By Ralph Thomas
It's about to happen! Actually, it's already happening. Those of us who
watch the cutting edge of technology as it relates to our profession knew
it was coming. Video surveillance over the telephone line and over the Internet
is here! Don't fret! A lot of this stuff just seems kind of complicated
but it's really not that hard to figure it out. A year or so ago I got a
little Connectix digital black and white camera that plugs into the printer
port of my computer and got a lot of wow's but it wasn't until I rewired
the thing into a preconfigured modem and sent actual video down a telephone
line receiving it on the other end on a computer screen that I saw some
real value. I had to do it because I called a high tech supplier of mine
and he kept telling me I needed an "ISDN line". At the time, I
really didn't know what an ISDN line was above and beyond the fact that
they were too expensive and I'm taking only-Donald Trumpt-can-afford-one-expensive.
So I took my little Connectix black and white QuickCam, figured a way to
wire a modem to it and configured the modem to answer the line. I then patched
the software that came with the QuickCam into my modem and low and behold,
a slow resolution time laps video from the QuickCam was getting displayed
on my screen. Presto-I had video surveillance through the telephone line!
As you can see, I have gotten intrigued by the idea setting up a digital
camera, hooking it up to the telephone line and monitoring it remotely in
a dial up manner from another distant location. Here is the equipment you
need for this high tech project
EQUIPMENT FOR SURVEILLANCE SITE
So there you have it! Your remote monitoring site basically consists of
a camera that's either a digital camera or has an analog to digital converter
on it, a high speed modem and a telephone line. Plug the thing in and configure
everything correctly and you have it.
On the other side, you'll have to of course have some more equipment.
EQUIPMENT FOR MONITORING SITE
This type of thing is being done and being done quite well. A year or so
ago you had to have Donald Trump type access to funds to set this type of
system up but prices have fallen drastically.
Believe it or not, this type of thing is being done on the Internet. I mean,
you can take one of these cameras and have a live picture on a web site.
If you don't believe me, go look at the following sites yourself.
LIVE VIDEO SURVEILLANCE ON THE NET
Well not quite yet but it's just around the corner and things are moving
fast! If you want to see the upcoming video surveillance over telephone
lines and the internet in action, check out these sites:
SAN DIEGO BAY
http://live.net/sandiego
This site features a live video of San Diego Bay in full color.
BERKLEY'S KITCHEN
CAM
http://www.berksys.com/www/funtour/takepic.html
Berkeley are the people who brought us all those famous computer screen
savers. They have a live video in their sight of their company kitchen.
CONNECTIX
http://www.connectix.com/
Connectix are the people who developed Ram Doubler and Speed Doubler software
and the first digital computer camera for mass markets. They recently released
a color digital camera that plugs into the modem or printer port of your
computer that is easy to use. You get software that can make their QuickCam
a time laps video machine. Since these digital video cameras are under $200.00
with software, they have become very popular. Connectix is the company to
watch as they have a stand alone video camera under development that will
have a built in modem. You simply will install the small camera, plug it
into a telephone line and then access the surveillance camera with your
computer on the other end of the telephone line.
Connectix has a page at the above Internet site that is called FISHCAM.
It lets you view a live picture of their fish tank with a swimming fish
in full color. It's rather slow but it works.
WHERE TO GET THIS STUFF
CONNECTIX
http://www.connectix.com/
First I would recommend stopping by Connectix's web site to see what's new.
Like the Netscape Site, developments
are happening fast. I will never forget the first time a played with a Connectix
video camera. For $99.00 a got a little digital camera the size of a tennis
ball that plugged into the back of my printer port. It came with software
to do stills or time laps. For months I would e-mail people snap shots of
myself talking to them in chat and got a great deal of, "say how did
you do that." It wasn't until I took the thing apart and hooked it
into a modem line configured correctly and then went to another location
and dialed in with another computer that I saw it's real value- video surveillance
over the telephone line. Now they have a color camera and some video phone
software and they are promising a QuickCam camera with a built in modem
in the near future so what them.
WIN
http://www.towin.com/AVISE_P1.html
Another very interesting company to watch is Win. Win is a Taiwan company
that has developed a video digitizer and software along with a surveillance
camera that makes this technology a reality without the Donald Trump can
only afford it pricing. Actually, their pricing is very low. Check the Win
web site for more information and developments. On it, you'll find all their
products and even free software that makes the whole thing work.
FREE SOFTWARE CAN BE DOWNLOADED
AT THE WIN SITE
MENTIONED ABOVE
WIN'S VIDEO DIGITIZER
NAIS INVESTIGATIVE EQUIPMENT SECTION
I already mentioned it but I want to say it again. Almost all cameras can
be converted from analog to digital. For three years I have plugged 8 MM
video cameras and pinhole cameras into the back
of my office computer and shot all the photographs found in the PI Catalog
in this manner and e-mailed them to various people. I'd suggest reviewing
the video surveillance equipment under the NAIS equipment section on the
web.
MICO PINHOLE CAMERAS AS SHOWN ABOVE CAN BE
USED AS DIGITAL CAMERAS
GOING WIRELESS
This should give you a good idea of where video surveillance is going these
days. If you want to back a little off the cutting edge with all this through
the telephone line remote surveillance stuff and simply settle for going
wireless with these tiny pinhole cameras, it can easily be done and the
wireless video sender that is setting new standards is the VideoLink.
THE NEW VIDEOLINK SETS NEW STANDARDS
IN
GOING WIRELESS WITH VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
MORE GOOD NEWS-ISDN LINES COME WAY DOWN IN PRICE SO PEOPLE OTHER
THAN DONALD TRUMP CAN GET ONE!
I have to admit, I had to go to one of my favorite book publishers to figure
out what everyone was talking about when they mentioned ISDN telephone lines.
(My favorite line of books lately has been IDG Books who publish a line
of "For Dummies" books.) I found one called ISDN For Dummies and
found out what in the world my high tech man was mumbo-jumboing about. ISDN
stands for Integrated Services Digital Network. That's nice to know but
it really doesn't tell you anything so all we have is more mumbo-jumbo best
left to more techno-geeks. ISDN is actually a digital telephone line that
gives you much wider band width. I know what your next question is likely
to be, the same as mine was (well then, what the heck is band width). Well,
sending high resolution video and audio down a regular telephone line is
a little like rush hour traffic in Houston, Texas. There's just too much
on the highway to have a good speed so things slow down. ISDN solves this
problem by turning your one lane telephone line, if you will, into a ten
lane super highway. You can achieve speeds of 28.8 bps (and that's just
the rate of speed a modem transmits but techno-nerds are still arguing about
the difference between baud rates and bps rates) on a regular telephone
line and that's about it. With an ISDN line, you can get ten times that
speed, be sending and receiving video and still have enough room left to
make or receive a telephone call all on the same line.
ISDN lines are coming way down in price in the USA. A year ago, they wanted
a couple of grand to install one and close to $1,000 per month. Now in some
areas you can get free installation and a rate of less than $100.00 a month.
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