How does my cam layout plan look, plus other questions

[flatface]

Soon I will be setting up my first system.

I can not afford to purchase all of the desired cameras at once, unless I buy crap. Everyone around me keeps pushing me to get wifi or subscription cams, which I will NEVER agree to.
So after going to much more trouble and expense than the "easy way", I need this system to work great and impress.

I would really like live streaming to cloud storage to prevent anybody taking the HDDs, but if I can have a separate storage location elsewhere in the house via LAN that is not inside the BI PC that I can store video on, that would work too. (So if somebody comes and grabs the "cam system" that has all the wires going to it, I still have the files elsewhere in the house. I have no clue if this is somehow possible instead with BI and cloud storage?)

I am in an environment that has cold snowy/wet winters and pretty warm summers. All cameras should be mounted under soffit and not on the wall. TBD.

The cameras are numbered in the order I would like to buy them.

So far I have purchased a 5442TM-AS 3.6mm (intended as cam 1), and a 5442 T-ZE (intended as cam 4). I knew I could use both of those somewhere around the property anyways if not those exact locations.

I would like to buy at least another 2-3 cameras to get the system off the ground.

I will be using a BI PC to run the system. I have never used it before. I have purchased an i7-7700k +AIO with an ASUS mobo and 16gb RAM. Will build out the rest of the system shortly.
All cams must be PoE and powered via a TP-Link or Netgear 8-port managed PoE switch. I will not buy PoE+ because I don't think I'll need it for a while, if ever.
No plans to buy a PTZ cam soon. Change my mind?
Unifi would be great but out of budget until I at least get all necessary cams.


Here is the layout plan I have made up, it is 1+2 storeys on the front, and 2 storeys in the rear. listed first for each cam is the approximate "focus" distance wanted and second is the height of the soffit for mounting, so lens ~5" below that once it's mounted.
I did go over the D.O.R.I. specs for the andycams, most fit a 5442T-AS of varying apertures. (cam 6 dotted line is wider fov, cam 8 dotted line is a tighter focus)

There is a single 38 LED (1/3 of a main road lamp) streetlamp about 150 feet away and 250 feet away on left and right side of the front door area. Not much of this light leaks onto the property, so any light provided must come from the house.
Ideally I would like minimal lights on to prevent interference with wildlife and plants. Are these cameras actually good with starlight?






I could mount the cameras under soffit almost anywhere around the house. The only exception is directly above the garage doors, and directly above the downstairs door by the pool.


Questions:

1) How is the positioning of the cameras? I need to run all the cable (leftover cat6 I have) at once because it is a big ordeal, so will need to decide on at least approx cam position before I have all the cameras.

2) What cameras would you suggest for each position? I would like to save as much as possible however still need a good performance. Any Amcrest that would work (well)? Perhaps for Cam 1 and 5 because the camera will be so close to any activity?

3) PC for BI specs okay? I was going to go with a 4tb WD Purple to start, plus a 128 GB SSD for OS, BI, and BI data, and 2 x NICs. (and change that AIO to a fanless cooler)

4) Is it possible to have motion-activated IR illuminators? Is it possible to set this for the onboard IR as well?

5) How necessary is a UPS? Would I be able to run 8 cams for a long time if I only power the PoE switch with the UPS, and the cams record onto local microSD?

6) Any issues with a BI system restarting after power outage?

7) Any other suggestions for setup?


Here is a list I had already put together of cam selections, but would gladly change, for cheaper cams or swap placements for better performance;




Thanks for reading!

 

[TonyR]

Cursory glance, preliminary comments in BLUE :

 

[flatface]

Thanks!

The thing in the front of the house is a tall tree (no foliage in view, just trunk) with 18" diameter trunk. It will block a portion of the FOV but only a small bit and all approaches (that don't come from my neighbor's property) will be visible. My thought with that cam was to capture a bit of the front wall/windows as that area is a juicier-looking method of entry.


Going out and looking at it, I may instead put a street-facing lawn-cam beside cam#2. Not sure how important it is to catch the actual B&E portion of a potential situation. Should I be able to view every entryway/window, or am I okay covering all approaches to the property?

Moving Cam 8 is a good idea, I think I'm going to do that. Thank you!

 

[samplenhold]

Do not concern yourself with moving video to cloud or off-site storage. The only time we have heard of someone taking the BI server was a house break in AU and they were gone for a few weeks and the Uber driver knew they were going for a while. Put SD cards in the cams and if you ever have that issue, then you have the SD card data as backup.

If you set up the PC correctly, it will boot up and BI will load on power up after failure.

13 feet is a little high for those cams. Please set up a test rig with that 5442 varifocal on it and use it at your planned positions. Is that really the view you were hoping for?

Why the rush to run cable? Is this house being constructed as we speak?

One cam is marked LPR. Do not try and do everything at once, especially the LPR. See the below posts for LPR.

New to LPR? Considerations Before You Begin

Thought I would throw together a post on my experiences so far with LPR in an effort to help others that are considering running down that rabbit hole. There are some practical considerations you should know about LPR. I am approaching this from the position of using Blue Iris and Plate...

ipcamtalk.com

LPR Case Study: Scoping, Planning, Proof of Concept, Installation, & Results

Introduction This thread is about my journey into LPR (License Plate Recognition) after having about 18 months of experience with IP cams and having quite a bit of my system finished. I am not an expert on LPR, or IP cameras either. But I have spent a lot of time working with my system and...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[samplenhold]

No need to have motion activated IR. It is not like it throws visible light on the area.

A couple of UPSes is a good idea. Mine give me about 30 minutes on the BI server and about 70 minuets on two of my POE switches and 45 minutes on two other POE switches.

 

[wittaj]

Good choice about not listening to your neighbors LOL. Sounds like you are well on your way toward developing a system to work great and impress.

When we had door checkers in here a couple years ago or so and the neighbors with cameras were talking how their great arlo, ring doorbell, Lorex, Foscam, and reolinks captured something happened but the police couldn't find any useful video from them other than what time their car was rummaged thru (several had their car rummaged through and their cameras were less than 10 feet from their car) and they were chatting how this is just an accepted fact from camera systems and poor nighttime performance. I just stood there smirking to myself.

One of them joked that my cameras probably didn't catch anything since I didn't have a car on the driveway that night and they skipped me. I didn't want to brag or boast LOL, but I let them see what my cameras captured and they were blown away. The money shot that got all their stolen stuff back was my 2MP varifocal optically zoomed in to a spot on the sidewalk 60 feet away at the street where the perp walked past and my LPR got their plate.


Great comments above.

Cloud based sounds great in theory, but the constant streaming will certainly put a hurt on your overall system performance. In addition to the comments above about locating the computer somewhere not in the open, storing to a hidden NAS, and SD cards, having it send alerts and/or maybe a short GIF email would be another option to at least capture some of the event. But yeah, we rarely see someone who had their system stolen except for the example above.

Yeah, the cameras you selected for some of the areas will not give you IDENTIFY at those distances.

Hopefully between the two cameras you have, you have tested them at these locations to see if they will perform for your intent.

For example, camera 4 you want a focus range of 20 to 70 feet and are proposing the 5442-ZE. You will not get IDENTIFY much past 25-30 feet with that at night. That is two or more cameras to capture those distances.

I'd suggest you take a look at this thread that shows what many of us will use based on DISTANCE to IDENTIFY. One camera cannot be the be all, see all and while you have a good start, you are still trying to do too much with one cam.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Ri22o]

From my recent experience, if you are considering a 6mm for any location then just spend the little extra and go with a varifocal.

 

[Mike A.]

Get the POE+ switch. Not that much more and will give you more power budget overall and will be useful when you want to run splitters for IR illuminators or a second cam on the same run.

2. The cheap ~$50 Amcrest is OK for what it is. Worth buying one to try. See if does what you need. Can use it somewhere else later if not there.

4. As above, no real need for motion activation with IR. Just let it run full time.

6. Run Bi as a service and it will start when the machine comes up. Can also set BIOS to restart after power loss.

 

[flatface]

Do not concern yourself with moving video to cloud or off-site storage. The only time we have heard of someone taking the BI server was a house break in AU and they were gone for a few weeks and the Uber driver knew they were going for a while. Put SD cards in the cams and if you ever have that issue, then you have the SD card data as backup.

If you set up the PC correctly, it will boot up and BI will load on power up after failure.

Okay perfect that works. Thanks!

13 feet is a little high for those cams. Please set up a test rig with that 5442 varifocal on it and use it at your planned positions. Is that really the view you were hoping for?

Why the rush to run cable? Is this house being constructed as we speak?

One cam is marked LPR. Do not try and do everything at once, especially the LPR.

It's not a rush really, it's just a pain in the ass to access more than half of the unfinished attic and very uncomfortable, so I want to get the cable runs done all at once and then only have to go back to several run more waaaay later if needed. If I wanted to add a second cam at a given position, I should be able to add one of those POE extenders with 2 outputs, right? I will probably run a second cable to position 7 because I am considering a camera pointed up the side of the house towards the street.

I was planning on mounting to soffit and it is 13ft above the driveway. I can mount on the wall a little bit lower. I might also be able to put a cam about 9 ft high between the garage doors.

I wanted to run the cable now, but then only buy the cameras 1 or 2 at a time over the next year and build out the system that way. LPR is way down the line and might get pushed further if I add any more cams. Thank you!

Yeah, the cameras you selected for some of the areas will not give you IDENTIFY at those distances.
Hopefully between the two cameras you have, you have tested them at these locations to see if they will perform for your intent.
For example, camera 4 you want a focus range of 20 to 70 feet and are proposing the 5442-ZE. You will not get IDENTIFY much past 25-30 feet with that at night. That is two or more cameras to capture those distances.
One camera cannot be the be all, see all and while you have a good start, you are still trying to do too much with one cam.

Thank you very much, that's given me a lot to think about. I think I need to rethink where I need to IDENTIFY. Probably just close to my house, less than 20 feet maybe, Or anywhere in the driveway. There are also a couple of "choke points" to access the backyard, so if I can IDENTIFY anybody passing by those points or approaching the front doors/windows, or in the driveway, I think I am okay with OBSERVE/RECOGNIZE (recognize the person already identified) for everything else. The distances that I had listed were approximate areas where there might be something to capture, but when I think about it, IDENTIFY is crucial in the areas listed, but at other distances OBSERVE/RECOGNIZE will suffice until I can get other cameras for those distances if needed.

I have not tested the cameras yet, but I definitely wanted to test them first before buying any more. Thank you!

[/QUOTE]

From my recent experience, if you are considering a 6mm for any location then just spend the little extra and go with a varifocal.

Thank you! I am leaning towards more varifocal cameras so the picture can be better.

Get the POE+ switch. Not that much more and will give you more power budget overall and will be useful when you want to run splitters for IR illuminators or a second cam on the same run.

2. The cheap ~$50 Amcrest is OK for what it is. Worth buying one to try. See if does what you need. Can use it somewhere else later if not there.

Thanks! I will see if I can find a deal on a POE+ switch
I'll consider the amcrest, I need to watch some more test videos and try these dahua cams first.

 

[flatface]

I've gone ahead and ran cables to spots 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and a bonus spot 11.

I've mounted a camera in spot 1 - 5442T-AS 3.6mm.

I've also mounted a camera in spot 2 - 5442T-ZE VF.

I still have to get the switch and pc all connected so those cams are still offline. Need to cut the hole in the wall for the passthrough, which will bring all the cables through and run them to my 16 port switch mounted vertically below the passthrough. I went with one of those butthole type gaskets that fit in a normal 1 gang switch plate. I know it will probably only fit 6 cables or something, but I can just add another gang plate.




Spots 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10, (and any on that side of the house) will be easy to run cables later. 9 and 10 (the LPR cams) are way down the line and may never happen.

I've purchased, received, and tested the following cameras in various positions;

5442T-AS 3.6mm - (already mounted spot #1)
5442T-ZE 4MP VF - (already mounted spot #2)
5442T-ZE 4MP VF #2 (bought two of these)
3241T-ZAS 2MP VF (1/2.8") - maybe to position 6 or 7, or inside the garage.
5449H-ASE-D2 2.8mm (4MP dual 1/1.8") - maybe going to spot 5

I would like to buy a couple of those dual-5442 Color4K-T180 for overview in the front at spots 3a and 3b.

I would also like to eventually get a PTZ, it could go in place of (or next to) 3a

Any suggestions for the right side of the house? I am not sure where to put the (first) camera there. Low near the door(4d), higher up at 15 ft (4c) but with an view of windows and the approach to the door?