I’ve been intending to install a video security system at my cabin for some time now.\u00a0 But making that a reality has been a more difficult journey than I initially expected.\u00a0 Sure, the easy way is to hire someone to do all of the work and install a system, but I’m a DIY-type and this is not beyond my capabilities.<\/p>\n
I did not want to sign up for a “security system in the cloud” because I don’t want my information available to anyone but me.\u00a0 Maybe I’m a little paranoid about that – but to quote Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP – “When everyone is after you, paranoid is just good thinking.”<\/p>\n
So I decided to do this myself.\u00a0 I have a lot of IT experience with networking, server security, and programming – but not any experience with video security.\u00a0 So I started looking around at software to run the system, and found a package called Zoneminder<\/a>.\u00a0 The name comes from one of the project’s biggest features – that you can define zones where any detected motion will trigger an alarm.\u00a0 Where smaller (read less flexible) systems trigger an alarm on any motion within the camera’s view, you can define multiple zones where motion should trigger an alarm, and also zones where motion is to be ignored.<\/p>\n The last statement may not make a lot of sense to some folks – but think of an outdoor camera monitoring the front door in a wooded yard.\u00a0 Trees have leaves, and they move when it’s windy.\u00a0 To a computer program, that’s motion.\u00a0 The fact that it isn’t human or animal motion is an unimportant distinction.<\/p>\n You can also define what amount of movement is considered important enough to trigger an alarm.\u00a0 Whether that is by the number of image pixels that change, or how many pixels change compared to the total number of pixels in the image – you have a great deal of control over these behaviors.<\/p>\n We’re going to need some cameras, a computer to run the system, software (which I already chose), and some way to connect everything together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been intending to install a video security system at my cabin for some time now.\u00a0 But making that a reality has been a more difficult journey than I initially expected.\u00a0 Sure, the easy way is to hire someone to do all of the work and install a system, but I’m a DIY-type and this … <\/p>\n