Spec me a CCTV System

There’s nothing wrong with the ColorVu cameras - they’re very good. The Dahua’s are cheaper and obviously they were first to market with TiOC which Hikvision have now brought out their own version of. You wouldn’t be unhappy with either of them.

Numbers on spec sheets are one thing. If we just went on specs everyone would have Reolink. Actually holding the camera and then looking at the images you get from it tells the whole truth. An extra £20-30 per camera buys a huge difference in physical and image quality.
 
I've reached the end of my tether with this Swann stuff, the app is absolutely useless in that when you get an alert you can't see on the phone what triggered the alert, you have to literally pan through an entire ~20 minute clip and hope you see it. It's very easy to see on the NVR or in the browser/desktop app as you can filter to AI triggers, but not in the mobile app. I've swapped the entire system at their suggestion to try and fix this, and have spent hours on the phone with support and they can't provide a solution, so it's going to have to go back.

So, do I:

1) Give Dahua another go with an NVR? The IQ was excellent on them, but the app felt like it was coded in a kid's basement (both aesthetically and stability wise), certainly not a slick "prosumer" app, and the major issue I had was trying to get remote playback working from SD cards. @WJA96 assures me the NVR is much better, so maybe worth a try? I've just bought a 3tb WD purple so ready to move on an NVR setup.
2) Is Hikvision's app any better or is that also a "very Chinese" offering?
3) The only NVR product that actually looks they've given significant thought to the interface and looks like it is aimed at consumer power users who will be consuming almost entirely through a phone etc, is the offering from Unifi Protect offering. However, their camera's IQ isn't as good as the Dahua / Hikview range, they're a lot more expensive, and they have the corporate practice of dropping entire ranges without warning so I think that's a non-starter

It's probably worth stressing that whilst of course recording of events is an important baseline ability, 90% of the utility for me is instant alerts of what's happening around my property, not retrospectively going through the NVR if something happens. If someone walks up my driveway, I want to know that near-instantly and get a video feed on my phone / google home / etc within a few seconds before they get to my door, not sit there waiting for an app to clunkily load and show me a feed 20 seconds out of date.

It just feels really odd that all of the interfaces are so poor on everything I can find, and they are purely geared for either live monitoring on a monitor, or watching back recordings with no time sensitivity.

Cheers,

Tom.
 
WJA96 said:
There’s nothing wrong with the ColorVu cameras - they’re very good. The Dahua’s are cheaper and obviously they were first to market with TiOC which Hikvision have now brought out their own version of. You wouldn’t be unhappy with either of them.

Numbers on spec sheets are one thing. If we just went on specs everyone would have Reolink. Actually holding the camera and then looking at the images you get from it tells the whole truth. An extra £20-30 per camera buys a huge difference in physical and image quality.
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@WJA96 Thanks for taking the time to reply. I've found your many contributions to this thread to be very helpful.

To be honest. Its unlikely that I will use the active deterrent. But my main focus is good motion detection with prompt, accurate alerts. And a clear image at night. I didn't really look into the Hiks as I had my heart set on the Dahua.... Until I watched this video where the 5MP TIOC seemed to really struggle. What's your thoughts on this? - https://youtu.be/hO4F8-KZXyI

As you've said I definitely think it's worth spending an extra few quid to get quality, after all - the investment should last me a good few years. How would you say the new 8mp colorvu compares to the TIOC? Although I am aware that it costs about £60 more.

As a side note, as I've never installed a system before, i was going to pay an installer. But the price mark up is quite hefty. Quoted £650 for a 2x 5MP TIOC's with a 2 series NVR? Is that expensive? Or am I just being tight?
 
SkipManSteve said:
@WJA96 Thanks for taking the time to reply. I've found your many contributions to this thread to be very helpful.

To be honest. Its unlikely that I will use the active deterrent. But my main focus is good motion detection with prompt, accurate alerts. And a clear image at night. I didn't really look into the Hiks as I had my heart set on the Dahua.... Until I watched this video where the 5MP TIOC seemed to really struggle. What's your thoughts on this? - https://youtu.be/hO4F8-KZXyI

As you've said I definitely think it's worth spending an extra few quid to get quality, after all - the investment should last me a good few years. How would you say the new 8mp colorvu compares to the TIOC? Although I am aware that it costs about £60 more.

As a side note, as I've never installed a system before, i was going to pay an installer. But the price mark up is quite hefty. Quoted £650 for a 2x 5MP TIOC's with a 2 series NVR? Is that expensive? Or am I just being tight?
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I budget 4 hours at £35/hour per camera. And a 5 MP TiOC is currently £100-ish trade. The 2xx4 NVRs are roughly £140 for one with a 2Tb surveillance HDD in it. So £280+200+140 is £620+VAT. So I don ‘t think your installer is making very much if he’s quoted you £650 all in. My labour rate includes cable at £0.25/m and either a small patch panel or surface mount boxes for the terminations near the NVR. Even screws and fixings cost something. Obviously your installer has seen the install locations and it might be 30 minutes to get the ladders off the van, 30 minutes to put them back and an hour to run your cables but it almost sounds too cheap. I would normally spend at least 30 minutes setting up the customer’s phone(s) and giving them some light training. If it really is £650 all-in I’d probably bite their hand off!
 
SkipManSteve said:
@WJA96But my main focus is good motion detection with prompt, accurate alerts. And a clear image at night. I didn't really look into the Hiks as I had my heart set on the Dahua.... Until I watched this video where the 5MP TIOC seemed to really struggle. What's your thoughts on this? - https://youtu.be/hO4F8-KZXyI
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Im not really sure what the purpose of that test was. The second line of the conclusion clearly states “If the onboard illuminators had been used the results would have been completely different”. Plus he’s comparing a 5-series £250 camera to a 3-series £100 camera. If night image quality with no light except ambient is your priority then we need to talk about a different product range.
 
@WJA96

Stellar advice as ever mate, thank you.

Yes, you're right. There are few things I overlooked on the pricing, including time taken to install. I'll have to confirm if that's plus vat or all in, but either way, after seeing your breakdown, I'll book with him.

What's your take on the 2series NVRs? Are they decent enough? Or should I look to pay a bit more and get something more powerful?

With regards to that video test and my particular application, yes they are quite different. I'm sure having the illuminator on will make a big difference, especially as I'd only be looking to light up a small area.

Camera 1 - between 2 houses looking up a shared driveway. The front quarter of the driveway catches street light, the rest is dark. But I think the camera's illuminator should do the job. If that turns out to not be the case, I can add additional lighting at a later date.

2 - looking across the front of the house and down the road. With street lamps 15-25m away either side of the house and a warm spotlight by the front door.
 
2-series NVRs are fine for 2 cameras. They start to run out of steam when processing 4 or more 8MP units but that won't be an issue for you.

The illuminators on the bullets are very strong - out to 40m. The turrets only go to 30m so get the right one for your requirements. The bullets look massive when you first seem them up but it's surprising how quickly you just forget they are there.
 
The Asgard said:
Hi guys,
Looking to buy a Hikvision DS-2CD2347G1-LU. Where’s the best place to buy this from here in the UK?
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Probably Amazon - at least you'll know they'll treat you like a consumer. Most other resellers treat you as a trade customer and you have next to no consumer rights.
 
The CCTV systems that Screwfix sell all state works with Android/iOS/Alexa etc but does the hub/DVR box thing! usually have an output for a monitor to be connected and constantly displaying a camera or possibly cycling through different cameras or a split screen output?

Replacing this old Philips system...need new system to do the same...

https://ibb.co/1LLPyCp
 
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steinooo said:
Hi thread and @WJA96 what is the best place for a normal consumer to buy a dahua tioc bullet please?
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Technically, it’s not possible. Only authorised (trained) trade customers can buy them. Yiu can set up a trade account with BroadBandBuyer and they will sell you EU imported cameras as a trade customer, or you can approach an authorised Dahua dealer and they can supply you with UK stock. As far as I’m aware you only get the 3-year warranty when the cameras are installed by an authorised Dahua installer, although you can contact Dahua UK directly after installation so long as the cameras were originally supplied and installed by an authorised installer.
 
WJA96 said:
Technically, it’s not possible. Only authorised (trained) trade customers can buy them. Yiu can set up a trade account with BroadBandBuyer and they will sell you EU imported cameras as a trade customer, or you can approach an authorised Dahua dealer and they can supply you with UK stock. As far as I’m aware you only get the 3-year warranty when the cameras are installed by an authorised Dahua installer, although you can contact Dahua UK directly after installation so long as the cameras were originally supplied and installed by an authorised installer.
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Thanks. I think this is why I dithered before. How would you procure one if you were a technically minded customer from Stoke on Trent (ocUK territory)?

Btw have you had a play with that tioc2's yet?
 
The TiOC 2’s are fundamentally the same as the original TiOCs but have the additional capability to run in Infra-red B&W night mode with the warm white light off until the alarm conditions are triggered at which point it switches on the white light for full colour night images. If you are in a light-sensitive environment then this could be a useful feature. Most of my customers like the permanent white light at night. The new TiOC 2 PTZ is similarly equipped.

I have them all installed at my home and I don’t see the benefit but then I don’t have one right outside my bedroom window.

Dahua charge a base premium of about £50+ VAT for the ability to switch between IR and soft white light. If you don’t need that then the original TiOCs are currently excellent value at about £100+VAT.
 
I'm up to 6 IP Cams now and and 8 POE devices in total. It's addictive once you start running cable and getting them added.

Probably going to get 3 more too to finish it off.

Trying to justify getting a high end PTZ, but it's probably overkill for residential.

I can see why new houses have entire rooms for networking. Got 3 x 25mm conduits coming through the wall behind my all TV spewing cable spaghetti into the house as I also dropped some spare while digging up the drive.

Next on the list is to terminate them to a compact wall mounted patch panels and then patch them to the switch instead of just having miles of cable going straight into it.

It's so nice being able to view proper 4k streams after using the likes of Ring and Nest for years (Although they still have a better overall app ecosystem and UI)
 
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Have considered getting a door camera setup for a long time but a hold up point has been power supply. Thinking about this we have an outside light that we would be a perfect position and im just wondering if i could replace this outside light with a camera / light combo.

The first question here is, will the power supply from the light circuit be sufficient?
 
Hello after bit of advice

I need to renew my 2 front of house cameras and a new NVR been looking at Hikvision ColorVu as we have an led street lamp 3.5m away shining over the drive so light is very good at night .

Thanks in advance
 
I have some of the new 8MP ColorVu with the 1.2" sensor and I like them where there's sufficient ambient light at all times. At the front of the house they work well using ambient light from the street.
 
UberTiger said:
I have some of the new 8MP ColorVu with the 1.2" sensor and I like them where there's sufficient ambient light at all times. At the front of the house they work well using ambient light from the street.
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How much did you pick them up for? :)
 
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