Noob from Wisconsin

restorick2378

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Hello!

I'm Rick, and I live in SE Wisconsin with my lovely bride and 2 pups. We're on the outskirts of Milwaukee. Recently, a gang of car thieves came through and stole a car that had left it's key fob in it. Fortunately, the cops tracked down the vehicle, but unfortunately, there was a double shooting. Both suspects will survive.

The cops asked if anyone had Ring video or any other surveillance video. No one did. Now, the car was stolen on the other side of the subdivision, but the routine of these thugs is to check every vehicle for keys/fobs/open doors and go to town. I park my truck on the driveway, but it's always locked and I never have anything of value on the seats.

That said, my bride is a bit shook up by this. I started looking into NVR systems so I could manage everything on my home net (cat6 everywhere, POE switch, VLAN segments, etc.) and not have to worry about hackers or video being uploaded to the Chinese cloud.

At first, I was enamored with Reolink. Seemed like a viable option for my limited needs. Then I started digging and realized there are some OEM gear available for a tad more $$ that will offer much better quality. At the end of the day, I want my wife to feel better knowing that we have the perimeter covered with good footage taken with equipment that will last.

That's why I'm here - to research as quickly as possible and purchase some good gear to go with a Blue Iris server. I'll keep poking around here, but if anyone has some thoughts on a solid 6 camera setup (thinking 4 fixed length and 2 zoom) that is known for night quality and person detection, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks in advance!
Rick
 

TonyR

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Rick, welcome to IPCT ! :wave:

You've been a member for almost 2 months now and you've likely done a lot of reading by now and may be sick of it now and/or dazed and confused by information overload. Fear not, I have some MORE reading for you but it's all good great stuff.

In honor of the late @sebastiantombs who passed last month on Feb. 25, 2023, I offer this comprehensive, terriffic link from Aug. 20, 2022 with some excellent info; note the camera links toward the end ==>> Is there a such thing as a camera system that is not complete trash? Suggestions?
 

bp2008

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I can't recommend enough this camera for overviews. That will scratch the itch to see everything all at once, and then some. Dahua has an equivalent but they mess with the aspect ratio in ways that offend me. The Hikvision/Annke model is much more true-to-life with the aspect ratio since it is exactly 16:9 times two.

Then you also want some cameras with optical zoom so you can get ID shots. The more zoom the better, but the less field of view they will have. So they need to be positioned and targeted wisely.
 

Smilingreen

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Rick, welcome to IPCT ! :wave:

You've been a member for almost 2 months now and you've likely done a lot of reading by now and may be sick of it now and/or dazed and confused by information overload. Fear not, I have some MORE reading for you but it's all good great stuff.

In honor of the late @sebastiantombs who passed last month on Feb. 25, 2023, I offer this comprehensive, terriffic link from Aug. 20, 2022 with some excellent info; note the camera links toward the end ==>> Is there a such thing as a camera system that is not complete trash? Suggestions?
What?? @sebastiantombs passed away? Oh man, that's terrible.:(

Welcome Rick. You won't find a better group of guys with more knowledge about IP cams than right here on IPCT. :welcome:
 

wittaj

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Sorry to hear about that.

Glad you found this site before you went down the Reolink path or some other consumer grade system.

Here is the master thread of images obtained by these consumer grade cameras:




You need to decide the areas you want to cover and the distance to those areas to IDENTIFY.

Here is a thread that lists the commonly recommended cameras here based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the best value in terms of performance day and night and cost.

 

Jim I.

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Rick, welcome to IPCT ! :wave:

You've been a member for almost 2 months now and you've likely done a lot of reading by now and may be sick of it now and/or dazed and confused by information overload. Fear not, I have some MORE reading for you but it's all good great stuff.

In honor of the late @sebastiantombs who passed last month on Feb. 25, 2023, I offer this comprehensive, terriffic link from Aug. 20, 2022 with some excellent info; note the camera links toward the end ==>> Is there a such thing as a camera system that is not complete trash? Suggestions?
So sorry to hear about Sebastiantombs.. I saw a post recently where someone asked if he was OK.
May he rest in peace..
 

restorick2378

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Folks,

Thank you all for your feedback and thread suggestions! Yep, I've been a member for 2 months, but since January I've been chasing my nephew around as he played college basketball. Now that he's finished with the year (unfortunately, no bid to the NCAA or NIT for his team), I've been hyper focused on figuring this out. Especially after the stolen car incident a few days ago.

I'll be poring over the links, threads, etc., and taking a more critical look at the various YT reviews I've seen so far. And of course, figuring out my desired placement so I can settle on fixed focal length or zoom cams.

Thanks again!
Rick
 

wittaj

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Isn't everyone an expert on YouTube LOL...just remember many of those videos are by people being paid promotional dollars by a vendor and/or receiving revenue by YouTube based on number of hits they get and/or some affiliate discount. In the past few months we have seen many people come here after being burned by hookup...

Plus, when someone has 200,000+ subscribers, inevitably they will start to push consumer grade stuff that is "plug-n-play" because they do not want to take thousands of posts asking what does this setting do and what does that setting do...

I would suggest finding the reviews for the cameras here. You will find much better examples here than out on YouTube or Amazon. The members here put them through their paces. Most of the YouTube videos just use auto/default settings and many do not show motion, so the images look great. It is motion at night that we are interested in, and every review of cameras here have folks providing video clips of their camera in action at multiple settings and shutter speeds, etc. Auto settings results in blur and ghosts during motion at night and is useless. Most Amazon reviews if they include images are static images of no motion.

Plus the YouTube videos tend to be full productions for the likes and thus YouTube revenue, where the folks here post videos for the sole sake of letting others know how well or not the cameras perform. Now some here do an excellent job of post-production of the reviews of cameras with text narrative and overlays of the settings, etc., but most of us just put out raw video for you to see for yourself.

A great camera can be placed at the wrong spot, which then leads to bad reviews on an otherwise great camera. Likewise, a novice surveillance camera user goes by static images and boasts about how great a camera is when it really isn't very good with motion. So if someone calls it a security camera, then maybe do not put much stock in what they say :lmao:

This forum allows others to actually see videos of these cameras at locations and can then make a determination on if that is similar to their situation (lighting, distance, etc.) and would that camera be the right or wrong selection for what they are trying to achieve.

As you start searching here, you will see many here talk about Andy's or Nelly's cameras (two of many vendors on this site. We have a rep from Amcrest and others here as well), but lets face it, those cameras are OEMs of Dahua or Hikvision, so talking about them also covers Amcrest, Lorex, Annke, etc.

And occasionally someone does post here some video showing some great quality from a cheaper no name camera, but it is rare. Even rarer to see good nighttime performance from the consumer grade cameras one finds at the big box stores.
 

Flintstone61

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heres is an inexpensive one that has audio and has a better picture than it should for the price range. Probably best used in like a garage or well lit area..... it can be tampered with outside, the turret doesnt lock in tight like the Big dog cameras on the block....
Amcrest IP5m-1179ew

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restorick2378

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