Looking for a knowledgeable paid consultant for setting up a Blue Iris system

[MTL4]

Western Digital Purple drive.
Get the biggest drive you can afford.

Calculating Required Hard Drive Size

Calculate the hard drive (HDD) size necessary for your surveillance camera system. Pinpoint amount of days of recordings & more. Save & view results later.

ipcamtalk.com

Considering my setup and the number of cameras it looks like this one would likely fit the bill nicely.......got it on order now too.

WD Purple Pro WD181PURP 18TB 7200 RPM 512MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

When it comes to SSD's the last 5 years I have installed about 15 Samsung 860 and 870 EVO's, 2 Lexar NS-100's and 2 Silicon Power A55's. My fav is the Samsung.

Right with you. I use Samsung EVO SSDs exclusively (currently just 870s and 970s), the speed and reliability just can't be beat.

 

[MTL4]

I’m in the process of wiring everything up and I should have my granny suite all finished today as well. Mike is going to help me with the setup on BI and all the cameras but he wants me to have the networking done on the Edgeswitches and the Lenovo (BI server). I know there is a wiki on this and I read it but it’s not totally clear to me how to set up the IPs for it. I assume since it’s limiting access via IP range that you don’t need any VLANs on them at all. So my question is do you set a static IP on the switches (ex 10.10.10.1 and 10.10.10.2) then allow the BI server to use DHCP on the dual NIC to set the rest of the cameras or do I set all the cameras on a static IP in that range (10.10.10.xx) also?

 

[Smilingreen]

I’m in the process of wiring everything up and I should have my granny suite all finished today as well. Mike is going to help me with the setup on BI and all the cameras but he wants me to have the networking done on the Edgeswitches and the Lenovo (BI server). I know there is a wiki on this and I read it but it’s not totally clear to me how to set up the IPs for it. I assume since it’s limiting access via IP range that you don’t need any VLANs on them at all. So my question is do you set a static IP on the switches (ex 10.10.10.1 and 10.10.10.2) then allow the BI server to use DHCP on the dual NIC to set the rest of the cameras or do I set all the cameras on a static IP in that range (10.10.10.xx) also?

IMHO, if you depend on a device to always being at the same IP address you originally set it up as, always set the IP addresses up as static. Otherwise, in the event of a power failure, adding another device later on and then rebooting, you may find one or more of your devices has had it's IP changed when managed by DHCP.

 

[MTL4]

IMHO, if you depend on a device to always being at the same IP address you originally set it up as, always set the IP addresses up as static. Otherwise, in the event of a power failure, adding another device later on and then rebooting, you may find one or more of your devices has had it's IP changed when managed by DHCP.

Ok perfect, so static switch IPs and static camera IPs as well. Just finished running the wiring for the granny suite and need to finish mounting all the cameras on that side of the house.

 

[MTL4]

Received my hard drive from Amazon and the vendor figured I wouldn’t notice if they sent me a 4TB hard drive after charging me for an 18TB one. Needless to say this thing is going back and I ordered one from another place for less money too. Still waiting for my dual NIC card too. Those are the last major pieces before I can get the system up and running.

 

[TonyR]

Received my hard drive from Amazon and the vendor figured I wouldn’t notice if they sent me a 4TB hard drive after charging me for an 18TB one. Needless to say this thing is going back and I ordered one from another place for less money too. Still waiting for my dual NIC card too. Those are the last major pieces before I can get the system up and running.

I think too many of the order pickers everywhere have their head up their collective asses 90% of the time, texting or playing grab-ass while they work. Waited a week for a replacement evaporator motor for the garage 'fridge, it arrived Friday, has a complex harness with an 6 pin Molex-style connector and what looks like a thermal sensor, 4 wires going into a 9.75VDC motor; original has a 3 pin connector, no sensor and 2 wires to a 115VAC motor. The GE part number printed on it is no where near what I ordered. I dun thin so, Lucy......

 

[MTL4]

I think too many of the order pickers everywhere have their head up their collective asses 90% of the time, texting or playing grab-ass while they work. Waited a week for a replacement evaporator motor for the garage 'fridge, it arrived Friday, has a complex harness with an 6 pin Molex-style connector and what looks like a thermal sensor, 4 wires going into a 9.75VDC motor; original has a 3 pin connector, no sensor and 2 wires to a 115VAC motor. The GE part number printed on it is no where near what I ordered. I dun thin so, Lucy......

That’s hilarious, been there for sure. On a bright note I got my dual NIC card today and it worked great. Looks like I have room for a second one too if I ever need it. The low profile bracket was a lifesaver, wouldn’t have worked without it. New hard drive delivery date for this Thursday. Can’t wait to finally get it online for the first time so I can start seeing some camera feeds.

The drama from the neighbours hit a new high when 3 of the idiot neighbours underage children and their friends decided it would be a great idea get intoxicated then do burnouts and race their POS Corrolla so fast they got airborne and crashed in another neighbour’s ditch. Not only that but as if 4 free range dogs wasn’t enough they let them breed and now there’s puppies. You wouldn’t believe the nonsense going on over there. I need to get this stuff recorded ASAP.

 

[MTL4]

I finally got my new WD Purple Pro 18TB drive and installed it, what a monster. I was expecting it to be really loud after reading lots of reviews but it was pretty darn quiet if you ask me. Maybe if you slept with it right next to you it might be annoying but I can't hear anything unless I put my ear right up to the case. Now I'm working on getting all the switches and cameras onto the network so I can be ready for Mike's help to tweak it all when he gets back. The Wiki for dual NIC setup was super helpful in case anyone else was looking to do the same thing. Once I had that done I'm pretty familiar with the managed switches so I set up a 10.x.x.x network just for the cameras but I haven't brought the cameras into the network yet. Is there a writeup on setting static IP's on the cameras and general startup settings? Also how do you reset the cameras if something doesn't work out as planned?

 

[MTL4]

I got past the camera setup first and was able to initialize all the cameras. Then after that I used the Dahua camera config tool (thanks Andy for demoing that on youtube) to set all IPs to the range I wanted to use for my network. Now I’m stuck on setting up the Reolink doorbells. I didn’t see anywhere showing how to initialize and configure them for BI but if anyone has a link that would be great.

I also started to pull some of the cameras into BI5 and I’m super impressed. It takes a little while to find your way around in the software but it’s amazing how much you can do with it. I’m definitely amazed by that Z12E license plate camera, the zoom is so good I can see bugs on blades of grass in my ditch!!! I definitely need a second one of these mounted up high on the house so I can target the road right in front of the redneck neighbors house.

 

[mattp]

Just going to throw this out there, but @wittaj and others helped me on this forum set up a 49225 ptz camera.
Have you considered any of those? Not sure what the best replacement for the 49225 is now bc they were discontinued. But the benefit is that it has human tracking and zooms in on peoples faces for better identification.
You can even set it to be triggered by other cameras to pan over and track to different zones.
Definitely not trying to make this more complicated, but if you've got a problem neighbor something like the 49225 has a lot of flexibility with its 25x zoom.

 

[MTL4]

Just going to throw this out there, but @wittaj and others helped me on this forum set up a 49225 ptz camera.
Have you considered any of those? Not sure what the best replacement for the 49225 is now bc they were discontinued. But the benefit is that it has human tracking and zooms in on peoples faces for better identification.
You can even set it to be triggered by other cameras to pan over and track to different zones.
Definitely not trying to make this more complicated, but if you've got a problem neighbor something like the 49225 has a lot of flexibility with its 25x zoom.

I really like your suggestion, I may need to look into this a bit more. That 49225 with auto tracking sounds like it was amazing (as long as you don’t update the firmware). Can anyone confirm what a comparable PTZ would be now? I need something that can perform both day and night because we don’t have any street lights out our way at all.

 

[wittaj]

This would be the PTZ to get!

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

 

[mattp]

I really like your suggestion, I may need to look into this a bit more. That 49225 with auto tracking sounds like it was amazing (as long as you don’t update the firmware). Can anyone confirm what a comparable PTZ would be now? I need something that can perform both day and night because we don’t have any street lights out our way at all.

Even though the 49225 has the a good sensor size/MP ratio it still struggles with low light.
Being in a rural area with little light, you probably will need to supplement the lighting regardless of which camera you use, if you are trying to identify people at night, floodlights are cheapest and easiest. I like the "Dual bright" ones we have where it has a photo sensor and turns the light on at night, but at a dim level until motion is detected and then it turns to full brightness. But, when the light shifts, it takes a second or two for the cameras to readjust. I wish things were simpler, but they aren't.

If you are trying to actually catch them and not let them know they are being illuminated IR lights are stealthy.

 

[MTL4]

This would be the PTZ to get!

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

Nice, that’s definitely going on my wish list.

 

[mattp]

This would be the PTZ to get!

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

Thanks @wittaj,
That camera has a better resolution and approximately the same sensor size/MP ratio as the 49225. With advancements they've been making I bet it's low light performance is better than my 49225. But, I think my post above still stands. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

@MTL4,
If you are in an area with no light it will be very hard to identify anyone at night with even the much more expensive cameras than @wittaj suggested. At night much less light gets into the camera from the subject. So, if you slow the shutter speed down enough to get enough light into the camera, you get motion blur.
Night is difficult, daytime is a lot easier to dial in.

The really nice thing about 25x zoom is that I can zoom a block down the street and read a neighbor's license plate or identify a person, if I needed to. Of course that's during the day. But you are trying to catch these jackholes misbehaving. If they're acting up during the day and your PTZ has a clean sight line you can zoom it in and record their actions. What those actions are, and what you do with the video is a whole other thread...

If you need to catch them at night, you will probably need additional light, either flood lights or IR lights.

I really feel for you. The whole reason I got our camera system was because of a single bad neighbor...Your situation sounds much worse. You may want to start a new thread on what to do with the video and especially if you want to film them off your property. That may not even be legal in Canada.

 

[mattp]

Just to let you know, that ptz round part is the size of a softball.
I was very surprised at how big it was. Luckily I placed it high enough that my wife wasn't bothered by it.

 

[MTL4]

I really feel for you. The whole reason I got our camera system was because of a single bad neighbor...Your situation sounds much worse. You may want to start a new thread on what to do with the video and especially if you want to film them off your property. That may not even be legal in Canada.

I definitely appreciate everyone’s help with my situation.

Here’s the basic laws in Canada on residential security cameras:

I don’t want this thread to get off track onto legal aspects but given that this is purely a self defence situation (attacked in the street while walking, dogs constantly come onto our property, reckless driving, vandalism, drugs, all kinds of shady crap) and that I’m only capturing my own property or public roads I have no doubt my camera usage would stand up in court. I cannot see the bad neighbours house from mine (except maybe a bit in winter) nor am I interested in recording what they (or anyone else) do on their own property. I just want to ensure my family’s safety when out walking and be able to enjoy my own property in peace, nothing unreasonable about that at all. RCMP (police) are also well aware of these neighbours and have already suggested that video would be an excellent deterrent against their unpleasant activities.

 

[MTL4]

Just to let you know, that ptz round part is the size of a softball.
I was very surprised at how big it was. Luckily I placed it high enough that my wife wasn't bothered by it.

Do you happen to have a pic of that PTZ on a house just so I can get an idea of what it might look like? I’d definitely be putting it on a second story soffit for best view.

I think for lighting I will need to stick to IR flood lights because out in the country if you have regular flood lights you get swarms of bugs to the point it will completely obstruct your camera’s views at night. Plus if I’m aiming regular flood lights down the road my other neighbours aren’t going to like that too much.

 

[mattp]

Do you happen to have a pic of that PTZ on a house just so I can get an idea of what it might look like? I’d definitely be putting it on a second story soffit for best view.

I think for lighting I will need to stick to IR flood lights because out in the country if you have regular flood lights you get swarms of bugs to the point it will completely obstruct your camera’s views at night. Plus if I’m aiming regular flood lights down the road my other neighbours aren’t going to like that too much.

Mounted that high it shouldn't be a problem. Just remember that the closer they get to the house the harder it is to get a good shot of a person's face because the camera is looking down. That isn't a problem with the ptz @wittaj suggested if you set it to start tracking from a distance. Someone's posted how to calculate it. And if I get a chance I may dig it up.
The above problem is why I have mostly varifocal cameras. I need to zoom them more than 6mm because they are mounted high up and they just don't make fixed lenses in the zoom range I need.

Unfortunately bugs can see and like IR lights, too. But sounds like you should go that route anyway. It is more expensive. Though, if you are trying to catch someone it is better because they don't know they are being illuminated.
On the other hand, if you get that ptz, I doubt they'd be stupid enough to come on your property. When I first got it, it was fun to watch as people walked by on the sidewalk and watched it track them.