ericq

Did you have a particular budget in mind for your project?

I believe you are going to need a camera that supports Samba which allows writing to a NAS drive / FTP site. I know D-Link and Mobotix support this which both will probably be out of your price range. It doesn't appear to me that your GW Security camera on the newegg site supports it or their site themselves which has that camera listed for $30 cheaper because of no included cable - http://tinyurl.com/qdfn3z4 You'd have to contact them directly. Which i'd wonder how well the support is from that company, looks like the camera is an oem of possibly dahua or one of the other overseas companies. Even if you found the camera that supports writing to a NAS, do you realize that if you needed to go find a certain incident that happened how much time it would take to look through all of the individual video files that are being created. You will be spending quite a bit of time just looking through video unless you know the exact time and day the incident occurred. imo, Dell has right now a $479 i3-Haswell desktop computer with a 1TB drive, then get some inexpensive 1-2MP cameras (hikvision) that work with a VMS software (ie: Blueiris, cough: avigilon, or something else). Yes you'll have to pay a software license fee for each camera and you'll probably have to buy some WD Purple Hard drives for the storage or if you want Raid 5 and the dell didn't support the extra drives then look at D-Link, Buffalo Tech., Netgear, etc.. for an external raid5 isci box for storage. in the end, i guess how much is your time worth when it comes to reviewing video?

Designs like this can work. You just need to use the right wireless access points, enough bandwidth between access points for the camera data, clear line of sight for the wireless signal as going through thick trees, hills, and buildings doesn't cut it, using the right directional antennas based on the distances and decent switches.

Just curious, what's your budget and are you installing the cables and cameras?

First off - 10,000ft overview - difference between a switch and router. Switches work on the Local Area Network (LAN) and connect similar type networks Ethernet/Fast Ethernet/Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/100). Ethernet switches connecting to each other and they use MAC addresses (Layer2). (yes unless you have a layer 3 switch) Routers connect dissimilar type networks for LAN or Wide Area Network (WAN) type connections. Think Ethernet to the Internet which would be a WAN type connection like T1, T3, Cable, DSL or it could even make a conversion from Ethernet to older technologies like Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, etc.. Routers can also act like a traffic cop say your network isn't going to reach my other local network. To answer you first question Every Network Interface Card (NIC) has a different MAC address as it is hard coded into the NIC. As GB5102 mentioned Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a protocol that translates IP and MAC address and is used by the switch. Lets say you turn on a brand new switch and .101 computer (pc) on port 1 with MAC address AAAA wants to talk with .103 pc on port 3 with a MAC address CCCC then .101 pc sends the request/packet to the switch. The switch looks at the packet received and sees it came from port 1 with a source MAC address of AAAA a destination of CCCC. It checks it's MAC table to see if it has AAAA listed yet. If it does not, it adds it to it's mac table for MAC address AAAA on port 1. Then the switch does a lookup in it's MAC table for address CCCC to see if it knows what port CCCC is on. If it does not find it then the packet is flooded out all ports except the originating port. The switch now knows what port MAC address AAAA is on, so if it receives traffic for AAAA it will only send it to port 1. When .103 pc with MAC address CCCC replies to AAAA the switch sends the traffic only out port 1 and it will also add an entry for MAC address CCCC - port 3 to it's table. Second question see answer to question 1. Hope this helps.

Another option if your budget could be more like $250 plus own a windows 64bit os computer already is to get one license of Avigion's core software, get a hikvision $120-$160 1-3MP camera and setup the Live Export feature within Avigilon's software. Take a snapshot image however often you want (ie: every 10sec, every 5min, etc.), Do only 1 image, edit the c:\ProgramData\Avigilon\GatewayLiveExport.cfg file to point to a mapped drive letter for ftp site or wherever you want. Create a free wordpress webpage that can refresh the image however often you want pointing to that one image file. medium quality of the snapshot on my 5mp is like 600k file size. so shouldn't be much data when you go to load the image throughout the day at different times. You'll even get a free mobile app feature to pull a camera up on ios/android if you wanted to. snapshot of livexport setup http://imgur.com/tu66XWM you can google things like wordpress refresh image pluggin or how to setup refresh image on a webpage, etc.

anyone have a link to the latest firmware for the 3200 bullet series.. the NTSC version.

Hey. I know this doesn't help really for the actual use and price range you are looking for but because you are interested in astronomy i thought i'd share this image that was taken with an Avigilon 16MP camera and 800mm lens of the moon. http://imgur.com/ZpQi2VG,546O5K9,ecmrkin#0

Korgoth, depends on what you want to test against i guess. Low-Light with color go with the 1.3L-H3-B2 which is the 1.3MP box body and 3-9mm auto-zoom/auto-focus lens. Want to test analytics and wide dynamic range use the 2.0W-H3A-B01-IR which is the bullet style camera with a 3-9mm lens. You can download the Avigilon server software from their website for a free 30day trial as well.

For ACC 5.x and the client software to see the server across web - TCP Ports: 38880-38881 UDP Ports: 51000-55000 Mobile gateway if the gateway server software is running the default used is TCP/UDP port 80 or 443 for secure. any of the above can be changed from the defaults if you need be.

Buellwinkle, do you have a demo shot you could share of the ACTi? also, looking at that datashee of the E77 at 10MP it goes to 6fps and only up to 6Mbps of bandwidth. I can't imagine that there is much detail in the image at a 10MP shot with 6Mbps of data. Mainstream vms's could handle that bandwidth as 2-5MP cameras produce that much sometimes if not more. ------ well nm Buell, just saw your write up on your website.. great detailed review.

It'll be curious to see how well these 4K cameras perform with someone's vms.

There is no problem at all connecting two switches together or even three. Like others said it's nice to not have a single point of failure. With that said, i would strongly recommend you connect the switches together with Gigabit ethernet, the other ports could be 10/100 since i'm sure your cameras won't push anywhere near 100Mbps but for future proofing, use gigabit for connecting switches as well as your server/pc with a gigabit connection.

When you say system freezes up, is that the GV server just locking up and you have to reboot? or some video freezes and not others? Is it freezing up when looking at 32 cameras live or playing back 32 cameras of recorded video? Also, you mention the switches are connected together then to a router which then goes to the gigabit nic in the server. Who's router? (part #?) if you lower the fps to say 10fps on all of the cameras, as a test.. is there any more lock ups? also, how much bandwidth is each camera producing?

i could use a link to the NTSC firmware version as well if someone has it.

what are the settings of the cameras? 30fps? how much bandwidth is each camera producing, what are the limitations of that nvr? like how many fps does it support or bandwidth? How long are the ethernet cable runs and are you using good cat5 or 5e cabling? just somethings to start with. Otherwise as i'm sure others are thinking - you'd probably have to call that companies tech support which coming from china is probably not going to be possible or hard to get a hold of them. also, who's 1mp cameras are they? any brand name or part numbers

mytheory, sounds like you'll be making a good size investment in your surveillance upgrade and its great your doing your research on the best solution that fits your needs. I could only add that maybe reach out to a dealer of either vms solution mentioned in the thread and ask for a demonstration or reach out directly to one of the vendors listed for a sales rep to visit and conduct a demo. Also, be aware of all licensing, support and software upgrade costs from either vendor. Avigilon's reps can be found here http://avigilon.com/sales-locator/

Definitely need to port forward in your router so example Forward port 80 or 443 (SSL) to your ACC server or whichever port you decide to make it. If not using something like no-ip.com's service you'll need to know your public IP address which if not static could change on you from your provider sometimes. If you goto www.whatismyip.com you'll see what your public IP is. For IE 11 support to work - 1) Under Tools icon top right > Compatibility View Settings 2) Add the ACC server's IP address to the compatibility view list. Make sure you enter the IP address you're using to access the ACC Web Client 3) Select the 'Use Microsoft compatibility lists' check box to enable the compatibility view feature. Should work then.

You'll need to download the Gateway software from avigilon.com under support to use the mobile app. Just download it and run it on the same server which will launch a web browser. Login no password and simply connect the gateway to the server. Then you'll have to open up ports and do port forwarding to your server within your router for whatever port you decided to use for the gateway under setup or just leave it default at 80. Instructions can be found under the 5.x section and mobile app setup under 4.x section here. http://avigilon.com/support-and-downloads/for-software/software-manuals/

Looks like a pretty good build and about what i'm using for my home server. I believe you'll be just fine with the amount of cameras you are looking to run and quality style. To give you an idea, I went with a mini-itx ASRock motherboard, i5-4670, g.skill 16GB ram 1600Mhz DDR3, corsair cx430m NVIDIA GT650 TI boost 2GB video card, 3TB 7200rpm seagate, 60gb Kingston SSD for OS and the awesome mini-itx case Fractal Node 304. I put a test of several high bandwidth megapixel cameras on it constantly recording and pushed about 200Mbps to it and it seemed fine. Granted i only have 4 IP cameras on it now utilizing about 34Mbps of bandwidth and cpu at about 8% which leaves me plenty of room to play Battlefield 4 or Titanfall while vms is still running The only thing I think you should add to your quote is a decent graphics card with 1-2GB of ram for viewing your video and not necessarily rely on the intel graphics built on the chip. I agree with mkkoskin, use an SSD for OS only and not recording to. Eric

You should tell ppl that sw is only PoE Power Budget: 64W You're right ak for others that might be reading as well. was thinking the cameras take about 7w with IR probably so figured he'd be good to go for 5 cameras

I'm going.. ak and wireguys - you going to the avigilon party?

whoever you choose for software, make sure you do a system design. 64 cameras per server with 3MP cameras where each camera could possibly be pushing 4-12Mbps of bandwidth of course depending on frame rate you use but, that's like 384Mbps of bandwidth to each server if the cameras are saying doing 6Mbps each. Then if you are looking to view 30 cameras at a time, i'd suggest a good graphics card and station, (yes i know sunnykim you can do it all with an $80 card full streams - ).. You shouldn't be viewing your video from the R720's as their built-in graphics cards are not designed for constant viewing of live/recorded video. Also, for a large project like this i'd highly recommend you receive a demonstration of the software for whoever you choose. Ones to look at would be Avigilon, Genetec, Exacq, Milestone, VideoInsight, and i'm sure others would have suggestions. last thought is also the network design - do they have a network infrastructure already? will you be supplying poe switches? are cameras within 330' of a wiring closet or the main computer room? if there are several wiring closets how are you getting back to the head end room? via fiber or copper. Use managed gigabit poe switches. just my .02

definitely a poe switch... Make sure to use Cat6 Ethernet cabling and do not make a cable run longer then 330' You could use something like the following - D-Link DGS-1100-08P 8port gigabit poe switch for $157 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127513 there are other poe switches out there like a 10/100 fast ethernet for probably around $60 or more. Me, personally i'd use gigabit

Just curious, 1) are you looking to overlay the transactions on top of the video directly or in a separate video panel 2) generally in my experience usually the ethernet pos registers connect back to a pos server via the network like Aloha, Positouch, Counterpoint, etc.. do you have a solution like this or just a register with an ethernet connection only?