Opinions wanted

M

mark4470

Young grasshopper
Jul 29, 2016
69
10
Hello,

I'm new to this hobby, and it is addicting. I'm looking for a higher end 4 channel Poe nvr system with two 4 or 5mp bullet cameras and two motorized 4 or 5mp bullets. I live out in the country and it is pitch black, so good night vision is very important to me. I have a rebranded Hikvision system now I'm not all that impressed with it. What would you all get?
 
What is your budget?
 
On that type of budget, since you want great night vision invest in exterior IR illuminators so cheaper cameras get you better picture. I'd build the system around that, otherwise invest in a bunch of the low light heavyweights. That angle will def push you to the top of that budget range tho. Just something to consider.
 
I had just posted a thread not long ago about which was better, darkfighter/starlight or higher res cheaper cameras with external IR illuminators. The vast majority of people said higher res cams with external IR. You will probably want the 850nm IR illuminators which are the brightest from the camera perspective but have a faint red glow at the emitters. You might even consider adding those illuminators first and see how much better your current system performs with them. Once the illuminators are in place you can still replace your current cameras with new ones and the IR illuminators will benefit the new cams as well.

Personally I am a fan of the Dahua cameras. I would probably go with turrets instead of bullets for two reasons, I prefer the separate IR emitter lens so there is no bleeding into the primary cam lens and because you can get turrets with built in microphones. I figure why not add audio to the recording if you can.

These are the models I will be buying once I get around to completing my wiring project so I have the infrastructure to use IP cams:

IPC-HDW4431C-A This is the newer 4MP turret cam with H.265 and a built in mic
IPC-HFW5421E-Z This is a zoom bullet 4MP cam
NVR-4208-4K This is the NVR, it is available in 8ch/16ch/32ch but you can always use fewer channels than it has, plus you can expand into it in the future if you ever wanted to. The NVR does NOT come a hard drive so budget extra for drives, Western Digital Purple seem to be the popular choice for NVRs.
IPC-HFW4421S This is a fixed bullet 4MP cam
SD59430-HN This is a very nice 4MP PTZ with 30x optical zoom (totally not on your list but I thought I would suggest it anyway because.....awesome?)
48 element IR illuminator This is a possible illuminator you could use. Another user on these boards bought both of these illuminators in 2012 and has been happy with them
30 element IR illuminator This is a possible illuminator you could use

The IR illuminators use 12v power connectors, you can use a PoE injector and a 12v splitter at the far end to deliver 12v DC on the correct connector to the illuminator using cat5e/cat6/cat6a. You could also use a PoE switch for the source power to the splitter but if the switch is unmanaged it may not detect the splitter correctly and supply PoE to it. So either use a managed PoE switch that you can force the PoE to active on the port the splitter is connected to or else use the injector, I haven't done enough research on this to be totally sure so be sure to check this before investing.

I realize this isn't exactly what you were asking for but you did ask for opinions and I think if you expanded your scope to include devices like the ones I linked you might be very happy with the results. As you can see from my post count I am not an expert so I would suggest you use my post as a rough guide instead of an exact recipe.
 
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smoothie said:
I had just posted a thread not long ago about which was better, darkfighter/starlight or higher res cheaper cameras with external IR illuminators. The vast majority of people said higher res cams with external IR. You will probably want the 850nm IR illuminators which are the brightest from the camera perspective but have a faint red glow at the emitters. You might even consider adding those illuminators first and see how much better your current system performs with them. Once the illuminators are in place you can still replace your current cameras with new ones and the IR illuminators will benefit the new cams as well.

Personally I am a fan of the Dahua cameras. I would probably go with turrets instead of bullets for two reasons, I prefer the separate IR emitter lens so there is no bleeding into the primary cam lens and because you can get turrets with built in microphones. I figure why not add audio to the recording if you can.

These are the models I will be buying once I get around to completing my wiring project so I have the infrastructure to use IP cams:

IPC-HDW4431C-A This is the newer 4MP turret cam with H.265 and a built in mic
IPC-HFW5421E-Z This is a zoom bullet 4MP cam
NVR-4208-4K This is the NVR, it is available in 8ch/16ch/32ch but you can always use fewer channels than it has, plus you can expand into it in the future if you ever wanted to. The NVR does NOT come a hard drive so budget extra for drives, Western Digital Purple seem to be the popular choice for NVRs.
IPC-HFW4421S This is a fixed bullet 4MP cam
SD59430-HN This is a very nice 4MP PTZ with 30x optical zoom (totally not on your list but I thought I would suggest it anyway because.....awesome?)
48 element IR illuminator This is a possible illuminator you could use. Another user on these boards bought both of these illuminators in 2012 and has been happy with them
30 element IR illuminator This is a possible illuminator you could use

The IR illuminators use 12v power connectors, you can use a PoE injector and a 12v splitter at the far end to deliver 12v DC on the correct connector to the illuminator using cat5e/cat6/cat6a. You could also use a PoE switch for the source power to the splitter but if the switch is unmanaged it may not detect the splitter correctly and supply PoE to it. So either use a managed PoE switch that you can force the PoE to active on the port the splitter is connected to or else use the injector, I haven't done enough research on this to be totally sure so be sure to check this before investing.

I realize this isn't exactly what you were asking for but you did ask for opinions and I think if you expanded your scope to include devices like the ones I linked you might be very happy with the results. As you can see from my post count I am not an expert so I would suggest you use my post as a rough guide instead of an exact recipe.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.. My NVR has a built in poe switch. Do you think I would be better off with a separate Poe switch? Where do you mount the IR Illuminators?
 
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smoothie said:
...I realize this isn't exactly what you were asking for but you did ask for opinions and I think if you expanded your scope to include devices like the ones I linked you might be very happy with the results. As you can see from my post count I am not an expert so I would suggest you use my post as a rough guide instead of an exact recipe.
Click to expand...

Great post @smoothie. Thank you!
 
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Built in PoE should be fine. The NVR probably can't be forced to turn on PoE, try the splitter with the NVR feed and if it doesn't work just use an injector. If you are just powering an illuminator with that cable you wouldn't even need that network cable attached to your NVR (assuming the PoE from the NVR doesn't work with the splitter) as no data is actually travelling on that cable just power. The injector might need to be connected to a switch to transmit power, I am not sure about this and if it varies with different injectors.

Keep in mind that if you are powering a camera and an illuminator off the same network cable it can get slightly more complicated. You can use the splitter to extract the 12v DC off the wire then split that connector again and plug one 12v DC connector into the external illuminator and one into the camera to power them both. There are also limits on how much power a single cable can carry. If you are powering a fixed bullet cam and an illuminator you should be just fine, even a single varifocal cam and an illuminator is probably fine. But that PTZ I linked requires a great deal of power from PoE such that trying to run that PTZ and an illuminator off the same cable likely wouldn't work. Ultimately it is probably "best" to give each device its own network cable but not strictly necessary in the real world as long as you take into consideration the total power load and such.

The illuminators would be like spot or flood lights just in a bandwidth of light that the camera sees. You would likely want the mount the illuminuators away from the camera but projecting their light into the cameras field of view. I would think at least a couple of feet from the camera since the spiders and bugs will be attracted to the IR illuminator and if you turn off the built in IR on the cameras the amount of bugs/spider at the camera lens will drop to almost never, but having the built in IR and the external illuminators might give you better overall performance.

I would suggest putting the external illuminator in a few different spots directed to the area a camera sees. Then look at the camera feed and see if you like the way the shadows cast and the light is applied to the scene. Then try another spot and repeat. You can try whatever distance and height you think might be good. You can walk thru the scene and perhaps imitate what you think a person might do in that view that you would want to defend against (try to open your car doors, try to look in windows, try to open front doors, etc, etc) then review the recorded footage of you doing it and see if the lighting is right. If your face is visible is it illuminated enough or too much, are there shadows that a person might be standing in if they are trying to open your car doors, try to see how those aspects look in the recording. Since it might not be totally obvious these tests, the use of the external illuminators and their placement and testing should all be conducted at night, preferably when it is as dark as possible.

Once you have decided on what location and angle you like for the external illuminator you can mount it permanently there.
 
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smoothie said:
...IPC-HFW5421E-Z This is a zoom bullet 4MP cam...
Click to expand...

Fuq...the video shown in the posted AliExpress listing is Lare's backyard I swear...and I don't think 'Ol Lare is running a IPC-HFW5421E-Z back there.
 
Just doing a quick spot of math from my post above:

2x Zoom bullets, including shipping
2x fixed bullets, including shipping
1x NVR, including shipping
4x 48 element, illuminators including shipping
1x Super duper twisty zoomy camera (the PTZ), including shipping
2x Western Digital 4TB Purple drives from Amazon for 8TB of recording space, free shipping I think but I didn't include sales tax on these.

Grand total: $ 1,988.09

or $1,351.60 if you wanted to skip the PTZ cam and be almost exactly what you asked for originally.

There is an $800.00 limit on imports before duties and taxes are levied. So you might have to pay a bit more if you were to order all these as one order
 
I think you missed the point that he already has re-branded Hikvision system and he is not impressed and suggesting him to get those budget Dahua turrets which are even worse then Hikvision budget WDR cams. His best course of action either get external IRs for the existing camera and/or go Huisun/Imporx route. Otherwise, spend extra and go with Darkfighter/Lightfighter series.
 
klasipca said:
I think you missed the point that he already has re-branded Hikvision system and he is not impressed and suggesting him to get those budget Dahua turrets which are even worse then Hikvision budget WDR cams. His best course of action either get external IRs for the existing camera and/or go Huisun/Imporx route. Otherwise, spend extra and go with Darkfighter/Lightfighter series.
Click to expand...
@klasipca He did not specify when the rebranded Hikvision system was purchased, it could be very old, I have an ancient rebranded Dahua system that is D1 resolution and I am certainly not impressed with my current "Dahua" cameras. He also did not disclose the resolution of his current cameras. Judging by his statement "I'm looking for a higher end 4 channel Poe nvr system with two 4 or 5mp bullet cameras and two motorized 4 or 5mp bullets" we can safely assume that his current cameras are below "4 or 5mp". So given that information I do not think I was steering him wrong by suggesting the cameras that I did as the equipment I suggested falls within his second post stating his budget of 1500-2000.

While the darkfighter/starlight camera lines from Hikvision/Dahua respectively are significantly better low light performance they are only 2mp sensors and he stated wanting "4 or 5mp". This is why I lead with the suggestion to add the external IR illuminators and then suggested 4mp cameras that fall within his request. The general consensus seems to be that higher resolution cameras supplemented with as many external IR illuminators as is needed will give better system performance with greater detail captured.

Feel free to link specific makes and models that you think would be the superior choice for him while taking into account his desires and budget.
 
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Lets find out what he has, but if older system could be 2MP/3MP he isn't going to get much better performance out of newer 4MP and especially 5MP cams. If he is not impressed with night image then adding external IR will save ton of money and hassle then switching to newer Hikvision/Dahua 4MP/5MP cams.
 
mark4470 said:
Gentlemen,

I have a month old System from Nelly's. The Cameras are 4mp Bullets.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you already have the latest and "greatest", so what is that you are not impressed with?
 
I too am curious as to what @mark4470 is unhappy about with his current cameras. Once we know that we can begin to offer solutions and improvements. Given he said it was very dark where he is my money is on adding IR illuminators as I am guessing the night view is largely black as the builtin IR is under powered for the environment. Time will tell.
 
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mark4470 said:
Hello,

I'm new to this hobby, and it is addicting. I'm looking for a higher end 4 channel Poe nvr system with two 4 or 5mp bullet cameras and two motorized 4 or 5mp bullets. I live out in the country and it is pitch black, so good night vision is very important to me. I have a rebranded Hikvision system now I'm not all that impressed with it. What would you all get?
Click to expand...

As you mentioned this hobby can be addicting. You might want to look for an 8 channel NVR (or 16).
 
My night time viewing sucks... Yeah I will get a 8 channel nvr.... I may try the Illuminators, but I don't want to put anymore holes in the brick or vinyl, so that may be out of the question?? If I do them I'm not sure what to buy or how to wire them up? I have power in my attic for another Poe switch if needed.
 
mark4470 said:
My night time viewing sucks... Yeah I will get a 8 channel nvr.... I may try the Illuminators, but I don't want to put anymore holes in the brick or vinyl, so that may be out of the question?? If I do them I'm not sure what to buy or how to wire them up? I have power in my attic for another Poe switch if needed.
Click to expand...

The powerful IR illuminators should come with a plug in AC adapter and are not POE. Just wire it up like regular outdoor lighting. Make sure you get the 850nM wave length. Most cams have that. (Red glow).
 
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