Spec me a CCTV System

At the risk of 'asking the same question' as others, I have had a quick scan through the thread and am still in a slight quandary, forgive me!

2 Cameras required! Want great quality, budget circa £200 per camera, will install under the eaves.

Will record to iMac, pending a Synology purchase.... Have PoE switch, have Cat6 run throughout the house and loft, can shimmy up the ladder and install myself.

Hikvision DS-2CD2385FWD-I

Axis

Or A.N.Other

Many thanks, S
 
SizEzE said:
At the risk of 'asking the same question' as others, I have had a quick scan through the thread and am still in a slight quandary, forgive me!

2 Cameras required! Want great quality, budget circa £200 per camera, will install under the eaves.

Will record to iMac, pending a Synology purchase.... Have PoE switch, have Cat6 run throughout the house and loft, can shimmy up the ladder and install myself.

Hikvision DS-2CD2385FWD-I

Axis

Or A.N.Other

Many thanks, S
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Can recommend the colorvu from Hikvision

hhttps://www.hikvision.com/en/Produc...syIP-4.0-Series/4MP-ColorVu/DS-2CD2347G1-L(U)
 
at the top end was having a play with some of the cisco meraki range of cameras this week,


full 360 viewing using a VR headset is utterly impressive. as is some of the software backing them up, emotion recognition object detection etc etc
 
SizEzE said:
Thanks. Showing myself up though, are the cameras at 6MP and 8MP a case of 'diminishing returns'. Naively I would have assumed 8MP being 'twice as good', I appreciate a lot will also come down to the lens and the ability of the camera to reproduce the footage, feature set etc
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Recently replaced 3 of my 4 Hikvision IR turrets with the 4mp colorvu's. Whilst the day time images from the old cameras were very good, at night, unless mr would be burglar put his face right up to the camera and posed for a good mugshot any resultant images would have been next to useless.

Over the years i have captured footage of the odd scally passing by after they have caused problems elsewhere but the images were at night, blurry and of no use to identifying anyone.

For me the main purpose of a home cctv system is deterrent. Next in line would be to get a decent face image of any person up to no good. As the likelihood of any problems is greater at night the full time colour image from the colorvu cameras for me is a massive advance to the cameras i previously had and at less then £150 per camera were a good price.

Higher resolutions from 8mp cams etc will likely take more bandwidth and may be stuttery with remote viewing. For me, 4mp recording at 2560x1440 is fine for my needs running through a synology nas with the added bonus of full colour day and night.
 
maschio said:
Recently replaced 3 of my 4 Hikvision IR turrets with the 4mp colorvu's. Whilst the day time images from the old cameras were very good, at night, unless mr would be burglar put his face right up to the camera and posed for a good mugshot any resultant images would have been next to useless.

Over the years i have captured footage of the odd scally passing by after they have caused problems elsewhere but the images were at night, blurry and of no use to identifying anyone.

For me the main purpose of a home cctv system is deterrent. Next in line would be to get a decent face image of any person up to no good. As the likelihood of any problems is greater at night the full time colour image from the colorvu cameras for me is a massive advance to the cameras i previously had and at less then £150 per camera were a good price.

Higher resolutions from 8mp cams etc will likely take more bandwidth and may be stuttery with remote viewing. For me, 4mp recording at 2560x1440 is fine for my needs running through a synology nas with the added bonus of full colour day and night.
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That is really helpful thanks. Having had a look at the colour night footage from those cameras they look great. I have quite a bit of ambient lighting to the front of our home, which I understand will aid the cameras too.
 
SizEzE said:
That is really helpful thanks. Having had a look at the colour night footage from those cameras they look great. I have quite a bit of ambient lighting to the front of our home, which I understand will aid the cameras too.
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No probs. Looks like a simple install for you whichever way you decide to go. As another poster on this thread previously said, the advent of these colorvu cams will literally make night vision cams redundant.

My rear camera is looking into pitch darkness and when first installed my missus was convinced there was a floodlight in the garden as the image is that good.
 
I've been reading through this thread but it's a bit of a monster. My interest has suddenly risen though due to something that happened the other night with a couple of local hoods and has really got me feeling motivated but I'm a bit lost - we'd really like to get something in place.

Can a good set of two cameras (expandable to more when funds allow) with all the stuff needed be had for £300? I would want cameras of good enough quality for police to be able to identify someone at night. I don't want or need wireless, the house is new to us and will be decorated as time goes on so I have no issues with running ethernet cables through external walls or soffits.

I can go more if need be but would prefer not, and I would really like to be able to start with two cameras, although I would consider starting with one. Can anyone advise?

Thanks :)
 
I've just purchased 2 Reolink 420 5MP PoE cameras and will be fitting them to my soffits.

I'm recording the footage to a Synology Device using surveillance station. It was a breeze to setup and I've even set it to record directly to Google Drive so I have a cloud copy as well as local of any footage.

I get direct notifications to my phone using their app which of course gives me a live view and access to any recordings.

Infrared is not the greatest when capturing faces so I'll be installing a PIR light as well.

The total cost for my setup would have been close to about £700 but I was lucky enough to inherit the Synology along with 2 HDDs. So cost at the moment is about £130, that's the two cameras and a 5 port PoE switch.

Qnap do something equivalent so you could check them out too.

All in one systems are good but lack software updates and if you want to change cameras in the future you'll have to likely replace the entire system.
 
PardonTheWait said:
I've been reading through this thread but it's a bit of a monster. My interest has suddenly risen though due to something that happened the other night with a couple of local hoods and has really got me feeling motivated but I'm a bit lost - we'd really like to get something in place.

Can a good set of two cameras (expandable to more when funds allow) with all the stuff needed be had for £300? I would want cameras of good enough quality for police to be able to identify someone at night. I don't want or need wireless, the house is new to us and will be decorated as time goes on so I have no issues with running ethernet cables through external walls or soffits.

I can go more if need be but would prefer not, and I would really like to be able to start with two cameras, although I would consider starting with one. Can anyone advise?

Thanks :)
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I think the current opinion on here is that Hikvision Colorvu cameras are pretty much where it’s at. So you’d need 2 of those at, say, £80 each. After that you need some form of NVR. At the most basic you’re looking at a PC running Blue Iris. If you have access to MM then you can sometimes pick up a cheap NVR or NAS with camera licences and hard drives on there for not a lot of money.
 
The first thing to do would be to plan how you are going to install the system. All homes are different so you should consider where the cameras will be installed and work out how you are going to run the cables from the camera to wherever you intend to place the NVR/DVR/NAS.
 
Is there a video doorbell product that could be wireless or wired (PoE/Ethernet) that can allow me to record to a NVR/NAS without having to occupy my internet constantly uploading footage to the cloud?
 
WJA96 said:
I think the current opinion on here is that Hikvision Colorvu cameras are pretty much where it’s at. So you’d need 2 of those at, say, £80 each. After that you need some form of NVR. At the most basic you’re looking at a PC running Blue Iris. If you have access to MM then you can sometimes pick up a cheap NVR or NAS with camera licences and hard drives on there for not a lot of money.
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Will look into them. I would prefer an NVR or maybe a NAS I think as it can be stashed away somewhere, my computer is a laptop so not really viable. Any recommendations for NVRs? Thanks :)

Also where do people buy Hikvision stuff from - it seems like it's more aimed at installers, I presume they're available to the general public though?

maschio said:
The first thing to do would be to plan how you are going to install the system. All homes are different so you should consider where the cameras will be installed and work out how you are going to run the cables from the camera to wherever you intend to place the NVR/DVR/NAS.
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I'm thinking to start with one on the front of the house at about ground floor ceiling level, looking down the driveway, and one on the back at the same height. After that I would probably want to add a couple at a higher level later on and possibly one covering the side drive.

As for cabling, our bedroom is all of one side of the house, and it needs plastering at some point, so I won't have an issue running cable into that room from outside and then routing them to the loft or somewhere like that.
 
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PardonTheWait said:
Will look into them. I would prefer an NVR or maybe a NAS I think as it can be stashed away somewhere, my computer is a laptop so not really viable. Any recommendations for NVRs? Thanks :)

Also where do people buy Hikvision stuff from - it seems like it's more aimed at installers, I presume they're available to the general public though?



I'm thinking to start with one on the front of the house at about ground floor ceiling level, looking down the driveway, and one on the back at the same height. After that I would probably want to add a couple at a higher level later on and possibly one covering the side drive.

As for cabling, our bedroom is all of one side of the house, and it needs plastering at some point, so I won't have an issue running cable into that room from outside and then routing them to the loft or somewhere like that.
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Consider going straight to the loft first, much easier to make changes later. If you have downpipes from the guttering that are close to where you'd like to fix your cameras you could route the cables from camera up the back of the pipes, out of site and neat straight into the loft. Two of mine have been done like that.

The others have been positioned so that there is no cable exposed and they have been drilled directly into the garage. I'm anal about cables running exposed :)
 
Scream said:
£300-£400 won’t cut it in my opinion. Say £100-£150 per cam with £50 Poe switch. A few hundred for NVR+HD and that’s a hell of a better setup than the Nest.
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ddoubleep said:
Found out the last same year before going on Hik. Once I looked past all the marketing hype on Nest and co a traditional camera set-up worked best and been running well since.

Only checking this thread and seeing the ColorVu stuff has perked my interest on replacing one of my cameras with a simple swap out.
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Late replies but could either of you or anyone else here help spec me some cameras, I have had a look at the Hikvision ones but I am not too sure what model is recommended/I need. Is it possible to get 3 cameras for around 250-300?

I am considering going for a low power PC and using BlueIris.

One camera will be mounted on the rear of the property just looking out across the garden. One camera at the front again just looking out across the front of the house. In line with being able to see people approaching the front door etc. A third camera will be on side of the property (end terrace) just to cover the path.

EDIT:

Hikvision 4K 8MP Camera DS-2CE78U1T-IT3F are avaliable for circa £40 each so would a few of those and then a NVR/DVR work? or alternatively i came across this, https://www.cctvkits.co.uk/hilook-by-hikvision-5mp-4-channel-ip-cctv-camera-kit-builder/
 
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Seearbe said:
I have been pondering a couple of CCTV cameras for a while and since joining the forum here noticed most things are covered by someone. But wow, what a monster thread! So to ask my question in the hope someone can help...

I'll be installing a Yale Sync Smart Home Alarm shortly (it's been sat in my cupboard for a while) which allows me to activate and deactivate the alarm remotely. I'd like a camera or two that I can use to check on the house if the alarm goes off whilst I'm at work. An indoor 1080p pan and tilt camera with online access would tick the box to start with - I can pop it on a window sill to see both inside and outside. That's relatively easy - the harder bit is finding something that might have the ability to save to a NAS or a free/cheap cloud service. Any suggestions?
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Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this? Thanks.
 
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