Spec me a CCTV System

Doesnt matter if SD is poor, think about what the system is actually doing with the streams.

You have your main stream which is what is recorded, however many cameras all chucking footage back at the recorder (usually a single drive being used for each stream, even in a multi drive system unless you start getting funky with the config where one set of cameras write to a drive and the others to another), this is what is important and should be the best quality.

Anything else is just for keeping an eye on stuff so lower res and lower frame rates on spot monitors and what is being streamed remotely.
 
Yes but not all my installs are focused on recording. Remote viewing is the focus so like I said, SD is poor and again I said the systems I checked yesterday are all working in HD remotely in low broadband connections.

Cameras are different so might investigate that route.
 
Bet the stream settings are different on them then, most cameras will have 2 streams as a minimum, main and sub, for recording and the spot monitor, some will have a 3rd but that's for cameras that do anpr and other stuff.

If you have remote connection at a level high enough to see camera settings then check them out, resolution, bit rate, fps etc
 
I had a couple of Hikvision cameras fitted
I have my cameras recording to separate drives and view them using the hik connect app on my phone
These are the settings for one of them:

Do they look ok?
 
I'd tweak them a bit personally.
On your substream there's no real need for 25fps, you could drop that down to 10/15 depending on what its looking at, I'd also go with variable bitrate, and depending on the camera/NVR I'd go H.265 if its got the grunt to do that over all of the cameras.

That said it does depend on what the cameras are looking at and the specifics of your usage, all of my input is from a Security company POV where we were putting systems in retail locations and substreams were being used on the spot monitors so someone in the office could keep an easy eye on things, so substreams were much lower fps
 
Currently looking at CCTV again (due to antisocial behaviour and criminal damage), based off of discussions and quotes I've had with installers they have either gone with 8MP Hikvision powered by Darkfighter or 4MP Dahua Dual Illumination Wizsense cameras. Some of the surrounding area is very dark, no streetlights to light up the area (25-40m from where the camera might be), and I can't fit PIR lights to those locations. There are PIR lights for directly infront of the house but there's areas to the left and right of it that could end up being problem areas where they won't/don't turn on. I've had a read through the thread and really not too sure which way would be best. Spoke to someone local (who has had CCTV upgraded recently) and they have said they suffer from a similar situation around low light/no light and suggested also looking at the 5MP Dahua TIOC2 cameras instead of the 4MP version (hopefully going to view the footage today to see what it's like). Any advice/experiences/ideas would be welcome.
 
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I'm starting down this path now as there have been a spate of attempted break-ins in the area and the house used to have cameras installed before we moved in so the PoE wiring is already there.

We only really need one for the back fit into the soffit pointing down into the garden and covering the back door and one for the front of the house covering the front door.

Are there any standard two-camera kits to go for or do I need to buy cameras seperately and NVR's seperate?
 
If you have a NAS you could just have 2 cameras and point them at that, depends on what you have, the smallest NVR I've used has been a 4 camera system and then just get 2 cameras, and leaves you the room to add more at a later date.
 
Trig said:
If you have a NAS you could just have 2 cameras and point them at that, depends on what you have, the smallest NVR I've used has been a 4 camera system and then just get 2 cameras, and leaves you the room to add more at a later date.
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I don't have a NAS unfort. Done a bit of browsing and think i've settled on:

2 x HiLook IPC-T259H 5MP IP Colorvu Turret Camera 4.0mm. (Can't decide on 2.8 or 4.0mm) and
1 x HiLook NVR-104MH-C/4P 8MP 4 Channel NVR (i've got a 1TB WD Green drive lying around just to get it going - providing it still works)

The house already has the cable runs in place so providing they are all still working would I need anything else?

Or is there a better 2 cam set up for the same price (the above comes in at £192)?
 
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I've not used HiLook tbh, looks like its HIKVisions budget line.

Generally, a CCTV system can be run in one of 2 modes, or a mix of both based on cabling etc.
Closed, the cameras are all run directly to the back of the NVR, the NVR then plugs into the network so only the NVR itself is on the network. The NVR supplies PoE to the cameras.
Open, the cameras and the NVR are on the network, cameras will need to be given a static IP and either DHCP reservations set or your DHCP pool adjusted. There will be a switch or separate power to the cameras to provide power.
Mixed, some cameras to the ports on the back of the NVR and some on the normal house network, the NVR might auto detect the port type or you'll have to set it individually.

SO if your cables go to a single point then you can stick the NVR on the end of that if its in a decent location and then run a cable from the NVR to your router, shouldn't be too much of a PITA..
 
Trig said:
I've not used HiLook tbh, looks like its HIKVisions budget line.

Generally, a CCTV system can be run in one of 2 modes, or a mix of both based on cabling etc.
Closed, the cameras are all run directly to the back of the NVR, the NVR then plugs into the network so only the NVR itself is on the network. The NVR supplies PoE to the cameras.
Open, the cameras and the NVR are on the network, cameras will need to be given a static IP and either DHCP reservations set or your DHCP pool adjusted. There will be a switch or separate power to the cameras to provide power.
Mixed, some cameras to the ports on the back of the NVR and some on the normal house network, the NVR might auto detect the port type or you'll have to set it individually.

SO if your cables go to a single point then you can stick the NVR on the end of that if its in a decent location and then run a cable from the NVR to your router, shouldn't be too much of a PITA..
Click to expand...

Yep all of the CAT5 cables lead back to one point in my office. So my intention was to plug them into the NVR and then plug the NVR into our LAN.
 
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Yup that works, closed system, then you can either give your NVR a static IP and do a bit of port forwarding to get external access, or, set it up thru their 'App' where it'll will use some sort of service provided by them where you don't have to do any port forwarding but this can have issues as you are sending any data to them, the service can go down and so on, direct IP access gets my vote as its just your public IP (Honeywell do a free DDNS service, or did, not sure if HIK do the same or not) or DDNS name and your home network connection.
 
Is there any way to figure out how much power an NVR and 2 PoE cams use if they are running 24/7? Wondering what kind of on-going cost they will add to the household bills once up and running at the current energy prices.
 
If i was to go ahead and get that NVR (1 x HiLook NVR-104MH-C/4P 8MP 4 Channel NVR) I only think I would need 2-3 cameras. Would the NVR act as a PoE switch anyway? I'm just wondering if I could connect a separate PoE doorbell to it for power and data (not necessarily to record).

Our house has wiring at the front door for a PoE doorbell but also has wiring just up to the left of the porch at the end for a camera too, so i'm trying to figure out if I should bother with a smart doorbell and just get a proper camera fixed to cover the front door and front of house from 1st floor level. I don't really see the point in having both!
 
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if you power the smart doorbell off the NVR then you can record from that, just like any other IP camera. The doorbells act as SIP servers to allow them to contact you on your phone and if you use the appropriate screens inside the property they can also display the pictures from all the cameras connected to the NVR.

The doorbell will also give you a significantly different camera angle from the camera mounted at 2.5m-ish.
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
If i was to go ahead and get that NVR (1 x HiLook NVR-104MH-C/4P 8MP 4 Channel NVR) I only think I would need 2-3 cameras. Would the NVR act as a PoE switch anyway? I'm just wondering if I could connect a separate PoE doorbell to it for power and data (not necessarily to record).
Click to expand...

Yes, the ports on the back of an NVR will do PoE.

If you have a PoE doorbell cam, and its ONVIF compatible you could connect it to the back of the NVR, however the app for the doorbell cam wouldn't work as the NVR wouldn't pass through the ports etc..

You could connect the doorbell cam to the network and get power from elsewhere, and then still ONVIF it to the NVR so you have recording on that as well.
 
Would you bother with a doorbell cam though if you had a camera able to cover the front door perfectly?
I'm not too fussed about 2 way communication and i'm sure the CCTV can be set up to notify of movement.
 
Depends on use case I guess, I would rather have a doorbell camera that has coms on it so you can talk to or ignore people as needed but then the added security of having it also recording to the NVR would be a bonus as well.
Notifications work on many levels, but as I said above, this HiLook stuff looks like HIKVisions budget offering so might be missing features you'd find higher up the product list.
 
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