Hi guys, i don't visit this section much as often your technical discussions are a little over my head. Anyway, figured i've come to the right place to find you techy guys hanging out.

A good friend is having to take necessary leave of absence from his business in Pattaya for the first time in nearly 20 years.

I suggested to him that it should be possible to have one or more cameras sited on his business premises which he could then monitor from a laptop or tv set here in the uk.

Is this possible?

Likely cost of installation and operation?

you need a software like http://www.deskshare.com/resources/article...raremotely.aspx http://www.deskshare.com/wcm.aspx

There are many local companies selling web cams used for surveillance etc and adding external cameras to a suitably powerful desktop should not be difficult. Often these programs have their won remote monitoring facility.

A easy way to monitor your webcam(s) for free is to install some Google software called YOICS

See This page for more information

Some of thenetwork attached storage boxes on the market can monitor and record multiple remote IP cams.

I purchased one of these items for our facility and it works very well. Has its own internal web server and you can set any IP and port number for access to it from a web browser anywhere in the world. There are 4 channel and 8 channel versions, supports motion detection, automatically upload snapshots of an event to an ftp server or e-mail, records to internal hard drive. Supports PZT (pan/tilt/zoom) cameras. We use cameras with infrared (night vision) lamps for 24 hour capability. This one was about 10,000 Baht so may be cheaper in Europe.

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/24194/

or a PC card version:

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/category/Secur...R)/PC+DVR+Card/

I'd do it this way (on the cheap).

1) standard PC connected webcam.

2) Willing Webcam Camera driver

3) Live broadcast to UstreamTV (with a password protected channel).

The willing software can also use IP network cameras.

If a full security solutions is needed and you're up for a challenge, check out Zone Minder

I would go for Tywais solution. A 4 channel recorder with remote network capability can be had for 5000-7000 Baht.

You need somebody to set up your ADSL router properly so incoming connections get correctly forwarded to the camera box.

And as you likely will be on a dynamic IP address, you'll need to set up a dynamic dns service (such as DynDns) up, so you'll always be able to reach the camera box.

Going with the PC card option works as well, but not all systems will properly boot up after power cuts. Same goes for webcams attached to a PC.

Some IP camera's come with all software built in (DynDns updater and webserver), so if just one camera is needed, that would be the cheapest solution!

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/25523/ is an example, you can stick up 32 of them and monitor them remotely!

Or one tilt/pan camera such as this one, have seen them under 10000 Baht in Thailand...

It he needs to see every frame of what is happening, then he will need to put it onto a network Storage device and share that somehow. A cheap and cheerful solution is with the Webcam Software. You can set themto take a feame every second and then do a "FTP Push" onto an FTP site. You can set the frequency to be pretty much whatever you like. That means if there are problems with the computer taking the images then it is stored somewhere completely different.

There are plenty of free hosts that he can get to have FTP with.

Another cheap and cheerful solution if you just want to see inside is to create a Skype connection for a USB web camera connected to a desktop PC. Configure Skype to accept incoming "chats" automatically and begin transmitting video.

Guys, thanks for your various & interesting suggestions. Currently, there is no computer at the Thai end.

For the time being, he has decided getting his health sorted is more important than worrying about what's goiing on there.

I guess this would do it though?

cctv