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Security Monitor Pro
v3.11 |
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Setting up
a Multiple-Station Surveillance System |
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If you want to make a
security professional cringe, just use the phrase
“single point of failure.” Entire security systems
should not be brought down by a single hard disk failure
or a bad RAM chip. For traditional Closed Circuit
TV (CCTV) systems, having multiple monitoring stations
is both costly and complex. With
Security Monitor
Pro and IP cameras, adding additional monitoring
stations is both simple and inexpensive. |
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IP cameras send video
feeds over a standard computer network (either cabled or
wireless). Because the data is send using standard
computer network methods, it can be routed over a
company’s internal network, or the Internet, to anywhere
in the world. This means that you can monitor with
a camera using Security Monitor Pro even if it’s in
another city, or another country. Because video
streams from most cameras can be viewed by more than one
computer, you can also setup Security Monitor Pro on
multiple PCs to monitor and record from the same camera,
eliminating that single point of failure. Even if
one of the computers fails, the other station will still
be on guard. |
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Setting up a
multi-station surveillance system involves these steps: |
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Camera and Network
Setup |
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Details of network setup
will depend on exactly how your system is defined.
For this example, this article will assume you have a
small business in one building. You want a station
on-site, and also one at your home, both monitoring the
cameras there. This lets you “keep an eye on” the
store when you’re at home, and also means that even if
one PC breaks down (or is stolen!) you can continue to
monitor. |
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Setting up the cameras
and configuring Security Monitor Pro are described in
Monitor Multiple Locations Simultaneously. |
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If your cameras are on a
local network and have private IP addresses, you’ll need
to set up port forwarding.
PortForward.com
has instructions for using port forwarding with many
types of camera and router. Be sure that you
assign each camera on the network its own port number. |
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One issue to be aware of:
each station monitoring a camera’s video feed increases
the amount of network bandwidth used. You may want
to configure the cameras to use low frame rates (5fps or
less) when multiple cameras are each being monitored by
multiple stations. |
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Configure Security
Monitor Pro |
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Configuration of Security
Monitor Pro for multiple stations is only slightly more
complicated than doing it for one station. Camera
settings can be exactly the same on both computers,
except that the cameras will have a different IP address
and port when seen from outside the local network.
You can set up the same alerts in both cases, but keep
in mind that if you use e-mail notification at both
stations, you’ll be notified twice whenever an alert is
triggered. |
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You could also use
different stations for different purposes. For
instance, one station (at a remote location) could be
set to manually record all video it receives, 24 hours
per day. Meanwhile, the on-location system would
be scheduled to monitor only when the business is
closed, and trigger based on motion detection, sending
e-mail alerts and ringing an audio alarm. The
remote station would be gathering evidence of crimes
like shoplifting, while the on-site station guards
against burglary. |
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You can think of many
other ways to use the flexibility and power
multi-station monitoring gives you. |
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Multi-station monitoring
with Security Monitor Pro makes your surveillance system
reliable, powerful, flexible, and failure resistant. |
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