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Starting Small w/ Dahua 5231

Norm Whitney

Norm Whitney

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Glad I found this place as I was about to spend more than I wanted on what would have arguably been an inferior system. I'm new to home video security. I eventually want at least a 4 camera system w/ nvr to cover our home. But I'm going to learn to walk before I run. I plan on getting a 5231 to look at my driveway and where our cars park. (Twice this year cars have been broken into around the neighborhood so this seems to be the immediate need.) I'll run cat6 from the mounting location to my router (and through a POE injector). Then I'm going to experiment with camera placement and focal lengths before permanently mounting anything. For software, I'm going to use Sighthound (yes, I'm one of those annoying OSX/Mac persons).

Shopping list:
dahua 5231
dahua 203W wall mount
cat6 50ft
POE injector
SD card
Sighthound software
... anything missing here?

I'm curious as to makes/models of POE injectors that would be recommended and size/brand of sd cards.

Thank you in advance,
Norm
 
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DavidDavid

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Might be worthwhile to get an actual poe switch instead of an injector... Depending on how and where everything will be. If you already have a switch that you just want to cheaply add poe to, there's some with multiple ports you can add to it.
 
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aristobrat

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Norm Whitney said:
For software, I'm going to use Sighthound (yes, I'm one of those annoying OSX/Mac persons).
Click to expand...
Subscribing to this thread to follow your experiences with Sighthound. I'm a Mac guy, but I wanted my camera recordings to be on a dedicated box, not on my personal computer. I started with a Dahua NVR (but had issues with how they create recordings) and am now running Blue Iris on a dedicated little Windows box that's tucked away in a corner .. just a power cable and Ethernet, no keyboard/video/mouse.

I've always been interested in Sighthound because of its "people recognition" ability. The upfront cost (would be $250 just for the software for me, as I have more than two cameras), not-frequent-updates, and not-really-active user forum have me wary. I've also fallen in love with the Blue Iris iOS app, especially with how quickly it is to view live video (or alert clips), even when on LTE. Some of the Sighthound reviews made it sound like this was cumbersome to do remotely. Would love to hear your experiences!!!
 
fenderman

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aristobrat said:
Subscribing to this thread to follow your experiences with Sighthound. I'm a Mac guy, but I wanted my camera recordings to be on a dedicated box, not on my personal computer. I started with a Dahua NVR (but had issues with how they create recordings) and am now running Blue Iris on a dedicated little Windows box that's tucked away in a corner .. just a power cable and Ethernet, no keyboard/video/mouse.

I've always been interested in Sighthound because of its "people recognition" ability. The upfront cost (would be $250 just for the software for me, as I have more than two cameras), not-frequent-updates, and not-really-active user forum have me wary. I've also fallen in love with the Blue Iris iOS app, especially with how quickly it is to view live video (or alert clips), even when on LTE. Some of the Sighthound reviews made it sound like this was cumbersome to do remotely. Would love to hear your experiences!!!
Click to expand...
You can download a demo of sighthound from the site...you will find the options extremely lacking...its very basic. Believe it or not, you cannot even display your cams in a matrix on the screen for live view...one cam is large the rest are tiny squares....the only thing it has going for it is the analytics which you can easily replicate with a good quality PIR sensor, in fact a good pir sensor would be way more accurate.
 
fenderman

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Norm Whitney said:
Happy to do that aristobrat.


What poe voltage does a 5321 need?
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if you are going to buy a poe switch, I would recommend this one. It is gigabit and managed. A few more dollars but being able to manage the switch has significant benefits.
Amazon.com: Zyxel 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Web Managed PoE Switch with 60 Watt Budget [GS1200-5HP]: Computers & Accessories
As far as sighthound, see my post above. Further note that you can buy a pc that handles blue iris for your load as well as the software for less than the cost of sighthound. You should never run any vms on your home pc. It should run on a dedicated system.
 
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Norm Whitney

Norm Whitney

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Thx, aristobrat... couldn't find the specs stating whether this cam was poe or poe+. I'm sure it's in the specs, but I missed it.

Agreed fenderman. I'm only going to run this on my mac for testing and initial evaluation. I'll upgrade to a compatible nvr as funds allow. For this first foray into surveillance video, I'm trying to keep to a budget of $300-350. I've kicked around the idea of getting another mac mini and using my current one as the heart of a surveillance system... but that's more $ than I have at this early stage of the game. (Btw, I'd love to know where/how I could buy a capable pc/windows box + blue iris for less than $250... i.e. the cost of a full Sighthound license.)

And thank you for the links on recommended switches... much appreciated!
 
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aristobrat

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Norm Whitney said:
Thx, aristobrat... couldn't find the specs stating whether this cam was poe or poe+. I'm sure it's in the specs, but I missed it.
Click to expand...
No worries. The specs should show it as 802.3af, which should be "just" PoE, not PoE+.
 
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fenderman

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Norm Whitney said:
Thx, aristobrat... couldn't find the specs stating whether this cam was poe or poe+. I'm sure it's in the specs, but I missed it.

Agreed fenderman. I'm only going to run this on my mac for testing and initial evaluation. I'll upgrade to a compatible nvr as funds allow. For this first foray into surveillance video, I'm trying to keep to a budget of $300-350. I've kicked around the idea of getting another mac mini and using my current one as the heart of a surveillance system... but that's more $ than I have at this early stage of the game. (Btw, I'd love to know where/how I could buy a capable pc/windows box + blue iris for less than $250... i.e. the cost of a full Sighthound license.)

And thank you for the links on recommended switches... much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Hp Elite 8300 SFF Intel 2.90GHz Core i5-3470S 4GB Ram, 500GB HDD - Tested
plus blue iris for 60 and you have 100 dollars left to spend on another camera. Buying an overpriced mac for vms is a complete waste of money.
 
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aristobrat

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Norm Whitney said:
Aristobrat, assuming I run a dedicated system like you... no k, v, or m, how do you monitor the video? All via smartphone?
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90% smartphone (via the iOS app). It's so quick to pull up live views and/or check on any motion detection alerts.

If I'm at one of my home computers (Mac for me), I have a bookmark saved for the BI web interface. If I hear something going on outside (or want to check on an alert), I just use Safari to connect. The default BI web page is OK, but I installed the "better" one made by one of the admins here (@bp2008). I much prefer its look and functionality.
I made a better remote-live-view page

If I need to directly get on the server (to manage Windows, or do something big in BI, which rarely is needed after being setup), I use the Microsoft RDP client for Mac.
 
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