In my two other posts about Home Security Monitoring with Linksys Camera and Using Skype with WebCam for Security, I described two rather cheap and simple solutions for Home Security Video Surveillance. If you need a more professional (and ofcourse more expensive) solution for remote video security monitoring, the Cisco 2500 series IP security camera is an ideal product.

The 2500 Video Camera (shown above) is a professional High-Resolution digital device with an enhanced, progressive scan imager for excellent video and color, even in the most demanding lighting conditions. It uses MPEG-4 video compression to produce DVD quality video and has several security features such as motion detection, alarm input and output etc. Video picture resolution is 720 x 480 (NTSC) or 720 x 576 (PAL). The camera can examine designated areas for activity and notify users when a predefined threshold is exceeded. You can access the video output from the camera with a normal web browser from anywhere in the world (you just need to have IP connectivity to the camera). An analog BNC connector can also provide you with local video output.

Summarizing, the Cisco 2500 camera is a professional video surveillance solution that can be used in a variety of environments for physical monitoring (low lighting, day or night monitoring etc) and is an ideal platform for integration and operation as an independent device or as part of a Cisco Video Surveillance network.

For the above setup you will need two Skype accounts (one for the Home PC and one for the remote location which might be your office at work or anywhere with internet access) and a USB webcam which will be connected to your Home PC. See the diagram below to get an idea for the network setup:
 

To configure Skype (version 3.8.x) for video security monitoring, follow the steps below:

1. On your Home PC Skype application go to Tools>Options>General>Video Settings and click on “Enable Skype Video” and also “Start my video automatically when I am in a call“.

2. Again on your Home PC Skype application go to Tools>Options>Calls>Call Settings>Show Advanced Options and click on “Automatically Answer Incoming Calls“.

Then from your “remote Skype” computer just call your “Home Skype” computer which will automatically answer the call and enable the WebCam which will start sending you live video to your Remote Skype for security monitoring.

The wireless security camera from Linksys has a build-in web server and video stream encoder. So, by pointing your web browser to the IP address of the camera, you can receive live video and audio streaming. You can also turn on Security Mode, which tells the camera to send a message with a short video attached to up to three email addresses whenever it detects motion in its field of view. You can then log onto the live video stream if the situation warrants. The included Viewer & Recorder utility lets you record the audio/video stream to your local hard drive, “live” or on a predetermined schedule.
The diagram below illustrates how to implement two security cameras in your home network:

• First configure the cameras to work with your wireless home router
• Then assign IP addresses to the network settings of the cameras, as shown.
  • CAM 1: IP address 192.168.1.10
  • CAM 2: IP address 192.168.1.20
• Assume that your public IP address that you were assigned from the Internet Provider is 100.100.100.1. Configure port redirection on your Internet Router so that inbound traffic on your public address on port 80 is redirected to internal IP address 192.168.1.10 (CAM 1). Similarly, configure redirection for port 81 to connect to IP 192.168.1.20 (CAM 2).
• Now, in order to connect remotely to your internal cameras, just point your browser to http://100.100.100.1:80 (to watch CAM 1), and to http://100.100.100.1:81 (to watch CAM 2).

The above provides basic security monitoring for your Home. If your are interested for a complete home security solution and protection, get a FREE quotation for a Professional Home Security System for peace of mind.