Hmm...do you agree with the advice I got from EmpireTech on camera selection?

[H-508]

First, I'm super thankful that they answered my questions in the DM, but I also understand their business is selling cams, not as a design/consultation company providing unique solutions to the hundreds of people like me that know very little and just aren't sure what to buy for my generic situation.
Was hoping I could get some additional help/validation that this is the right thing to order.

They recommended:

• 5 black 4MP varifocal dome: IPC-T54IR-ZE
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LCY27TD/ref=twister_B08LCXT8CZ?_encoding=UTF8&tag=ipctk-20&th=1
• 5 PFA130-E mount
• NVR8CH-8P-2AI NVR

After some additional questions, they said I could also go with the:

• 8MP dome IPC-T58IR-ZE
• PFB205W-E-B mount

The original details are:

• this is for a pretty normal USA suburban neighborhood (new home builds)
• have 5 locations on the corners of the house that have cat5e run to them and will also use a reolink wired/wifi doorbell for a 6th location
• interested in newest tech with AI feature and will get NVR to also plug into my home network
• monitoring/alerts via internet
• Price isn't a huge consideration; wheter it's $150 or $600 per camera, that's doable, just not anything much higher than that.

Attached pictures that show the neighborhood, cam locations, and picture of the house in daytime/nighttime.






The two things I worry most about are:

• given the limited cam locations, I'm not sure if all 5 cameras should be the same and wonder if some of them should be PTZ or the multi-cam/180degree/etc. cams to offer better coverage in some locations.
• I'm not sure which mounts to buy given the camera locations. Especially for the front of the house, those corners have a big gutter/downspout right at the corner; I can mount the one by the garage in the soffit so that's okay, but the other side I'd rather not have it ran through the brick on the front of the house and would want it on the siding and just have a mount to clear the gutter while still getting a view of the front yard/street.

Thanks for any thoughts/help you can provide before I make my purchase with EmpireTech!

 

[tigerwillow1]

Some comments:
1. The recommended cameras are "turrets" (or eyeballs). not "domes". This is what you want for outside use.
2. The 4MP camera will do better in low light, while the 8MP will give a somewhat sharper image in bright light. Depends on your priorities.
3. I recommend you get the 16 channel NVR for another 40 bucks to allow for future expansion.
4. The 180 degree cam obviously covers a lot more area, but compromises identification. Again, priorities.
5. You might want to disclose how you plan to do remote access. There are various usability and security issues.

I don't have any PTZ thoughts because it's such a specific site issue. Also nothing to say about mounts. I don't use them, but it's another site specific issue.

 

[wittaj]

For what you presented, yes I do.

While they are 5 of the same cameras, they are varifocals, so each camera can be set up with a different optical zoom for the distance to be served.

Contrast that to an all-in-one box kit that are all wide angle 2.8 or 3.6mm fixed lens cameras - that is the wrong selection of all of the same cameras.

These cameras also have the latest AI.

The 4MP will perform better at night than the 8MP, but the 8MP will perform better during the day. The reason for this is they are both on the same size sensor so the lower MP will win at night.

Suggest go with the next up NVR. Although you only have 6 cable runs now, you may want to add more later - maybe an LPR, maybe a PTZ, etc.

The pictures didn't come thru but here are thoughts on your thoughts.

The 180 is a great OVERVIEW camera, but not good for IDENTIFY, especially if hung up high. I would not trust an entire side of a house with one 180 and would use a varifocal optically zoomed in to a pinch point for IDENTIFY. Also keep in mind it doesn't see infrared, so you either need enough visible light or be willing to use the built-in white lights.

A PTZ is a great compliment to an existing system of fixed lens cameras. If you have a PTZ as primary coverage of a side of a house it will miss a lot. The camera will be looking left and miss anything coming from the right as an example. Based on what you have said, the PTZ would be the wrong choice to replace one of the 5 locations.

As far as mounts that is up to you. If you have room to tuck them in the soffits or behind siding, you can do that, but waterproofing is a must. Very few of mine have junction boxes/mounts.

 

[carteriii]

Short answer: the suggested cameras are great, and are effectively my default. I don't personally own the newer 8MP version, but I own several of the 4MP & earlier versions.

FYI, you referred to both as "dome", but they are not domes and that means something else. You should refer to them more as turret or eyeball style cameras.

As for one of the 180 degree cameras, you might like them. Having said that, I have some, but I don't like them for one of two reasons. First, the older style "eyeball" or "boobie" cameras aren't great in low light conditions, were never fully capable of even the basic object detection on both streams, and to the best of my knowledge haven't been updated to include any of the "AI" object detection. They also have plastic domes over the lenses which make the image worthless when it rains and you get water on the domes.

These days Dahua is promoting their 180-degree color-only cameras. People seem to like the cameras a lot when the lighting is sufficient for them, but I dislike those, both because they cannot benefit from an infrared emitter and the built-in emitter is visible white light. I prefer that people are not even aware of my cameras at night, so I'm never going to use a white/visible light emitter, and these cameras do not do as well in low light at a modest distance.

While I didn't originally want the look of two cameras mounted side-by-side to cover 180 degrees, I now wish I had purchased two of the cameras like you are evaluating rather than getting any single 180-degree camera.

That does not mean you wouldn't love one of the newer 180-degree color-only cameras. You might be perfectly happy with one of them, particularly in the front of your house if you have street or other lights that are always on.

As for mounting, I'll offer a non-traditional mounting approach that works for me in a few places. You can "mount" the camera to a gutter simply by running a thin wire through the screw holes in the camera mount and then wrap it around your downspout. If a bird lands on the camera, it could start to slide down your gutter, but even that isn't the end of the world, and you didn't harm your downspout. The camera won't be held perfectly flush to the gutter, but from the ground it will still look like the camera is "stuck" to the gutter, and you can adjust the turret to see whatever you want. Think of this like a poor man's PFA152-E mount, but it's effectively invisible. You can also use a PFA152-E (which might in turn need a PFB203W) to hold your downspout more securely, which of course only makes the whole thing larger, drawing more attention to it during the day. FYI, I sometimes use velcro straps rather than the metal straps that come with the PFA152-E to protect a downspout or tree.

 

[H-508]

Thanks for the help! I did attach some of the pictures from the imgur link; not sure why those aren't showing up (they did in the DM).

• So, 4MP it is because I'm more concerned about nighttime capture. However, from my pictures (edited, not sure why Imgur doesn't load the pics), since this is in a neighborhood on the street and I have a pretty bright street light behind my house, I wouldn't ever consider it "dark".
• Will get the 16ch NVR for future growth.
• For priorities, I am ultimately more interested in Identify, but being able to see which construction trucks drive through my yard and brake my sprinkler heads (it happened a month ago) would be nice.

For the PTZ, I was mainly thinking on the side of the house with the larger yard that has a street run in front and along the side - and the important part is more the zoom feature just to be able to capture when something goes in the property line. I wish I had more cables ran so I could do more overview type of cams, but was hoping to solve that a little bit with the ptz (i.e get a decent video of the sidewalk in front of the house, but set rules to follow as they come up the driveway.

 

[bigredfish]

Most common mistake for noobs by far... (we were all there once)
Trying to do too much with too few cameras.

I have a small 1200 sq ft trailer on the water. I have 10 cameras and am looking at #11

You think a single camera can get you a wide overview shot AND enough detail to ID someone on the street in front of your house,
...and/or you can get a license plate # at night with your camera under the eave 2.8mm lens
Nope. Each scenario above almost always requires 2 cameras

Generally speaking, LE needs at least two of these things to be of value:
1- Facial ID
2- License plate #
3-Overview in color of the target

If all you have is #3, you just have a nice story


2 Cameras



3 Cameras



2 Cameras



2 Cameras

 

[wittaj]

Thanks for the help! I did attach some of the pictures from the imgur link; not sure why those aren't showing up (they did in the DM).

• So, 4MP it is because I'm more concerned about nighttime capture. However, from my pictures (edited, not sure why Imgur doesn't load the pics), since this is in a neighborhood on the street and I have a pretty bright street light behind my house, I wouldn't ever consider it "dark".
• Will get the 16ch NVR for future growth.
• For priorities, I am ultimately more interested in Identify, but being able to see which construction trucks drive through my yard and brake my sprinkler heads (it happened a month ago) would be nice.

For the PTZ, I was mainly thinking on the side of the house with the larger yard that has a street run in front and along the side - and the important part is more the zoom feature just to be able to capture when something goes in the property line. I wish I had more cables ran so I could do more overview type of cams, but was hoping to solve that a little bit with the ptz (i.e get a decent video of the sidewalk in front of the house, but set rules to follow as they come up the driveway.

OK this pictures are showing now.

Lemme guess - all of your cable runs are up on the 2nd story? If so, another NOOB mistake. Another one is running cables before testing cameras at each location. As @bigredfish said, we have all been there. I started with 4 cameras, one on each corner of my two story house. It was great until a total stranger came by and I realized how poor that concept is.

For the front of the house if the cable runs are at the garage roof, the ZE will be fine.

A ZE on the 2nd story (or up 16-30 feet high) will end up being OVERVIEW as the IDENTIFY distances are lost in the vertical. You may need the larger Z4E for the 2nd story.

The closer the cameras can get to head height the better.

Cameras installed higher are either OVERVIEW (because you lost all identify in the vertical) or you need enough optical zoom to have a field of view out in the distance where you are "flattening" the angle.

While streetlights are nice, if the object is in between the source of the light at the camera, then the object is all black:



So you need to provide light (infrared or visible light) from the same plane as the camera or behind it so that light is shining on the object in the front and not from behind.

One camera will not cut it for this side yard:



And a PTZ with its more narrow starting field of view would miss most of the action unless the action passed right through the field of view.

That is somewhat of a corner lot and 5 cameras will not cut it.

So you either need to plan to add way more cameras or revise your expectations.

Many here on a lot smaller than that have 16 or more cameras. Each camera chosen for a specific goal.


Here is an example showing the differences and limitations of cameras and how one camera cannot be the be all/see all.

Digital zoom only works in the movies. You might get away with some digital zoom, but you need optical zoom which is real time zoom (like binoculars or a telescope as an example).

You need to chase focal length and sensor size as I point out in this thread. At 60 feet, a 2MP with the proper focal length will ID all night long whereas an 8MP on a 3.6mm focal length will be blurry.

Here is an example from @Ri22o of a 3.6mm focal length 8MP 180degree camera view versus a 2MP varifocal OPTICALLY zoomed in to a pinch point. The person is next to the green line on the left:

And now a 2MP varifocal optically zoomed in to that area in green:

Which one is better for IDENTIFY? There is no way you would have been able to tell it was a male, in a red, flannel shirt, with sunglasses, and a receding hairline in the 8MP wide-angle 1st image.


Now for some of your locations, you can use a splitter like this one or this one to run two cameras off of one cable, but you will probably need more cable runs to other spots for complete coverage.

 

[H-508]

Yikes, I'm screwed then
I do have the wires run between the first and second floor and not at the 2nd story roofline, thankfully.

I guess I'll need to determine what is the most important view given each location i do have because running new lines will be challenging with all the spray foam insulation being a bit of a nightmare.

• have doorbell cam for front door.
• need one overview of street maybe.
• one of anyone walking into garage.
• Side yard not sure
• Backyard I have one for patio/sliding door of walkout basement
• backyard other side for deck/staircase

Suggestions for each of those? Or places where I should use a splitter or PTZ or multicam? Basically, if you had those 5 spots, what would you choose to do?

 

[wittaj]

LOL and we have been there. Those splitters help! Not ideal, but lets us get past some of our screwups LOL.

WOW - some had their wires ran between the 1st and 2nd floor - that is unbelievable luck LOL. Most have it in the attic. Good choice there.

Now with siding, you do have options from the original cable and a splitter to extend cable to other locations.

For street overview with streetlights and houselights on, the 180 makes a good overview - just recognize that no IDENTIFY will happen.

Looks like a 3-car garage with a cutout for the single door. Most will put up a minimum of 2 cameras for each door - one on either side in a criss-cross pattern. Where is your cable for this location?

For backyard at basement door, the ZE or a 3.6mm fixed lens should be ok there.

For backyard deck, the ZE or 3.6mm fixed lens should be ok there.

But that probably leaves the rest of the back without coverage, maybe some observe from the other two, but no identify. Looks like a good pathway for people to cut thru, so I would want an identify back there.

Side of the house - either a 180 with similar to front, no IDENTIFY or use the splitter to add another camera either zoomed in to a pinch point or this would be the case for a PTZ and use the 180 as a spotter camera to tell the PTZ where to look:

Thread 'Using Spotter Cameras to direct a PTZ where to look in an NVR or Blue Iris and setting a spotter cam as a priority in Blue Iris'

Mar 12, 2022

We get this question from time to time, so I thought with the recent addition to BI, it made sense to have a thread we can point to.

Previously in BI, if you had more than one spotter cam, you could not make one a priority, so if spotter cam #1 triggered the PTZ and it starts tracking and spotter cam #2 is triggered, it would then take the PTZ off of spotter cam #1 tracking and move to the preset for spotter cam #2.

Now with BI 5.5.6.0, you can go into the PTZ tab in the Camera setttings and go to the preset that you want to have priority and check the "cancel alerts when the camera is...

• wittaj
• Replies: 167
• Forum: Customizing

• 
• 

 

[H-508]

I tried to do some research on where to put the wires and read that too high up is worthless for anything but overview so I had the builder run them with a lot of slack between the 2 stories. Of course, I missed the part on having more lines run everywhere

Correct - 3 car garage where the 2 car section jutts out a little bit.

Yes, The wires have a lot of slack so I have freedom to position 5' around a location and can add a splitter. They are cat5e cables but imagine that is good enough to run 2 cameras from. Should be able to run another cable from that location to somewhere close by under the siding if going that route.

Pictures that shows the corner house locations for wire.

 

[Ri22o]

In addition to the pictures @wittaj posted, check out my thread about focal lengths, FOV, and install heights.

"I want 2.8mm cameras everywhere to see everything..." - This is why you need specific FOVs with purposeful focal lengths.

 

[djborden]

I want to make sure you noticed the note wittaj made about using a network cable splitter. If desired, you can effectively 2x each network cable your contractor ran using a splitter at each location. Your plug the network cable into it and then you get two coming out of it. The splitter will power both cameras and carry the video signal back on the single line installed. This way, you can run two cameras, one pointing in each direction, etc.

Additionally, you can run a remote POE switch, that will act like a splitter, but allow you to run multiple lines from a single. The only caveat is you will need to provide power to the switch and your DVR needs to support the desired number of cameras.

I am a fan of PTZ cameras, but I use them in addition to fixed cameras. Not sure if the DVRs support the use of fixed spotters that will call the PTZ to an area of interest but may be worth investigating.

 

[wittaj]

I want to make sure you noticed the note wittaj made about using a network cable splitter. If desired, you can effectively 2x each network cable your contractor ran using a splitter at each location. Your plug the network cable into it and then you get two coming out of it. The splitter will power both cameras and carry the video signal back on the single line installed. This way, you can run two cameras, one pointing in each direction, etc.

Additionally, you can run a remote POE switch, that will act like a splitter, but allow you to run multiple lines from a single. The only caveat is you will need to provide power to the switch and your DVR needs to support the desired number of cameras.

I am a fan of PTZ cameras, but I use them in addition to fixed cameras. Not sure if the DVRs support the use of fixed spotters that will call the PTZ to an area of interest but may be worth investigating.

Yes, the NVR will support the use of fixed cameras to call up presets on the PTZ as outlined in this thread for both BI and NVRs:

Thread 'Using Spotter Cameras to direct a PTZ where to look in an NVR or Blue Iris and setting a spotter cam as a priority in Blue Iris'

Mar 12, 2022

We get this question from time to time, so I thought with the recent addition to BI, it made sense to have a thread we can point to.

Previously in BI, if you had more than one spotter cam, you could not make one a priority, so if spotter cam #1 triggered the PTZ and it starts tracking and spotter cam #2 is triggered, it would then take the PTZ off of spotter cam #1 tracking and move to the preset for spotter cam #2.

Now with BI 5.5.6.0, you can go into the PTZ tab in the Camera setttings and go to the preset that you want to have priority and check the "cancel alerts when the camera is...

• wittaj
• Replies: 167
• Forum: Customizing

• 
• 

 

[H-508]

This has been super helpful and I will get splitters for most locations. Also how i can use a fixed cam to act as a spotter for the PTZ.

Of course, I'm back to making a (more) educated guess on what cams I actually need and how best to position them (and which PTZ from empiretech is the right one to purchase). I was very capable to order and configure my home network (2gig fiber, router 2 switches, Plex server, multiple networks etc), but cams are still a mystery, haha. It's looking like I might need to pay someone to design this for me.

 

[wittaj]

This has been super helpful and I will get splitters for most locations. Also how i can use a fixed cam to act as a spotter for the PTZ.

Of course, I'm back to making a (more) educated guess on what cams I actually need and how best to position them (and which PTZ from empiretech is the right one to purchase). I was very capable to order and configure my home network (2gig fiber, router 2 switches, Plex server, multiple networks etc), but cams are still a mystery, haha. It's looking like I might need to pay someone to design this for me.

How to use a fixed cam to act as a spotter for the PTZ is all in this thread, that I have now linked 3 times in this thread LOL:

Thread 'Using Spotter Cameras to direct a PTZ where to look in an NVR or Blue Iris and setting a spotter cam as a priority in Blue Iris'

Mar 12, 2022

We get this question from time to time, so I thought with the recent addition to BI, it made sense to have a thread we can point to.

Previously in BI, if you had more than one spotter cam, you could not make one a priority, so if spotter cam #1 triggered the PTZ and it starts tracking and spotter cam #2 is triggered, it would then take the PTZ off of spotter cam #1 tracking and move to the preset for spotter cam #2.

Now with BI 5.5.6.0, you can go into the PTZ tab in the Camera setttings and go to the preset that you want to have priority and check the "cancel alerts when the camera is...

• wittaj
• Replies: 167
• Forum: Customizing

• 
• 

 

[H-508]

How to use a fixed cam to act as a spotter for the PTZ is all in this thread, that I have now linked 3 times in this thread LOL:

Thread 'Using Spotter Cameras to direct a PTZ where to look in an NVR or Blue Iris and setting a spotter cam as a priority in Blue Iris'

Mar 12, 2022

We get this question from time to time, so I thought with the recent addition to BI, it made sense to have a thread we can point to.

Previously in BI, if you had more than one spotter cam, you could not make one a priority, so if spotter cam #1 triggered the PTZ and it starts tracking and spotter cam #2 is triggered, it would then take the PTZ off of spotter cam #1 tracking and move to the preset for spotter cam #2.

Now with BI 5.5.6.0, you can go into the PTZ tab in the Camera setttings and go to the preset that you want to have priority and check the "cancel alerts when the camera is...

• wittaj
• Replies: 167
• Forum: Customizing

• 
• 

Ha, thanks, but I wasn't talking about how to do it in the software, but more around where to position the fixed cam, where to position the PTZ, what PTZ to purchase...

 

[wittaj]

Ha, thanks, but I wasn't talking about how to do it in the software, but more around where to position the fixed cam, where to position the PTZ, what PTZ to purchase...

So using the image above from the 180 camera, you could set 3 triggers, which are the red blocks.

In the PTZ, each red block is a defined Preset in the PTZ.





So say the Preset1 box is trigged in the fixed camera, it then calls up Preset1 in the PTZ, which swings the PTZ to preset1 zoomed in to that area and then starts tracking



The spotter cam thread I linked has example showing how this works, like this video here:




These would the options for PTZs in order of best to worse (which would still be better than any consumer grade camera):

EmpireTech PTZ5A4M-25X 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP 25x Starlight IR 5.4mm–135mm Va

1/1.8" 4Megapixel CMOS | Powerful 25x optical zoom | Starlight+ Technology | Max. 25/30fps@4MP | IR distance up to 150 m | Deep-learning-based perimeter protection | Auto-tracking and IVS | PoE+ | IP67, IK10

empiretech01.com

EmpireTech PTZ4M-25X-PV 1/2.8" CMOS 4MP 25x Starlight IR Active Deterr

This 1/2.8" CMOS PTZ camera boasts 25x optical zoom and Starlight technology, allowing for clear images in low-light conditions. With a range of up to 100m in IR, it features Auto-tracking 3.0, perimeter protection, face detection, SMD 4.0, and IP66 protection. It also includes a full-color...

empiretech01.com

EmpireTech PTZ425DB-AT 1/2.8"CMOS 4MP 25x Starlight IR 5mm–125mm Vari-

1/2.8" 4Megapixel STARVIS™ CMOS | 25x optical zoom | Starlight technology | Max. 25/30fps@4MP | IR distance up to 100 m | Auto-tracking 1.0 | Perimeter protection | Face detection | SMD 3.0 | IP66

empiretech01.com

 

[bigredfish]

Note that each PTZ preset would need to have its own IVS lines/rules. Even if the spotter tells it to turn and zoom into a spot, it wont activate tracking until its told to by a rule for that preset

 

[Ri22o]

Also note that if there is a lot of activity going on, that the PTZ can't be looking at all preset locations at the same time.

 

[wittaj]

Yep. It is why we say a PTZ is a compliment to an existing fixed cam system.

If the PTZ is being used in a key location, then when it is off looking somewhere else, it is missed.