gencom

ok I just install my first 4 camera outdoor system. (first time) I got two camera in the front of my house and after installing it I notice my neighbors that have two camera in front are angled differently than mine. (our houses layout/design are pretty much the same and I've seen this angle/placement before also) How the cameras angle/placements are on several neightbors and other residence I've seen: http://geniv.com/download/clist/Camera%20Angle%20Normal.gif How my is placed/angled: (I mainly want to get a good view of whos going into my house and driveway) http://geniv.com/download/clist/Camera%20Angle%20GIF%20KIN.gif for reference this is my two camera image. http://geniv.com/download/clist/Camera%20Angle%20Live%20Pic.gif Is there a reason/method why I should re arrange my cameras to be like the neigbors? or my placement is ok?

thanks again for the help. the cameras in the front of the house don't look so out of place and ugly now.

thanks for the info guys. I repositioned my cameras to how the neighbors has it. the new positions seems to be able to see people better as it is more to the side. Now I have visual coverage of my windows and most of the porch. now anyone that try to get to the windows or cameras can be captured on video btw: I can't put it any lower as it will be hitting windows.

mod please delete i posted in wrong section

ok I'm planning on running 4 PoE IP cams outside my house. I'm not really concern about vandals as the wires and cams will be placed high. the house side takes turns and have other obstruction so putting straight conduit is a PITA. is there anything like "outdoor" rated cat5e cables or some kind of cheaper (and flexible) outer sheath that I can put my cables through that protects it from the environment? something like outdoor rated carflex (if theres such a thing)

I've never mount an outdoor cam before. When I got my swann cam from costco I noticed there is a 2ft pig tail hanging off the camera with connector for power and POE cat5e. These are to be mounted on the side of my house (brick wall) and wood. How do I go about running the wire across the side of my house? In particular protecting the CATe5 and power connector pig tail of the camera. Is there something that I can buy to wrap it up and protect it from the element/rain?. I mean the cables I can just put some kind of hook on the wall and run the wires along the wall. but I'm just worry about the connetions to the camera being wet

unless you need more than 4 POE ports. The Trendnet one from newegg $55 is works. I got my 4x swan and that POE switch and tested all 4 cameras at once and it has enough juice to power all 4 swanns. I have it on for about 2 days and no problem. I have to take the switch/cameras apart and box it up till I"m ready for the outdoor installation. but the switch works fine with the cameras.

And so begins the spending. I wish I was warned about this 1 year ago when I bought my first foscam it took me a year and a stolen gps from my yard to get around to setting it up. now it's like a hobby in itself constantly wanting better resolution and image quality. not to mention the want for more cams into the NVR. (it's like potatoe chips you can't just have one hahha)

I'm not in the a/v integrator business but IP cameras are borderline IT stuff now. stuff like setting up switches, configuring routers and smartphone falls in the zone of computer tech. the stuff I do. I'm at $80-$100 an hour. if that helps

ok I got around to configuring the swann cams to my network subnet and it's associated setting. now to - configure a spare PC to run BI (of all days this thing just died on me) - find out how to connect BI to the cams What are the settings for BI to connect to the cam? (hate to read through 23 pages of this thread to find it again) thanks in advance UPDATE: I got BI to talk to the camera and can "record direct to disc" what is the optimal setting u guys suggest on the swann imge/video setting? my current setting is: -media stream -video stream -1920x1080 -constant bitrate -max bitrate -6 fps (on BI recording fps is also 6fps) - I Frame interval: 6 (though not sure what it does)

Where is the latest firmware file for this camera located? the one I got is FIRMWARE VERSION: V4.0.9 130106 ENCODING VERSION: V4.0 build 121228 WOW with this cam you really have to be tech savy to get working. (at least without their standalone NVR )

That was quick! thanks. I was half way find out the solution via googling. ran the HIKvision IVM400 and it see all my cameras. (so apprantely all the cameras have default static IP of 192.0.0.64 with DHCP disabled. so thats why my router can't see it) Now to configure it.. DARN!! though the system I have Blue Iris just shutdown and now it won't start up.. seems like it blew a mobo. I had another identical unit (Fujitsu Esprimo Q910) like that blow a mobo or psu (it's on a single board). Now I have to reinstall on another system..

OK, my 4x Swann came and I hooked it up to my new POE switch the switch is working fine ads I hae a laptop hooked up to it also. I can see the camera started up and getting POE (from switch indicator lights) HOW THE HECK DO I CONNECT TO THE CAMERA!?! the skimmpy "user guide" it came with don't say anything about IP it kinda assume u are hooking it up to their NVR. No CD or anything else is included. Is there a utility that can help me find the MAC/IP of the camera? for some reason my Router don't seem to see it (or not refresh yet)

That I understand but HOW MUCH of the 100mb pipe does it uses when transmitting at say full quality. Let say the switch is only 100mbps, the uplink to the router maxes out at 100mbs. The uplink is a single port on the switch that will be carrying the video stream from ALL the cameras at the same time. If say one swan cam uses max of 25mbps and the foscam uses 10mbps (4x 25mbps) + (2x 10mbps) = 120mbps combine. bandwidth of all the cameras at 120m it will overload the uplink speed going back to the router. and you will have either frame drops or camera not showing up. or some garrbled video. So now I would need 1000gb switch to handle the uplink going to the router. Due to the nature/location of where the cameras are wired to and the placement of switch I don't want to use anything expensive if I don't have to. *** SOMEONE correct me if I'm wrong on how it works, as I currently run 6 foscam off a full gigabit network.

thanks for the upload. the size/location of the time/date overlay from the Swann camera is pretty annoying. I hope the "Hik" portion can be disabled Hopefully future firmware revisions will have the option of size and location. But as now of it is serviceable and potentially a 20-30% less CPU utilization I'll deal with it.

You guys are great and this thread is very informative but I'm still wondering on one question. How much network bandwidth does one of these Swan cam require say streaming 1080p at 15fps? I'm asking because I plan to use a 100mbps POE switch with 4 of these Swan + 2x Foscam 480p cameras. (along with a uplink on the Switch to a router). Not sure if I can get away with using 100mbps switch or have to pay 3x or 4x more for a Gigabit switch.

can you link to it? it's a PITA searching the thead with my phone and also I can't tell if some clip are from the NVR overlay or the actual time/date overlay from the camera itself. thanks for the quick reply.

now that Blue Iris supports "Direct to Disc" record. For those of you that have the SWann camera does it have the ability to put up a time overlay in the output video to NVR? I'm asking because the "Direct to Disc" features of Blue Iris does not support any type of overlays.

Thanks for linking to the POE switch. I am expecting 4x of the Swann 1080p cams and already have 2x Foscam (640x480). all six will be connected to the switch and from the switch goes 100ft to my router. Do you think that 100mbps will handle all six cameras? and still have the uplink speed to my router? Too bad I already paid ~$200 for a 8port POE GigaBit switch. but don't mind using that cheaper one if it does the job. (I can use the more expensive switch elsewhere)

I've just ordered 4 of these. Hopefully they work well with Blue Iris.. kinda pricy with $35 non member fee + $65 tax. but it's COSTCO.. and I can return if broken potentilly in even 2 or 3 years even if I just don't work out I can just drive to store and return.

somewhat related. Do you any of you guys use car DVR? I can see how important it is to have video of someone breaking into your home/office but also in case of car accidents. I'm a safe and courteous drive but in NYC there are alot of numbskulls and people driving like idiots (not to mention pedestrians) and if anything should happen it is valuable in court. Anyone recommend or know of a good 1080p recorder for the car?

back in the day of analog cameras I can understand the recording system have to use the CPU (or some dedicated hardware board) to crunch compression algorithm to encode/capture the video to a file. anyway now with the newer/current IP cameras that transmit MJPEG and H.264 out. Can I assume that with the NVR software when it "records" it is just saving/copying the MJPEG/H.264 stream to the harddrive? meaning the camera itself compresses video to MJPEG/H.264 and send it out over the network. so basically the NVR is saving the stream and not using high cpu utilization to encode to MJEP/H.264 I'm asking because I plan on a 6 ip cam system and don't know if I a i5-3470t will be too bogged down if it have to do some kind of encoding.

I'm planning on getting 4 of these when it comes back on sale. (darn I had it in my cart the other day and didn't order now it's gone out of stock anyway. I'm running Blue Iris 3.0 Pro will it able to handle 1080p recording for 4 of these? (and probably 2 extra 640x480 foscam?) network is full gigabit eithernet. and my NVR host is i5-3470, 16gb ram, 240gb ssd +500gb HDD

last week I just setup my first system. using 6x foscam i8910w (640x480) and Blue Iris 3.0 Pro. While it "works" I'm seeing flaws in the system - those are indoor cameras and it can't see out at night due to them being placed inside a window and the IR is reflected back. - resolution is not good enough to ID face or license plate viewed from inside windows. (since I can't mount it outside) I'm thinking of doing a redesign Requirements (as far as I'm aware of now) - Need camera with enough clarity to ID face of people walking in and License Plate of cars pulling into the driveway. and clarity to ID face of people going in and out my front door. - camera need to be IR cabable. - 30 days of video storage is good enough for me. (I really don't see any use for something longer than that) - outdoors - better clarity and resolution than my foscams I plan go get: Netgear ProSafe 8port POE Gigabit switch (8port for future expansion) http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-ProSafe-GS110TP-Ethernet-Switch/dp/B003KPHYBA/ref=pd_sim_e_10 4x of these 1080p Swann Bulletcam from Costco http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=35206&sid=46ba3eeb782ecdcda8b6b0362492c1c3 (see my layout and planned camera position here) http://geniv.com/download/igo8/CAMZONEJP.jpg My NVR host specs: Fujitsu Esprimo Q910 mini PC - i5-3470T dual core 2.9ghz - 16gb DDR3 ram - 240GB SSD (main boot hd) - 500gb 2.5" haddrive My Home network: - Full gigabit ethernet speed (pc, switch, router) QUESTIONS: Which NVR software do you guys recommend for my use? - Blue Iris - ACTi NVR (I hear is "free" but which version exactally? do you guys use?) - Axxon Next. Since I already paid for Blue Iris Pro. will it handle 4x 1080p IP cams? along with 2x of my existing 640x480 foscam? the 4x 1080p cam + 2x 480p foscam will be wired to the gigabit switch and from the switch a single cat5e cable to my Router. will that single up-link cable connection from the Switch to router have enough bandwidth to carry the video of all those camera? CAn you guys comment or offer advice on my design? I don't want to have to redo it again. THANKS IN ADVANCE! this is a really addictive now extra info: - I'm in the USA - pretty tech savvy - looking for good bang for bux and don't have a huge budget for this project

Hi, new guy here and new to CCTV world any senior/expert please correct if I put out info that can be corrected/improved I actually just setup my first system. using 6 foscam i8910w (640x480 resolution) and using this software call Blue Iris ($40 or $50 depending on how many camera it supports for it's feature it is VERY REASONABLE some of the software I've seen are MUCH MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE). It's great for home use and VERY FLEXIBLE with TONS of camera comparability (I even added two old android phone to the system running IPWebcam app). In your case an older PC should work with the software. as my system is running on a IntelNUC mini computer (8gb ram, i3 1.7ghz dual core) and on 6 camera motion monitoring it is only using 25-30% cpu load. you don't even need 8gb ram. 4gb is fine. Only thing negative I can say about Blue Iris is that is so robust it is kinda daunting for anyone that is not too tech savy. Basic setup shouldn't be that hard though, its the advance feature like remote internet access that might be harder for normal people. It works really over the internet also and it's android app works great. basically to sum it up: - ~$70USD foscam I8910w (it work wireless and wired and have Pan and Tilt control with IR) it have good reviews - ~39.95 for cheaper version of Blue Iris (I recommend extra $10 for the full version that support up to 64 cameras) - you either setup your camera wireless or wired. btw: if you are REALLY cheap you can just get get the Foscam as it have built in motion detection and upload or email alert picture. but its not that good.