@ a cross-road thinking about starting over. IP or Analog

[trevttu76 0]

Not sure this is in the right spot, MODS please move it if there is a better place.

 

I just moved into a new house, starting planning where to put my current equipment and now am thinking about starting all over… I would love some ideas and input.

The real reason this came about is that when I got ready to mount my PTZ camera it stuck out like a sore thumb and may be too much for my upscale neighborhood. I don’t think I am going to use it, and now that leaves me wanting something different.

 

This is for a residential site; monitoring the driveway, street, front/back doors, back yard, and one covert indoors.

 

What I have now:

I have a great Bosch VG4 PTZ camera with auto tracking. I have been very happy with it, and the tracking has worked great for me. BUT, it is huge once you figure in the mounts.

I also have the usual collection of domes and bullets; they are all high quality good cameras (probably over a dozen, obviously they aren’t all used).

Dahua 8 channel Apollo DVR D1 with HDMI output.

 

What I am thinking/need.

I still want at least 1 maybe 2 PTZ camera, but would like something smaller like a mini dome that I can put under an eave. Are there any with auto tracking and if so are they any good? Are high megapixel cameras that great that I wouldn’t need or want a PTZ camera?

If I didn’t have my Bosch PTZ I would probably already be in the IP world, but until now I haven’t been willing to scrap everything I have.

 

Input please! What domes should I look at; any input from those that have gone the IP route?

[Kawboy12R 0]

I spent some time and money on analog that I wish I could get back before moving some cams over to IP. I didn't spend the kind of money you probably did on that Bosch PTZ though. Nice toy. I'm not quite sure what kind of yard you'll be covering and the distance you want to reach out and ID people at, but even 1.3mp cams are much sharper capturing detail at a distance (given equal lens lengths) than anything analog, particularly in the daytime. If you don't want to jump all at once then why not get, say, a 2mp varifocal cam and set it up and see what you're happy with. Set it wide and see how far out you like the detail captured. Zoom it in and see how you like the distance performance. Run something like the Pelco Camera Tool on your house and see what FOV you need to cover everything if you want to get fixed lens cameras. Then pick a budget and a manufacturer from that budget. You're better off sticking to one maker because they've probably got free software that works with their cams (and only their cams). If you want to mix and match manufacturers, picking software or an NVR that supports the cams you want can become quite a bit trickier. I can't help with the PTZ route. I figured that my budget was better spent on more fixed cameras than PTZ. Wideangle cams for over doors for IDing people coming in plus giving the big picture of what is happening in the yard, plus some specialty cams for ID zoomed in on chokepoints and other areas of interest, like driveway entrances, gates, distant outbuildings, or whatever.

[shockwave199 0]

What bosh do you have? Still not sure what I'd do if I had the chance to start over. One thing I would absolutely do is run cat5 for everything, so even if my analog gear went back up, it'd be easier to make the switch over. Frankly the wires are the biggest pain when you make the change, imo. I'm kind of like you, in that I have a ptz tracker and I really like having a ptz on the front of the house. It is so damn useful for me, I really don't want to give it up. My other cams are good, but my ptz is very useful for any fov I want at the momet. It's hard to say which way to go, so you'll have to make that call yourself. Good luck.

[trevttu76 0]

What bosh do you have? Still not sure what I'd do if I had the chance to start over. One thing I would absolutely do is run cat5 for everything, so even if my analog gear went back up, it'd be easier to make the switch over. Frankly the wires are the biggest pain when you make the change, imo. I'm kind of like you, in that I have a ptz tracker and I really like having a ptz on the front of the house. It is so damn useful for me, I really don't want to give it up. My other cams are good, but my ptz is very useful for any fov I want at the momet. It's hard to say which way to go, so you'll have to make that call yourself. Good luck.

 

 

I have a 500 series Bosch VG4. Here is a link

http://www.boschsecurity.us/en-us/ProductInformation/Cameras/VG45xx/

 

For me in this house the wire is fairly easy (I can stand up in the attic), its mounting that isnt any fun due to the vinyl eave. I agree, I will run cat5 and also probably coax that I already have. BUT, depending on what I put up the locations may change a little. Especially true with the PTZ.

[trevttu76 0]

I spent some time and money on analog that I wish I could get back before moving some cams over to IP. I didn't spend the kind of money you probably did on that Bosch PTZ though. Nice toy. I'm not quite sure what kind of yard you'll be covering and the distance you want to reach out and ID people at, but even 1.3mp cams are much sharper capturing detail at a distance (given equal lens lengths) than anything analog, particularly in the daytime. If you don't want to jump all at once then why not get, say, a 2mp varifocal cam and set it up and see what you're happy with. Set it wide and see how far out you like the detail captured. Zoom it in and see how you like the distance performance. Run something like the Pelco Camera Tool on your house and see what FOV you need to cover everything if you want to get fixed lens cameras. Then pick a budget and a manufacturer from that budget. You're better off sticking to one maker because they've probably got free software that works with their cams (and only their cams). If you want to mix and match manufacturers, picking software or an NVR that supports the cams you want can become quite a bit trickier. I can't help with the PTZ route. I figured that my budget was better spent on more fixed cameras than PTZ. Wideangle cams for over doors for IDing people coming in plus giving the big picture of what is happening in the yard, plus some specialty cams for ID zoomed in on chokepoints and other areas of interest, like driveway entrances, gates, distant outbuildings, or whatever.

 

Agreed, the camera to NVR compatability still seems to be a problem with IP. I hope as things move forward the compatability is backward complient with what is out there.

I guess my problem with just trying 1 IP cam to test the water is I use a standalone DVR so I dont have any way to record or really utilize it fully.

 

My thought is I could cover what I need with 4 nice megapixel cameras, but I wonder if I zoom out how much detail I will have. (not an issue with the PTZ since it can zoom). I havent gotten to play with a good IP camera so its hard to tell.

 

Maybe a hybrid NVR/DVR makes more sense. Of course that just leaves me with one more analog piece of equipment. haha

[Kawboy12R 0]

The best part about playing with IP is that you can do it from the comfort of your easy chair with no additional hardware if you've got a laptop. The cam will come with viewer and camera management software, so all you have to do is load it on a laptop if you want. You're better off with a wired desktop running the software but I've run mine off a wireless laptop from my easy chair, the kitchen, and even the driveway when pointing the camera during installation. Zero additional expense. With my Axis cams, I can even unplug the laptop, take it to work, and have them record motion events all day onto SD cards in the camera or my NAS with no computers running and just run Axis Camera Companion when I get home to review footage. Plus, most NVR software comes with a free trial period, so you can try stuff like Blue Iris, NVR+, Avigilon, or whatever you like to see what you prefer after fiddling with the free software that comes with the camera if you don't like it. I don't have a dedicated server or NVR at home and I've still been recording sometimes two or three copies of IP video footage at the same time for a couple of months now. For redundancy in case of theft or vandalism, I can record to the SD card, NAS, plus a computer. If you wanted, you could even hide the NAS somewhere hard to find so it'd survive a break-in and theft.

[trevttu76 0]

The best part about playing with IP is that you can do it from the comfort of your easy chair with no additional hardware if you've got a laptop. The cam will come with viewer and camera management software, so all you have to do is load it on a laptop if you want. You're better off with a wired desktop running the software but I've run mine off a wireless laptop from my easy chair, the kitchen, and even the driveway when pointing the camera during installation. Zero additional expense. With my Axis cams, I can even unplug the laptop, take it to work, and have them record motion events all day onto SD cards in the camera or my NAS with no computers running and just run Axis Camera Companion when I get home to review footage. Plus, most NVR software comes with a free trial period, so you can try stuff like Blue Iris, NVR+, Avigilon, or whatever you like to see what you prefer after fiddling with the free software that comes with the camera if you don't like it. I don't have a dedicated server or NVR at home and I've still been recording sometimes two or three copies of IP video footage at the same time for a couple of months now. For redundancy in case of theft or vandalism, I can record to the SD card, NAS, plus a computer. If you wanted, you could even hide the NAS somewhere hard to find so it'd survive a break-in and theft.

 

 

I like being able to remote in from work and be able to check things on my phone so either a dedicated NVR or PC is a must for me. I enjoy that same freedom now that you mention. I have remote software on all my laptops, her ipad, phone etc... If the monitor is off or not in view, one quick push on the ipad or cell phone brings up the cameras. I actaully have an HDMI spiltter coming off my DVR and have monitors throughout the house. SO, I can either see one of these or remote in from my laptop; good thing is I can change settings from anywhere in the house (from the laptop). I rarely/never physically go to the DVR anymore excpet to change the camera monitor view. Sometimes I want to see just 1 or 4 instead of my scrolling tour I normally leave it on. (I should get the dvr remote to work and put in on RF someday)

Now if I had just one IP camera I could put it on my network and hit if from anywhere (dns account), but with more than one I assume you have to have PC or NVR running and use that software to see the cameras (since there are multiple IP's). PC card or dedicated NVR is a whole nother discussion I know.

 

Do you have any cameras that are "zoomed out" that you then zoom in on; if so how is the resoultion - better than D1? I am also interested in the solidPTZ funciton that some IP cams have. What I understand is you can zoom in and move around a large FOV. My questions is, how good is the picture once zoomed in? I can of course digitally zoom into any of my non PTZ cameras on my DVR but the picture is horrible. Just wonder how good that looks on a IP cam...

[Kawboy12R 0]

I've got the browsers on computers in the house set up with buttons for quick one-click access to the internal IP feeds and IP Cam Viewer running on the IPads for reasonably quick cam access if I want it. My cams are plugged into a PoE switch that's plugged into my router so they're available for remote viewing 24/7 as well. I've got IP Cam Viewer on my phone and can fire it up and view them remotely in seconds. When I'm at work like I am now, I've got buttons on my browser configured with my external home IP and the forwarded ports for each cam, so clicking on the FrontDoor button shows me my overview cam. My driveway cam is a zoomed in (6mm) subset of what my front door cam (about 3mm and angled differently from up high) shows me to give me plates and a better facial ID of folks poking around my vehicles after dark. Each internal cam address (192.168.1.254:80 as an example in my case) gets forwarded to a different port on my router, so each cam is accessible on, say, 123.123.123.123:xxxxx, so I just plug 123.123.123.123:54321 into IP Cam Viewer for one cam, and 123.123.123.123:12345 in for the other cam.

 

I haven't got things split in the house for viewing on the TVs yet, so unless you go with an Android hdmi plugin gizmo you'd probably have to have a dedicated NVR or PC to split the video from. I haven't been able to find an IP cam viewer app for my Samsung SmartTV, although that seems like it'd be an extremely obvious addition to their app store.

 

As for drilling in for "closer" live viewing on a megapixel camera, I really haven't found a need for it yet so I haven't played with it besides making something fullscreen. Things are sharp enough that I can tell what's going on at a reasonable distance and who is doing it quite easily. I know Avigilon's Core software has a nice zoom feature for when reviewing video and more detail is needed in a larger format. I can't remember if it can do the same thing while watching live though. As for if drilling in is better than D1, well, you can do the math for D1 vs the resolution of the megapixel cam you're using and work in that the video at an equal resolution is probably going to be better than the equivalent analog picture as well. Well, at least it's better "live" than the analog gear I'm used to working with (decent low end gear like CNB's VCM-24VF) when displayed on a digital monitor. 1.3mp is almost 4x the detail of D1 so it's kind of like a 4x D1 zoom for detail but with 4x the screen area and the saved image is just as good as the live image, which isn't the case with analog.

[Kawboy12R 0]

I checked and the basic version of Avigilon does do custom "zoom" cuts to enlarge portions of the megapixel images in the live view. The largest view is close to a D1 cut from the main 1.3mp view from my front door (lower right frame which is originally 1280x960 for pixel estimation). The image was edited to cut out my plates and the cam is focused on the deck so the distance image is probably a hair fuzzy. It's just a cut and paste of the "Recorded" screen done with the Windows snipping tool as well. You'll notice two live screens from one camera, too. One difference you'll probably notice between cutting a piece of a megapixel camera's image and a PTZ D1 zoom at night will be lighting if your PTZ has a strong IR source. Advantage to the analog PTZ there.

 

I'd fiddle with Blue Iris and NVR+ but my BI trial version ran out and NVR+ would never read anything but CIF from my cameras for some reason.

[trevttu76 0]

I got most of my analogs up and after a few more detials will be done until I move again (I move every few years for work).

 

I guess I am like a lot of people, back to waiting on prices and technology to stabilize. I see Sams has some QSEE IP cameras on sale with an NVR for just under $800. Wouldnt be a bad place for someone to start playing with IP...

 

Kawboy12R -thanks for your input, all was helpful.