Existing Coax Dahua NVR or re-wire POE and Blue Iris?

[gfunk4698844]

Hey everyone! I have an existing 26 camera coax system with Dahua NVR covering 3 structures and around 15,000 SF -- it's around 6-7 years old and some of the cameras are dying. I am thinking about replacing all of the coax wires with ethernet, and replacing the NVR with a computer with Blue Iris.

1) Do you guys think it's worth the "upgrade", or just replace a few of the dying cameras and all of them as they die? Coax doesn't have all of the new features that IPCAMS do (smart tracking, facial recog, etc) and I feel like my coax system is harder to troubleshoot--sometimes the power cables get chewed by rats, sometimes coax, a couple of times, the power supply burnt out, etc.

My concerns were initially regarding bandwidth and distance for the POE runs. with about 26 4MP cams, I did some research and I think the max bnadwidth is about 26MB/S, so if I run all the cams on a separate gigabit LAN I think I should be ok.

2) Can I just use a POE switch for this second lan or do I need a router? Also, I would need two networks running to the computer I guess, one for the POE LAN, and one for the main WAN/LAN network.

3) I guess I was also thinking of just getting another POE Dahua or Amcrest NVR but don't like getting locked into particular branded cameras and also don't particularly like the third party interface/apps (DMSS/GDMSS/etc)

Love this forum, and look forward to being active on it, and thanks for all of your help!

 

[wittaj]

You can probably use that NVR and bring it into BI and then take advantage of the BI AI to turn the dumb cameras into smart cameras LOL. And then slowly replace with IP cams. You can even use and adapter.

You do not need a router for IP cams - you go into each camera and assign them a static IP address and power them with POE switches. It is best to keep camera traffic off your internet LAN.

BI does have a 14 day free demo trial, so crank open a windows computer and download it and give it a try. When it asks for a product key, there should be a button to try the demo.

You can use your NVR and feed the cameras right from the NVR into BI.

In BI, you select add camera and put the IP address of the NVR into the IP address location. Put in username and password and hit find/inspect and let BI do its thing.

Then about halfway down is a pull down for Camera number and pick camera 1 and then hit ok. The camera should show up. Then add camera and the select copy and copy this camera and then change the number 1 to a 2 and repeat for your cameras. OR depending on your NVR, it may populate all the cameras in the main and substream pulldown boxes and you just select a camera number and then add another camera and select the next pulldown.

 

[gfunk4698844]

You can probably use that NVR and bring it into BI and then take advantage of the BI AI to turn the dumb cameras into smart cameras LOL. And then slowly replace with IP cams. You can even use and adapter.

You do not need a router for IP cams - you go into each camera and assign them a static IP address and power them with POE switches. It is best to keep camera traffic off your internet LAN.

BI does have a 14 day free demo trial, so crank open a windows computer and download it and give it a try. When it asks for a product key, there should be a button to try the demo.

You can use your NVR and feed the cameras right from the NVR into BI.

In BI, you select add camera and put the IP address of the NVR into the IP address location. Put in username and password and hit find/inspect and let BI do its thing.

Then about halfway down is a pull down for Camera number and pick camera 1 and then hit ok. The camera should show up. Then add camera and the select copy and copy this camera and then change the number 1 to a 2 and repeat for your cameras. OR depending on your NVR, it may populate all the cameras in the main and substream pulldown boxes and you just select a camera number and then add another camera and select the next pulldown.

Thanks for the tips! That really makes sense! So continue to use the existing COAX cams through the NVR with BI and then replace them with POE IP CAMS as the need arises. Although the POE Ethernet Runs replacing the Coax, kind of run together so redoing the wiring all at once would be easier that piecemeal.

Another probably stupid question--are people who run a separate LAN for the cameras using a computer with another ethernet NIC card--because my MB only has one Ethernet port, I guess I have to buy another PCI NIC or something for the second LAN.

 

[wittaj]

That is why I linked the adapters if you went that way LOL. Granted that would get expensive for the number you have LOL. But it works in a pinch and for some of the tough to get spots.

Yes, most of us run a 2nd NIC and keep the cameras on it. It is less than a $20 card to pop in the computer.

Or use the built-in port for the cameras (that will have the fastest speeds) and use a USB ethernet port to provide internet or wifi to the computer. But you wouldn't want to connect the cameras to that port as it cannot support the sustained speeds regardless of what the theoretical speed is of USB. Your cameras do not buffer like Netflix, so it is full on data 24/7. But it would be fine to connect to the internet or your internal LAN if you wanted to give that type of access.

 

[gfunk4698844]

That is why I linked the adapters if you went that way LOL. Granted that would get expensive for the number you have LOL. But it works in a pinch and for some of the tough to get spots.

Yes, most of us run a 2nd NIC and keep the cameras on it. It is less than a $20 card to pop in the computer.

Or use the built-in port for the cameras (that will have the fastest speeds) and use a USB ethernet port to provide internet or wifi to the computer. But you wouldn't want to connect the cameras to that port as it cannot support the sustained speeds regardless of what the theoretical speed is of USB. Your cameras do not buffer like Netflix, so it is full on data 24/7. But it would be fine to connect to the internet or your internal LAN if you wanted to give that type of access.

Great help, thanks!

 

[Flintstone61]

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[Flintstone61]

I wonder if some of the cheaper items would do the Job....Havent seen people talking about them.