Security Camera System

The security camera system at WICC has been installed for a month or so. The greatest feature of this system is the Blue Iris monitoring software. Two weeks ago while I was out there, we calibrated the motion detection on all four cameras. The results are astounding; there are at least two red foxes and six to seven white-tailed deer, and on the weekends, the place is busier than Grand Central station.

The nighttime images are interesting, people with flashlights walking down the beach at 1 am and a naked guy causally strolling by the front gate at midnight.  I will never go to this site at night without the police.  Never, so don’t even ask.   This is a video of a fence hopper with a can of spray paint in his hand:

Likely he intended some site beautification.  His friend is out of the frame to the left when the cameras are spotted. A few seconds later both can be seen running away on the North facing camera. I find that rather funny. This is a still picture:

Blue Iris screen shot
Blue Iris screenshot

On the right-hand side of the screen, one can see all of the triggered events from all the cameras.  The Blue Iris software is great, it can handle up to 64 IP cameras and has all sorts of neat features; color coding cameras, recording on motion, night time sensitivity settings, ability to NAT the camera interface to the public network, etc.  The Blue Iris also has an iPhone and Android client which will allow remote access to the Blue Iris server and the server can be set up to push events to the mobile device.  At $9.99, the app is a little pricey, but for high-security situations, it might be just the ticket.

We must also get some signage warning about trespassing and video surveillance and post them on the fences and buildings.

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6 thoughts on “Security Camera System”

  1. That’s fantastic! These systems have evolved so much in the past several years… there’s no reason that many sites should have a camera installation of some sort (and signage to make it abundantly clear to would-be hooligans!). I’m going to have to find out more about Blue Iris.

  2. Also keep an eye on Ubiquiti. They have begun playing with IP cameras and associated monitoring. Using their typical “disruptive” pricing strategy. The current gen stuff isn’t *quite* there, but a big announcement on the 17th, fingers crossed it’ll be awesome.

  3. If Ubiquiti’s IP cameras are anything like the Nano bridge stuff, it will be great. I still can’t get over how well these inexpensive IP radios work.

  4. Freeze… and enhance

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk

    All seriousness aside, note that megapixel-plus cameras are really handy for this sort of surveillance, since — assuming your backing software/hardware is up to the task — they really will let you zoom in, with actual pixels to look at.

    Seems worth the money over NTSC.

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