed up in /var/lib/dhcp/dhcpd.leases.)
nmap showed the device listening on ssh, and sure enough, you can
ssh to the device using its default password and username.
Likewise, it's listening on http, and you can log into its admin web
interface via a web browser using the same password and username.
Unfortunately, the web interface requires a plugin which is only
available for windows or mac. (I suppose I could try it in Wine.)
The Android app looks reasonable - the only funny permission it seems
to want is in-app purchases - but to use it I'd need to plug the
camera into a wireless router. Maybe later. Instead, I did
sudo apt-get install vlc, looked up the magic URL from
ispyConnect,
and opened rtsp://XX.YY.ZZ.WW:554//Streaming/Channels/1 in vlc.
Voila, streaming video.
Performance
In a quick test, the camera switched automatically between
color and IR mode well enough, and the IR was enough to illuminate
at least 30 feet. The video had a one to two second delay.
Picture quality
It has a 4mm lens, and says horizontal/vertial field of view
is 70 / 52 degrees.
While viewing the video stream in VLC, I used the 'video snapshot'
command to save these images of a car in my driveway at two different
distances. The first pair of images are at default settings,
the second pair at 3MP and "higher" video quality.
All use VLC's zoom feature to show part of the image at full (?) resolution.
At 3MP + "higher" quality video, the license plate was just about legible at night at 50 feet.
(The first three images had a floodlight on; the last one didn't.
Also, the camera was moved slightly between the first and second pair.)
Configuring Zoneminder
TBD.
Comments and corrections welcome. Contact the author at dank at kegel.com
Last Change 16 Feb 2015
Copyright 2015 Dan Kegel
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