Newbie, need advise on how to connect IP camera home system

B

bourmb

n3wb
Feb 25, 2021
11
2
Illinois
Hi, I'm about to take delivery on a IPC-B5442E-Z4E and IPC-HFW2231T-ZS-S2 camera to overlook my driveway at night. I was hoping to go with a turret but Andy at Empire Tech didn't think my 55' Identify requirement would have worked out unless I was using the B5442E-Z4E. I don't like mixing and matching but I still might buy turrets for the other locations as they are more inconspicuous than bullets. If I don't keep my outside garage lights on at night, it's pitch black around my house and my two cars parked outside are prime for the picking. I'm less worried about break-ins to my house than some punk letting the air out of my tires (which they did!) or stealing my car (which has happened in the neighborhood), or ding-dong-ditching via doorbell to my wife when I'm away on travel (frequently), I will be running my older i7 computer with BI in my main floor office to monitor the IP cameras. I will be starting off with two cameras but will expand from there with the intentions of not having more than 6-7.

Can someone please review my attached 2 story house network diagram to ensure I am thinking through the proper way to connect the BI computer and POE switches to my network along with remote monitoring via iPhone app? Also, do the POE switches need to be Gigabit switches or will 10/100 suffice?

My ISP fiberoptic modem is in the basement where it comes into the house but I have the Amplifi HD mesh router located centrally on the main floor of the house to maximize WIFI on that level. I want to put the CCTV computer/monitor running BI in the office on the main floor which is connected to the office Gigabit switch connected to the router in the next room. From that office switch, I would connect the two POE switches that will connect to cameras at different locations of the house. Using two POE switches will reduce the amount of CAT6 wiring I will need to purchase, too.
 

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That will work fine. The big thing is to keep the camera traffic off of your router. If you want to improve it a little, a second NIC in the BI machine will isolate the cameras totally from the Internet and you wouldn't need to plug them into the gig switch in you office.
 
To put things in perspective I have 20 cameras running. BI reports ~170 megapixels per second. All the cameras are using both the main stream and the sub stream. Network utilization is running around 140 megabits per second on a gig link. The cameras are a mix of 2MP and 4MP, probably close to a 50/50 split between the two. So yes, a gig link is needed once they're all aggregated onto a single feed. That depends on frame rate, resolution and number of cameras plus, if you're using sub streams you effectively double the number of streams although the sub stream is at a much lower resolution and lower bandwidth utilization. It all does add up though.

In my case I'm running two switches that are daisy chained together by the gig links and the aggregate of all the cameras feeds a second NIC in the BI machine that is a gig card.
 
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I have 6 cameras. My PC dropped to 100 MB/s due to something happening with a cable. BI could not keep up with even 6 cameras, all 4 MP or better.
 
@bethzur You've got something else going on. What went "wrong with a cable"? A sketch of your network layout would be a first step along with screen captures of the video configuration pages for your cameras. What make and model cameras? Some consumer grade cameras will work with BI but won't
play nice" and can cause all kinds of problems. Six cameras, even at 4MP of better, whatever that may be, is still under 50 megapixels total unless you're running 60FPS which isn't appropriate for surveillance video.
 
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sebastiantombs said:
@bethzur You've got something else going on. What went "wrong with a cable"? A sketch of your network layout would be a first step along with screen captures of the video configuration pages for your cameras. What make and model cameras? Some consumer grade cameras will work with BI but won't
play nice" and can cause all kinds of problems. Six cameras, even at 4MP of better, whatever that may be, is still under 50 megapixels total unless you're running 60FPS which isn't appropriate for surveillance video.
Click to expand...

It was likely a connection in the patch panel. I swapped some of the cables and it made no difference. I then ran a cable directly from the PC to the switch and that fixed it immediately.
 
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Keep in mind I’m new to this subject. I’m attempting to connect a T5422T-ZE from Andy to a TP-Link TL-SG1005 POE switch that connects into another dummy switch in my office that feeds into my Amplifi HD mesh router in the living room. I’m on the fence regarding BI or a NVR so I’m running a trial copy of BI on my Microsoft Surface Pro 3 for now and have it connected into the same TP-Link switch.

Attached is the error message I received within the Dahua ConfigTool app while trying to change the camera IP address. The camera states the default factory IP in the ConfigTool app but the actual camera IP stated in my router is the highlighted information In trying to change it to (I changed numbers to protect my identity). I would think if the information is exactly the same to what's in my Amplifi router that the camera should be able to be connected via BI or the ConfigTool app I also have the camera and computer connected to the same POE switch temporarily.

I have to be doing something wrong. I spent a couple hours trying to get the camera initialized last night as the ConfigTool didn’t see any cameras attached. I spent remember what I does to get out to work but I do know at some point I temporarily disconnected the firewall to see is that was the issue. I get no signal either through BI or the ConfigTool app.

One last thing; should only camera settings be revised in the Dahua ConfigTool for the camera or can I make them also in BI when it’s up and running?

View attachment 112878


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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There is no attachment to your post.

The Surface pro will do a terrible job of running BI. Put it on a real computer.

The default ip of a new Dahua cam is 192.168.1.108. The computer, laptop, surface pro what ever has to be on the same IP range to see the camera.

Or if you read the instructions for IP config, and set it up correctly, it will find the camera on a different subnet than your computer.
Top right corner of IP config window, third icon from the right, click it, then click help.

All settings for the camera should be completed directly in the cameras setup GUI. BI can't be used to change settings.
 
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looney2ns said:
There is no attachment to your post.

The Surface pro will do a terrible job of running BI. Put it on a real computer.

The default ip of a new Dahua cam is 192.168.1.108. The computer, laptop, surface pro what ever has to be on the same IP range to see the camera.

Or if you read the instructions for IP config, and set it up correctly, it will find the camera on a different subnet than your computer.
Top right corner of IP config window, third icon from the right, click it, then click help.

All settings for the camera should be completed directly in the cameras setup GUI. BI can't be used to change settings.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I’ll give it shot later. Being that Andy quoted me a 8 POE NVR for $350 which doesn’t even include hard drives I know a used PC would be cheaper but I’m concerned on the BI learning curve. Having more plug/play has its benefits and especially when I need to figure out how to safely connect to the 4-5 cameras remotely.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Don't count on running Blue Iris with WiFi connections for the cameras. The constant, never ending, non-buffered, data streams will bog it down to a crawl and the cameras will drop off line.
 
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