Spec me a CCTV System

What is currently a "best" quality POE camera?

I dont have anything at the moment but planning on buying 1-2 cameras and the NVR separately (or in a kit if such available).

I don't mind spending a little more money if its actually worth it quality wise.
I've looked at Hikvision 8MP 4K Powered by Darkfigther dome camera but unsure if its all marketing or it's going to be an impressive
quality.

What are peoples suggestions on good quality cameras?

Thank you.
 
I'm afraid you need to define quality and what compromises you are prepared to make.

Do you want colour night vision or are you happy with black and white?
Do you need pan/tilt/zoom?
What do you actually want to look at? Is it a wide area far away (maybe your garden?) or a small area nearby (like right outside your front door?)
Is depth of field important to you?

Everything is a trade-off.

Higher megapixels get you less light sensitivity and a poorer image after dark.
Wide angle lenses tend to make everything look far away but cover a lot of ground.
Pan/tilt/zooms can see lots of places far away and close up but always seem to be pointing in the wrong direction at the time you want to see anything.

I work with surveillance cameras and typically the Dahua full-colour night vision 5MP TiOC bullet cameras with 3.6mm lenses are what are shifting right now. They also do a 2MP (ultimate image quality at night) and 8MP (ultimate pub bragging rights but not quite so good at night and poorer depth of field) version of the same camera but for all-round 'you can see what is there, in colour, all the time' they are the best option on the market at the moment.
 
Hi,

Thanks for a quick reaponse WJA!

I think my main "want" and idea of quality is to be able to actually recognise a person / car. Would hate to invest money into CCTV and you couldnt even tell anything apart from "someone was here but I cant see any detail". :D

I would want colour during the night or whatever bight vision is good currently? I think Black and White offer very limited details.

Don't need any movement, including zoom. It cam be a fixed lens.

We have a private little road, with 4 houses and our house id the first one. So the camera will be looking at our driveway which also is an entrance to our road. I think i want to mount it just above garage so you can't reach it without ladder and I think wode angle would cover the whole driveway well.
Maybe I should consider another dome camera lower to actually capture details and not expect everything from one camera high up?

Thank you for your advice, I will look into those.

Is it actually possible to buy cameras of these websites, including ccctvtek just being an end user?

Thanks!
 
Broadbandbuyer sell them. Not the cheapest way, but currently they will sell to private customers on a trade basis. You need to create an account and log in. If you have any issues send me a trust message and I can usually sort out a connection.
 
Spammeh said:
Anyone tried out Verkada yet? They seem to have a really neat looking solution too
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Prices look extortionate.

Also call me old school but corporate CCTV systems (and particularly access control system) should remain local, sitting behind your internal firewall/VLAN.
 
Kaka said:
Prices look extortionate.

Also call me old school but corporate CCTV systems (and particularly access control system) should remain local, sitting behind your internal firewall/VLAN.
Click to expand...

You're old school! Closed Circuit Television hasn't existed for 30 years really. When they still used co-ax because it was modulated television signal and they recorded onto video recorders. So yes, if that's the market you're aiming for (and there are still systems like that in use) then the tapes should be rotated off site daily/weekly/monthly. The market Verkada aims for is the the really big multi-national corporates who have everything in the cloud. The people who are on Azure or AWS. The idea of having a physical hard drive in the building gives them the creeps. I've only sold one Verkada system in about a year and that was to a bank based in Frankfurt. Their security is run out of Frankfurt and they love the monitoring. And the cameras are gorgeous. I handle surveillance cameras day-in, day-out and these are beyond Axis, beyond Avigilon - they're just the Rolls Royce of surveillance cameras. And yes, they are properly high prices. Not the most expensive you can get by a long shot, but very high-end.
 
Yes I can still remember rotating VHS tapes and storing them in fireproof safes. :D Also you can't hack a coaxial CCTV system. :p

Don't get me wrong, cloud technology has its place but the need to throw every bit of technology onto it just seems like jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe it's the thought of less control of one's data, ongoing subscription prices and internet outages that are holding me back.
 
Kaka said:
Yes I can still remember rotating VHS tapes and storing them in fireproof safes. :D Also you can't hack a coaxial CCTV system. :p

Don't get me wrong, cloud technology has its place but the need to throw every bit of technology onto it just seems like jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe it's the thought of less control of one's data, ongoing subscription prices and internet outages that are holding me back.
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I was under the impression I had no control of my data, as anything on the internet is automatically subject to RIPA and DPA, the ongoing subscriptions also covers the camera for a very rapid replacement if it goes wrong and the secure storage of your data and I really can’t remember the last time I had an internet outage across all the services. And to be frank, if we lost all our internet we’ve got bigger issues than some Verkada cameras in Canary Wharf.
 
Kaka said:
Less control, not no control.

Also not every country complies with GDPR/DPA.
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It’s in the Verkada licence agreement. They only use compliant nations data centres to host their servers.

If you’re not comfortable, there are plenty of options where you can store your data as locally as you like.
 
Any cheap NVR would do. I think there are PoE Dahua NVRs that are £140 including a 1Tb HDD. And I'm sure there are cheaper NVRs than that even. If you have a Synology NAS they usually have 2 surveillance station licences and you can add more for £50-ish each.
 
I've scanned through the posts and there's so much to take in - If I start with 2 external cameras and an NVR what should I be looking at for a budget of around £600? Needs to be expandable (add a few more cameras if needed) and allow me to access video from wherever in the world. I was looking a t a couple of Eufy cameras and a doorbell but now wondering if wired is a better option.

Many thanks
 
firstborn said:
I've scanned through the posts and there's so much to take in - If I start with 2 external cameras and an NVR what should I be looking at for a budget of around £600? Needs to be expandable (add a few more cameras if needed) and allow me to access video from wherever in the world. I was looking a t a couple of Eufy cameras and a doorbell but now wondering if wired is a better option.

Many thanks
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2 x Dahua IPC-HFW3549T1P-AS-PV-360 TiOC Camera - £230
2 x Dahua PFA-130E Mounting brackets - £30
1 x Dahua NVR-4104-P-4KS2-L-2T (4 camera NVR with 2Tb Seagate Skyhawk HDD) - £175 or NVR-4108HS-8P-4KS2-L-2T (8 camera NVR with 2Tb Seagate Skyhawk HDD) - £225

so £435+VAT = £522 for a four camera system to £485+VAT = £582 for a system capable of handling 8 cameras.

I'd budget another £50 for cable and connectors but if you're fitting it yourself then it would easily be doable for less than £600. And this is decent equipment that will last a long time.
 
So, I posted a while back asking for some advice, I purchased a Reolink kit off amazon but have since returned it as I'd like to have more flexibilty in the future.

I would really appreciate some hardware advice again.

I want a camera for the front and rear of my house, I'd like for these to be installed quite high up, so that the cables can go through the wooden soffits rather than drilling through the inner and outer walls of the property.

My budget is lower than firstborn has above, can I realistically get something decent for around £300? Anyone know what is considered the best value NVR? Cameras are a minefield too...

I would like to be able to view footage from my PC as well as potentially my phone when away etc

Do I need to purchase software seperately?
 
@BogEyes Something like this for £315......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reolink-Se...CH-5MP-POE-NVR-4-Bullet-Cameras/dp/B01C5JE3DS

is what I think of with a Reolink kit and whilst there are Hikvision and Dahua kits that could be considered by some to be preferred the Reolink does give the impression of offering great value.

How would you consider it to be less flexible for your future needs, the NVR in the above has 8 POE connections...? Was there other things that you did not like and which ones did you buy..?

Something "decent" with a budget of £300 - how many cameras would you want...?

Perhaps @WJA96 can offer some solid advice, and he has already listed some typical prices of Dahua kit a page or two ago to give you some idea.

Best of luck.
 
Vimes said:
@BogEyes Something like this for £315......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reolink-Se...CH-5MP-POE-NVR-4-Bullet-Cameras/dp/B01C5JE3DS

is what I think of with a Reolink kit and whilst there are Hikvision and Dahua kits that could be considered by some to be preferred the Reolink does give the impression of offering great value.

How would you consider it to be less flexible for your future needs, the NVR in the above has 8 POE connections...? Was there other things that you did not like and which ones did you buy..?

Something "decent" with a budget of £300 - how many cameras would you want...?

Perhaps @WJA96 can offer some solid advice, and he has already listed some typical prices of Dahua kit a page or two ago to give you some idea.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response.

Yeah so it was that same kit I purchased, however, I had the dome cameras rather than the bullet ones.

One of the main things I didn't like about the kit was that the camera had like 3 different connectors going to it (from memory), which would mean a large hole would need to be drilled for the cabling.

The build quality of the cameras themselves didn't seem that great if I'm totally honest which put me off, they looked quite gimicky. It just put me off them. Because it was a kit of 4 I was thinking to locate two lower down, one at the garage and one at the front door. They could be damaged easily and wouldn't be up to the job.

Also, after my post last time, @WJA96 expressed concern that those cameras may not be suitable due to wanting to mount them so high up.

I first off just want two good quality cameras, one for the front, and one for the back of the property.

I will re-read some of the thread...
 
BogEyes said:
So, I posted a while back asking for some advice, I purchased a Reolink kit off amazon but have since returned it as I'd like to have more flexibilty in the future.

I would really appreciate some hardware advice again.

I want a camera for the front and rear of my house, I'd like for these to be installed quite high up, so that the cables can go through the wooden soffits rather than drilling through the inner and outer walls of the property.

My budget is lower than firstborn has above, can I realistically get something decent for around £300? Anyone know what is considered the best value NVR? Cameras are a minefield too...

I would like to be able to view footage from my PC as well as potentially my phone when away etc

Do I need to purchase software seperately?
Click to expand...

Buy the same cameras I recommended to Firstborn and download Dahua’s DMSS desktop software. At that point your PC will be the NVR (it will need to run 24/7) and it will work very well.

Or check out MM in the next couple of weeks. ;)
 
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@BogEyes I know all of my Hikvision cameras (6 bought circa 2014) are still going strong, as is the NVR. Albeit they were originally Chinese hacked and bought via Aliexpress. It does seem to be a different market now that option has been somewhat eliminated. I can still see the Hikvision for sale on Amazon but elsewhere it is difficult to get pricing. I have been happy enough over the 6 years of constant and reliable use from them.
@WJA96 seems to have experience with the Dahua brand and is far more understanding with what is relevant and on the market today.

Each of the six cameras on our property has similar sized connectors you are referring to but they each terminate in a plastic type junction box next to each camera where the external grade Ethernet cable is ran to.

As WJA96 has responded you can see the post he refers to a page or two back.

I'll have to watch to see what you are selling in the MM soon @WJA96.
 
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