Hi!

jnugget

n3wb
Apr 20, 2014
2
0
Long Island NY
Hi. I'm John from Long Island. Long story short. I live on a main road and every once in a while I have problems with kids vandalizing my cars and landscaping. So every time it happens, I say I'm gonna put up cameras. So here I am again....still haven't put up cameras ..lol:laugh:. I usually lurked on the other site and then I found this site. I think I want to put up maybe 5 cameras and possibly a Ptz. It seems like the hikvisions are pretty popular and the dahua are good too unless you need support. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I need. Thanks!! :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Welcome to the forum Jnugget,
I am a believer in the Hikvision cameras but I also have a variety of cameras that all seem to work fine in BI. Check it out for a while and make your own decision. If I had it to do over, I would stick withone or two brands instead off the five different brands I have now. Lesson learned.
 
Welcome. Keep in mind that a ptz is generally not needed unless you are monitoring 24/7 or special tracking software, otherwise you are better off with two fixed cameras covering the entire are 24/7. As you are aware there are many options..NVR vs pcNVR, camera types etc. If you want a hassle free experience just go with a kit from Costco. Awesome return policy if you are not satisfied.
http://www.costco.com/CatalogSearch?storeId=10301&catalogId=10701&langId=-1&keyword=ip+camera
 
Hey, thanks for the link. That looks so much easier than trying to piece together a system. From what I understand, Q-see is Dahua and lorax and swann are hikvisions?
 
Hey, thanks for the link. That looks so much easier than trying to piece together a system. From what I understand, Q-see is Dahua and lorax and swann are hikvisions?


From what I have seen yes, however I think they do funny things with the firmware, not totally sure. Also hassle free depends on how you look at things. I am looking to get in to doing some camera installs for some businesses and I wanted to see what the dedicated DVR boxes are like so I looked up the hikvision ones on youtube. If you only want to do the basics this will probably be best for you, like if you just want to set up all of the cameras to record 24/7 and be able to see them from your phone remotely and never have to touch it again, great. But these boxes are very limited on features, functions, and there really is no expandability or ability to customize or modify anything, it is what it is. If you have spots left for cams you can add more but that's about it. If you want more advanced features, expandability, the ability to mix and match cameras etc. you're really going to want something like Blue Iris. There are lots of other awesome DVR softwares out there, but they generally cost insane amounts of money and charge you a license fee for every camera on the system. Not trying to sway you just want you to be informed before you plunk down the money because if you're going with 3mp cameras, it's gonna be a nice chunk of money.
 
Yes, that is generally the case. You lose some flexibility with the NVR (I personally use blue iris), but as far as ease of use and reliability the packages are the way to go. If you are a techie, then by all means go with a PC + NVR software...