NVR and IP camera FTP capabilities with encoding/transcoding to a server

[tuan_n_ipcams]

Hey ipcamtalk users,

Kind of new to the world of surveillance camera systems and currently doing some research for my company on viable solutions. We currently have an Amcrest DVR system that uploads using FTP to an Amazon Web Services server where we process file transcoding and storage. The problem is the transcoding part costs us an arm and a leg since security footage files get uploaded as .DAV files. I was wondering if anyone here knew of any company or services that sell IP cameras or NVR systems that cater to FTP or similar capabilities that can also encode/transcode the base .DAV to something readily watchable as it is being uploaded through FTP to our Amazon service.

From my research I've only been able to gather that you need an onsite transcoder or that the DVR or NVR system needs to encode/transcode first before uploading it to a cloud or whatever. My question is, is there a service or device that's capable of converting security footage into something watchable in real-time as it is being uploaded automatically to an Amazon services server?

 

[badmannen]

You only want to save stills? No video or anything? Anyway an on site solutions like an NVR or running a computer with Bi or similar beats uploading and are way more cost efficient. From iP cameras the picture is already encoded from the start and pictures are saved as jpg normally

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

 

[nayr]

you can take the RTSP stream and re-transmit it to your AWS Instance already encoded in the format you desire using something like VLC or FFMPEG, a Raspberry Pi might be able to pull it off..

 

[tuan_n_ipcams]

Ah besides saving stills we definitely want to save videos too. Right now our solution is uploading security footage in its default format and we pay Amazon to transcode those files to .AVI or .MP4 (costing us money on CPU usage from their end). But from what you are saying, building our own little transcoder using say a rasberry pi can do the trick? Any guides on tackling this process?

I was hoping I could find IP cameras that can encode in real-time/as its being sent to our Amazon server but if I need to build something to make it happen I'm more than happy to. We're looking to do this for multiple sites as my company runs vacation rentals for both single home and communities. One of my tech guys wants to try using a Tegra system to make it happen but I wanted to exhaust my research options first.

 

[nayr]

mebe you can run something like BlueCherry in an AWS instance? that might be simpler.. it will save streams directly to MP4 and run on Linux

If your doing multiple sites for vacation rentals, I would rent/co-locate a server of my own and run my own NVR software on it with Site2Site VPN tunnels to each rental.. I am a cloud engineer and even I would not put this stuff in the cloud, security is kinda important w/security cameras.

 

[tuan_n_ipcams]

Can you elaborate on either the rasberry pi/VLC/MMPEG or BlueCherry options? How would those work? Sorry I'm definitely new to these things.

 

[nayr]

http://www.bluecherrydvr.com/

Its a software video recorder that can save video streams directly to mp4 and runs linux.. You'd set it up just like a normal surveillance system however you put the video recorder in the cloud or on a server in a datacenter.. If you setup Site to Site VPN Tunnels to your remote sites it will look to the NVR like all the cameras are on the local network when in reality they are remote and using an encrypted tunnel.

This all assumes your rental's have adequate bandwidth for using a remote NVR, and if there is an internet outage your cameras are down.. Traditionally this is not the way this is done and I dont recommend it very much.

I suggest you install a standalone surveillance system at each rental, and consolidate them with remote interface.. offsite storage only makes sence as a BACKUP storage system, not the primary.. If your just going to have a single camera at each property then mebe the cloud NVR will be fine, if you stuff the cameras with local SD cards to save backup video to.