Yet another "which card" thread

[dalepres 0]

I'm getting close to ordering my video system; sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, I've been researching like crazy. I can attest to the fact that online shopping is not faster than driving 75 miles to the city and shopping in a brick-and-mortar.

 

I started this process certain I wanted a Geovision or AverMedia card. After reading here about other options, I have been researching them as well. The cheap no-name, or changing-names Chinese cards are still out but I am now considering Hikivision and Dahua. The fear I have when purchasing any of these, including Geovision or AverMedia, is getting a counterfeit card. How can I find reliable online dealers?

[dalepres 0]

Another question I have is that the HikiVision site lists a very small set of Intel-based mother boards in their compatibility list - and I couldn't find any that were still made. I did find a new (old) DP965LT board on Amazon and I suppose I could build a new PC just for this project but I would sure like to build something newer and more powerful - especially for running W7 X64 on.

[tomcctv 190]

take a look at the aver NV5000t its hybrid.

[dalepres 0]

I"m in Oklahoma.

[MrBostn 0]

You didn't mention a budget or if you want analog or IP or how many cameras.

 

Anyway I kinda went thought the same thing as you. I searched and searched for info, finding little that applied to my appication.

 

I settled on a NUUO SCB-7016. This controls 14 analog cameras. I built a socket 1155 Win7 64 pc with 6 hard drives. 2 for the OS, and 4 in a raid 10 for the recordings.

 

Everyone is happy with it.

 

Good luck

[dalepres 0]

Mr. Boston,

 

I am planning a total of 16 analog cameras but will be starting with just four - mostly so I can test a small amount of cameras and make sure I am getting expected results before ordering the rest.

 

I have an existing home server that is dual quad-core Xeons running W7-X64 and 12GB of RAM. On day one of my installation, that server will be recording and home server. If I run into performance issues, I will either build a new box for the recording or a new home server. For storage, I am planning an iSCSI based SAN so when thieves steal the server, thinking they've taken the video with them, I will still have video hidden away.

 

At the entry points to the house - front and back doors, inside and out, I want to record at D1. Otherwise, CIF might be OK but I'm struggling with that. One side of me wants to buy top quality (within reason) and the other side is being cautious about over buying.

 

I'm not against spending $2000 for the first order - to include the card and 4 cameras - but if I can meet my objectives, while still allowing for 16 channels total in the near future, for less then that's even better.

[dalepres 0]

Also, I am considering making two of the cameras megapixel IP cameras for now (as in 2 for now, maybe more later). The QNAP product I am buying will directly record two IP cameras so I may go with the megapixel cameras for the front and back door. The hold up on that decision is that I am not finding great information on how affordable megapixel cameras perform at night. Affordable in this case probably means $300 or less.

 

In the future, I am planning a 3 or 5 megapixel camera on a PTZ mount for looking down our 150 foot driveway - depending on what I learn about megapixel camera performance at night.

[MaxIcon 0]

If you want to go with a mix of analog and IP, you should look at hybrid systems from the start, so you don't have 2 different systems to monitor.

 

I'm using an NV5000 on a dedicated box with good results, though you might would want to go with one of their higher-end PCIe cards to get to 16 channels while keeping a good frame rate. The software is flexible and stable for me, though the cards can be finicky about what type of hardware they work with.

 

As far as D1 vs CIF, I'd never even consider recording CIF. There's not much point in it, IMO, as the resolution is terrible, but I'm also switching over to IP due to the much better resolution.

If you want to be able to ID people and events, more resolution is always better than less, and less compression is always better than more.

 

I have a couple of Vivotek IP8332 cams that are in your price range, and the daytime performance is miles above analog, but they do suffer at night, even with the built-in IR. They're still better than the analog cams I replaced with them, and I'm looking at improving the ambient lighting instead of spending on more sensitive cameras.

[koolmer 0]

Another question I have is that the HikiVision site lists a very small set of Intel-based mother boards in their compatibility list - and I couldn't find any that were still made. I did find a new (old) DP965LT board on Amazon and I suppose I could build a new PC just for this project but I would sure like to build something newer and more powerful - especially for running W7 X64 on.

 

Usually there is no problem using newer mother boards. These are the tested-and-guarateed-to-work boards. I have always ignored these recommendations and bought whatever mother board I wanted.

 

Only once I had a problem with a mother board that didn't seem to like the DVR card, but on this install it turned out that using another HDD for the OS handled the problem.