New member here, hello!

[OgRoar]

Hello!

I've had BI running with a few wifi cams since June 2020 as kind of a test of product, not of BI but of me running my own camera system. I tried a few others first but BI is great. Very happy with it, even on these cheap cameras.

It's time to start wiring the home for POE cameras. I started looking at POE+ switches and they aren't cheap for a brand you would recognize. This lead me to leaning on my IT background and looking at used server/networking equipment.

I settled on a Cisco 3560x 24p full gigabit switch with 30w available on all 24 ports and a Cisco/Linksys 48p full gig managed switch. I grabbed a Xeon e5620 dual cpu 16GB ram, older desk/rackmount server for essentially shipping cost to me. I got the new server all setup last night and is now running my BI config (Was super easy to export from old rig and import settings to new rig, thumbs up). CPU spikes, trigger both cameras at the same time, are down to around 30% sending Deepstack 30 images compared to 60% sending Deepstack 8 images on old i5 6600 rig. I'll scale this down as needed later but was a good real world test for me to see if the hardware would perform as I expected. It's possible this will not handle 8 cameras but we will see. Worst case its still a rack mounted file server which I needed ( I have 2 PC's in my office right now and it gets WARM). Grabbed some cable and supplies. I ended up with both switches and the server for around $200 from ebay. The server I just kind of laughingly through a really low offer at it and it was accepted, was surprised. Don't be afraid to do that!

Now the task of wiring it all! I'm making a "rack" mount for the garage and I'll put all of this equipment into the garage. Plan is to finish the rack, run the 1 required hard line to my main PC I'm typing this and install it all in the garage. At that point I can do it room by room as time allows. It's a small house with a full attic so I plan to just wall fish from the attic and it has Soffit vents I can use for outside cameras. I really only plan on having up to 8 POE devices at this house but my next house I'll have more and figured why not get the 24p switch once and be done?

Added bonus: I hadn't messed with CLI for YEARS other than tidbits in windows. Was fun to dust off super old Cisco CLI knowledge to get the switch setup in a basic config. I'll be doing a VLAN soon on it.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Welcome to the enchanted land of video surveillance lunatics, good guys, nut jobs and miscreants (yes, I fit into at least three categories). There are a lot of knowledgeable people on here and knowledge and experience are shared constantly. That's how I got to be a lunatic (already a nut job and miscreant).

Start out by looking in the WiKi in the blue bar at the top of the page. There's a ton of very useful information in there and it needs to be viewed on a computer, not a phone or tablet. The Cliff Notes will be of particular interest although the camera models listed there are a generation old at this point. The best way to determine what kind of camera you need in each location and where each location should really be is to buy one varifocal camera first and set up a test stand for it that can be easily moved around. Test using that, viewing using the web interface of the camera, during the day and at night. Have someone walk around behaving like a miscreant and see if you can identify them. There is also information for choosing hardware and securing the system along with a whole bunch of other good stuff.

Don't chase megapixels unless you have a really BIG budget. Chase sensor size and bigger is better. To confuse you more sensor sizes are listed in fractions so do the basic math to be sure, 1/2.8 is bigger than 1/2.7 or 1/3. General rule of thumb is that a 4MP camera will easily outperform an 8MP camera when they both have the same sensor size. Reason being that there are twice as many pixels in the 8MP versus the 4MP. This results in only half the available light getting to each pixel in an 8MP that a pixel in the 4MP "sees".

A dedicated PC doesn't need to be either expensive to purchase or to run. A used business class machine can be had from eBay and various other sources. The advances made in Blue Iris make it easily possible to run a fairly large system on relatively inexpensive hardware which also makes power consumption low, as in under 50 watts in many cases. The biggest expenses turn out to be hard drives for storing video and a PoE switch to power the cameras and, of course, the cameras themselves.

The three basic rules of video surveillance cameras-

Rule #1 - Cameras multiply like rabbits.
Rule #2 - Cameras are more addictive than drugs.
Rule #3 - You never have enough cameras.

Quick guide -

The smaller the lux number the better the low light performance. 0.002 is better than 0.02
The smaller the "F" of the lens the better the low light performance. F1.4 is better than F1.8
The larger the sensor the better the low light performance. 1/1.8" is better (bigger) than 1/2.7"
The higher the megapixels for the same size sensor the worse the low light performance. A 4MP camera with a 1/1.8" sensor will perform better than a 8MP camera with that same 1/1.8" sensor.

Don't believe all the marketing hype no matter who makes the camera. Don't believe those nice night time captures they all use. Look for videos, with motion, to determine low light performance. Any camera can be made to "see" color at night if the exposure time is long enough, as in half a second or longer. Rule of thumb, the shutter speed needs to be at 1/60, 1/120, or higher to get night video without blurring.

Read the reviews here, most include both still shots and video.

Avoid Reolink, Foscam, SV3C, Nest, and all the other consumer grade cameras. They all struggle mightily at night and never get anything useful on video. Here's a link to a whole thread debunking Reolink in particular.

Compiled by mat200 -

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

Avoid WiFi cameras, even doorbell cameras. WiFi is not designed for the constant, 24/7, load of video that a surveillance camera produces. At best, with two cameras on WiFi, they will still experience dropouts multiple times daily. Murphy's Law says that will happen at the worst possible moment.