Standalone surveillance system

[RustyJL 0]

I am considering developing a surveillance system for work.

 

It will be used for capturing trespassers among other things.

 

As I see it I require the following things:

 

IP camera. I looked at the Sony snc ch180 and it seems to fit the bill. How far out does the IR illuminate to? I need something that will be able to provide a clear picture of a persons face up to about 20m with only IR illumination.

 

Wireless 3G internet/router connection.

 

Power to the camera and the router.

 

As I see it if I send the images over the internet they lose a lot of their quality so would be better to have the router sending the images back to a computer with DVR card.

 

How much recording time would 1TB of HDD give me? How far would you reasonably expect for the IP camera to transmit to the router.

 

My apologies if this seems lame - I have not dabbled in this stuff before. I had a game camera previously but that got stolen by some crooks on a job and we never recovered it. This way I figure if the camera gets stolen we'll at least know who we are looking for as the images will have been downloaded ata remote location.

 

Cheers.

[Soundy 1]

I am considering developing a surveillance system for work.

 

It will be used for capturing trespassers among other things.

 

As I see it I require the following things:

 

IP camera. I looked at the Sony snc ch180 and it seems to fit the bill. How far out does the IR illuminate to? I need something that will be able to provide a clear picture of a persons face up to about 20m with only IR illumination.

If this is for work... what sort of business/workplace is it? If at all possible, forget the IR and use some good external lighting, such as a motion-activated floodlight: you'll get a better picture, in color, with regular white light rather than IR.

 

Wireless 3G internet/router connection.

 

Power to the camera and the router.

 

As I see it if I send the images over the internet they lose a lot of their quality

3G is not very fast - you'd have a hard time getting clear VGA video over that, let alone full 720p video. However, that is a dual-stream camera, meaning you could record the high-quality, full-resolution video and watch the lower-quality stream over the wireless connection.

 

so would be better to have the router sending the images back to a computer with DVR card.

IP cameras don't connect to a DVR card - such cards are designed only to digitize analog video. You'd need a computer with suitable NVR software.

 

How much recording time would 1TB of HDD give me?

Difficult to say, as there are so many factors that affect the space usage - codec used, codec settings, encoding type used, scene complexity/contrast, whether you use motion detection/analytics to trigger recording, and if so, how much motion or trigger events the camera sees.

 

How far would you reasonably expect for the IP camera to transmit to the router.

 

Since it's a wired camera, you could go up to the maximum distance for ethernet: 100m.

[RustyJL 0]

Thanks for the reply.

 

This system must rely on IR and remain as covert as possible due to the nature of the investigations being conducted. At times this system may be deployed in a paddock no where near power and possibly outside of wireless internet connection, however that would be fairly rare. I see Telstra now has 4G services, but for now I am limited to 3G due to my location. How far out would you think the inbuilt IR would reliably work and provide detail of a persons facial features? Previously I have used game camera's which only provide good facial recognition out to around 6-10m at best at night - during daytime they are somewhat better. I have considered the use of extra IR blacklights but they are fairly expensive.

 

I did not realise the ch180 was a hard wired camera, I had assumed that it would send the signal wirelessly back to the router which would be preferred. Is there a camera with similar specs that you would recommend that could do it wirelessly?

[Soundy 1]

This system must rely on IR and remain as covert as possible due to the nature of the investigations being conducted. At times this system may be deployed in a paddock no where near power and possibly outside of wireless internet connection, however that would be fairly rare.

The problem you run into with this is not so much powering the camera itself, but the IR alone will draw substantial power on its own, as will any wireless system you use - you're looking at a substantial battery pack to keep it all running for any length of time, as well as needing some way to recharge those batteries.

 

I see Telstra now has 4G services, but for now I am limited to 3G due to my location.

Neither one will give you a smooth stream of the full-resolution video. And either one would require a separate device (3G access point/router/etc.).

 

How far out would you think the inbuilt IR would reliably work and provide detail of a persons facial features? Previously I have used game camera's which only provide good facial recognition out to around 6-10m at best at night - during daytime they are somewhat better

The thing you run into with basic built-in IR is that it's optimized for a certain range... beyond that it falls off quickly, and closer than that, it tends to wash out faces. To avoid that, you need either a camera or illuminator that uses a "smart IR" type of technology... or use an external illuminator in a different location. And even then, you'll end up with plain black-and-white images and people with glowing eyes - thus is the nature of the beast.

 

I have considered the use of extra IR blacklights but they are fairly expensive.

One problem with regular IR on a covert setup is that you will still see a slight glow from the LEDs if you do look at the camera, as they still emit some light at the low end of the visible spectrum (crossing from red into infrared). "IR blacklights" use IR on a longer wavelength that doesn't leak into the visible bands, BUT, not all cameras will work with that wavelength either.

 

I did not realise the ch180 was a hard wired camera, I had assumed that it would send the signal wirelessly back to the router which would be preferred. Is there a camera with similar specs that you would recommend that could do it wirelessly?