Residential Install - opinions welcomed and wanted (long read)!

[jimmyt]

I have done enough research and video watching to make my head explode - so now lets see if any of my research has paid off -

Residential install - 3 cameras to start, maybe 5-8 down the road. The purpose is two fold - 1) keep an eye on the kids since they are old enough to come home alone, 2) keep an eye on the house. Our neighborhood is great and there has never been any issues - but...

Initial Cameras and goals of each camera -

Front Door / Porch
- Partial view of the driveway / front yard
- 15 feet from door
- mounted directly under porch roof about 7.5' high
- want to see who is coming and going
- audio not a big deal
- ir will be needed. There is a driveway light about 20 feet from door that gives off decent light. Porch light is usually off.
- image taken from where the camera will be mounted
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pqsh5tbqyvq3ucs/IMG_20140915_181429.jpg?dl=0

Inside garage
- want to see who comes and goes and also be able to verify that door is down.
- mounted 7' above floor 20 feet from door.

Back door / deck / yard
- Partial view of the deck / rear yard
- 15 feet from door
- mounted directly under overhang about 7.5' high
- want to see who is coming and going and watch part of the back yard
- audio not a big deal
- ir will be needed. There are rear lights 15 feet from door that gives off decent light, but its usually off.
- image taken from where the camera will be mounted
https://www.dropbox.com/s/34bgvwgb87je3vu/IMG_20140915_180907.jpg?dl=0

On all the cameras I want to get a notification on movement and only record movement, but when I look at live view, I want real time. I believe they will all do this anyway.
I want to be able to view them on a mobile device, webpage... I can use dyndns for the ip or I can usually get the current static ip. The house is networked in cat5e and there are about 25 devices connected in the network, so networking wont be a problem. Storage is not a big deal - maybe a day or two. From what I can tell I will either need sd cards in the camera or will need a pc to run the (dahua or hikvision) free software to do what I want.

Cameras - all 3mp, fixed focal
Outside (Front and rear) I am looking at minidomes or the turrets
Hikvision:
DS-2CD2532-I, 4mm lens, f2.0, 79 deg FOV should show wide field, more expensive but has sd card, and is tiny, although less IR- will help with the WAF
DS-2CD2132-I, 4mm lens, f2.0, 75 deg FOV for wide field - no sd card but less $$ - 10m IR
DS-2CD2332-I, 4mm lens, f2.0, 76 deg FOV for wide field - no sd, less $$, big ass IR
I like the 2.0 aperture, I think it will do well versus anything below 1.8. I also think anything over 75 deg FOV will be nice and wide to capture more of the area.
4mm lens good? or should I consider 2.8mm?

Dahua
IPC-HDB4300F-PT, like the small Pan Tilt ability. FOV is 70+ deg, but the aperture is f1.2. Looks good. Has sd card and audio
IPC-HDW4300 series - 3.6mm lens, f1.8, 72.5 FOV, no sd card, mic is an option, turret is an option
IPC-HDBW4300 series same as HDW series, has sd card.
same comments here.. aperture?, lens? any others to consider?

For the garage I am thinking a mini bullet just to save cost.
Hikvision
DS-2CD2032-I, 4mm lens...

Dahua
IPC-HFW2200S
IPC-HFW4300S

I have spent more time with the hikvision, but think the dahua will be just fine too. DWR a must? Sounds like it.

Plan is to get the cameras, cheap poe - poe+ not yet, maybe down the road if I ever add a ptz at 24v, use an old core 2 pc for software or rely on sd card from camera if I go that route.

Future-
more cameras and a dedicated nvr / dvr. I figure I can dedicate a pc with blue iris but I will need some horsepower (i5 minimum - probably i7 haswell) to run it. Not a problem as I can do that. Otherwise I will grab a NVR from either company. Although I like the flexibility of blue iris / dedicated pc. Thoughts? I like flexibility instead of being locked in to someones software - but is blue iris good? seems so.

Please feel free to critique and advise! It will be much welcomed and appreciated!

thanks!

jim

 

[fenderman]

If you truly only need a day or two of recording, then go with a camera that supports SD card and be done with it...no need to have a pc or NVR recording...or just record to nas if you have one...any of the cams you listed except maybe the non ir cams are a good choice.
Blue iris is very good and very flexible as such there is a learning curve. Also since it does its own motion detection (which is a HUGE plus in my book, because it allows you to optimize settings based in time of day and/or when you are home or away) it requires lots of cpu...as a sample i have 3 cameras recording at 2mp each and one at 1mp, all at 15fps...and i hit 25-30 percent when using direct to disk mode on a i5-3450s...I like that it has a built in webserver so you dont have to port forward all the cams...and i prefer its mobile app to the native hikvision app. That said for your purposes its doesnt seem like you need it.
If you are wall mounting or mounting to a slanted ceiling, then you need to make sure the cameras is 3 axis, like the 2532...

 

[pal251]

I would pick up a cheap nvr rather than mess with blue IR even though that seems to be the favorite around here. You can do both of course though.

I would mount the camera above the door and face out. Otherwise you will only get the side of someone's head. Good luck , its an adventure. Haha

 

[jimmyt]

thanks for the info..

when recording to a nas, does the camera do all the processing / lifting and the NAS just writes a file? i suppose I could hook up an old core 2 duo and get freenas running if thats the case. My ISP used to provide us free online backup, but that went away so I am actually looking into a nas now. Mycloud/synology or just freenas using an old pc...

Its hard finding an sd card camera under $200 - although the dahua HDBW4300 has an option for one, I cant find a place to purchase it. Any good dahua retailers out there?

milkisbad has some great deals on hikvision - the 2532 has an sd card and is udner 200..

too many choices.. I wonder if I should give up the sd card and look into a NAS - assuming the camera does the lifting.

 

[LittleBrother]

when recording to a nas, does the camera do all the processing / lifting and the NAS just writes a file?

Yes, it's just a dumb file dump; the NAS won't be processing anything. As such, I think you could host one on low-end hardware. If you go that route, Hikvision might be preferable because it seems to have more feature-rich cameras than Dahua from the vid management/access side: http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1729

When I had a single Dahua dome setup a year back I had it writing to a laptop with an FTP server setup on it and it barely stressed that thing's CPU at all. I had the Dahua setup to only send images on detected motion, but I was never happy with its sensitivity; I really struggled to get it right, erred on the side of caution and ended up saving a lot of junk videos. These take up a lot of space, but I had a small powershell script that I had remove any files older than two days. I could then look through multiple video files manually, but it's preferable to have an NVR with a timeline feature (which Hikvision apparently has built into the cameras).

One consideration is that at least from a burglary perspective a lot of criminals seem to be of the mind that if they remove the camera they have removed the evidence. Normally that isn't true, but they are burglars because they are not smart. However, if you're storing to an SD it would be true. Contrast with a NAS hidden somewhere in your basement, the average burglar isn't chasing around your cable runs figuring out where the data is.

 

[LittleBrother]

when recording to a nas, does the camera do all the processing / lifting and the NAS just writes a file?

Yes, it's just a dumb file dump; the NAS won't be processing anything. As such, I think you could host one on low-end hardware. If you go that route, Hikvision might be preferable because it seems to have more feature-rich cameras than Dahua from the vid management/access side: http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1729

When I had a single Dahua dome setup a year back I had it writing to a laptop with an FTP server setup on it and it barely stressed that thing's CPU at all. I had the Dahua setup to only send images on detected motion, but I was never happy with its sensitivity; I really struggled to get it right, erred on the side of caution and ended up saving a lot of junk videos. These take up a lot of space, but I had a small powershell script that I had remove any files older than two days. I could then look through multiple video files manually, but it's preferable to have an NVR with a timeline feature (which Hikvision apparently has built into the cameras).

One consideration is that at least from a burglary perspective a lot of criminals seem to be of the mind that if they remove the camera they have removed the evidence. Normally that isn't true, but they are burglars because they are not smart. However, if you're storing to an SD it would be true. Contrast with a NAS hidden somewhere in your basement, the average burglar isn't chasing around your cable runs figuring out where the data is. Not all NAS will be compatible, though, so do check before you get one. From my research wireless NAS, although promising the world, are not worth the effort--just not sufficiently reliable.