Newbie - Need 3 Camera small property solution

[MrDRC 0]

Hi there, great forum here.

 

A couple years ago I bought a Swann 4 camera system for my house that works just ok. Difficult to setup the proper triggers its either too sensitive or not sensitive enough especially when night time rolls around. Every moth and bug triggers the event recording which renders the system almost useless for playing back the alarm incidents. Would never purchase this type of system again.

 

What I am looking for now is a camera/DVR combo system with 3-4 cameras for a lake house. My budget is in the 1500 US range but looking for a more reliable system that wont be recording every bug movement at night. This is a rural property with no internet but I have some neighbor issues and this is needed for evidence as much as anything. I need to have night vision to 60-70'.

 

My main question revolves around off camera IR illumination and if that might be a better choice to avoid all the false alerts. Or, is there a better quality camera and system that eliminates all the bug movements as alarm detections. This is a small property and I really only need 3 cameras. Maybe a dome and two bullet cameras but I am open to suggestions. These boxed solutions from big box stores leave a lot to be desired and I am technically proficient enough to install, wire and handle a DIY solution.

 

Any easy quick pointers that might help me out would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

DRC

[SyconsciousAu 0]

Any easy quick pointers that might help me out would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

DRC

 

I use Blue Iris on a PC based NVR. I find it really flexible when it comes to adjusting the sensitivity. I can see the bugs flying around in my cameras with IR on board and they don't set off the recording.

[need2shave 0]

Integrate outdoor PIRs at the camera and use alarm based recording. You may be able to use your existing system.

[SyconsciousAu 0]

You could get something like 4 DS-2CD3332-I 3MP Cameras (never hurts to have an extra camera) which have excellent night vision on them, and an 8 Port POE switch (leaves room for expansion if you desire), for under US$500 which would leave you US$1000 to build your NVR plus get cables etc.

 

I've just had a quick look at your local prices online and you could build a very robust and redundant Blue Iris based NVR with about 4 months worth of storage for that price.

[MrDRC 0]

Thanks for the great feedback.

 

I will terminate my own cat5e cables as I have done plenty of cat5e crimps in the past. Its nice to be able to cut cables to length and not have to worry about drilling huge holes for the RJ45 connectors. I have all the crimp tools, cable, etc.

 

Couple additional questions. I have been reading about baluns, etc. Is it necessary to have baluns with an IP camera connected directly to a POE switch? It would be nice to have a single cat5e run to each camera without additional baluns. I noticed those 3332 cameras have 2 connectors, are both used if you are running POE?

 

Blue Iris is a computer based solution right? That is fine as I have an old dual core box with 4Megs of ram but I only have an XP Pro serial number left. All my win 7 serials are used. I could slap a couple of 2 TB drives in it and that should record plenty.

 

BTW..this is rural property and I have no internet. This would strictly be local hard drive recording with playback/review as needed. I dont need live view from the internet as internet is only available via SAT and I am not going there.

 

Maybe my budget is too high. I dont need 1080P playback or recording, I dont think anyway. I just want to be able to catch my neighbor screwing with my property for court purposes.

 

Thanks all...

[SyconsciousAu 0]

 

Couple additional questions. I have been reading about baluns, etc. Is it necessary to have baluns with an IP camera connected directly to a POE switch? It would be nice to have a single cat5e run to each camera without additional baluns. I noticed those 3332 cameras have 2 connectors, are both used if you are running POE?

 

No baluns required. POE means power and data over a single cable. The extra connector is there to run 12V if you are not using a POE switch.

 

Blue Iris is a computer based solution right? That is fine as I have an old dual core box with 4Megs of ram but I only have an XP Pro serial number left. All my win 7 serials are used. I could slap a couple of 2 TB drives in it and that should record plenty.

 

That's fairly close to the minimum requirementsof BI and whilst it might do the trick with direct to disk recording, no camera's being displayed, and potentially reduced frame rate/ bitrate / resolution, you may be disappointed with the results.

 

Maybe my budget is too high. I dont need 1080P playback or recording, I dont think anyway. I just want to be able to catch my neighbor screwing with my property for court purposes.

 

Because you want this to create usable evidence I don't suggest even considering doing this on the cheap and using the funds you have available to create the best possible system.

 

You also need to consider how you are going to capture that evidence. An overview shot may not be of sufficient resolution to use as identification evidence in court. The Australian Standard calls for 352 pixels per metre for identification. With the linked DS-2CD3332-I 3MP Cameras with the standard 4mm lens you wont get that until they get to 3.66m (12ft) from the camera. Someone throwing a rock through your window may never get that close to the camera.

 

Going to a longer lens gives you that resolution further away from the camera but narrows your field of view. A 12mm lens on that camera will give you 352ppm at around 11m (35 ft) but your field of view is down to 30 degrees.

 

Obviously it isn't realistic to put lots of narrow view camera's on your holiday house but if you put a longer lens covering a choke point like a door, gate or driveway where people are forced/more likely to pass through combined with wider lenses giving you an overview of the action then you can tell the story to the court.

[MrDRC 0]

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

On the camera side I can use a combination of narrow and wide view cameras strategically placed and still accomplish my goal. What camera would be recommended with a 6MM lens and decent IR night vision?

 

Now I am looking at building a new machine. BI recommended build is i7 processor (I would think Xeon would probably work too and its a little more bang for the buck) with pretty high specs. That will eat up a good part of the budget. I believe I can probably built it including OS for $800 or so which only leaves $700 for camera's and misc items

[SyconsciousAu 0]

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

On the camera side I can use a combination of narrow and wide view cameras strategically placed and still accomplish my goal. What camera would be recommended with a 6MM lens and decent IR night vision?

 

I have two of the Hikvision DS-2CD3332-I with 4mm lenses. They do very well but the claimed 30m IR does not translate into the real world. 15m of IR with the 4mm lens is realistic. You may get further with the 6mm lens. I like them because they perform well and were cheap at under $US100.

 

I also have an older dahua box camera with a 15mm lens supported by a $40 IR illuminator that performs well at 35m from the camera. It has fairly poor low light performance though so any of the newer cameras should perform better.

 

 

Now I am looking at building a new machine. BI recommended build is i7 processor (I would think Xeon would probably work too and its a little more bang for the buck) with pretty high specs. That will eat up a good part of the budget. I believe I can probably built it including OS for $800 or so which only leaves $700 for camera's and misc items

 

I built an I3 Quad Core based box and it is currently running 2 cams at 5MP 8FPS and 5 at 3MP 15 FPS, displaying 4, and recording direct to disk. It runs at 75% CPU load. An I7 would give you heaps of headroom on a 4 x 3MP cam setup.

[MrDRC 0]

 

I built an I3 Quad Core based box and it is currently running 2 cams at 5MP 8FPS and 5 at 3MP 15 FPS, displaying 4, and recording direct to disk. It runs at 75% CPU load. An I7 would give you heaps of headroom on a 4 x 3MP cam setup.

 

Thanks for the good info. Are you recording on 7200RPM drives and if so how big and how many days of video are you able to keep with that kind of frame rate?

[SyconsciousAu 0]

 

I built an I3 Quad Core based box and it is currently running 2 cams at 5MP 8FPS and 5 at 3MP 15 FPS, displaying 4, and recording direct to disk. It runs at 75% CPU load. An I7 would give you heaps of headroom on a 4 x 3MP cam setup.

 

Thanks for the good info. Are you recording on 7200RPM drives and if so how big and how many days of video are you able to keep with that kind of frame rate?

 

I'm using a pair of WD Red SATA 3TB drives in a raid 1 array. They are not even stressed. I have 2 TB allocated to the cams and have never filled the disk with the storage set to 3 months.

[eadysamual 0]

Well, you can also get an alarm based on the camera market. Look into this option:

network camera, alarm camera etc..................