Spec me a CCTV System

WJA96 said:
Why would you want discrete? Surveillance cameras have two functions - surveillance, obviously, and deterrence. Discrete cameras won’t give you any deterrence.

That said, what area do you want to cover and do you want colour images in the dark?
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The deterrence part also comes with a negative though, could mean you have something worthwhile protecting. Even with a camera what stoping people robbing your place with a hoodie and mask these days due to covid? At best it deters opportunists I would imagine. Could be wrong though, so look forward to replies :)
 
@WJA96 Putting aside other considerations, including costs, would you think that the 4MP overall would be the camera of choice for both day and night use over that of the 8MP version, even tho the latter has a bigger sensor size...?
Considering that you would get full warranty, I assume, they are not bad prices.
 
Vimes said:
@WJA96 Putting aside other considerations, including costs, would you think that the 4MP overall would be the camera of choice for both day and night use over that of the 8MP version, even tho the latter has a bigger sensor size...?
Considering that you would get full warranty, I assume, they are not bad prices.
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These are very new. I've only put the 4MP in twice and the 8MP once. Whereas I've installed literally hundreds of Dahua TiOCs. Hikvision have a different design philosophy to Dahua. Dahua designed a really good 5MP then introduced an 8MP for customers who wanted "4K". The 5MP is £100+VAT and the 8MP is £110+VAT I tghink. And the 8MP isn't as good at night. But it sells on the specification. Hikvision have a significantly better 4K sensor than Dahua and that is a SUPERB camera. But it's £140+VAT rather than £100+VAT. On a 4 camera system that's not insignificant.
 
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TNA said:
The deterrence part also comes with a negative though, could mean you have something worthwhile protecting. Even with a camera what stoping people robbing your place with a hoodie and mask these days due to covid? At best it deters opportunists I would imagine. Could be wrong though, so look forward to replies :)
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It depends what you are trying to deter. Hardened thieves probably already know what they want to steal. That might be your car or your valuables from home. They'll just mask up and commit the crime anyway. Casual thieves will possibly move somewhere else in the face of a surveillance camera. Gangs of "da yoof" definitely do not hang around on street corners near houses with surveillance cameras.
 
@WJA96 after having had a proper look around my house, where I can route cables etc I have settled on something like this:
  • A camera at the front door, covering the path up to the door and the car parked directly at the front of the house. I also have a Ring Doorbell camera but I am more than happy to get rid of this.
  • A camera inside the garage. If you imagine the car front to back, garage door at the front and main drive in front of it. Rear left of the car is a side door to the garage. I would think maybe a dome camera inside the garage at the front looking down the garage. The idea if that some scum robs my car I have their face recorded.
  • A camera at the front of the garage, looking over the rest of the drive and side of the house. This would be to cover people coming up to the garage and the outside access to the garden.
  • Perhaps a 4th one, covering the garden area. I'm not sure how I'd cable this but could use the rear right of the garage if I drilled through the exterior wall of it
What kind of cameras would you recommend for the above? I have a QNAP NAS, so I could use that for the recording and set up sync to Backblaze (I have decent upload).
 
Has anyone got experience with the "Ring" stick up cameras? I've got power (A light) about a foot away from where i want to place a camera, just debating whether this would be an easy alternative to a full system currently. (Realise i'd have to fit an adaptable box and have the plug in there as they can't be wired straight into the mains)

Just want to know if they are any good or over-priced rubbish? Youtube footage is a very mixed bag...
 
ChrisD. said:
@WJA96 after having had a proper look around my house, where I can route cables etc I have settled on something like this:
  • A camera at the front door, covering the path up to the door and the car parked directly at the front of the house. I also have a Ring Doorbell camera but I am more than happy to get rid of this.
  • A camera inside the garage. If you imagine the car front to back, garage door at the front and main drive in front of it. Rear left of the car is a side door to the garage. I would think maybe a dome camera inside the garage at the front looking down the garage. The idea if that some scum robs my car I have their face recorded.
  • A camera at the front of the garage, looking over the rest of the drive and side of the house. This would be to cover people coming up to the garage and the outside access to the garden.
  • Perhaps a 4th one, covering the garden area. I'm not sure how I'd cable this but could use the rear right of the garage if I drilled through the exterior wall of it
What kind of cameras would you recommend for the above? I have a QNAP NAS, so I could use that for the recording and set up sync to Backblaze (I have decent upload).
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Your QNAP NAS is going to be the decider here to a certain extent. Which software will you be using? With the current licensing models for both Surveillance Station and QVR-Pro it’s going to make it difficult and expensive largely because the camera licensing has become silly expensive in itself and because they don’t offer H265 and H265+ Video compression on many cameras.

Both QNAP and Synology also took the decision not to add any new Dahua or Hikvision cameras because of US pressure (the USA has officially declared Dahua and Hikvision to be threats to national security along with ZTE, Huawei and Hytera). ONVIF also no longer certify Dahua or Hikvision cameras although they work just fine as ONVIF cameras. So that means you would either be using older cameras or more expensive NDAA compliant cameras.

So that leaves you with something like Axis (theoretically American but made in China) or Hanwha (Korean).
 
WJA96 said:
Your QNAP NAS is going to be the decider here to a certain extent. Which software will you be using? With the current licensing models for both Surveillance Station and QVR-Pro it’s going to make it difficult and expensive largely because the camera licensing has become silly expensive in itself and because they don’t offer H265 and H265+ Video compression on many cameras.

Both QNAP and Synology also took the decision not to add any new Dahua or Hikvision cameras because of US pressure (the USA has officially declared Dahua and Hikvision to be threats to national security along with ZTE, Huawei and Hytera). ONVIF also no longer certify Dahua or Hikvision cameras although they work just fine as ONVIF cameras. So that means you would either be using older cameras or more expensive NDAA compliant cameras.

So that leaves you with something like Axis (theoretically American but made in China) or Hanwha (Korean).
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Ah, I wasn’t aware. I guess I could get an NVR the with support for 4 cameras. Another option is to run a VM in my vSphere environment if anyone does virtual appliances or software based solutions on Ubuntu as an example?
 
Rexxar said:
Has anyone got experience with the "Ring" stick up cameras? I've got power (A light) about a foot away from where i want to place a camera, just debating whether this would be an easy alternative to a full system currently. (Realise i'd have to fit an adaptable box and have the plug in there as they can't be wired straight into the mains)

Just want to know if they are any good or over-priced rubbish? Youtube footage is a very mixed bag...
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Eh, they're okay. The old Nest outdoor IQ lineup is much better.

The current nest outdoor may still be better if you want full 24/7 recording, but I've not tested them. The Ring only takes snapshots if it doesn't detect motion, even if it's the wired version, which is rubbish if you want to go back and check something that wasn't picked up by the motion sensor.

I've got a couple of ring elites powered and using data over POE from a single ethernet cable each to a network switch. They're reliable, good connection and nice not to have to charge them. The battery ones are good for spots you can't run power or any cable easily, but you still need decent wifi and motion detection can be hit or miss and drain battery (although you can get solar adapters).

I'd have gone all in on more Nest if they hadn't gimped the quality of the new ones and started forcing users to use the home app instead of the nest app. If you just want a single cam though and don't have any system the new nest ones might work well, either that or the ring. If the area your putting it is low traffic (not any public pedestrian or vehicle traffic) you could probably even get away with just the ring battery and run no wires.

I'll probably be switching to a full POE NVR solution at the next upgrade.
 
mushtafa said:
@WJA96 Are you an installer or sales person? Can you supply to the public without install?
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You can get pretty much anything I can get you from BroadbandBuyer. And some of their prices are better than my trade price. So that’s probably a good place to start.

And yes, I mainly sell, but I also do installs.
 
WJA96 said:
You can get pretty much anything I can get you from BroadbandBuyer. And some of their prices are better than my trade price. So that’s probably a good place to start.

And yes, I mainly sell, but I also do installs.
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Thanks, I'll take a look. I like the look of the Hikvision ColorVU cameras; Do you have experience with these?
 
mushtafa said:
Thanks, I'll take a look. I like the look of the Hikvision ColorVU cameras; Do you have experience with these?
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Yes, although Hikvision are miles behind Dahua on the whole colour night vision thing. They're probably a year behind Dahua and while the Hikvision cameras are good, Dahua are better in my opinion.
 
SimonR said:
I install a lot of ColorVu cameras. If you have any specific questions let me know.
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How do you rate them generally over that of a non ColorVu cameras in their general capability. Perhaps more so in low light...?

To maintain mostly a colour output, in a reasonable low light situation with waking people and slow moving cars, what exposure could you maintain to ensure a decent image.
I imagine that the sensitivity and size of the sensor has improved in these types of cameras.?

Thanks
 
I rate them pretty highly to be honest and they perform well in urban night time environments without the need for additional lighting or the on-board LED. Once you get to darker or more rural locations you are going to need either a secondary lighting source or the LED built into the camera itself, otherwise the camera will revert to a monochrome image.

When you talk about 'exposure' can you clarify what you mean as it can mean various things.

The sensitivity and size of the sensor has significantly improved say over the Darkfighter Range.

I think that to give you more advice I would need a context and location for its use - commercial / domestic ? urban / sub-urban / rural? Purpose - intrusion detection, facial image capture, vehicle capture, general surveillance?

CCTV is not really a one size fits all, a decent installer will want a survey and understanding of end-use. EG I have a farmer client who just wants to keep an eye on his Alpacas which is a very different use case to home security and needs very different equipment.
 
@SimonR

Thanks and point taken.....

What I meant in regards to exposure.....

is the exposure time...

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I appreciate that it only one factor with the cameras ability to capture images, some of the cars or people passing by being transverse to the camera, which does not help.

My two front cameras would view....

Camera-01.jpg


Camera-02.jpg

so Urban setting and general application of use. Some street lighting being available.

Thanks
 
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ColourVu would work well in that setting. I would suggest that probably a mix of 4mm 4mp ColorVu and 2.8mm 4mp ColorVu would would be best in that application as you are capturing a lot of street scene (which technically you shouldnt).
With regard to Exposure Settings you can normally only assign separate night and day exposures if you manually set the times to switch from night to day ( I normally leave them on auto) and never have any problems capturing stills but you can play with them if you wish. What is it you are trying to capture stills of? Moving cars, pedestrians? Pedestrians you could go as low as 1/30 and you may need to keep it around 1/150 for moving cars (depending on their speed). Its all very use case specific
 
Thanks for your thoughts. With 2.8mm lenses I do remember when two scrotes were trying each and every front door on their way up our road for access. They also tried to break in many cars. With having that video the police were able to call at each house they tried to access and get a statement from each occupier. With what they did at our property, and the others, they were both convicted and jailed. Seemed somewhat useful having a 2.8mm over a 4mm, not much in the way of downside. The gene pool might be a little low where we live as one of them came directly up to the "Front 2" camera to look into the lens.
Pedestrians are the primary focus of what we look to capture, point taken about the 1/30th second exposure time.

My venerable NVR (circa 2012 perhaps, bought in 2014 from Ali) accepts 4 1080p cameras. I have six altogether, records at 1080p and 40MB/s bandwidth IIRC. I then use a Netgear POE to power the cameras.

Possibly looking to change the NVR, not much in the way of advantage in buying from Ali, perhaps, as you pay Customs charges upfront with the UK courier for that. Looking for an NVR to support up to 8 cameras with a decent bandwidth, 4k potential, and 2 HD's with H265+ encoding.

I assume that BroadBand buyer is the retailer of choice..?

Thanks
 
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