Hi,
I’m looking for some guidance on a security system. Having read a bunch of posts and after making some initial decisions I wanted to validate my thinking before I purchase. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to brain dump everything so I could get the best advice.
Problem:
The system is for a single family vacation home on about 2 acres. I want to start small with two cameras initially and then build to a total of 8. Primary need is as a tool to check the state of the house remotely should the alarm go off. The house has a residential cable modem which gets aprox 6mb down and about 500kb up, port 80 appears to be blocked inbound, and the IP address is assigned from a DHCP pool.
About me:
I have about 20 years development and engineering experience in embedded products and finance applications and as a strange hobby I’m a Creston certified programmer…..basically I’m comfortable with a technical installations.
Proposed Approach:
After looking at complete systems from retail outlets nothing really grabbed my attention. Each system appeared flawed in some way and all appeared to be built to a minimum price/specification with limited expansion options. I also looked at some windows host based solutions but the thought of running a windows machine in a remote location without significant supporting infrastructure also worried me. Based on this I decided on the following approach.
1) Hybrid 8 channel DVR – AverMedia EH5108H?
2) Two ip camera’s - Acti ACM-3511 megapixel IP cameras?
3) Net Gear FS726TP POE switch ?
Questions
1) What are your thoughts on my choice of equipment? Good, bad, indifferent? I’m looking for solid, well engineered, reliable, professional equipment. Not the Cadillac, not the Hyundai, something in the middle.
2) Does anyone have experience managing a EH5108H remotely over the type of bandwidth I have? i dont need hidef but i do want to be able to see what's going on
3) I would like to separate this network from the existing home network. Does the EH5108H provide DHCP, DNS services to the cameras? I would like to limit the complexity of the system as much as possible?
4) Does anyone have real world experience with the ACM-3511 cameras? What’s the night vision and general picture quality like?
5) If i've made good choices, where should I buy this equipment from if I want a good price and quick delivery?
Thanks very much in advance for your advise
Karl
