New to CCTV - Can you give me an honest opinion on my plan please ?

[wittaj]

Reach out to @EMPIRETECANDY directly as he has lots of ways to sell and may have an option that is affordable.

Many here are from the UK and buy from him without issue.

 

[mat200]

Hi @mat200

I've seen the site store and also references to the user @EMPIRETECANDY selling kit but I think (going on past experiences with buying bike bits through a mate stateside) that although the international shipping costs are more than reasonable, the UK's crazy import charges would almost definitely preclude me from purchasing from him unfortunately. I'm also finding it a bit difficult to actually find a varifocal camera with a 1/1.8 sensor - lol. All the ones I've come across up to now have had a 1/2.8 sensor, whcih I believe is smaller and therefore less effective in low light conditions ? Maybe it's my lack of experience as well in this subject, wouldn't be surprised.

Thirty years ago, I would've prolly breezed through it without even breaking a sweat but nowadays, tech stuff always seems to take that whole lot longer to sink in.......I hate getting old I'll just have to keep rattling through threads on here and see if I can workit out that way.....wish me luck

UK indeed they do nail the consumers often ..

Still I would recommend getting a quote from Andy, he's helped a number of members in the UK get good cameras.

In the usa andy setup even an Amazon store front. He may have a UK store setup.

Do not go for the small sensor models.

 

[Silas]

Bugger. didn't realis you were from EAST Yorkshire, need to update my recommendation for you

AMCREST all the way, best value and performance

Why? Originally from WEST Yorkshire, sorry lad, yer gravy it too weak

 

[Shaky]

Bugger. didn't realis you were from EAST Yorkshire, need to update my recommendation for you

AMCREST all the way, best value and performance

Why? Originally from WEST Yorkshire, sorry lad, yer gravy it too weak

OH NO....A WESSIE You lads don't know Fisn n Chips 'till you've had some chip spice from 'ULL

Seriously though, I've seen reviews for amcrest and they ain't good . Mebbe it's just the customer service they fall down on and the products are OK ? At least it's another brand for me to peruse. - Cheers wack.

 

[Shaky]

Reach out to @EMPIRETECANDY directly as he has lots of ways to sell and may have an option that is affordable.

Many here are from the UK and buy from him without issue.

Tks @wittaj I will send him a PM and see what his response is. I'm thinking along the lines of two of THESE models, two of THESE models and one of THESE models (if they aren't excessively expensive once shipped) to cover the five points on my plan. Look OK to you ? I'll report back on whatever deal @EMPIRETECANDY comes back with.

 

[rdxny]

Tks @wittaj I will send him a PM and see what his response is. I'm thinking along the lines of two of THESE models, two of THESE models and one of THESE models (if they aren't excessively expensive once shipped) to cover the five points on my plan. Look OK to you ? I'll report back on whatever deal @EMPIRETECANDY comes back with.

the 5442 s3 series are great cameras. The first one, either that or the turret version. is great. Note that the second one you linked to, the180 degree color 4k, does not have IR so you need a bunch of natural light unless you wish to have white lights on all night. If you do want a 180 camera, and need IR, Annke makes a very nice and inexpensive 180 camera with IR. There may be pricier Dahua or Hikvision 180 cams with IR. I've never used the dome cameras, so no help with that. And another vote for dealing with @EMPIRETECANDY , I'm very pleased with every aspect of buying lots of cameras from him.

 

[looney2ns]

Avoid using dome cameras outside. You will have issues' with dirt and UV on the dome.

 

[Shaky]

the 5442 s3 series are great cameras. The first one, either that or the turret version. is great. Note that the second one you linked to, the180 degree color 4k, does not have IR so you need a bunch of natural light unless you wish to have white lights on all night. If you do want a 180 camera, and need IR, Annke makes a very nice and inexpensive 180 camera with IR. There may be pricier Dahua or Hikvision 180 cams with IR. I've never used the dome cameras, so no help with that. And another vote for dealing with @EMPIRETECANDY , I'm very pleased with every aspect of buying lots of cameras from him.

For gods sake, I need some new glasses . I didn't even notice that model didn't have IR ! Note to self.....STOP SPEED READING Thanks for the heads-up on the Annke @rdxny, I'll keep an eye out (with clean glasses on !) for them.

Avoid using dome cameras outside. You will have issues' with dirt and UV on the dome.

Cheers @looney2ns I thought of the dome camera for above the porch area at my front door instead of a bullet camera as I presumed I wouldn't need a varifocal zoom model for that area ? #EDIT# I've just realised the difference between a dome and turret cam . I guess a turret is what I need to look out for.

So my new picks up to now are:-

Both Bullet cameras as in my original post,
One of THESE to replace the dome camera,

As to the wide-angle cameras, there doesn't seem to be a lot available really (that are sensible prices anyway) which makes me think maybe it's not a good idea to fit them ? I have seen an Annke NCD800 that looks to be perfect but is £260, so that would be over £500 for two. I think I've spotted the more budget-conscious model that you are on about @rdxny , the NCD600 but that only has 1/2.5" sensors n it & after the advice I've received up to now, I'm wanting to stick to a 1/1.8 sensor for the higher quality night vision. The reason for the 180° choice is that (as you can see from my pdf plan) the front and rear of my bungalow isn't a particularly massive area so my thinking was to get a wide-angle camera to avoid having to fit too many. Is there a better way for me to go about this I wonder ?

Tbh, although the budget is now getting hammered from my original estimate, it's not crazy expensive (as long as the ship costs from Andy aren't mad) so mebbe I just need to stop being such a tight-wad .

Thanks again for all the advice guys, it is appreciated.

 

[tech_junkie]

Hi all.
I’ve decided I would like to get a CCTV system installed at my house after fitting one for a mate of mine. However, where I live, we suffer from regular power cuts (sometimes 30 mins or more) and the Mains voltage figure is errmm “variable” to say the least so after browsing a fair bit online, I’ve come to the conclusion that my system would possibly be better-off being run off my current PC that I have in my loft that I use as a Plex Server to allow me to have a graceful shut-down in case of a long power outage.

However, I’m not 100% certain that the current rig I have would be up to the task so I wanted to check with you guys if it would be OK for what I plan to install ? The current spec is as follows:-
Asus P8Q77-M Running W7 Enterprise.
Intel Core i7 3770 (3.4GHz).
16GB (2 x 8GB Dual Channel) RAM.
Onboard Intel(R) 82579LM NIC.
Onboard Intel HD4000 Graphics.
Samsung 850 120GB System Drive (65% free)
2 x WD 40EFRX 4TB HDD in Software Mirror Raid (for PLEX Storage).
1 x WD 20EZRX 2TB HDD (for General Storage).
Power Inspired VIX 650VA UPS that’s setup to power-down the machine after 5 minutes of outage. This is also set to power itself down after the PC shuts down as I have the BIOS set to power back on when the power returns.

The camera’s I fitted at my mates house were all from Reolink (RLC810A’s connected to their NL8B-410 NVR) which I thought were great for his house layout but for my house, which is a rectangular link-detached bungalow, I was thinking of using the following POE cameras:-
1. 2 X Duo 2’s (one for the front & one for the back in positions 1 & 2 in the attached pdf drawing)
2. 2 X RLC810/811 ? (1 for the passageway between us and next door-position 3 and 1 above the garage entrance pointing down the driveway-position 4)
3. Possibly an RLC-540A in the front entrance porch as I don’t want a video doorbell (position 5).

I was thinking of shoving a 4TB ~ 8TB WD or Seagate CCTV-Spec HDD in the rig just for the CCTV and I also need to buy a POE Switch (was thinking an 8-Port TP-Link or Netgear type so I’ve got room for expansion if required) I was also thinking that with the extra power requirements an upgrade to a (1500VA ?) bigger UPS might be required ?

So, other than asking if the above setup would be OK to use with S/W like Blue Iris, would you guys recommend any other camera manufacturers and/or would I be better-off using a separate NVR with its own UPS capable of running it for at the very least 30 mins of power-outage ? My budget (ideally) is about £800 but I could be persuaded to dig a bit deeper if there’s a good reason J
TIA-Shaky.

NVR with a UPs would be able to serve this.
But with a computer trying to beat that setup as far as up time, I would recommend an inexpensive laptop with a Raid enclosure + UPS.
I run both a NVR and Blue iris as a redundant system on two 1500W UPS (one each) and the NVR runs 12 hrs with the UPS and the Mac is only 3 1/2 hrs
Today I got home from work and noticed the mac pro off, and unfortunately, I will have to recycle it because its not worth my time to rebuild the 2008 motherboard Apple made obsolete
So I could get another mac pro cheap and run windows server like I did before, or go with a laptop and put the drives in a raid enclosure.
I wouldn't dink around with plex. I would just get an enclosure with a USB or eSata and make it a local drive on the laptop.
But regardless I am going to run windows server since you can get license really cheap.
The laptop I was thinking about is: Refurbished: DELL Grade A Laptop Intel Core i7-4600M 8GB Memory 240 GB SSD 15.6" Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit E6540 - Newegg.com
And the hard drive raid enclosure I'm thinking of getting is: Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 PRORAID Box 4 Bay Raid 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure with USB 3.0 & eSATA - Newegg.com
I am going to recycle my windows cd key since it doesn't matter.
But I noticed they are still reasonable: Buy Microsoft Windows Server Datacenter 2019 Cd Key Global

 

[Shaky]

I run both a NVR and Blue iris as a redundant system on two 1500W UPS (one each) and the NVR runs 12 hrs with the UPS and the Mac is only 3 1/2 hrs

A 1500W UPS would be complete overkill for the kit I'm considering and would deffo be way out of budget for me. Even the 1500VA models (which I believe are roughly 900W) are a tad expensive for a well-known make but your experience of run-time has made me think about using a separate NVR. As long as I could get a runtime longer than our longest power cuts (usually 30 mins but very occasionally up to 90 mins) an NVR would be perfect and save me having to sort another PC & POE switch.

Cheers.