Spec me a CCTV System

Twirlywoos · 22 Jan 2014 at 22:06

Caged said:
It's a network, so there's nothing to connect to the NAS other than the network cable to the rest of your LAN. The cameras connect to a PoE switch.

I'm considering upgrading mine to these High Res ones and trying to picture in my head how it all goes together at the housekeeping end. Will CAT5E have enough bandwidth for 6 PoE cameras?

I guess if each camera is max 16Mb/s then it will be more than enough since Cat5E can handle gigabit transfer speeds.

Sirrel Squirrel · 22 Jan 2014 at 22:17

Each camera has a 10/100 Cat5 connection and the switch they go back to is a Gigabit one, it's incredibly easy to set up with the switch I have, you literally connect one end of the Cat5 cable to the port on the camera and the other end to the switch. As my switch is an unmanaged plug and play type it connects straight away. There's some software that comes with the camera that allows you to find it on your network and change the IP to suit.

Vimes · 22 Jan 2014 at 22:32

@ Sirrel Squirrel - thanks for the update etc. Are you happy enough with just motion detection recording....? Then again I can imagine that the space, without compromising the image quality too much, would be too demanding if you wished to record 24/7 and store around a couple of weeks worth at most, although your coverage seems to be for vehicle protection rather than home security per se.

Twirlywoos · 22 Jan 2014 at 23:52

Sirrel Squirrel said:
Each camera has a 10/100 Cat5 connection and the switch they go back to is a Gigabit one, it's incredibly easy to set up with the switch I have, you literally connect one end of the Cat5 cable to the port on the camera and the other end to the switch. As my switch is an unmanaged plug and play type it connects straight away. There's some software that comes with the camera that allows you to find it on your network and change the IP to suit.

Blond moment - I get it now

If you can find out how much disk space is taken up recording 24 hours on one camera that info would be great.

Caged · 23 Jan 2014 at 01:01

Definitely tempted to get one of their external 2MP mini domes as a proof of concept, put it up under my porch and if it produces a decent image take it down again, take it to bits and spray paint it to match the decor a bit better.

Longbow · 25 Jan 2014 at 15:51

Are you able to view the video in real time from the NAS on a TV?

Scream · 27 Feb 2014 at 23:27

Just wondering whether it would be better to have seperate software running on the server to control the camera's? If you are away, using your current setup as an example, you would have to log into each camera to few it in realtime?

Also, you have had it up and running for over a month now, any problems, regrets or positives?

Sirrel Squirrel · 28 Feb 2014 at 09:27

I have got the free software that you can download from hik vision on my laptops that allows you to view both cameras of however many you have simultaneously, you can view recordings this way too. They've also got a phone app that allows you to do the same and I actually tend to use this more than anything else.

Only issue I've found really is that the cameras produce a very noisy image at night, which can be cleaned up with that noise reduction but you lose some detail. Also due to the noise the motion activation is too sensitive at night so you record a lot of nothing.

Caged · 28 Feb 2014 at 12:17

You'll get a noisy image on any camera at night that doesn't have a big lens and a huge IR source. Try illuminating the area with an external IR flood, this will allow the camera to dial the exposure back a bit.

Craigius · 28 Feb 2014 at 21:45

Have you looked at leaving some lighting on over night maybe a flood light to see if that reduces the noise?

Vimes · 28 Feb 2014 at 21:54

As noted a infra red floodlight, activated with a PIR, would improve things a lot.

Scream · 1 Mar 2014 at 00:26

I'm just wondering if having a few of these cameras will be too hugry on data storage since it doesn't do compression unless I am wrong? Maybe the software allows compression instead of the camera's webserver saving directly to disk?

Is this camera missing H.264 compression etc which I see a few camera's offering?

Craigius · 1 Mar 2014 at 06:44

Vimes said:
As noted a infra red floodlight, activated with a PIR, would improve things a lot.

Some have a photocell built into the unit so it switches it on when it gets dark and off when it gets lighter......

Vimes · 1 Mar 2014 at 07:35

Craigius said:
Some have a photocell built into the unit so it switches it on when it gets dark and off when it gets lighter......

Mine do the same thing. I bought my PIR detectors from Screwfix and they have 180 degree detection with both daylight (ambient light) and movement sensors. They can also be adjusted for duration, the length of time that the floodlight will remain on when triggered.

Sirrel Squirrel · 1 Mar 2014 at 10:04

Scream said:
I'm just wondering if having a few of these cameras will be too hugry on data storage since it doesn't do compression unless I am wrong? Maybe the software allows compression instead of the camera's webserver saving directly to disk?

Is this camera missing H.264 compression etc which I see a few camera's offering?

They do use h.264 compression, you can set the bit rate to anything up to 16Mbps. At 16Mbps over a 24 hour constant record period you'd use about 140GB of data per camera.

The infrared flood lights sounds like a good idea, I'll have to investigate.

Craigius · 1 Mar 2014 at 21:35

I'm setting up a new CCTV system at home ill post screen grabs and info when i have compleated it. I'm going to using extra IR ect

Craigius · 2 Mar 2014 at 15:33

Vimes what hard drive/drives did you install in your DVR what brand?

Scream · 2 Mar 2014 at 15:48

Is there a good universal type of software that can monitor multiple brands of cameras?

If I had a few HikVision cameras connected using their own monitoring software and purchased another brand, could that camera work with HikVision's software or will other univeral software be required or vice versa?

Vimes · 2 Mar 2014 at 17:34

Craigius said:
Vimes what hard drive/drives did you install in your DVR what brand?

Western Digital Red. Didn't need anything bigger than the 2TB to ensure that I have a couple of weeks worth of recordings for the seven camera I have.

-Mike- · 3 Mar 2014 at 23:59

I'm interested in some of these for work Mr Squirrel. They GM expects our current CCTV to give good facial recognition and the cameras just don't have the resolution to do so!

Would I be able to set up two of these on a NAS/micro server and get decent recording time? You say 140gb / 24 hours? If so then two camera streams should be capable of recording for at least 48 hours on a 1tb drive?

Thanks for any help