help... wont connect... new to all of this....

[wiz9]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out a new home surveillance system, and started with 1 camera to figure out how it all works. I need to install at least 4.

I just installed this: http://www.vstarcam.com/VStarcam-C7815WIP-HD-WIF-Network-Camera-98.html

It came with some pretty terrible software. I am about to give up on it, but found BlueIris and read that its great to manage different cameras, I'm trying to figure it out in hopes of salvaging this project.


My 1st problem is that it wont detect the camera. I get the following error >>>> I/O error: 0

AND this is what it spits out when I add it:

Opening port 80...
HTTP request...
Failed with HTTP 12029
Opening port 10080...
2016-07-03T06:16:08.000Z
Requesting device information...
Manufacturer: Happytimesoft
Model: IP Camera
FirmwareVersion: 2.4
GetCapabilities...
Querying services
Has Imaging services: /onvif/image_services
Has media services: /onvif/media_service
Has RTP_RTSP_TCP, requesting profiles
first profile is PROFILE_000
first source is V_SRC_000
requesting URI for profile PROFILE_000
RTSP URI: /tcp/av0_0
Has Event services: /onvif/event_services
RelayOutputs: 0
InputConnectors: 0
Has PTZ service: /onvif/ptz_services
Done



What am I doing wrong, and how can I get it to connect?

I am using my laptop over the same wifi network that the camera is using.

I can't figure out the IP address for the camera, I went into my router settings and didnt see it listed among the devices, which was odd.

If I open the software and phone app the camera came with, it is live and working perfectly.

I would really like to get it hooked up to BlueIris... please help

 

[fenderman]

You will need to find the ip address of the camera. Blue iris will no do it for you. Try the fing mobile app. Also if you still can, return that junk camera.

 

[wiz9]

You will need to find the ip address of the camera. Blue iris will no do it for you. Try the fing mobile app. Also if you still can, return that junk camera.

Can you please tell me why it is a 'junk' camera?

I realize it is a 'no name' china product. But I would like to understand why it is junk.... I need 4 cameras, and I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between something like this, or if I were to go brand name.

Thanks

 

[fenderman]

Can you please tell me why it is a 'junk' camera?

I realize it is a 'no name' china product. But I would like to understand why it is junk.... I need 4 cameras, and I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between something like this, or if I were to go brand name.

Thanks

First and foremost. Stable firmware. Second, cheap components. If you thing you can simply compare specs online, you will sorely regret it.

 

[wiz9]

First and foremost. Stable firmware. Second, cheap components. If you thing you can simply compare specs online, you will sorely regret it.

I don't think anything. I'm new to all this, and simply trying to figure out what I need. There is a lot out there, and it's quote overwhelming for someone who knows nothing. I bought 1 camera to play with and get a feel for all of this... and right now I'm pausing to decide if I get 3 more of the same no name brand, or if I look for something better.

Is the AMCREST HD bullet model a good option?

 

[olli]

I think you should get hikvision/dahua
for example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hikvision-DS-2CD3345-I-4MP-EXIR-Turret-IR-IP66-Outdoor-POE-Dome-Network-Camera-/131591813713

 

[wiz9]

I think you should get hikvision/dahua
for example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hikvision-DS-2CD3345-I-4MP-EXIR-Turret-IR-IP66-Outdoor-POE-Dome-Network-Camera-/131591813713

this looks like another 'no name' camera..... anyone have any thoughts??

 

[PSPCommOp]

this looks like another 'no name' camera..... anyone have any thoughts??

I think you should Google HikVision and Dahua and see just how "no name" they r. These are the more popular common brands and if you can afford them, pull the trigger.

Amcrest is iffy but also consider what you are using it for and what you expect it to do for you.

Google CameraCritic while you're at it, that's another great source for make/model specific stuff.

 

[wiz9]

I'm putting 2 cameras in my backyard, 2 in front of the house. to monitor the front/back because there have been break-ins in the area. I am looking for something weather resistant, with decent picture quality, and decent night vision.

I travel a fair bit and want to be able to check in via my laptop/phone and see the live stream.

I also want to have easy access to the video files.

What do people here recommend for those needs?

The one I bought to play around with, the reason it got me was because it has an SD memory card inside the camera, which meant no NVR/DVR or having a computer on all the time inside the house.

Storage methods is where I'm still very confused.

THOUGHTS??

 

[PSPCommOp]

What's your budget like?

 

[wiz9]

What's your budget like?

About $100 per camera.

Not sure where storage fits into that, like I said the one I bought has an SD insiders but if a better system means using an NVR I guess that means a few hundred for that.

From looking online and in local classifieds in my area I can see $100 I a common price point. Im seeing amcrest HD bullet, going for that.

I just want to be able to easily monitor outside my house.

What do you recommend?

And how should I deal with video file storage?

 

[PSPCommOp]

Alright then you have a few other decisions to make first.

You said you wanna be able to monitor your house easily. So you've looked at Blue Iris ($45+ investment for software and another $9.99 for the mobile app) so your NVR is going to have to be a PC. Dell OptiPlex and HP EliteDesk are the two favorites around here but basically other brands could work as long as you have a CPU that can handle it. The consensus here seems to be that at a minimum, u want an i5 processor that's at least 4th generation. Typically that's an i5 4590 or better. i7 is obviously better as long as its newer. I bought my PC on eBay and found a great deal on an OptiPlex 7020 with an i5 4590 processor. These stand alone BI machines are preferred because BI will use a good amount of the CPU and doing much else on the computer is hard because everything slows down pretty good. I'm not saying its possible to do other things but expect some lag if you have your recording PC doing multiple things. I upgraded mine with an SSD for the operating system and the BI software and have a separate HDD for storage of all video files. I went with a 4TB WD Purple drive and I'd say you could go with that or maybe a small 2 or 3 TB drive depending on how long you want your video stored before it gets recycled and written over. You can use SSD cards but if someone damages a camera, you prob won't have access to the video footage you need so that's why a PC NVR inside the house is recommended. But some people like and use the SD car method because it works for them. All in all I have about $550 invested in just my PC with hard drives and software. Some have more, others less depending on what they were willing to spend.

You also need to consider the cost of cable, RJ45 connectors, crimping tools, pull rods, conduit, mounting boxes/brackets and other various hardware. If you have it already, great. If not, you're going to need it. You want to monitor the area around your house due to break ins. So you're going to need at least 2mp cameras but maybe ones with a higher MP. You also need to consider the focal lengths. Commonly used are 2.8mm and 4mm. 2.8 will cover a wide area, possibly your whole back yard depending on installation but you will lose the ability to recognize facial features depending on distance. 4mm offer better recognition but cover less of an area unless you purchase and install them in better spots. Ideally, and i learned this from Nayr, but you don't need to cover an entire area as long as you record the choke points, which are where any burglars or intruders will need to travel to access your house or property. Obviously you want any and all doors and garages covered but you might want a camera to cover a gates or certain part of your yard too. Take all that into consideration when looking at the layout of your house. If you can still cover enough to make you comfortable with four cameras, great. If not start at the most important areas and add more as funds allow.

I knew I was going to be looking at a 6 cam system eventually with the possibility of more so that's why I went with the PC I did as well as a network PoE switch to power it all. If you're going IP cameras you are going to need either a PoE switch to power all the cameras, or a special adapter near a power source to provide power to the cameras. I also knew that I'd want mostly 4mm cameras at the front with 2.8 at the back of the house. Minimum of 2-3 mp cameras although the newer 4mp HikVis seem to have great reviews. Bullets are good for all types of weather, but they are prone to spider web issues in the summer. There are a lot of pictures of how they are bad in the Pictures and Video session of the forum. I'll let you check into that but basically they can be useless at night with IR unless you keep them clean. Domes are known for IR bleed depending on where they are placed. There are some fixes to that but there is also the option of turrets, which i went with. I'm hanging mine under the eaves of the house so weather won't be an issue and the new IR features on HikVision turrets seems to be really good. Think of where you live and where you will have cameras posted and go from there. After that basically look around here or on CameraCritic, for the common and popular model numbers. The most common or popular I'd have to say are HikVision and Dahua but there are a few others and they are listed in the forum in the camera section. These are preferred because they have been tested and seem to show the most reliability as well as having a good amount of customer support if a problem does occur. They also offer good quality videos. With regards to fenderman suggesting you get better cameras, that one you posted offers 720p at most. Now I'm not saying there isn't a situation where it would be able to clearly capture someones facial features if they walked right passed your camera, but it most likely wouldn't unless they walked right up to the camera and stood there for a second. That's why most people here like to get a 2-3-4 MP camea and then tweak the settings to get the best possible picture. Things like fps, WDR and night vision are important and not all cameras are made equal when it comes down to it.

 

[wiz9]

boy that looks incredibly complicated.

So why are some systems bundled for like $400-$600 and include a bunch of cameras a DVR/NVR and everything is kind of straight out of the box? Whats the difference with those bundled systems?

I don't want to have a computer on 24/7 to run this. What are my options for storage without having a computer on all the time?

 

[olli]

PSPCommOp has excellent points mentioned, thanks! wiz9, I think the picture quality of those systems is often just 720p and you cannot add many cameras more.

If you don't want to have a computer, a NVR is your choice. (Actually it is a computer as well, just in different shape )
For example
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hikvision-4-PoE-network-interface-Economic-PoE-NVR-DS-7604NI-E1-4P/32247935961.html

 

[myswapspace]

I don't think we are answering the initial question. There is lots of helpful advice.. but we missed the first point. and it could be helpful to others. I think the question was basically, " how can I find and use this camera?"

Here is what I know about how to get BlueIris to see that camera once you find its IP address: ( Finding its IP address is not so hard, but I will let others help there.. mainly check your local router or DHCP server to see what you gave it. )

I tested the C7816WIP and agree, its not the best camera by far... nonetheless, here is what I found:

BlueIris did not autodetect initially. However, once you try to add the camera.. op[en the cameras properties on BlueIris. Then select the video tab... check the Network IP button and hit configure. You should already have its IP in the IP or hostname field. but if not enter its IP. and the following variables in the proper areas as below:

HTTP port = 81
Media/video/RTSP port = 10554
Attempt autoconfigure on http, RTSP and port: = 10080

hit inspect now and it will configure it for basic viewing.
( It will actually find Hi3518eV100.. but configure it for RTSP H.265/MJPG/MPEG4 )



I agree with all that has been said already, I just felt we missed a chance to answer the first questions.. The VSTarcam C7816WIP is not a great camera by any stretch.. but I like using all sorts of devices when they meet a need... and sometimes cheap cameras are very useful. True, they do have terrible software etc.. but if we get a basic video stream out of them we can use those dollars we save to buy better NVRs etc..

 

[Kawboy12R]

I won't say that cheap cameras are useless (any camera is better than no camera), but take a look at this video where a guy crawled slowly within FEET of a 1080P Nest cam with 130 degree field of view IN THE DAYTIME. Did the camera get an ID-worthy pic of his face? Nope. Wide angle cams are good for Whassup? but useless for WhoDunnit?. You'll have to allow a bit for YouTube munging the video but the original footage still wasn't great.


I don't know the whole story but it looks either like one of the cameras might've sent off a notification to the owner that it was disconnected or he possibly just randomly noticed that it wasn't connected when checking his property and checked footage to see the perp and call police. A hammer apparently smashed the alarm quickly so it didn't send out an alert. WTF? You'd think its first job would be to send out an INSTANT alert to the alarm company that would get ignored for, say, 30 seconds until the owner keyed in his code to disable it. If no disable code then the company acts on the notification that was hopefully sent out the instant the door was breached. That's an alarm design problem.

The only reason this had a happy ending is that the homeowner noticed that the scumbag had disconnected one of the cameras and, possibly without even an alert being sent, he noticed that it was disconnected, checked the footage, and noticed that there had been a prowler that the police luckily caught while he was still inside the house. If the guy had made it away then there would've been no real way to make a positive ID. Cheap cam is better than no cam, but don't delude yourself into thinking they're gonna give you a good face shot when you need it.

So, back to the original 720P VStar. You've already had some good advice. Give BI the cam's IP address and plug in its ports to add it to Blue Iris. I wouldn't use it long-term for a mission-critical job but it'd be OK for now if you don't want to return it after you get something better and then maybe make a critter cam out of it or possibly fill in a blind spot after you've got all your doors and driveways covered.

Also, make sure that you turn on the disconnect alarms in BI. You want a push notification, text, or email if a camera gets disconnected. That's a dead giveaway that someone is screwing with your system or at least that there's a problem that you need to correct right away. Also, have a cam just above or beside every door and set up BI with two camera instances (clone the door cameras) and have one set up with very insensitive motion detection so that it only alarms when something BIG is right in front of your door and then have it send a few pics or a very short clip via email whenever someone comes to your door. I also make the Alert cameras invisible in BI but show the "normal" motion alert camera that's got twitchy sensitivity so it records all motion. Nobody can come to a door in my place without me getting an email on my phone within seconds with 3 pictures set 2 seconds apart. One two seconds BEFORE the event, one at the event, and one just after. Low bandwidth, quick to send out, and informative.

As for what's a good camera? The basic Aliexpress $70ish workhorses most folks prefer around here are turrets, either Hikvision or Dahua. When speaking Dahua, the 4mp HDW4431C-A has the edge during the day over the 2mp 4231C-A and it's a bit of a tossup at night between the 4231 and 4431 unless you've got extra illumination and then the 4mp takes the lead again. If you can get some of the new 5231 Dahua starlight turrets then get them. "Only" 2mp but at $170ish delivered from China the best bang for your buck, particularly at night when you'll probably need them the most. You gain more quality at night than you lose detail in the day from having fewer megapixels. Varifocal for easy placement anywhere and can record sound as well like the cheaper 4x31C-A turrets if it's legal in your area.

I'd recommend 3.6mm minimum lens length for door cameras except possibly for special exceptions, and 6mm for a covering a car in a driveway if it's parked up close- get longer if you can't park it under the camera. At night in particular you'll need the extra magnification and extra light.