Spec me a CCTV System

[Sirrel Squirrel]

What's a good CCTV system to go for, I need a couple of cameras outside the house with good IR coverage and up to 14 days storage capacity. I've seen systems from Securix, Swann and Storage Options and they all look pretty similar but range from around £150-£250.

Would one of these be the best way to go or could I do something with IP cameras and a NAS?

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Bit of back story is that I'm getting harassed by my in-laws neighbour because I parked outside his house one day for a couple of minutes and he took offence to it a year ago. Last night he followed me home and then today he attempted to key my car and slash the tyres but he got spotted before he was able to do anything but he got arrested and is currently sitting in a comfy cell

So basically I need the cameras to ensure that if he ever comes near my house or cars again I have him and his car on camera so I have more ammo for what I'm sure will be an upcoming court case.

I don't need anything fancy, just two cameras to monitor the front of the house and provide a clear picture day or night so that he can be identified.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

I've specced up the below system, which comes in at just under £300.

AVTECH 4 channel DVR D1 KPD675C
http://www.avtechcctv.co.uk/avtech-4-channel-dvr-with-realtime-d1-resolution-usb-kpd675c/

2 x 700TVL bullet Sony Sensor (Branded as Panther)
http://www.avtechcctv.co.uk/700tvl-bullet-sony-low-light-adjustable-2-8-12mm/

Plus cabling and power splitter.

Does this sound OK, different websites have different brands of camera but they all seem to use the same Sony sensor with the same focal lengths and IR distance, even the camera body looks the same.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Thanks for the post Vimes, any chance you could post a screen grab of the output from one of your 2-12mm cameras, it's probably the same camera that I'm looking at.

Can anyone advise on a good place to buy kit from in addition to eBay and the link I posted above.

Thanks

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Thanks for the frame grabs, one thing that concerns me is that on the CMS view I can't read any of the car number plates, this is something that I'll need to do, when you view the channel at full res can you make out the number plates?

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

I'm really struggling with picking the cameras, can anyone advise, I need 2 and not much more than £100.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Thanks for all the advice. It would be so useful if the CCTV retailer websites actually listed the manufacturers and model numbers on their websites (only found a couple that actually do!), so annoying!

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Sod it, I'm just going to go down the IP route and get 2 of these http://www.use-ip.co.uk/hikvision-ds-2cd2032-i-6mm-3mp-ir-mini-bullet-camera.html, a cheap PoE switch and a NAS, maybe use one of those HP Micro Servers.

As someone who works in Broadcast I know it would really irritate me looking at the picture from the analogue cameras as v0n says.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

So I've got my system all up and running, I'm using 2 x Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I 3MP PoE cameras that feed back to a PoE switch and then to a HP N54L Microserver running FreeNas.

The cameras have a built in web server where you configure the encode settings, storage and schedule the recordings plus a load of other settings such as firing off frame grabs to an FTP site, I've just got it on 24/7 motion detection.

I've got them running at 2048x1536 resolution at 20fps.

Here's a few frame grabs from the cameras (click for full res 2048x1536);

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Quite a few questions here, I've answered the below.

What's the max number of cameras you can connect?
On my setup, I can have a maximum of 4 but that's just limited by the available ports on my switch.

What PoE switch are you using?
D-Link 1008P

How much disk space does it utalise recording at 2048x1536 resolution at 20fps over a 7 day loop period?
I've allocated each camera 500GB on my 6TB NAS (4x3TB Raid 6), the other 5TB is used as normal storage for my videos, music, documents etc. I've got the cameras set to record at 12Mbps, as I'm only recording when motion is detected I'm using about 20GB of storage a day per camera. Once the storage is full the camera automatically deletes old recordings.

The same for 1920X1080p 30fps?
You can set the bit rate yourself, anything from 4Mbps-16Mbps regardless of frame size and frame rate.

What recording software are you using?
I'm just using the software built into each camera for recording and scheduling, there is client software available and also a mobile app, which you can use to playback full res recordings or watch the low bit rate stream or full res stream live.

What was the total cost if you don't mind me asking?
The cameras were £160 each, switch was £60 and the Microserver and disks came to £500 but I didn't buy the server and disks solely for this.

What's the build quality like on those cameras?
Excellent build quality, they are metal bodied and feel pretty solid.

Also what compression / quality settings etc?
Bit rate on the main stream can be set from 4Mbps to 16Mbps, you can change the frame size from 1920x1080 to 2068x1560 and the frame rate goes from 1fps to 30fps (max 20fps at 2068x1560). There's loads of other settings for adjusting gain, sharpness, brightness, IR on/off, noise reduction, bw/colour etc..

Motion detection / record
Video Blind and alarm (or email etc)
Video Loss and alarm (or email etc)
Disk errors / full etc...

You can set email alerts for any of the above.

Also does it allow you to search by camera / type of recording and then highlight in red (on a time line) all the motion detection....

the limitation with the built in software is that you can only schedule one type of recording so if I had it on 24/7 recording I couldn't set a separate trigger for motion detection that would mark a warning on the viewer timeline, however the trigger does appear in the log so you can use that for reference. As I've got mine in motion detection only mode that doesn't matter to me, the motion detection is very good to and you can adjust the sensitivity, I found at night I had the sensitivity too high as it was being set off by the video noise.

Any other questions let me know!

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Each camera has a 10/100 Cat5 connection and the switch they go back to is a Gigabit one, it's incredibly easy to set up with the switch I have, you literally connect one end of the Cat5 cable to the port on the camera and the other end to the switch. As my switch is an unmanaged plug and play type it connects straight away. There's some software that comes with the camera that allows you to find it on your network and change the IP to suit.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

I have got the free software that you can download from hik vision on my laptops that allows you to view both cameras of however many you have simultaneously, you can view recordings this way too. They've also got a phone app that allows you to do the same and I actually tend to use this more than anything else.

Only issue I've found really is that the cameras produce a very noisy image at night, which can be cleaned up with that noise reduction but you lose some detail. Also due to the noise the motion activation is too sensitive at night so you record a lot of nothing.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

I'm just wondering if having a few of these cameras will be too hugry on data storage since it doesn't do compression unless I am wrong? Maybe the software allows compression instead of the camera's webserver saving directly to disk?

Is this camera missing H.264 compression etc which I see a few camera's offering?

They do use h.264 compression, you can set the bit rate to anything up to 16Mbps. At 16Mbps over a 24 hour constant record period you'd use about 140GB of data per camera.

The infrared flood lights sounds like a good idea, I'll have to investigate.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

I'm interested in some of these for work Mr Squirrel. They GM expects our current CCTV to give good facial recognition and the cameras just don't have the resolution to do so!

Would I be able to set up two of these on a NAS/micro server and get decent recording time? You say 140gb / 24 hours? If so then two camera streams should be capable of recording for at least 48 hours on a 1tb drive?

Thanks for any help

For me, they are fine for facial recognition, it does depend on the camera's focal length and distance the subject is from the camera so you need to find a sweet spot. The cameras I bought can be bought with either a 4mm, 6mm or 12mm lens, 4mm gives a wider angle but the subject would need to be closer to the camera.

You wouldn't be able to get good facial recognition at night without an IR flood light or other external lighting as others have suggested in previous posts.

Setting both cameras up to record to a NAS/micro server is ideal, that is what I'm doing, I've got a HP N54L running FreeNAS, with soon to be 4x WD RED 3TB drives, which I'll run in RAID 6 giving me around 6TB of usable space. I currently have 3 drives in RAID 5 so still have 6T useable. I use my NAS for other things as well though so only 1TB is allocated (512GB per camera) for the cameras and as I'm only recording when motion is detected, I have over a month's worth of recordings, still with space to spare from that allowance.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

My install isn't very neat, I've just plugged the Ethernet cable into the cable that hangs off the back of the camera (and wrapped the join in electrical tape for waterproofing, it's under my roof so shouldn't get wet anyway), run it behind my soffits and then drilled a hole through the wall to run the cables to my switch. The camera does come with a waterproof casing for the cable join but you need to be able to crimp on the RJ45 connector.

For the Windows software you can download it from http://www.hikvision.com/en/download_more.asp?id=1277

For Android and Apple you can get it from the relevant app store.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

http://www.use-ip.co.uk/

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

The house I've moved into has 4 analogue cameras up already, their SD or 940L and have 4 BNC cables coming into the living room.

What's a good recorder to go for, doesn't need to be anything special, just needs to be able to record to my NAS over ethernet.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Are there any cameras you can buy that record to an SD card and are battery powered? There's an area I want to put one that is too far from the house to run a cable or connect to over WiFi. I'm thinking I could just leave it running and retrieve it when it fills up or the battery needs charging.