Getting started

[10bad10]

Hey guys I just bought a new house and want to set up a camera system to monitor the outside and possibly the inside. I prewired the four second story corners with CAT6A and plan on using POE cameras. I also have a QNAP TS-451 NAS with 10 TB of usable WD red drive space that I can run QNAP's surveillance station program on.

My questions are does anyone have an opinion on using surveillance station and what cameras should I use? I've been looking at either Hikvision DS-2CD2032F-I or Reolink RLC-410 which are both on Amzon. I want to be able to make out faces and license plates if needed.

Any advice is welcomed and nothing is set in stone.

-Dave

 

[alastairstevenson]

QNAP Surveillance Station runs quite well with Hikvision cameras, there are plenty of models on the compatibility list. Your 1GB RAM and CPU is enough to cope with the 400MB or so that SS consumes. And if you want to do any 'direct to NAS' recording you can use the 'thin provisioning' of the LVM to set the volume size of the shares you offer to the cameras.
A couple of caveats.
I balked at the per-camera licence cost of $60 for above the base 2 provided. Almost the price of the camera! So for similar cost I bought a Hikvision NVR.
Also - Surveillance Station currently has no explicit support for the 'smart events' from the Hikvision cameras such as the line crossing detection and intrusion detection. As far as I can tell, these alerts in the camera are not used by SS as part of the 'motion detection' action configuration. Which is a pity as they are really useful to tune down the unwanted alerts that simple motion detection provides.

And you will get lots of advice on here about how good the image quality of the 2032 turrets is, but how much of a nuisance for triggering motion detection spider webs are. The turrets are a good alternate, much less susceptible.

 

[chem]

get the hikvision!!!! i got both and its by far better

Hey guys I just bought a new house and want to set up a camera system to monitor the outside and possibly the inside. I prewired the four second story corners with CAT6A and plan on using POE cameras. I also have a QNAP TS-451 NAS with 10 TB of usable WD red drive space that I can run QNAP's surveillance station program on.

My questions are does anyone have an opinion on using surveillance station and what cameras should I use? I've been looking at either Hikvision DS-2CD2032F-I or Reolink RLC-410 which are both on Amzon. I want to be able to make out faces and license plates if needed.

Any advice is welcomed and nothing is set in stone.

-Dave

 

[djmt99]

get the hikvision!!!! i got both and its by far better

What makes the Hik better over the Reo? I'm contemplating both.

 

[Jramosent]

Why would hikvision be better at 3mp than a reolink rlc 410 at 4mp?

 

[fenderman]

Why would hikvision be better at 3mp than a reolink rlc 410 at 4mp?

Welcome to the forum. The megapixel rating of a camera is only a very small factor in the image quality and camera reliability...step back from the mp ratings and dont fall for the megapixel race to the top...

 

[Jramosent]

Thanks for the reply. Wouldn't a higher mp camera give an overall better view?

 

[fenderman]

Thanks for the reply. Wouldn't a higher mp camera give an overall better view?

No...in fact, on many cameras higher mp ratings give you worse low light performance. There are also many other important factors such as the reliability of the camera itself and the reliability of the stream it sends to the nvr/vms.

 

[Jramosent]

What would you suggest in a ipcam under $150? I would like audio but not necessary, and a wide angle lens? I do local pc recording.

 

[fenderman]

What would you suggest in a ipcam under $150? I would like audio but not necessary, and a wide angle lens? I do local pc recording.

Either the hikvision new 2mp WD cameras or 4mp WD cameras (the 4mp hikvision is actually better at night than the 3mp because of some improvements they made)..there are lots of threads on various cameras..I suggest you read them so you learn about all your options and pros/cons of each design and manufacturer.