Hello from Houston

[Seapig]

Thank you for having me here.
And for having the resource guide for noob's....because that is just what I am.
We live in the greater Houston area and crime is going crazy here.
All of my lawn equipment and a high end pressure were stolen out of my back shed and it is time for me to start doing something about it.

 

[TonyR]

Welcome to IPCT !

 

[gwminor48]

Hello Seapig, welcome to the forum.

 

[looney2ns]

Welcome.

 

[Seapig]

Thank you for the warm welcome folks.
It means a lot.

 

[wittaj]

Welcome.

We have quite a few from Houston here that have shown us the nonsense happening in your parts.

 

[Flintstone61]

Welcome.
You'd be surprised how much of a passive deterrence effect nice bright white cameras have. Esp. hanging off the corners of buildings. If nothing else, big honking cameras hanging off the side of our house, seems to be conversation sstarter among people out walking the dogs or kids etc.... Sends a message visually, People pointing and talking while they are out talk. then word gets around. One neighbor said " paranoid Much?" LOL...I told him my Sister in law has lived in Orange Co. Calif, & the crappy ass- East side of St. Paul. where if it wasn't nailed down, it would disappear.

Your going to need some cameras dedicated to identifying Vehicles, plates, and faces. maybe even a Color 4K bullet in the shed, with LED's that light it up at night so you can see shit.
first cam is a Color 4K-X 3.6mm 8MP refurb from Empiretech Andy.

EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X 8MP 1/1.2" CMOS Full-color Fixed-focal Warm L

8-MP 1/1.2" CMOS image sensor | Built-in warm illuminator | The max. illumination distance is 60 m | Built-in Mic and speaker | supports two-way talk | ePoE, IP67 protection | SMD 3.0

empiretech01.com

My Sister in law wants me to move with her to Houston she when she retires in a few years.
Near her Cousin in Cypress. My Dad says " you're crazy",
My friend at work from Vietnam says, "Crazy hot and Humid".
I'm starting to see why The Houston Astrodome was such a hit in the 60's.
So I take it theres lots of heavy traffic and it's friggin hot and humid...
So I probably wont trade for what I got here....yet....

 

[Seapig]

(My friend at work from Vietnam says, "Crazy hot and Humid")

Boy are you hitting the nail on the head there.
Cypress is not so bad,,,,,,yet. It is far enough away from the city. But we will just give it time.
What is a bit funny about the whole rip off thing is this:
I was in the Army for 25 years. Part of that time helping run security operations overseas.
It took getting nailed myself to pull my head out of my ass and get serious about security for myself and my family.
Thank you for the stills and good advice Flintstone61. It is well appreciated.
I am just getting going here so all advice is most welcome.
V/r
Michael

 

[Flintstone61]

Two of the cameras you'll most likely need somewhere on the property, are the 1st and and the 4th one.
you'll need to power them up with a POE switch. shown below is a popular or recommended choice.
I never listened to the recommendations on the forum until I experienced what buying Amazon junk gets you for performance and tunability.
wasted a few hundred dollars thats could have bought better cams.
You'll need an off lease used PC with room for security drives to run Blue iris.
@looney2ns and I, have found this model to be stable. ( HP Elitedesk G4 800) this model was recommemded to me by one of the Forum admins a couple years ago, and its going strong with no issues.

HP EliteDesk 800 G4 SFF Desktop Intel Core i5-8500 16GB x 256GB SSD Windows 11 | eBay

Optical Drive: HP DVDRW (HP PLDS DVDRW DU8AESH). Certified Pre-Owned. (For materials recovery). Not categorized. R2v3 Testing and Grading We are an R2V3 certified facility.

www.ebay.com

I ran 19 cameras with this PC at a commercial property.
People may try to tell you it's getting dated, but you dont need a Nitrous burning Hemi Top Fuel dragster to stream 40-70 Mbps of data.
it's quiet, low energy usage, and you can fit 2 extra full sized drives inside because the C:\ drive is an onboard NVME style SSD.

 

[Flintstone61]

Use the PRO version of windows 11 to get the most control of automatic updates. The PC i linked you is running 11 PRO.
just that software alone, retail is more than the whole PC. So it's a sweet price.
Replacement components are widely available on e-bay as well, like Power supplies, motherboards etc.

 

[Seapig]

Holy cow!!!!

I thought at first all of my ads came back after coughing up my $5.00.
This looks great. I was originally looking at an (8) Cam Lorex bundle from COSTCO for $1200.00.
Going this route though, it looks like it makes my recording options for camera's expand significantly.
The software looks like is is priced right also.
Thank you

 

[wittaj]

Most here will say that 4MP is the sweet spot for these types of cameras.

See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

 

[Seapig]

Most here will say that 4MP is the sweet spot for these types of cameras.

See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

I see already what a great site y'all have here.
Just waht I was looking for. learning as opposed to just going out and blowing cash on either junk or the wrong products.
Thank you

 

[Flintstone61]

These models are also extremely tunable and 2 of them (1&3)will flexible enough to catch license plates or vehicle make/model/color details.

Hot Selling Products | EmpireTech

Hot seiling products, including security camera and network video recorder Equipped with the latest security technology, these top-selling products offer reliable, top-notch protection for around-the-clock surveillance.

empiretech01.com

 

[Flintstone61]

I write all this from personal experience and popularity among veteran forum users.

 

[Flintstone61]

If Blue Iris is overwhelming at first (was for me) get started with the defaults and tune as you go....takes a few days of watching how the cameras are capturing motion, to see which way to adjust things.

 

[wittaj]

Holy cow!!!!

I thought at first all of my ads came back after coughing up my $5.00.
This looks great. I was originally looking at an (8) Cam Lorex bundle from COSTCO for $1200.00.
Going this route though, it looks like it makes my recording options for camera's expand significantly.
The software looks like is is priced right also.
Thank you

In most instances, you want to get a camera that will perform at your location for the worse situation, which for most of us is at night when it is dark and there is little to no light. If a camera performs at night, it is easier to tweak settings to make it work during the day than it is the other way around.

My 2MP cameras outperform my neighbors 4K (8MP) cameras....why....because they are both on the same size sensor.

When we had a thief come thru here and get into a lot of cars, the police couldn't use one video or photo from anyone's system but mine. Not even my other neighbors $1,300 8MP system he bought from Costco (probably the system you are looking at LOL) provided useful info - the cams just didn't cut it at night.

My neighbor tried the "I will just downrez the 8MP to 2MP" and the image was a soft dark mess.

His system wasn't even a year old and after that event has started replacing with cameras purchased from trusted vendor @EMPIRETECANDY based on my recommendation and seeing my results. He is still shocked a 2MP camera performs better than his 4k cameras and he cannot figure out why downrezing from 8MP to 2MP doesn't work properly... It is all about the amount of light needed and getting the right camera for the right location and downrezing doesn't change the physics of the camera.

The ideal MP/sensor ratio and the correct focal length for the distance to IDENTIFY are key to a successful system!

 

[Flintstone61]

I also run an Amcrest NVR simply to allow the non-tech gals in the house to use an iPhone App to see the cams while they are at work. I have the Blue Iris App and the Amcrest App on my phone, and you can reveiw episodes of motion much more efficiently ( just my 2 cents) than the NVR app. The NVR will also come back online faster than a PC after a power outage. I have to change my Power fail setting in the HP's Bios....

 

[Broachoski]

If Blue Iris is overwhelming at first (was for me) get started with the defaults and tune as you go....takes a few days of watching how the cameras are capturing motion, to see which way to adjust things.

Blue Iris is fantastic software and in my opinion it is well worth several times its retail price.