Ok, big dilemma for me for a long time now. I cannot get Internet at my cottage other than cellphone Internet or dial up. I have a basic CCTV surveillance kit that is fully functional on site. For the purpose of Internet, i found the only way to get decent speeds is with a cell network hotspot. I picked up a globesurfer 3, (which is basically a router that has a simcard slot, therefore uses a cellphone signal to receive Internet) and for the last 3 years i can view my cameras by connecting to my on site computer using a program called LogMeIn hamachi, which is basically a vpn, or better explained is like a Remote Desktop. I can then open an Internet explorer tab, log into my camera (LAN) webpage and view the cameras. Works good because i can review recordings with some lag, but it works relatively well. You may ask why don’t I portforward my router so i can enter the WAN address of my router from anywhere and access the hard drive, but i can not do that because the cellphone provider has a general ipaddress that serves many cell phones. Essentially, when i am on site, and l look at my router page, the 192.168.0.1 page, and i look at my WAN ipaddress, it is a different ipaddress than i get returned when i go to www.whatsmyipaddress or ipchicken or a page like that. So basically, the cell provider would have to port forward the general ipaddress that a hundred cellphones have to my personal cell ipaddress. Good luck even getting someone on the phone that understands what I’m asking for. Needless to say i am stuck doing it the Remote Desktop way. Does anyone know of a solution like maybe i can switch over to ipcameras and get a webhosting page that a stream of .jpgs are uploaded to and view them from my cellphone that way? I bought a aviosys 9100a unit that i can convert my analogue cameras to digital. I am in the middle of getting this operational. Ultimately to view my cameras through my VERA app in my phone. Any ideas? again port forwarding is not an option, and LOGMEIN works well because it simulates a static ipaddress network adapter therefore avoiding all this port forwarding problem. If you understand what I’m trying to say you can understand my dilemma, thanks in advance for any help.
This isn’t really a Vera question, which is a two-edged sword: it means you might get answers from a different source on the Internet, say, a dedicated home security forum, but you are also much less likely to find someone here on the Vera forum who has direct experience with what you are trying to do.
Case in point: I haven’t done this. But I know enough about Internet architecture to give you a push in the right direction.
Port forwarding is never really a good idea anyway, even for people who aren’t behind Carrier-Grade NAT like you are. You need a mechanism where your LAN makes an outgoing connection to …somewhere… and the viewer (you, remotely) make an outgoing connection to that same somewhere, and that somewhere joins you up to each other after authenticating you. All consumer remote access software works like this: LogMeIn; getvera.com; Back to My Mac; even videoconferencing software like Skype.
Some IP cameras come with a “cloud viewing” feature which essentially follows this model. I don’t know if you could retrofit this onto your analogue cameras with some program or piece of hardware. See if there manufacturer of your camera equipment has any recommendations. See if there is PVR software/hardware with a cloud upload facility. Probably money is going to have to change hands. The “somewhere” server I mentioned above isn’t free for them to run.
If you want live video streams then you need to think about the amount of traffic. It will be immense. Do you want the video to continue to be uploaded even if no one is watching? Do you need to record a certain amount of video? Do you want recording to be continuous or only upon certain events? The answers to these questions will affect he price and also the suitability of the equipment you already have (my guess: it isn’t very suitable).
That’s about as much help as I can be. But at least you can be informed when you talk to others about your requirements outside of this forum. Good luck.
If the onsite computer is a Windows machine, there is the Blue Iris camera software (http://blueirissoftware.com/) for which there is a plug in to connect it to Vera. Then you could access your camera’s via Vera. (That is assuming you can access your Vera remotely) The caveat is if your DVR + ana to digi setup is supported by Blue Iris or not. You may want to check at the Blue Iris forums at http://www.cam-it.org
Vera strategy is secure.
You might look into a VPN strategy or a SSH Server (VPN Light) … Both require some IT/Network understanding.
Well thanks for the motivation guys, i played with it for a few hours, and i got something acceptable. I got my 9100a aviosys to work with the vera, had to actually update the firmware in the 9100a, (that was the key to getting a .jpg from it) so then i tried to feed my analogue camera signals into the 9100a AND the pvr unit by simply splitting the signal, does not work, wont read while hooked up to both, then i notice my pvr has a video out bnc, so i fed that into port 1 of my 9100a and i now have a 4 quadrant screen of my cameras visible from my phone. Super awesome way to add your old analogue camera system onto your vera. Don’t you love when you stumble across a solution thats easier than you expected. Thx dudes