I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction for what I'm trying to do.
I have a couple of cheap IP cameras, one is a foscam, the other a maygion, might buy more. The problem is there basic firmware just doesn't perform that well. They can e-mail a limited number of photos when motion is detected, but cannot e-mail video, so by themselves are very bad at catching much of anything useful. To actually record video, you need to have various special software running watching the stream and deciding to record, or else a dedicated DVR doing the same. I really hesitate to buy an off the shelf DVR though, because I just don't trust any of the affordable ones to not be junk or have limited software or bugs. I think I would much rather build some sort of custom dvr which is remotely accessible so that I can have a wide choice of different software, and ultimately have full control without limitation. Possibly linux based, possibly windows based. I am still trying to keep it budget, the cheaper the better.
The main things I'm looking for are.
1. The ability to run a good DVR software which can stream from the wireless IP cameras, detect motion, record video, control pan/tilt, all the basic stuff.
2. Be remotely accessible, so I can access it from a pc or smart phone anywhere, copy files, stream live, etc.
3. Software must handle 720P video. (seems a major limitation with many dvr's)
4. Efficiency is of relative importance, would be nice to have a low wattage system.
5. A huge plus would be if it could not only record the video, but also immediately upload it to a free ftp server or free file server as a backup copy, say if a thief were to take the DVR, there would still be a backup copy offsite (as long as he didn't find it before the upload completed)
Can anyone offer any advice? Is this the best way to go, or is there a better way? I know there are cloud based monitoring sites out there, but I'm a guy who just really hates monthly fees, I like doing things myself.