Spec me a CCTV System

radderfire said:
With a higher number of cameras it's best to use an NVR, as you will quickly use up storage capacity on your PC.
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With both it mostly comes down to how many hard drives the devices can take (and data rate it can handle). The PC I use for Blue Iris could take more than a dozen hard drives and BI will use 15, but I am currently using four hard drives as I prefer to spread over more drives than push individual drives near their concurrent streaming limit. A lot of NVR's can only take a few hard drives but for most users that's more than enough.

I am also not sure anyone would want to run an NVR and Blue Iris at the same time. Many Blue Iris users come from the background of using an NVR until they hit some limits of the software and/or hardware. It all depends on your requirements and desire to spend time configuring as software like Blue Iris is incredibly well featured and flexible, but with a steep learning curve and you have to plan hardware appropriately.

Although software features are the common reason for moving to BI or similar, one hardware area many consumer NVRs lack is output stream capability. I have three Fire HD 10's in kiosk mode displaying views with between 5 and 6 cameras (all 8MP camera sources) and when at my PC I will open a view showing at least 10 of our cameras, and even with those different four output streams the PC creating them barely hits 8% CPU while also recording more than a dozen cameras. This wouldn't be possible with a lot of consumer NVRs.
 
I have a NVR with 2 WD purple 4TB HDD in there - one is about 8 years old and other 8 months old -I can't for life of me remember which one is new one so is there anything on drives to determine the age of them. Or does it show up in menu somewhere.
 
Doing some research for my Dad into securing the house.

We want 3 outdoor cameras to record / stream etc & a video doorbell as well.

What’s the best package to get or is it better to get the cameras on one system and a simple ring / nest doorbell type thing to have as the doorbell separately?

Recommendations would be appreciated as I’m getting confused! :)
 
tomparker95 said:
Doing some research for my Dad into securing the house.

We want 3 outdoor cameras to record / stream etc & a video doorbell as well.

What’s the best package to get or is it better to get the cameras on one system and a simple ring / nest doorbell type thing to have as the doorbell separately?

Recommendations would be appreciated as I’m getting confused! :)
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I went with a 4 x Hilook and BlueIris PC based solution years ago but didn't want just motion detection, I wanted 24 hour recording with low power draw. Whilst I've upgraded the CCTV host PC/swapped to VM's and back a few times, I have to say it's been great. I thought about the doorbell thing, however PoE based doorbell's always had a feature missing or were too unreliable (reading from reviews etc). Settled on a Ring Pro and a monthly sub with motion detection, at least it'll give a time on the motion detection for me then to check the main CCTV system.

If I was to do it again, I'd ditch Blueiris and go with a proper branded specced NVR and bung my own drive in - less power usage and much less faff. Yes, firmware updates on the NVR can be a thing but the NVR can be left without a default gateway so it doesn't have internet access at all or put on a separate vlan.
 
Finally after 9 months I have had my Hikvision system fixed.
Had two more cameras but PIR - had front colour in dark one moved from front to back - So two PIR ones at front -gable and garage door - two colour in dark at rear - the two I was worried about are on porch -one facing forward and one back and are the old cameras with passwords in I couldn't quite remember but they popped up and worked straight away.
The only problem I have and pointed out is the 4 new cameras (4mp) are a bit pixally when you zoom on something - he agreed about that and I told him I was going to buy a new 4k monitor to see if it improves.
I still cannot read a number plate on a car across the road.

The new NVR is M2 model

My Benq monitor is so old they are on sale second hand for £20
 
DXP55 said:
I still cannot read a number plate on a car across the road.
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You'll have a hard time with that without a dedicated LPR cam zoomed into a specific spot to catch plates, especially at night.

After I missed the plate of a fly tipper last year I said screw it and bought a dedicated LPR cam. Luckily I can position it in such a way to get a good angle, but now I'd say it's 99% reliable 24/7, it even captured the face of a thief behind the drivers seat that broke into a plumber's van that was working on a house down the road in broad daylight.

This is some random car from the middle of the night last night

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Point still kinda stands then, you might need a dedicated LPR cam zoomed to a specific spot to capture plates on your street if that's something you care about. Unless you can position a high enough res fixed focal length cam in a spot that does give you a good enough image.
 
Diggsy said:
Are there any UK suppliers of HikVision that sell to the end user, without the somewhat ‘grey’ issue of a trade sale?
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Anyone know the answer to this one please? Hoping to upgrade my CCTV asap. Currently have Blink, wanting to change to a 24/7 system with decent night performance. Thanks
 
And another question - why does it never end.
After forking out for a new M2 hikvision NVR and 4 new cameras I now need a new Monitor -The Benq I am using is 12 yrs old and today I plugged NVR into my iiyama monitor which is 10 yrs old. The picture isn't to bad but there is pixalation mainly on the gravel drive and when zooming.
I have spent 2 days looking for a 4k 23/4" cctv monitor and can't find one so looked for PC monitor then got confused by all the tech stuff.
So got £200 to spare + or- so can someone reccommend a decent monitor for my system - The monitor get's turned off at bedtime.
Also this is purely domestic stuff - in fact it is a hobby I took up after being retired for a few years and got bored. It has been usefull to the police over the years.

Thanks.
 
DXP55 said:
Finally after 9 months I have had my Hikvision system fixed.
Had two more cameras but PIR - had front colour in dark one moved from front to back - So two PIR ones at front -gable and garage door - two colour in dark at rear - the two I was worried about are on porch -one facing forward and one back and are the old cameras with passwords in I couldn't quite remember but they popped up and worked straight away.
The only problem I have and pointed out is the 4 new cameras (4mp) are a bit pixally when you zoom on something - he agreed about that and I told him I was going to buy a new 4k monitor to see if it improves.
I still cannot read a number plate on a car across the road.

The new NVR is M2 model

My Benq monitor is so old they are on sale second hand for £20
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Are you sure the pixellation is not caused by lack of optical power in the cameras, rather than the monitor? If other stuff is appearing clear on the monitor, then it's not the monitor. I think it is more likely to be the cameras. I am trying to think how to explain it - is it an optical zoom or a digital zoom process? Digital zoom on phones can also become pixellated.
 
It is doing my head in - On the old system I could zoom on mates house and see the brick courses quite clear -now they are blurred-That was with a system 10 yrs old so everything was same age -NVR-Cameras-Monitor.
The cameras are DS-2CD2346G2-1U - I was expecting just better videos but no. How can these cameras coupled with a DS-7608Ni-Me/8p NVR be worse than 10 yr old stuff?
The fitters van outside the house was sharp as a knife but gravel it was parked on wasn't -I can only describe it as a load of gravel sitting on black water.
I suppose I should try and get a picture of it - I have a USB extension from NVR down to my PC so can put a USB stick in and see if I can get it on here.
Problem I have there is the menu is modern so all icons which means tap/click here then tap something else. The old one was black screen with white lettering telling you what to do. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I have had three glasses of Brandy so far and need some more by look of it.

Ps - digital zoom
:)
 
DXP55 said:
The cameras are DS-2CD2346G2-1U
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Those are 4MP (2688 × 1520 resolution) with a 1/3" sensor (bigger is better) so the low end of that Hikvision range of 4MP, 6MP and 8MP (4K) turret cameras. Although output of the NVR/monitor could have an impact (not sure about that as I don't use modern NVRs) its possible the newer cameras may not be as good quality as older models in some respect, possibly smaller sensor, lens or lens focal length. The wider the field of view due to focal length the worse the definition. How the cameras as configured for bit rate versus frames per second, compression type etc can also reduce quality but the installer should have set those to the optimum.

Do you know what the old cameras were and lens focal length of those and the new cameras?
 
All the bits of paper with notes and numbers I binned when these were fitted. I do know that the old cameras only had a shallow width of picture - these show a hell of a lot more of the houses opposite but the old ones were only 2mp and one was 3 or 4.
If the fitter set the cameras or stetting to max rather than to the 4k or UHD or HD or lower would that give me a poorer picture.
I really am getting peed off now.
You would think todays new was much better than yesterdays new.
I have to admit all this is way over my head
 
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