crocdundee

Hello all, I wanted to say first it's great to have found this forum. It's a great resource and good to see so many people helping each other out with their cameras and security. I am a slight newbie to home security cameras, but understand very well the factors behind cmos/ccd imaging (I do astrophotography). I have had some problems comparing the specs of security cameras online as most online queries just pop up with ads for different companies or cameras that aren't all too related. All the advice/help is very much appreciated! Background: Our house has been targeted by a few vandals over the last few years either throwing eggs/ketchup on our cars, putting grafitti on our house, or even recently chucking a big rock into the side of my truck. A few other neighbors have also reported issues, our neighbor across the street has his side-mirror smashed in too. This happens one night maybe every 2-3 months. I imagine it's just a pack of young guys just doing it for the sick fun, but it's starting to get old here and I want to find out the cause. Recently, we hired a professional to install the powerboxes and three wireless Lorex IR bullet cameras to a DVR LH160 (see references below). The cameras are LW2277B and can be found at the link below for about $180/ea. I think we bought the entire package. Unfortunately, even though our front yard is maybe 30ft to the street, we don't have too much for ambient street lights so the image resolution has been very poor at night. Since they egged my car again (car parked on street), I am very interested in knowing if any of you happen to have any advice on a few cameras that could greatly improve our current setup. I understand that Lorex has these proprietory cables, but I am pretty sure I am going to just clean house and start again...this time with a direct wired connection. The overall goal is to get a sensitive enough IR camera to reach out about 50 ft. onto the middle of the street. My yard is just grass so there is open dark space which has made the other cameras hard to use as the IR isn't bouncing off anything. My budget is ~$500-1,000. I am hoping for three cameras to cover the entirety of my yard and perhaps a dome one for my front door. From my understanding now, I think I want a B&W CCD Camera, perhaps with a 1/3" to 1/2" sensor. Even if that means buying just one or two good cameras, I would be alright with that. Am I on the right track? Again haven't had much luck comparing QE or CCD specs online, so any advice and tips is very much appreciated. Thanks again all and best wishes! References DVR: http://www.lorextechnology.com/security-dvr-and-surveillance-dvr/Digital-video-recorder-with-960H-recording-resolution/LH160.p Camera: http://www.lorextechnology.com/wireless-security-camera-outdoor-wireless-cameras/Wireless-surveillance-camera-for-security/prod490001.p EDIT: Attached a photo of the camera output on the monitor, showing the recording around 11pm at night. The cameras are tilted slightly lower than what I'd like, but it produced the best and brightest results. I hope to raise them a bit more with a more sensitive camera to get more of the street. Image quality on photo of monitor is pretty close to actual quality, perhaps a little less. My truck is in the upper left of the top-left photo.

Thank you for the advice.

Thanks for that advice, I hope to see how it looks with the expectation there still wont be enough light to illuminate to the road. That's a great idea with the spotlight, I think I might try the IR illuminator first though, might be less of a eyesore as we are in a track of houses with pretty close neighbors.

Hey Ddmiller, Thanks for contacting, you got to me before I could edit the previous post. I ended up ordering only the EXIR cameras as, like you mentioned and also the sales rep at Hikvision, they would probably be better suited towards our budget and project. You are entirely right and it took me a bit more time to realize that the EXIR would actually probably work even better for our house then the more expensive option. I am planning on hooking them up to the NVR that is PoE and seeing how they turn out. If things are still too dark, I will probably look into a IR illuminator, but they are well off the ground and nothing is within 5-10ft of them so they should be alright. This is what I ended up buying today 4x : Hikvision 3MP EXIR Bullet Network Camera : DS-2CD2232-I5= $408 1x : Hikvision (Unbranded) PoE NVR DS-7608NI-SE/8P =$300 1x : 4 TB SATA = $150 It fits better with the budget too and hopefully our yard. I kind of shopped the price and took the chance of buying the cameras from a dealer in China, but he had good rep and hopefully it all works out. It's practically getting 4 cameras for the price of 2. Thanks for the input everyone, it really helped me better understand the art that is cctv. Hope this might help someone else.

This is what I came up with for our setup. If you have any recommendations or cautions, please feel free to leave a comment. They are all PoE cameras with built in IR and low-light capabilities. Cameras (EDITED)Final Camera Choices in next post 1x - Hikvision 2MP IR Low-light Bullet Camera : DS-2CD8255F-EIZ (for darkest zone and highest quality camera in setup) = ~$475 2x - Hikvision 3MP EXIR Bullet Network Camera : DS-2CD2232-I5 (lower quality? but to fit budget and cover driveway and walkway side) = ~$150/ea 1x - Hikvision PoE NVR 7600 : DS-7604/7608NI-SE/(8)P = ~$300 Does this sound like a worthwhile setup? Do you think there would be a significant quality difference between the EXIR Camera? I know it's specs show a tighter angle and fixed focal length, but if it does the job similarly, I might opt to drop the more expensive Low-light camera. I think the low-light camera had a 0.05lux@f/1.2 and the EXIR had 0.19lux@f/2 but both were 0lux at night with their IR. I thought the EXIR was pretty neat with the external IR bulbs which go a spec'd 20m further in reach then the low-light camera. Thanks again for the advice!

Thanks Pbmb! You guys are great! All the advice and insight is again very much appreciated!

Sorry just one last newbie question which is really confusing me. I don't really like the idea of IP cameras clogging up the bandwidth of our home network as I HATE using slow internet. I really don't even want the cameras on the internet (I understand IP=Internet Protocol), just a stand-alone recording platform that can be stored directly onto a hard-drive or NVR for backup in case something ever happens we have it on a hard-drive. I have been reading that they require internet access and some say they don't. Either way, most are happy saying that if recording on high-quality settings with multiple cameras, it can substantially affect your bandwidth. Does this mean our internet home network? Can I have this just wired directly to the NVR/powerswitch and not worry about any issues on our internet/home network? It's the most frustrating thing to figure out, haven't had much luck finding a solid answer to installing ip cameras without internet access. Or is the bandwidth bottleneck mostly relate to just the network of cables/infrastructure connecting the cameras to the nvr and the nvr processing is what is slowed down? For instance, here's one online answer I was able to find... "Do IP Cameras require an Internet connection? There is a common misconception that IP Cameras work only using an Internet Connection.Well IP Cameras DO NOT require an internet connection to work. They have all the features of an Analog camera and much more.The IP Cameras can simply be connected together terminating in any Network LAN Switch which can then be connected to a computer or a standalone NVR for recording. Hence the video from the IP Cameras can be monitored/recorded on the Central PC using the IP Camera Software.The recorded video can then be viewed as required.This works just like any Analog Camera/DVR system only the cable used is a CAT5 LAN cable and the performance and quality is better.An internet connection will be required only if the cameras have to be viewed over the internet." Is this a true statement? I was hoping to just purchase a setup with three cameras, all wired via cat5 to the nvr/powerswitch. There is something I am not understanding fundamentally and again, apologies for my confusion but any advice would be very much appreciated. EDIT: I was thinking of going with the Hikvision DS-2CD8255F-EIZ http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/Products_show.asp?id=7673&showid=1

Wow the specs on that are pretty good, but I guess that's what explains the cost. How are you using the camera in your setup?

Hey Bhawan, Thanks for the response! Yes that's great info, after reading more about the IP Hikvision cameras, I think that's what we want. I have been reading specs on the Hikvision ones too, they look great. I saw this one http://www.amazon.com/Hikvision-V5-2-0-DS-2CD2232-I5-Bullet-Network/dp/B00NTJOUQY, but do you have any better recommendations? Didn't see really any cameras without cmos or >1/3" chips, does that matter? Thanks again!