VideoCad Alternatives
Recently we have made a test and have written a review of CCTV system design tools, which helps to CCTV system designer or Do-it-yourself enthusiast to calculate a security camera field of view, lens focal length and visually check many other parameters.
For this test we took the VideoCad software from CCTV CAD, IP Video System Design tool from JVSG and a tool called Salesman Toolkit from North American Alarm Association.
Review of CCTV system design tools is published in our review section.
ZoneMinder - free open source CCTV software
Remote monitoring: +
Motion detection: +, with detection zones
Zone Minder is an open source video surveillance software for Linux.
It has PHP based web interface. The web-interface is used for video monitoring as well as for modification of system parameters. This can be done even from remote place.
Motion detection is not too advanced, but it is sufficient for most of simple applications. To adjust the motion detector for each zone you can specify Min/Max Alarmed Area – a number of pixels that would cause an alarm. Also you can and number and size of “blobs” – groups of pixels.
Zone Minder supports PTZ functions and has some scripting capabilities. Software uses MySQL to store its configuration.
Conclusion: This is a surprisingly good home video surveillance software for free open source product. In case if you plan to use Linux we recommend to have a look on it. It is sad, but there is no such free open-source software for Microsoft Windows platform, but there are plenty of affordable ones in our software reviews
New IP Video Software Test Configuration
We choose our test configuration for our IP video tests with these ideas:
- Video cameras should be network IP cameras, because it is true digital and modern and easy to install at home.
- Brand of network cameras should be well known, and supported in most of network surveillance video management software. We have started from Axis – the first budget network ip cameras manufacturer.
- First PC should be not really fast and should have a cheap price.
- Second PC should be fast enough for bigger surveillance systems.
So for our test we have taken the following configuration:
- Network cameras
- Network cameras: Axis 206 and Axis207MW, (640*480, 1280×1024), AXIS 210, AXIS 211
- IP cameras: Axis 213, Axis 214 with PTZ, AXIS 212
- Panasonic I-Pro cameras: WV-NP1000, WV-NS202
- IP camera DLink 950, DLink 6620G
- Megapixel IP camera Mobotix M10, D22
- Megapixel IP camera IQEYE 601
- USB camera: Logitech, 640*480
- PC
- Intel Pentium 2,4 GHz (HT off), 512 MB
- Intel Core 2 DUO 2,6 GHz, 1 GB
- OS: Windows XP Pro, Service Pack 2
- Network card
- Intel integrated 1000 mbit
See our software reviews
1.3 Megapixel Software Performance Test
Let’s see how home surveillance software works with 1.3 MegaPixel Axis 206M.
This 230 Euro network camera gives out 12 FPS at resolution 1280×1024 pixels.
Let’s see how home surveillance software works with 1.3 MegaPixel Axis 206M.
This 230 Euro network camera gives out 12 FPS at resolution 1280×1024 pixels.
It uses ½ inch CMOS sensor with 32bit-RISC processor, 16MB RAM and 4 MB flash memory. Objective parameters: 10mm F2.8.
So what have got here:
The lowest load has an alfa-version of NetVisus IntelliGuard Pro. It has shown a load of 40%, but we cannot rate any alfa or beta versions. So we didn’t include this result in the result table.
The second leader is Netcam Center. It was not tested in our previous 4 cameras test because of demo version limitation. In this test it has shown 44% processor load.
The old leader in 3 cameras test – iCatcher console have shown quite average results 75%.
Also in this test we were unable to measure WebcamXP processor load because the current version we have (2.20.0.24) doesn’t work with Axis 206M in MJPEG mode.
We have not test IVista from inetcam.com because of the demo version limitations – in the demo version of IVISTA all network cameras are disabled.
| Software | Processor load |
| NetCam Center (ver: 2.10) | 44 % |
| iCatcher (ver: 2.3.0.7) | 75% |
| ActiveWebcam (ver: 6.6.0.0) | 81% – 100% |
| NetcamWatcher Pro (ver: 1.7.5.33) | 88% |
| WebcamXP (ver: 2.20.0.24) | not tested |
| IVista (ver: 4.1.0.0) | not tested |
| NetVisus IntelliGuard (ver: 0.9.0.0) | not rated |
What does it say:
If you want to add even one 1.3 megapixel camera to your home surveillance system and you don’t have a powerful PC you need to upgrade your processor. Intel P4 2.4 GHz is definitely not enought!
Webcam Software without netcams support
Plenty of software products from our video surveillancetop 20 does not support network cameras.
Therefore we can not make performance test for these products with our network cameras.
This is why the products have not got a high rating in our home surveillance software comparation.
But if you need just a really simple home surveillance system, you can have a look on reviews and demos of following software:
WebCamera Security System from Dreamstruct
i Catcher Console
Test result are shown in I Catcher Console review section
