Spec me a CCTV System

Hi all, don't know much about CCTV systems so here for advice. I've just picked up a NVR from eBay for just over a £100 - model Hikvision DS-7732NI-14. Appears to be a reasonably up to date model so I assume the Hikvision colorvu cameras should work fine?

Thanks
 
Hi all, don't know much about CCTV systems so here for advice. I've just picked up a NVR from eBay for just over a £100 - model Hikvision DS-7732NI-14. Appears to be a reasonably up to date model so I assume the Hikvision colorvu cameras should work fine?

Thanks

Dudnt you check the specs before you bought it? What features of the ColorVu cameras are you hoping to exploit with your new NVR?

The biggest issue on Hikvision NVRs is always available bandwidth. So that NVR is rated at 32 720P camera streams. Or 4 8MP camera streams. So how many cameras did you want to attach to it?
 
It came up as a newly listed item and jumped in to the purchase as did not want to miss out.

Looking to attach 8 cameras as that's how many POE channels it has. Ideally 5mp each. The colorvu provide colour images at night I believe?



Thanks
 
It came up as a newly listed item and jumped in to the purchase as did not want to miss out.

Looking to attach 8 cameras as that's how many POE channels it has. Ideally 5mp each. The colorvu provide colour images at night I believe?

No, you’ll only get 8 x 4MP cameras on that and even then that’s your MAXIMUM bandwidth. So your frame rate will drop if you view rate cameras from more than one source while recording.

Some of the ColorVu cameras are just VERY sensitive and need street lighting. Some of them have bright white LEDs and some have soft white LEDs. What are you looking to capture images of? Luckily the Hikvision ColorVu are mostly 4MP so it will just about work for 8 cameras with this NVR.
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply

Recording around the perimeter of a building, includes a car park and onto a street and darkish side alley area. Reasonably well lit in the main.

Most of the Colorvu cameras I've seen are 5mp. Also I'm not fixed in the Colorvu, if the only benefit is colour images at night is that a really useful addition?

If this won't do the job I'll just right it off.
 
The better ColorVu have the built-in soft white light and they are only 4MP so you could have 8 of those.

The ones you’re talking about are the F1.0 with the very sensitive photocell.

And yes, colour vision at night is a significant improvement on the IR black and white cameras that went before.
 
A bit of light entertainment from the Ring Video Doorbell Facebook Group a couple of days ago which is still making me smile.
A woman posted who must live in a property similar to My Mums where if you stand by the front door your living room sticks out about 15 foot on your left so basically you can't see anything over to the left from your door because the wall is in the way.
This woman posts two pictures and says: You can see from the Ring photo I can see all my car on the 1st picture but only see half of it on my 2nd picture so I want a new video doorbell that can see all my car.
Within a minute she has 10 replies saying "You've moved the Ring".
She confirms and says that she had an electrician hardwire it and he moved it from the right frame of the door to the left so can anybody suggest something else that will see all her car from the left doorframe :)
We all tried our best talking about angles of view but she didn't get it and it was made worse by a couple of blokes suggesting their systems and they haven't read a single word of what her problem is and where a new video doorbell needs to go.
Anyway, she ended up buying a Eufy doorbell to replace in exactly the same place and then she deleted the thread.
I might join the Eufy Facebook Group to see her ask why it won't see through walls or around corners.
 
Looking at setting up roughly 6 external cameras around the house with a new NVR. Are the HikVision ColourVu's worth it? We don't have street lighting around here, but there will be various other security lights around the property. I was looking at Ubiquiti G4 Pro cameras, but think I'll get better bang for buck looking elsewhere.

Any suggestions for models to look at? Is it worth just sticking with the HikVision NVR for ease of use, or am I better off rolling my own with something like BlueIris? For the HikVision NVR Ideally, I'd prefer to go with a higher resolution for sharper images, but I understand there's tradeoffs with any decision.
 
Looking at setting up roughly 6 external cameras around the house with a new NVR. Are the HikVision ColourVu's worth it? We don't have street lighting around here, but there will be various other security lights around the property. I was looking at Ubiquiti G4 Pro cameras, but think I'll get better bang for buck looking elsewhere.

Any suggestions for models to look at? Is it worth just sticking with the HikVision NVR for ease of use, or am I better off rolling my own with something like BlueIris? For the HikVision NVR Ideally, I'd prefer to go with a higher resolution for sharper images, but I understand there's tradeoffs with any decision.

True night colour vision is a revelation and it has completely changed the cameras that we sell and install. Once customers have seen the colour night vision kit, they won’t even look at the IR black and white cameras.

ColorVu is Hikvision’s brand for their colour night vision cameras. There are two types. The ultra-sensitive ones that need good street lighting to work and the ones with the white LEDs that make their own illumination and light up the area around your property. If installed in the right locations, both can be stunningly good. And they don’t really cost much more than an IR camera because white LEDs are actually cheaper than IR LEDs and they use about the same energy. So yes, unless you want something specialist, like ANPR, then I would go with night colour vision cameras every time now.

At the moment (and things change regularly) the best price/night quality/resolution compromise is the 5MP Dahua TiOC. The 4MP Hikvision ColorVu and 8MP Hikvision ColorVu don’t really compete with the 5MP and 8MP TiOCs. When you go up to 8MP you lose some range/distance brightness (40m on the 5MP vs 40m on the 8MP) and colour clarity at night but you gain pixels which are good for digital zoom. Dahua also make a 2MP TiOC which is stunning at night but isn’t any cheaper than the 5MP and is less pixels so less ability to digitally zoom in when you’re reviewing the images.

The massive advantage with going Blue Iris is its software and its always being updated. The massive advantage with a PoE NVR is that you don’t need the separate PoE switch and if you buy the one that matches the cameras and phone app, it can be more straightforward to setup.

If you’re into IT as a hobby, and you like to tinker and play, then Blue Iris is excellent. If you just want a fit and forget camera system that works, I’d probably get an NVR. As someone who sells and installs both Dahua and Hikvision, currently Dahua have the edge, but Hikvision have new stuff coming out all the time so that recommendation may change over the next 12 months.
 
Cheers @WJA96 - very helpful! I work in IT, so very comfortable with something like Blue Iris, but also value systems that "just work" and suspect I won't want to do much tinkering so I'll probably go down the NVR route.
 
Spent ages trying to figure out what the problem was with using motion detection on my Synology NAS with an H.View camera. As I was doing it remotely from a browser I set the recordings to h264 so that I could see what I was doing in Chrome. Once it was working I switched the camera back to h265 and all recordings stopped every time. A bit of googling reveals that motion detection (on my NAS) doesn't work when recording h265 video. I will have to setup the motion detection on the camera itself when I get chance. Annoying.

Dave
 
Is there a big difference between generation 1 and 2 for these Hikvision colorvu 4mp cameras?

ds-2cd2347g2-lu is the generation 2 model number.

Also why do most CCTV suppliers seems to be trade only or require a login for viewing prices, especially Hikvision kit?
 
Is there a big difference between generation 1 and 2 for these Hikvision colorvu 4mp cameras?

ds-2cd2347g2-lu is the generation 2 model number.

Also why do most CCTV suppliers seems to be trade only or require a login for viewing prices, especially Hikvision kit?
Because there isn't huge margins in the hardware and many installers who were trying to sell the first solution were being met with people going online and comparing costs etc and Hik wanted it to be a trade only product.
 
Hi,

I have a little problem with the highly acclaimed :) Dahua TiOC cameras...

Well, while fully aware of the fact that the general recommended height is 3-3.5m I choose to mount mines at about 6m height.
I know, I know...

The reason for this choice is that my priority was that the flash strobe should be visible from the surroundings and the camera very difficult to attack.
So the cameras are oriented at about 40°C. The focal is 3.6 and the distance to the subject is 6 to 10m.

Under these circumstances I have a very good visibility of my front/back yard.

Well the problem is that under these apparent optimal condition the camera seem to have a lot of problems idetifying the human targets. Following intrusions the alarm triggering is quite erratic.

Especially when the movement is fast no alarm is triggered. That's quite annoying since an old Optex outdoor detector is much more difficult to trick than the latest Dahua IA camera.

I use the IVS rules leaving at least 1cm "free" area in order to facilitate intrusion detection as recommended by @WJA96.

Things improve significantly if I superpose/intricate multiple intrusion zones and tripwire rules. The rules are layered on the same perimeter. But still I'm far away from the advertized 94% accuracy...

And if I run in front of the camera then most of the time the alarm is not triggered. The movement takes less than 10s. The tests are done in full daylight.

Did I forgot some setting in the settings? I see that there is a temporization of about 10s that cannot be lowered...
I wonder if the mounting height is the cause or just the cameras are in fact not so reliable in identifying the humans.

Regards,
 
Hi,

I have a little problem with the highly acclaimed :) Dahua TiOC cameras...

Well, while fully aware of the fact that the general recommended height is 3-3.5m I choose to mount mines at about 6m height.
I know, I know...

The reason for this choice is that my priority was that the flash strobe should be visible from the surroundings and the camera very difficult to attack.
So the cameras are oriented at about 40°C. The focal is 3.6 and the distance to the subject is 6 to 10m.

Under these circumstances I have a very good visibility of my front/back yard.

Well the problem is that under these apparent optimal condition the camera seem to have a lot of problems idetifying the human targets. Following intrusions the alarm triggering is quite erratic.

Especially when the movement is fast no alarm is triggered. That's quite annoying since an old Optex outdoor detector is much more difficult to trick than the latest Dahua IA camera.

I use the IVS rules leaving at least 1cm "free" area in order to facilitate intrusion detection as recommended by @WJA96.

Things improve significantly if I superpose/intricate multiple intrusion zones and tripwire rules. The rules are layered on the same perimeter. But still I'm far away from the advertized 94% accuracy...

And if I run in front of the camera then most of the time the alarm is not triggered. The movement takes less than 10s. The tests are done in full daylight.

Did I forgot some setting in the settings? I see that there is a temporization of about 10s that cannot be lowered...
I wonder if the mounting height is the cause or just the cameras are in fact not so reliable in identifying the humans.

Regards,

You should be able to get an IVS detect hit at 80m. But you might need to look at your claimed vision distances because if the camera is 6m up then surely the thing you are trying to capture is more than 6-10m away?

According to the Dahua Wiki you need 2 seconds worth of images to get an accurate IVS hit. So you won’t capture someone running across the frame unless they’re a long way away.

https://dahuawiki.com/IVS

If you want to see fast movement then use SMD+ but you’ll get a lot more false alerts.

Beyond that you’d need to link the camera to a PIR or laser sensor to see the movement (AJAX outdoor) and then trigger the recording.
 
Also why do most CCTV suppliers seems to be trade only or require a login for viewing prices, especially Hikvision kit?

Because the resellers don’t want to deal with retail customers. As a business customer you have very few rights. As a retail customer buying mail-order you can order a device, try it out, and then send it back if you don’t like it. If it breaks in the first 6 months then it’s automatically a refund or replacement. And they’re fairly complex products.

So you’re asking what’s the difference between Gen 1 and Gen 2 Hikvision cameras. Someone in their technical support team would know that but they only have a couple of tech support staff and they’d be swamped if they had to handle low-level support queries from retail customers.
 
Is there a big difference between generation 1 and 2 for these Hikvision colorvu 4mp cameras?

The biggest difference between ColorVu and ColorVu 2.0 is that ColorVu 2.0 have white LEDs.

ColorVu 2.0 also have superior noise reduction algorithms and they’re available in a 4K/8MP variant.

So, to answer your question, it depends if you have good street lighting. With great street lighting ColorVu is fine. Less great street lighting, you want ColorVu 2.0.

But you really want Dahua TiOC ;)
 
You should be able to get an IVS detect hit at 80m. But you might need to look at your claimed vision distances because if the camera is 6m up then surely the thing you are trying to capture is more than 6-10m away?

According to the Dahua Wiki you need 2 seconds worth of images to get an accurate IVS hit. So you won’t capture someone running across the frame unless they’re a long way away.

https://dahuawiki.com/IVS

If you want to see fast movement then use SMD+ but you’ll get a lot more false alerts.

Beyond that you’d need to link the camera to a PIR or laser sensor to see the movement (AJAX outdoor) and then trigger the recording.

Thank You WJA96 for your answer.

For the 3.6mm focal the DORI distances are :
Detection: 80m, Observation:32m, Identification: 8m
Until now I've seen them as upper thresholds for the designed operation, meaning for instance that an identification can be done at 2m also.

In my case when an intruder enters in the detection area the horizontal distance from the camera is about 9m. When it finishes crossing the detection area the horizontal distance is about 2m (at an angle of 40°).
So if the intruder runs with a speed greater than 12,6km/h (meaning 9-2=7m in less than 2s, which is feasable) the camera won't trigger any alarm. So sad.

I'll have to install a lower and distant camera in order to be able to insure the minimum 2s or install/rely on a motion detector.

The problem with the AJAX MotionProtect Outdoor is that they seem only wireless and they need their own hub.
And the problem with the PIR detectors in general is that they seem prone to false alarms.

I'll get highly popular with my neighbours if the alarm is falsely triggered at 2am...

Could someone recommend some very reliable PIR/microwave detectors or some (affordable) laser detectors?
I know about OPTEX REDSCAN but they seem reserved for the high end professional applications.
 
I’m obviously missing the problem you are trying to solve? You want to set your 10 second alarm off if someone runs in front of the camera but is out of the cameras field of view within 2 seconds?

And if the camera is 6m and person is 9m off the wall then they’re 11m away from the camera, so well within the 80m detection range.

Ultimately your best bet for this is probably to link your TiOC with SMD3 upgraded firmware (coming soon!) to a FAST PTZ that will track your runner and alarm for you. I’ve been testing one of the new SD3 PTZs but I don’t think it could track fast enough. You almost want a positioning camera. It can be done, but you’re talking thousands rather than hundreds of pounds.

Incidentally, the 90-odd percent figure quoted is the reduction in false alarms over SMD+. And ultimately it’s a £120 camera. You can’t expect miracles!
 
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