Experts, please help out with an IP setup.

[T-boner 0]

Hello all. I need a 4 camera IP based setup. The cameras will be located in a house across town. All four will be plugged into a 4 port router that is then connected to the internet via a static IP DSL/Cable line. The NVR will be in my house 50 miles away. I want to be able to watch live stuff occasionally. However, that is not going to be the majority of my usage. Recording video feeds to the NVR for later review is what i really need. I have a budget of $1200. Please let me know if that is possible with what i want to do. Camera and NVR suggestions are welcomed. Also, please suggest a single US based website where i can get everything i need and can speak to a live person should i encounter any problems. Thanks and have a nice day.

[NotoriousBRK 0]

The short version is that probably won't ever work the way you expect.

 

In most areas you'll find your upstream Internet bandwidth to be fairly limited and unreliable. The practicality of streaming 4 cameras at a bit rate and resolution sufficient for any purpose is pretty low.

 

You'll also likely run into overage issues (even in most places that have "unlimited" Internet, it's really not) at one or both locations.

 

You didn't specify what resolution of IP camera, but let's assume a basic 720p camera. That would likely be at least a 2Mbps video stream to get decent resolution out of it. Times 4 is 8Mbps, most Internet connections have significantly less upload speed than that. Additionally, 8Mbps is going to be roughly 80GB/day of transfer. Many companies will start to harass you if you use more than 250GB/month.

 

Put the recorder on-site...

[hardwired 0]

The short answer is that trying to transfer that much data, at a high enough speed, is going to be impractical with any standard internet connection method (depending on the frame rate and resolution of the cameras you are planning on using, your upload speed would need to be 2Mbps or higher, and at that rate you will massively exceed most ISP's monthly data transfer limits).

 

With dedicated internet connections this could be possible, but even for a T1 data rate connection (1.544 Mbps), you are probably looking at at least $400 per month, for each end!

 

A far better plan is to figure out low to locate a low power NVR at the camera site, or use cameras such as VideoIQ's or others that have onboard storage, and can transmit only during alarm events.

[Digiscan 0]

I'm not an expert.

 

However, I know a bit about networking, and I think you're going to find it frustrating to record remotely with good resolution and/or reliability over a residential grade internet connection. A single 2 MP video recording can easily be 1 MB/second, which would require a 10 Mbps upload speed--pretty rare for residential to have an upload speed that fast (mine is 1 Mbps).

 

You'll want to record your actual event footage to a local drive at the premises on a LAN, preferably everything wired. You can certainly access the cameras remotely and view real-time at a lower resolution or frame rate from 50 miles away on those cameras. You could also then pull footage from your at-premises drive; I've done that today. My camera records at a rate far quicker than my internet connection can tolerate, but since it's motion triggered in any given hour I may only have a couple of minutes of video, which my slow internet connection can catch up on during the down periods.

 

EDIT: I wrote this while the other two were writing. All our responses are the same more or less!

[T-boner 0]

Lots of good advice in here. Thanks all. Would it help if i had the cameras on motion sensor mode so they only capture and transmit images when activity is detected?

[Digiscan 0]

Lots of good advice in here. Thanks all. Would it help if i had the cameras on motion sensor mode so they only capture and transmit images when activity is detected?

Yes, you'll surely want this to decrease the amount of storage necessary, but it's not going to assist with the DVR-over-internet approach, because when an event is detected the camera's still going to have trouble transmitting all that data with your bandwidth limitation.

 

One thing not mentioned and you might want to consider is the DropcamHD. It does transmit online as you want, around 60 GB/month and is $150. Any half decent broadband connection can handle its bandwidth (their website says how much you need). It's also supposedly ridiculously easy to setup, and Dropcam's servers handle everything for you, from storage to alerts. One drawback is it's $10/month (the free version has no history at all, so is worthless IMO). Its quality seems decent, but not spectacular, though certainly competitive for the $150 price. Seems pretty compelling for some home users and as it transmit data outward instead of you inquiring into your network it solves all the regular firewall or dynamic IP considerations.

[buellwinkle 0]

I don't think it will be a problem. DSL is capped at 756Kb/s upload. You need to find a good mix of low resolution, high compression and frame rate that will work. Maybe 320x240, using h.264 compression at 12 frames per second would consume most of a maxium speed DSL.

 

Here's the Axis bandwidth calculator that may help.

http://www.axis.com/products/video/design_tool/calculator.htm

 

You can use FTP on some camera to send video but keep in mind that these cameras have limited buffers so while it's FTP'ing, it may not take on new events. ACTi, Dahua, Mobotix, Panasonic, AVTech, Brickcom can FTP video remotely. Axis can on some cameras that have their edge storage feature. Realistically, you may want to store the videos on a local SD card, then use the limited bandwidth you have to view one camera at a time.

[thewireguys 3]

Dropcam is interesting BUT they are indoor only cameras with a 10ft USB cable for a power supply. So that system will be very limited.

 

The right way to do this is to have the server onsite with the cameras. You will have issues if you don't.

[T-boner 0]

Because of security issues, the NVR cannot be located where the camera's are. It has to be with me several miles away. To conserve bandwidth, i can actually make it a 2 camera system. Can someone recommend some good models (camera and NVR) and a web store located in the US where i can get everything i need? Thanks.

[buellwinkle 0]

Are these indoor or outdoor cameras? I'll assume you don't want HD/megapixel cameras give your DSL limitations.

 

Axis makes their M1013 for indoors, cost under $170 and supports what they call Edge Storage, meaning the cameras can write directly to NAS storage. Also, they have H.264 compression you'll need.

 

You don't need to PC for this to run, just straight from the camera in one location to a NAS in another. You can buy lower end NAS devices for $150-250 from Western Digital and Buffalo. When you want to view the cameras on one screen or view the recordings, you use their free Camera Companion software.

 

Where to buy? BHPhotoVideo.com has it for $169, pick it up at their store in NYC or order online.

[T-boner 0]

The cameras will actually be outside. Thanks.

[hardwired 0]

What resolution and frame rate are you planning to get, and what is the rated upload and download speed at each end (and have you tested it?).

 

And, what is your ISP's monthly data limit?

[T-boner 0]

What resolution and frame rate are you planning to get, and what is the rated upload and download speed at each end (and have you tested it?).

 

And, what is your ISP's monthly data limit?

 

 

I was looking at no more than 1.3MP camera. DSL/Cable service will be at least 5M down and 1M up. I believe the cap will be 250GB as with most services.

[thewireguys 3]

What is your plan if the WAN connection goes down? What FPS are you looking for?

[buellwinkle 0]

You have DSL at 1MP up, that's amazing. Did you test that at test sites like speedtest.net or speakeasy.net? Fastest I could find for DSL was 756Kb/s.

 

So say you have a reliable 1MP upload speed, not much latency, you may be able to get a single 1MP or maybe a 1.3mp camera, like 720P with h.264 compression and run it at 15fps. Of course, the assumption is you don't use that internet connection for anything else.

 

A good value outdoors is the ACTi TCM-1111, runs under $300. On the bargain end, the Dahua IPC-HFW2100 or IPC-HDW2100 can be had for under $200. Both are capable of FTP'ing video events. ACTi provides NVR softwar free, Dahua does not.

 

For Axis, with camera companion, I believe the lowest priced outdoor camera that supports this feature the M31-VE at about $500.

[T-boner 0]

That ACTi camera looks like just what i need. You say they provide free software for the NVR? Does it have to be their own NVR? Looks like the cheapest one they have is $2500

[buellwinkle 0]

That ACTi camera looks like just what i need. You say they provide free software for the NVR? Does it have to be their own NVR? Looks like the cheapest one they have is $2500

 

They provide free NVR software for up to 16 cameras per PC, runs on Windows, you provide the PC. Or they have an NVR, about $800 and supports 16 cameras, you provide hard drives and monitor - http://www.acti.com/product/detail/Standalone_NVR/GNR-2000

 

If you want an NVR solution, there's other brands in all price ranges and most support ACTi cameras.

 

A Dahua NVR is about $400, again, no drives, no monitor.

[hardwired 0]

Keep in mind that if you want to use NVR software in a normal fashion, that usually means transferring data via TCP or UDP packets, not FTP.

 

That means that if you want to transfer more than one camera over your WAN link, you will either need to be able to discriminate between two (or more) different cameras originating from the same IP, which means that the NVR software will need to be able to be set to use the same IP, for the cameras, just different ports (not sure if Acti S/W can do this, I think Milestone can).

 

You will also most likely need either static IP addresses at both ends, or DDNS resolved hostnames on a dynamic IP connection.

 

You could also link sites with a VPN tunnel, but packet fragmentation because of tunnel overhead+payload size going above MTU limits (plus the overhead of the tunnel encapsulation itself) will reduce throughput substantially.

 

Your best bet if you really want to try this is to establish your internet connection at both ends, and set up computers at both ends with bandwidth testing software (JPERF, or something comparable), and test what speeds and reliability that your connection can provide (using similar packet sizes and types that your cameras will output-probably pretty large UDP packets) before you proceed further.

 

You may find that your sustained throughput capability is not anywhere as large as you might think from casual short tests, and occasional interruptions of data flow can often cause long dropouts of recording (I know Exacq can take 5-10 minutes or longer to reconnect to a camera after an interruption).

[buellwinkle 0]

The ACTi NVR software server only records when the camera senses motion, so it's not continously streaming. I just tested it, you can give it a domain name and port for a camera, works fine.

[Digiscan 0]

Because of security issues, the NVR cannot be located where the camera's are. It has to be with me several miles away. To conserve bandwidth, i can actually make it a 2 camera system. Can someone recommend some good models (camera and NVR) and a web store located in the US where i can get everything i need? Thanks.

Sounds to me like you should follow buelle's advice, buy equipment on that level--but still keep the NAS on-site (it is the best way to ensure you get the footage you want, reliably), and then set up a secondary process that runs intermittently just pulling away whatever that local system has to your computer situated 50 miles away.

 

This way you end up with the robustness of all-local recording with its near-zero latency and unlimited bandwidth, instead of trying to constantly stream to a remote site and, since everything is being regularly batch copied to your other PC 50 miles away you still end up with a copy, should something happen to your equipment far away.

 

Even if you're using motion-detected cameras at the location, I still don't believe you're going to find it works all that reliably FTPing its data to your drive 50 miles away over residential broadband, and it's that moment of an event when you need it to be robust. Catching up later with the batch-copy approach I mention it's fine if the connection is spotty or your bandwidth is low and it has to be retried, etc. because real-time isn't necessary then.

[thewireguys 3]

The ACTi NVR software server only records when the camera senses motion, so it's not continously streaming. I just tested it, you can give it a domain name and port for a camera, works fine.

 

So your saying Acti cameras ONLY stream when your live viewing or when motion is detected? Where is the motion detection being done camera side or server side? How did you test this?

[buellwinkle 0]

The motion detection is done by the camera, so while there's nothing going on, CPU activity is pretty low, a few percent. This is V2 which is still available. V3 for some reason records 24/7 and I haven't figured out how to turn that off. You set the motion detect zones in the camera, the sensitivity, all the normal stuff in the camera.

[ak357 0]

The ACTi NVR software server only records when the camera senses motion, so it's not continously streaming. I just tested it, you can give it a domain name and port for a camera, works fine.

 

Hmm ,

so if it's not continously streaming

how do you get Pix on screen ?

[Digiscan 0]

The ACTi NVR software server only records when the camera senses motion, so it's not continously streaming. I just tested it, you can give it a domain name and port for a camera, works fine.

 

Hmm ,

so if it's not continously streaming

how do you get Pix on screen ?

Its motion detection is built in; it has no need to stream anything until it decides it has found a qualifying event and then transmits to storage.

 

That said, I suspect it's probably constantly streaming some very, very small bits of data just to ensure the FTP connection is ready (at least, my Dahua does this, at a constant 3K/second by the looks of it).

[buellwinkle 0]

Hmm ,

so if it's not continously streaming

how do you get Pix on screen ?

 

When the NVR server is running, it's a service on Windows, it's no displaying anything. When you run the client, clearly it has to stream at that point but you can chose to have it use a lower res stream for this purpose, but record the hi-res stream (assuming you have a camera with the dual streaming feature).