CCTV Over IP

Hi there, anyone got any experience with CCTV over IP ??

Trying to choose / set up a 6-8 camera system that will give me alerts to movements via text Email etc and that i can view remotely.

As far as i have read this can only be done with CCTV over IP ?

Yes, quite a bit of experience. (Installed and maintain five sites, all using IP's, debian and zoneminder)

Zoneminder will do all you want, as will other stuff, but most of the good software tends to be quite expensive. Zoneminder is solid, proven, reliable, well featured and free. Motion is another linux app that does similar stuff, but I use zm and know it inside out.

Anyway - your assumption is wrong. IP cameras will do what you want, but so will analogue cameras - IF you go with a server combination as above. That receives the analogue or ip streams, digitises and parses/stores them in many ways. Detect movement, send emails, etc etc.

Many ip cameras will do this entirely by themselves though (Axis, Y-Cam, Panasonic etc), and depending on your needs you might not need a computer running, recording etc. I do - for 24/7 recording as well as events, but not everyone is me.

But - with 6/8 cameras, and motion detection being the unexact science it can be, you will likely get a lot of images and you might want to be able to record/sort/auto expire centrally, and if so, you need a computer running with some software to do this.

If the above doesn't answer your needs, give me a bit more info and I'll have another crack.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

What i would like to do is record 24/7 and store onsite but have the function to view all positions remotely when motion it triggered so would require some sort of alert system. But from what you are saying the motion detection is not that reliable
Some more info

I plan on growing the system to 6-8 cameras but start off with 2 (I don’t see the sense in fixing 8 up and thinking i don’t like the image quality or placing of them)

My main issue is i live is a rural area with zero light and i am not sure how good these night time cameras are going to work with no light ?

Would love to have it available on all the TV in the house so you could press say channel 0 and see what is going on outside again not sure if this can be done ?

Why i looked at IP i believe they use Cat5E cable and installation seams easer but i may be wrong.