Hello, from South-central Texas

Shadeth

Getting the hang of it
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Greetings! This place seems to be a wealth of specialized knowledge so I am looking forward to building a really cool new how security camera system for my next house. I will be moving in about a month so I have time to prepare and research what I should be getting.

My older (current) home has security cameras, and I have been through quite a journey on this already... I added my first cameras about 10 years ago after some really annoying sales people pissed me off. Built that setup on an old Vista machine with a 4 port CCTV coaxial card and software it came with. It was a rather primitive setup, but it worked well enough for my to record 2 cameras at my front door. I later expanded to more cameras but the system couldn't keep up, so I bought a linux based generic chinese dedicated DVR off ebay and added a HDD to it, this used a lot less power, was smaller and better performance and it did support 4 cameras, but the menu and interface was rather clunky.

Running the cables through my attic, walls, and mounting the cameras was hard work, so by the time PoE cameras became affordable, I was already kind of invested in my currently run lines, so I got an Amcrest DVR which supported higher resolution cameras on my existing coaxial lines, and I am running that now with 6 cameras. The app for my phone works fairly well.

My new house will be larger and I want to "do it right" this time, so I am looking to build a Blue Iris dedicated computer, or rather likely buy a refurbished one and customize it as needed. I'm used to building computers, but given the cost of a Windows license alone, I can see how it is significantly cheaper to just buy a refurbished computer and work with that than build something from new components.

I like the community you all have built here and I look forward to learning a lot!
 

ThomasPI

Pulling my weight
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Welcome been here a good minute, great site and a wealth of knowledge. Take your time, a new system can’t be cobbled together without asking a lot of questions and reading a LOT! When you think you’ve got some idea and you start to work with your setup, you’ll soon find you don’t know a LOT!
 

SouthernYankee

IPCT Contributor
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Houston Tx
:welcome:
=============================

You are off to a good start.

Run two ethernet cables to each planed camera location.

Mount the cameras low so you get good face recognition. If I was doing my house again I would have cameras mounted in the brick mailbox for LPR and car identification.

Read,Study plan... plan some more.
=============================

My standard welcome to the forum message.

Please read the cliff notes and other items in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras or ICPT Night eye cameras (https://store.ipcamtalk.com/) if you need good low light cameras.
2) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
3) Do not use wifi cameras.
4) Do not use cloud storage
5) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
6) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
7) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
8) Do not use reolink, ring, nest cameras (they are junk)
9) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
10) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
11) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
12) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 8ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
13) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
14) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3

Cameras to look at
IPC-HDW2231R-ZS Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal
IPC-HDW5231-ZE Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE
IPC-HFW4239T-ASE IPC-HFW4239T-ASE
IPC-T5442TM-AS Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+)
IPCT-HDW5431RE-I Review - IP Cam Talk 4 MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera
DS-2CD2325FWD-I

My preferred indoor cameras
DS-2CD2442FWD-IW
IPC-K35A https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/review-dahua-ipc-k35a-3mp-cube-camera.37581/#post-373517


Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
Test do not guess
 

SouthernYankee

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Feb 15, 2018
Messages
5,170
Reaction score
5,320
Location
Houston Tx
:welcome:
=============================

You are off to a good start.

Run two ethernet cables to each planned camera location.

Mount the cameras low so you get good face recognition. If I was doing my house again I would have cameras mounted in the brick mailbox for LPR and car identification. (2 cameras)

Read,Study plan... plan some more.
=============================

My standard welcome to the forum message.

Please read the cliff notes and other items in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras or ICPT Night eye cameras (https://store.ipcamtalk.com/) if you need good low light cameras.
2) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
3) Do not use wifi cameras.
4) Do not use cloud storage
5) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
6) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
7) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
8) Do not use reolink, ring, nest cameras (they are junk)
9) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
10) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
11) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
12) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 8ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
13) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
14) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3

Cameras to look at
IPC-HDW2231R-ZS Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal
IPC-HDW5231-ZE Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE
IPC-HFW4239T-ASE IPC-HFW4239T-ASE
IPC-T5442TM-AS Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+)
IPCT-HDW5431RE-I Review - IP Cam Talk 4 MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera
DS-2CD2325FWD-I

My preferred indoor cameras
DS-2CD2442FWD-IW
IPC-K35A Review-Dahua IPC-K35A 3mp Cube Camera


Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
Test do not guess
 

Broachoski

Getting comfortable
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SouthernYankee mentioned running 2 lines to each location. I wish I had done that. Blue Iris is a bargain in my opinion. I am not far from your location also.
 

Shadeth

Getting the hang of it
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SouthernYankee mentioned running 2 lines to each location. I wish I had done that. Blue Iris is a bargain in my opinion. I am not far from your location also.
So what is the reasoning for running two lines to each location/camera?
 

Broachoski

Getting comfortable
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After running many lines which is not my favorite job I found some locations where I wish to add another cam to focus on a a different point. Also if something should damage the cable it would we easier to switch wires. The cable itself is so cheap that it would be insignificant to the total cost of the system.
 
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