Need IP/PoE solution

[kindofsudden 0]

I am new to this subject and need some quick advice.

 

I need a system of outdoor cameras (need 6 to 8 cameras total) that are PoE, have a good range of day and night vision, live viewing, and will be able to send me an immediate email when they detect motion. NOT as important are resolution and color/B&W.

 

On a side note, I build my own computers, so if a PC is the best way to deliver the content via a wired internet connection, that would be preferable to a proprietary system.

 

So what I need to know is A) what cameras (and where can I get them) are best for this application, and B) what else do I need in terms of router/PC/other equipment?

 

Thanks ahead of time!

[buellwinkle 0]

Most network cameras allow you to send an email alert directly from the camera but in real life, this can be annoying because outdoors shadows, clouds, trees/bushes swaying in a breeze, car headlights can trigger false alerts. Also, not instantaneous as it has to generate the email and send it your SMTP server and on the receiving side there may be delays.

 

Which ones to buy depend on your budget per camera, vandal dome or bullet. I typically recommend ACTi because of their service and support and lower price for a name brand camera. If budget is tight, there's Dahua and Hikvision, some are happy, some get frustrated with support but decent cameras. On a higher end, we use a lot of Mobotix and Axis for commercial projects. All these brands are available through wrightwoodsurveillance.com and they are authorized reseller for a wide variety of brands.

 

As for a PC, it can be used with NVR software to do recording and notifications. If you buy mostly ACTi, they provide free software that's quite good. Axis has a solution where you can write to an SD card on the camera or a NAS, no PC needed. Mobotix, same thing, they can write to a NAS or SD and view recordings from the camera. Dahua and Hikvision offer software for free, but I have not been able to get them to work but some here have.

 

To me, at the moment, the best PC based generic NVR software is Milestone because it supports such a huge variety of cameras, they have really good free smartphone apps, remote web access supporting various browser, can use the camera's motion detect so lower CPU usage over some products and various versions that take you from up to 8 cameras for free recording for 5 days with their Go version (can't beat free) to Essentials with I believe supports 2 dozen cameras for about $50/camera and way up to the corporate level supporting huge amounts of cameras.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Guest

[voip-ninja 0]

Buell hit the high points, but I'll just reiterate a couple of things.

 

Real-time motion alerts on outdoor cameras are, in general a terrible idea. Perhaps if you have a camera in a very specific location (a doorway) and can tune it so that you don't get too many false alerts then this is something you would consider doing.

 

You really would be far better off having one or more cameras inside the area you are protecting that can be configured to send the real-time alerts. Even then, simple things such as the iris on the camera changing at different times of day (due to lighting changes), etc, can trigger an alert.... I imagine it could get very annoying.

 

You also don't mention what your budget is. You indicate you are in a big hurry and want to go right away, but 6-8 quality cameras for good day/night performance, plus external IR illuminators for some areas, plus the cost of an NVR or the PC software needed could run you anywhere from $1000 at the low end (low end analog or 480P cams with a cheapo NVR at Costco) to over $10K for higher end product.

[kindofsudden 0]

Excellent information, this is a good starting point.

 

I need to be alerted when there is activity in the area, but I see there are instances when false alerts could cause headaches. Do these cameras have any sort of sensitivity adjustments? I suppose I could take false alerts into consideration during the placement of the cameras to try to mitigate that problem.

 

As far as budget, I am looking at the $150-$300 per camera.

 

I want to be able to monitor all this from afar, so I wouldn't use the SD card function.

 

Beyond all this, how does it all connect? Do I need 8 network cards in my PC? Or do I use a router as a go-between?

[voip-ninja 0]

Excellent information, this is a good starting point.

 

I need to be alerted when there is activity in the area, but I see there are instances when false alerts could cause headaches. Do these cameras have any sort of sensitivity adjustments? I suppose I could take false alerts into consideration during the placement of the cameras to try to mitigate that problem.

 

As far as budget, I am looking at the $150-$300 per camera.

 

I want to be able to monitor all this from afar, so I wouldn't use the SD card function.

 

Beyond all this, how does it all connect? Do I need 8 network cards in my PC? Or do I use a router as a go-between?

 

With the kinds of questions you are asking, you might consider bringing in a professional to help you with the installation.

 

IP cameras require a CAT5e or CAT6 hardwired network drop that terminates into a PoE (power over ethernet) switch. The switch functions as an extension of your local network. You do not need different network cards in your PC for different cameras.

 

Generally speaking your layout would be;

 

IP CAM 1 ----> CAT5e cable ----> PoE switch (or NVR)

IP CAM 2 ----> CAT5e cable ----> PoE switch (or NVR) ----> uplink to router

 

If you aren't familiar with networking (sounds like you aren't) then this could be a bit of a challenge. You need to run network drops to each camera location, and if running outside you need to shield the cable from UV appropriately by either getting outdoor rated cable or by putting the cable in conduit. All network drops from all cameras terminate to a central location where you would install either the network video recorder (which would have the power over ethernet function and would then connect to your router) or a PoE switch (which similarly would uplink to your router).

 

As far as camera selection.... what part of the country are you in? $150-$300 is on the extreme low end for outdoor cameras, and if you want good night time performance you will need either cameras with superior low light performance or you will need lots of exterior illumination that is on all of the time. Some cameras have integrated IR but in general integrated IR is of limited use since it only lights up a very small area and it also attracts insects which trigger false alerts.

 

Most cameras allow you to set the detection areas and/or set areas to exclude from motion detection so that blowing trees and bushes (for example) can be excluded and not trip constant motion alerts.

 

Even on a low sensitivity setting, things like trees blowing and cars driving by are going to look like motion to a budget camera. Some of the higher end cameras have features like facial recognition and can be programmed to identify and follow people, but products like that are far out of the scope of budget of your typical residential user.

[kindofsudden 0]

I was thinking of bringing in professional help, but time and budget will likely not allow it. I have already trenched and purchased the data cable and will lay it this week. I went with direct-bury 23AWG CAT5e. The trenches are almost 3 feet deep. I considered running conduit as bonus protection, but I am out of time!

 

So I see I need a PoE switch. I will look around for one. I can build a small, dedicated PC to handle this application. It looks like that is all the hardware I need unless I want to utilize exterior IR illuminators. Would those boost the IR performance of a less expensive camera in my price range? How do they need to be placed exactly?

 

Once I set up cameras -> switch -> PC, do I just dial up the software and it locates the cameras and gives me surveillance options?

 

FYI I am in central Indiana location-wise.

[grege 0]

You will also need to terminate the CAT5e cable you are running. Either with plugs or jacks. If you use jacks then you will need patch cords.

 

I got my PoE switch from Newegg and went with this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833181164

 

I'm in Louisville. If you were closer I might have even helped you.

[grege 0]

Oh and to answer your other question, If you use the ACTi software then once you get it set up on your PC and the cameras all set up, remotely you can access the ACTi software with a web browser or with a workstation software they provide. You will need to set up DDNS so you don't have to know the IP address of your house. It can change since it is probably not a static IP. If you want an app on your phone then you will have to set up some different port numbers for each camera and port forward those on your router. ACTi did tell me they will have an app coming out at the end of the month so that may make it a little easier.

 

Greg

[voip-ninja 0]

I was thinking of bringing in professional help, but time and budget will likely not allow it. I have already trenched and purchased the data cable and will lay it this week. I went with direct-bury 23AWG CAT5e. The trenches are almost 3 feet deep. I considered running conduit as bonus protection, but I am out of time!

 

So I see I need a PoE switch. I will look around for one. I can build a small, dedicated PC to handle this application. It looks like that is all the hardware I need unless I want to utilize exterior IR illuminators. Would those boost the IR performance of a less expensive camera in my price range? How do they need to be placed exactly?

 

Once I set up cameras -> switch -> PC, do I just dial up the software and it locates the cameras and gives me surveillance options?

 

FYI I am in central Indiana location-wise.

 

How you will set up the cameras will depend on what cameras and software package you choose to utilize.

 

I do recommend that for IP surveillance cameras you set them up with a reserved IP address on your home router. The camera should have its MAC address printed on it and you will want to punch this into your router with a specific IP that is unique for each camera. This way you can web directly into your cameras if you need to adjust something rather than having to use software packages that do that.

 

Also, as far as IR, yes, if you have the budget for it, you do want to get separate IR illuminators as they provide good low light illumination while still being discreet. They also use less power than big area flood lights. You will have to experiment with pointing them to get good performance.

 

Look for the "IP camera starter guide" (or whatever it's called) sticky at the top of this forum, it has a section on IR including the products a lot of people are using. I use Axton illuminators at my home, they are very high performance, you need to pick one that has the range and FOV (degree of illumination) that works for your application. They are available to run on either PoE or they can run on a cheap 12V power supply as long as your wire run is not so long that a 12V supply will overheat. There are also better quality dedicated 12V power distribution units available that can power multiple 12V illumination units. Keep in mind that "budget" illuminators can be had for as little as $50. Good ones are typically $150-$300 or more. Each.

 

The reason I asked you where you were located was to get an idea of temperature range. In Indiana you can probably get away with using budget cameras outdoors, although in the winter time you could get some condensation issues that cause problems. "Good" cams have enclosures with heaters and fans and are typically rated to below zero degree temperatures.

[StanLee2066 0]

I have already trenched and purchased the data cable and will lay it this week. I went with direct-bury 23AWG CAT5e. The trenches are almost 3 feet deep. I considered running conduit as bonus protection, but I am out of time!

 

Holly crap, even for 120AC the code around here is 18".

[buellwinkle 0]

You can do well with the $300 budget per cam with ACTi because the NVR software is free and quite good and can run on a slower cheaper PC. Their newer cameras can handle -20C according to the spec, and at least here in So Cal, it doesn't get that cold, even at the ski resort level. It does this without a heater. There are cameras that go to -40C like Axis P33 domes, but not sure they would be anywhere near your budget. The D32 bullets or D72 domes are 3MP, IR and about $300ish, a little less if you want 1MP.

[voip-ninja 0]

I agree that for his project ACTi is probably the way to go, especially if he's going to use a purpose built PC as the NVR and all cams are the same brand.

[kindofsudden 0]

Thanks for the help. I didn't get nearly this much information on the other sites I tried.

 

It looks like I need to go with ACTi cameras. I went to the Wrightwood site mentioned, but which ACTi cameras should I be looking at? I will have 2 mounted on the exterior of a building and 4 mounted on trees (don't ask). Does this sound like a bullet camera situation?

 

StanLee2066: I was trenching for water line and decided to lay a trench for security cameras, and it is in an area where I may want to plant a garden later on, so I went deep.

 

voip-ninja: It looks like I need to purchase the cameras/software/switch and then circle back around here for setup. It looks like you guys certainly know the subject, and I'm sure I'll be lost when I finally have everything plugged in.

 

grege: Newegg is out of that one, but I will look elsewhere for that model. And I am only about 2 hours from L-ville. I go down there often for bourbon! I have beer on tap at the casa if you want to road trip!

[grege 0]

grege: Newegg is out of that one, but I will look elsewhere for that model. And I am only about 2 hours from L-ville. I go down there often for bourbon! I have beer on tap at the casa if you want to road trip!

 

They just sold out then because it was in stock when I posted it. Probably take you a week to get the cameras so you might have Newegg email you when it comes in. I had to do that and it still got to me before the cameras.

 

Roadtrip is tempting. I have friends in Indy and was actually wondering if you might have been one of them but they don't drink so obviously not.

 

I went with 4 of the E42 cameras and I'm mounting 3 of them this weekend at my lake house. My 4th will probably go in a tree and I haven't run the wire yet for it. Plenty of woods around my house so I don't think I will be trenching very deep. I did the bullet cameras because I wanted them to extend from where I mounted them a little because of the position of my house. I did the vari-focal lens but after testing my locations the 3 I will be mounting will be at the widest angle so I could have done fixed and saved some money.

[buellwinkle 0]

Bullets are way easier for a novice to install. Basically attach the camera mount to whatever you can mount it too and point it. I use all bullets at my house as I have not found a dome I really like as much as domes have issues with sunlight reflection and such that bullets with flat glass do not. I just did a big project replacing Axis PTZ domes with Dahua PTZ domes because the customer was just sick of the dome reflections and dome imperfections and the Dahua PTZ uses flat glass. Those are $4,000 Axis cameras. I use the E32 which has worked well for me, 3MP IR bullet, but the D32 is the same camera without WDR and frankly, I have WDR turned way down anyway because WDR in many cameras adds to nighttime image noise, so it's a trade off.

 

For a dome, the D72 or E72 are the equivalent of the D32/E32. Nicely made aluminum, 3-axis, clean image. Domes are harder to install because you have to take them apart, screw the body in place, then use the 3-axis adjustment to point and level the camera, which is more tedious than a bullet. The advantage of the dome is they are considered vandal resistant, meaning they can't be tampered with like a bullet, for example, someone could get a broomstick and push a bullet around, not a dome, so trade-offs to consider. Certainly not a good idea to stick a dome in a tree, LOL.

[kindofsudden 0]

A new rub in this project... the cable guy just told me that I will only have one IP address in the building with the security, so I will need a router in order to use more than one device. Do you concur? If so, how does this get set up? Internet line -> router -> switch -> cameras?

[buellwinkle 0]

Cable modems with single IP address are the norm, at least from my experience in the two places I have cable. You attach a router to it, pretty cheap especially since you won't likely need WiFi. Then get PoE switch with 8 PoE ports (typically 16 port switches where half are PoE) to handle 8 cameras and connect the cameras and the NVR or PC with NVR software to the switch.

[kindofsudden 0]

I'm on it. Thanks!

[kindofsudden 0]

Opened up a part 2 on this subject to solicit a little more help. Almost done with putting together this system, thanks for the help from everyone!

 

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=39053

[thewireguys 3]

If you want to receive alerts you want to something like VideoIQ which can detect people, cars and boats then send events to your smart phone or computer.

 

Also I would stay sway from ACTi. Hikvision is cheaper and has better image quality.

[need2shave 0]

+1 on VideoIQ. We're using them for perimeter security at numerous residences and it works great.