Hi From South Africa

[Neuk]

Hi all

I am from Johannesburg in South Africa and a complete CCTv newbie although I did a lot of research in to what was available before buying our HIKVision system for our house. I went with the following so far...

1 x HIKVision DS-7616NI-K2/16P NVR
2 x HIKVision SE-DS-2CD2055FWD-I Cameras (4mm fixed length)
2 x HIKVision SE-DS-2CD2055FWD-I Cameras (2.8mm fixed length)
1 x WD 4TB 3.5" SATA3 6.0Gbps Surveillance HDD - Purple
2 x Linkbasic 100M Shielded UV Protected Cat5e Cable
50 x Linkbasic RJ45 Cat5e UTP Modular Plug
50 x Linkbasic Black Boots RJ45

I have three cameras in so far along with the NVR and HDD, running HDMI to an old TV in our garage and VGA to an old monitor setup next to the NVR, I then run the HIKVision app on three iPhone's and two iPads. Unfortunately crime is a daily reality in South Africa and a CCTv system is one part of securing our home as best we can.

Cheers
Nic

 

[gwminor48]

Hello Nic, welcome to the forum.

 

[CV350]

Hi Nic. Welcome to ipcamtalk

 

[Neuk]

Thanks @gwminor48 and @CV350.

 

[SouthernYankee]

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

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

 

[Neuk]

Thanks @SouthernYankee and thanks for the Quick Start guide, I wish I had been on here earlier although I don't think I did too badly with my initial setup...

1 x HIKVision DS-7616NI-K2/16P NVR
2 x HIKVision SE-DS-2CD2055FWD-I Cameras (4mm fixed length)
2 x HIKVision SE-DS-2CD2055FWD-I Cameras (2.8mm fixed length) (Only one installed at the moment)
1 x WD 4TB 3.5" SATA3 6.0Gbps Surveillance HDD - Purple
Linkbasic Solid Shielded UV Protected Cat5e Cable

I still need to sort out the username/password on two cameras as they are still the standard although I use a dynamic DNS service to access my system instead of the standard HIKVision option. I am looking in to a VPN but need to figure out how to configure it to work with dynamic DNS as well as my Paradox alarm system.

 

[SouthernYankee]

there are two major types of VPN. Simply where does the connection start IN or OUT.

IN, the connection start at your home network and connects to the internet (like google, this forum...) this VPN is normally a paid service, it hides you on the internet by encrypting your data and going to a server to process your request. This is NOT what you want for your cameras.

OUT, the connection starts on the internet, (like your phone,tablet, office PC) VPN. You can use software like openVPN to set this up. It is normally free. The connection goes from an application on your remote device (phone...) to your home network encrypted, then the response come back to your device encrypted.

A simple setup is to have a internet modem at home connect to a router at home that supports OpenVPN. I use an ASUS route that supports OpenVPN.

Not sure about internet in South Africa, restrication, providers, rules....

 

[Neuk]

Thanks again @SouthernYankee, I will look in to OpenVPN or similar as an option. Internet in South Africa is still a bit behind North America and Europe but it is better than a few years ago. My main router is an Asus RT-AC68U, which is connected to my fibre line modem and my NVR and Paradox IP150 internet module amongst other devices.

 

[SouthernYankee]

The Asus rt-ac68u supports openvpn. I have used this router in the past. It is very easy to set up openvpn with this router.