Home Camera System Information Overload, Help Plz

[athomas61 0]

I've read through several guides, and the stickies on the forum, and have a general idea of what I want, but the pre-made kits seem to get pretty poor reviews, and aren't customized enough necessarily for my needs, whereas a completely custom high-end kit is well beyond what I need for my fairly safe neighborhood.

 

This system is mostly just for deterrence and piece of mind. What I want...

 

-8 Camera System (I wouldn't mind 9, but I don't necessarily want the expense of jumping to 16 camera system)

-Wired IP POE based system 720p or 1080p with decent frame rate

-Motion activated

-Ability to view on Computer, iPad, Phone (Texts when motion is detected on certain cameras would be great but not required)

-System would be 5 outdoor cameras, one indoor camera, one garage camera, and something that would work as a doorbell camera (there's no peephole or easy way to see who is at my door without opening it). But I also don't want an obvious bullet camera staring them in the face or 5ft above their head so I don't see anything.

 

I generally live in a friendly neighborhood, but there has been some vandalism and light crime here and there and I'd like to get a system setup and just be happy to have the piece of mind. The issue is every time i start researching it I get paralyzed by all the information out there and the dread of wiring up the whole thing and talk myself out of it. I'd really like to get a solid system together and get it installed and just enjoy.

 

Thanks in advance for your help. I have a floor plan of my home I can upload to give a general idea of where the 8 cameras will go, but I'm keeping that private until we get a little further in the process.

[bearclaw 0]

What is your budget?

[athomas61 0]

I'll pay for quality if I need to go a little over for significant gains, but I had about $2,000 in my head all in.

[MaxIcon 0]

Here's what I'd do with that budget:

 

- An assortment of Hik cams, mostly 2CD2032 bullets and/or 2CD2332 turrets. 8 cams should run less than $1000 if you don't mind aliexpress.

- An 8 port POE switch; whatever's popular. It's cheaper to add another 4 port switch if needed than to go 24 port; should be less than $100.

- A decently powerful PC, 4th gen i5 or i7 with a competitive benchmark; you can get decent Lenovos or Dells for $300-500 on ebay, then throw in a few more TB of drive and a monitor/mouse/keyboard if you don't want to run it headless. Total should be under $600-700.

- A copy of Blue Iris for $60, and either the BI iOS app for $10, or IP Cam Viewer Pro (or both).

 

The door cam would be the only potentially tricky part, as good covert IP cams can be a bit pricier, but the rest would be straightforward.

 

The plus of a PC based system over a dedicated NVR is the flexibility, but it takes more fiddling and maintenance. If you want simpler and don't mind less flexible, a dedicated NVR would do the trick, but I don't have recent experience with those.

[SunnyKim 2]

Maxicon,

A copy of Bl of USD 60 covers only one camera? or 8 cameras?

[MaxIcon 0]

It covers as many cams as your CPU can support, which depends on frame rate and resolution, as well as whether BI processes the video (takes more CPU) or writes it direct to disk (less CPU). It also supports a huge number of camera models, but many people stick with Hiks for simplicity of support these days.

 

There's a community support forum over at cam-it.org that has lots of info on BI, and you can download the free demo for testing. I consider it the best value in a PC-based system, though it does use more CPU than, say, Milestone Xprotect Go.

 

I run 9 cams on my i5-3570k system, 14MP (5x2MP and 4x1MP) total, 10 fps, without using direct to disk, and it handles them fine. I could add several more if I changed to direct to disk, and upgrading to an i7-4770 would probably let me double my camera load. The demo doesn't support direct to disk, but has all other features enabled.

 

Here's a good example of a solid PC with an i7-4770 processor, 8GB RAM, a 2TB HD, and Win 8.1 for just over $500. Install BI on this and connect it to your POE switch, and you're ready to record.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XLenovo+IdeaCentre+H530+Core+i7.TRS0&_nkw=Lenovo+IdeaCentre+H530+Core+i7&_sacat=0

[SunnyKim 2]

Maxicon,

Thanks for your detailed explanation. I just thought the software charges U$60 per each camera, not all the cameras attached.