Spec me a CCTV System

So I have been looking at ESP cameras after being recommended them by a colleague.

Current quote is;

ESP HC88R2TB NVR: https://espuk.com/products/HC88R2TB

Cons are that it has a pre-installed HDD, but this could just mean they supply the HDD preinstalled rather than it being 'onboard'?

Assuming there is some way to change this if I ever needed to in the future though.

Am I able to run one cable from a POE switch, to this, for the cameras, or do I ideally need each camera running back to the NVR individually?

Am I better going for 16 channel for futureproofing, or would this be sufficient to run 6 of the below cameras? Looking at the decoding potential between 8 and 16 ch. this seems identical.

ESP HC528FDG 5MP Cameras: https://espuk.com/products/HC528FDW/

Im not really 100% sure other than the MP if these cameras are comparable to a Hikvision with say darkfighter or colorvu.


I have had a cheaper quote for;

https://espuk.com/products/HDVIP8R2TB/

and


In the real world is it worth saving £200 for the above?
 
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In general surveillance cameras are much of a muchness.

What is their phone app like?

Who suggested a 2 Tb HDD would be suitable for 6 x 5MP cameras? Unless you’re only recording motion then I’d want at least 1Tb per camera.
 
WJA96 said:
In general surveillance cameras are much of a muchness.

What is their phone app like?

Who suggested a 2 Tb HDD would be suitable for 6 x 5MP cameras? Unless you’re only recording motion then I’d want at least 1Tb per camera.
Click to expand...

Looking into the app and stuff, but the guy I spoke to said 2tb should go a couple of days, is that not realistic?
 
Yes, and a couple of days isn’t very long. Most people want at least 3 weeks because that’s a week and then two weeks away on holiday. I don’t know what their price differential is between a 2Tb HDD and a 6Tb HDD but that would be my recommendation.
 
I'm going to be refurbing my entire house soon and need to get my cameras set up in place just so I know what to get where. I've already got:
  • 1 x Dahua DH-IPC-HDW3549H-AS-PV WizSense TiOC Outdoor HD PoE Turret IP Camera w/ 3.6mm Lens, 30m Full Colour, Audio & Alarm (5 MP)
  • 1 x Dahua DHI-NVR2108HS-8P-I WizSense 1-Bay NVR Network Video Recorder Enclosure (8-Channels)
The one camera I have is installed just above the garage door to the right.

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Thankfully I've got some big bushes with brambles along between myself and 30 so that's fully protected, however I will need one looking down between 26 and myself.
I think one more in the front above the door to the left would be suitable to cover the whole front side
However when it comes to the rear I'm not sure what to do as I'm going to be putting a garden office at the rear of the land as well (it's not that big of a garden). Should I buy two domes cameras for each corner of the house facing the sliding doors and then a bullet camera facing the path to the garden office?
 
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Went with the blink system a while ago and finally got around to installing the doorbell. I bought a battery eliminator as there's a plug near the front door and it seems to work well with the doorbell on high settings.
USB cable on the way for the rear camera which currently has a solar panel mount.
 
Hi,

We are currently using an NVR with 4 LAN ports connected to a few IP cameras for CCTV.
However, it is quite old and noisy so we are looking to upgrade the system, probably replacing the NVR unit with a standalone surveillance NAS with KVM functionality and adding some extra IP cameras.

The upgraded CCTV system will be for home security rather than business and will probably have 6 cameras in use at 1080p resolution, four outdors and possibly two indoors. Scope to add a couple of extra cameras up to 8 might be useful? Looking at options, it seems that QNAP have the greater range of KVM units compared to Synology?

Initial thoughts are QNAP TS-453D or QNAP TS-453E or Synology NVR1218 or Synology DVA1622. However, this list is not strict, we are happy to look at other options.
A couple of these are older models but we are OK with purchasing a second hand unit provided it has enough spec to meet the need.
As regards storage capacity, something that can locally store the recorded footage from 6 to 8 cameras at 1080p for 30 days should suffice.

From reading a few reviews it seems that we may be better getting a unit that is "camera overspecced" for our needs just to ensure it has enough hardware spec to easily cope with 6 to 8 cameras at 1080p?
I realise that camera licensing might factor into the purchase cost but I think some of the units I listed above may come with 8 licences, if not then we will purchase any extra licences as and when needed.

Budget for the NAS is flexible apart from not wanting to purchase a full blown business grade unit that would probably be overkill for our need.
Any feedback and advice gratefully received.

Thx
Bintos
 
Bint Box said:
Initial thoughts are QNAP TS-453D or QNAP TS-453E or Synology NVR1218 or Synology DVA1622
Click to expand...
Synology. DSM is in another league compared to QTS. I've had QNAP for years and was pulling my hair out with the thing and support were useless. I bought a Synology and it's been running like an absolute dream in comparison.
 
Bint Box said:
Hi,

We are currently using an NVR with 4 LAN ports connected to a few IP cameras for CCTV.
However, it is quite old and noisy so we are looking to upgrade the system, probably replacing the NVR unit with a standalone surveillance NAS with KVM functionality and adding some extra IP cameras.

The upgraded CCTV system will be for home security rather than business and will probably have 6 cameras in use at 1080p resolution, four outdors and possibly two indoors. Scope to add a couple of extra cameras up to 8 might be useful? Looking at options, it seems that QNAP have the greater range of KVM units compared to Synology?

Initial thoughts are QNAP TS-453D or QNAP TS-453E or Synology NVR1218 or Synology DVA1622. However, this list is not strict, we are happy to look at other options.
A couple of these are older models but we are OK with purchasing a second hand unit provided it has enough spec to meet the need.
As regards storage capacity, something that can locally store the recorded footage from 6 to 8 cameras at 1080p for 30 days should suffice.

From reading a few reviews it seems that we may be better getting a unit that is "camera overspecced" for our needs just to ensure it has enough hardware spec to easily cope with 6 to 8 cameras at 1080p?
I realise that camera licensing might factor into the purchase cost but I think some of the units I listed above may come with 8 licences, if not then we will purchase any extra licences as and when needed.

Budget for the NAS is flexible apart from not wanting to purchase a full blown business grade unit that would probably be overkill for our need.
Any feedback and advice gratefully received.

Thx
Bintos
Click to expand...

I see this a LOT. The big upside with a QNAP or Synology is that it’s a multi-purpose device. The big downside is that if you want ‘plug and play’ then your camera has to be on the list or ONVIF at which point you can lose many smart camera features. And the licensing cost is not inconsiderable. £50 per camera on top of the basic 2 per device is normal although the Synology NVR-216 and NVR-1218 NAS drives can come with up to 9 camera licences.

As for which device to go with, I’m with @ChrisD. on this one. QNAP hardware is great until it goes wrong, and when it goes wrong, even in warranty, you have to send it to Holland and they‘re a pain to deal with. QNAP‘s better surveillance product, QVR Pro, is also an annual fee licence now, so there’s that to bear in mind as well.
 
WJA96 said:
I see this a LOT. The big upside with a QNAP or Synology is that it’s a multi-purpose device. The big downside is that if you want ‘plug and play’ then your camera has to be on the list or ONVIF at which point you can lose many smart camera features. And the licensing cost is not inconsiderable. £50 per camera on top of the basic 2 per device is normal although the Synology NVR-216 and NVR-1218 NAS drives can come with up to 9 camera licences.

As for which device to go with, I’m with @ChrisD. on this one. QNAP hardware is great until it goes wrong, and when it goes wrong, even in warranty, you have to send it to Holland and they‘re a pain to deal with. QNAP‘s better surveillance product, QVR Pro, is also an annual fee licence now, so there’s that to bear in mind as well.
Click to expand...


I thought QVR Pro was free and included 8 camera licences for a QNAP NAS with 4gb of RAM or greater?
Has this changed recently?

There is the QVR Pro Gold option which seems to be a one off purchase for a QNAP NAS and increases the historic period for recording playback and adds more camera licences.
 
About to pull the trigger on a Blue Iris licence, thoughts from anyone using it? Does it get the job done?

I did have a 36 channel Reolink NVR I ordered on a whim but returned it as setting up a rig for Blue Iris seemed more fun and less restrictive.

The rig for Blue Iris is:

HP ProDesk 400 G5
i5 8500 (8th Gen)
16GB RAM @ 2600Mhz
256gb SSD
2 x 4TB HDD
 
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I’m a fan. Bit of a learning curve and I’ve barely scratched the surface. The UI3 web interface with new timeline is great for scrubbing back and forward and checking alerts from another computer on the network.
Lots of forum posts that answer questions though, so easy to google if you get stuck.

Main letdown is the mobile app, which is quite poor usability wise IMO.
 
I use Blue Iris on an elderly dedicated pc and I've no complaints about it. There are various forums that devote sections to it so any problems I've had have been solved quite quickly.
Running BI as a Windows service is the best way to go IMHO.
 
Gimpymoo said:
About to pull the trigger on a Blue Iris licence, thoughts from anyone using it? Does it get the job done?
Click to expand...

Another fan here, and I tried most of the alternatives a couple of years back before going BI. It does have a steep learning curve especially if using more sophisticated features, but I've not found anything near as flexible and most were vastly more expensive.

I run 13 cameras, SenseAI and ANPR. The ability to script camera setting changes and options to integrate other systems are really good. For example I now use CCTV to control outside lighting (better than any PIR) and get announcements on my Home Assistant kiosk devices when a car or person has moved onto our drive.
 
I've got a cheapy wifi CCTV camera up outside which I can access via an app and also I'm accessing it on a PC over RTSP using Onvif.

Any idea how to make Onvif access the camera using an external IP address/domain name instead of the internal network LAN IP assigned by my router?

I'm on Zen and I have a static IP address.
 
LeeUK said:
I've got a cheapy wifi CCTV camera up outside which I can access via an app and also I'm accessing it on a PC over RTSP using Onvif.

Any idea how to make Onvif access the camera using an external IP address/domain name instead of the internal network LAN IP assigned by my router?

I'm on Zen and I have a static IP address.
Click to expand...
You’re much better off hosting a VPN on your internal network on a NAS/Pi/router etc, connect to the VPN and then access the camera as if you were local.
 
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