Subdivision Monitoring - Smallest Viable System Recommendations

[nicpottier]

Hi all, thank you for the trove of information here, I've been trying to process it all. I'm advising my HOA in the installation of some cameras to be able to track vehicles entering our subdivision. I've already had my hopes dashed trying to do this with a lower end camera system (you'll never guess the brand!) and am now here trying to do it right.

We have internet (5g) and power at the entrance of our subdivision. We also have a well placed tree near the road and a corner just before this straight away to slow traffic down. It feels like we are pretty well positioned for success. Note that this system would primarily be used for gathering evidence AFTER something occurs. Nobody is going to be monitoring these cameras day in and out and it isn't unusual for homes to be vacant for weeks at a time. But in the case of a burglary we want to be able to look back and get good images of vehicles (and hopefully license plates) that entered and exited during those time periods.



I'm pretty sold on using one of the Dahua Z12E (or whitelabels) for this. Price / performance looks good and from what I've read we are in a good location for this. We'd like a wider angle camera facing the other direction, I'd love recommendations for something similar in performance that's a bit cheaper if such a thing exists.

The piece I am most struggling with is on the NVR front. I see Blue Iris is a popular choice and if this was a personal system then I'd be all in on that, but I really don't want to be messing with this once set up and I want the easiest possible thing for future HOA members to deal with. Perhaps that is Blue Iris and I'm willing to be convinced, but let me start with our requirements here which are small:
* up to four cameras. We will start with two and maybe stretch to four but I don't see any scenario where we would need more than four.
* remote access via a mobile app. This isn't a hard requirement but it would be nice to be able to see events remotely. If removing this requirement greatly simplifies things then great.
* up to two weeks (hopefully a month) of 24/7 recording for two cameras.
* tagging of vehicle events. Not a hard requirement but sure would make our life easier in the cases where we do want to find vehicles entering / leaving in a time period.
* no monitor once set up. We don't really have room for that in the building this is housed, so a web interface we can use, ideally on a phone would be ideal. If required during setup that's ok.
* I'd really like to keep the all in price under $700

How much do I need to worry about compatibility of cameras and NVR, even with Dahua whitelabels? If I get a Loryta Z12E will that work with a Amcrest NVR? What's the smallest / simplest NVR that will work with my requirements above? Is there a well priced Dahua whitelabel that has both a simple NVR and Z12E that will work for our use case?

Thank you!

 

[wittaj]

@bigredfish is our neighborhood system expert.

BI can do all you ask.

Your budget is low unless you want more uefy quality-less images, especially at night with motion.

Dahua/amcrest/lorex/empiretech are all Dahua OEM and will work with one another. But keep in mind all NVRs are not equal and bandwidth is a big issue and that is where you will see consumer logo like Amcrest and Lorex cut to sell a unit cheaper.

 

[garycrist]

So you want to catch crooks that destroy or steal thousands of dollars worth damage/items.
The 1st.deductible will be a whole lot more than $1K and you will have no proof. You might need to
rethink the budget.

 

[nicpottier]

Your budget is low unless you want more uefy quality-less images, especially at night with motion.

Ok. On what would I be spending the budget? Is that camera not adequate? Seems like that's one of the recommended ones for this purpose. What does spending more on an NVR get me? That's a serious question, I'm trying to separate out what matters and what doesn't. Is bandwidth really a concern with so few cameras? I get if I was installing 8+ but if I have two cameras am I going to outrun even the lower end NVRs at high quality?

 

[nicpottier]

So you want to catch crooks that destroy or steal thousands of dollars worth damage/items.
The 1st.deductible will be a whole lot more than $1K and you will have no proof. You might need to
rethink the budget.

Oh man, love the snark but it would be more useful if you told me why what I'm thinking of won't work? Where should I be spending this budget and to what benefit?

 

[wittaj]

Ok. On what would I be spending the budget? Is that camera not adequate? Seems like that's one of the recommended ones for this purpose. What does spending more on an NVR get me? That's a serious question, I'm trying to separate out what matters and what doesn't. Is bandwidth really a concern with so few cameras? I get if I was installing 8+ but if I have two cameras am I going to outrun even the lower end NVRs at high quality?

You said your Total budget is $700

The Z12E is a great camera and is $250ish. It will only capture plates at night and cannot be an overview, so you need another camera.

A minimum good NVR to do what you want is at least $400. In addition to the bandwidth, the lower NVRs will not have the analytics you are looking for. People will be remoting in and that is part of the bandwidth. 4 cams and a few remote and you are over a budget NVR.

The NVR does not have a HDD, so that will be several hundred depending on your storage requirements.

That alone takes you over $700.

 

[nicpottier]

The Z12E is a great camera and is $250ish. It will only capture plates at night and cannot be an overview, so you need another camera.

Oh ok, so it won't capture plates during the day? I thought I could have different settings for day and night to handle that. What would be the recommended camera for capturing plates during the day? Is the reason I need an overview for triggering of events to timestamp? What's a good option on the overview side of things?

A minimum good NVR to do what you want is at least $400. In addition to the bandwidth, the lower NVRs will not have the analytics you are looking for. People will be remoting in and that is part of the bandwidth. 4 cams and a few remote and you are over a budget NVR.

Remoting in will be very rare if that makes a difference, only when trying to retrieve something after the fact. Again, even this could be an acceptable compromise. What's a $400 that would work? On the analytics front if I remove vehicle detection does that open up my options more? (and only depend on movement detection?)

 

[actran]

@nicpottier I do not think @garycrist post was snarky. I agree with him that your initial budget is way too low. Best to buy quality than go cheap. Many of us have started with cheap or low quality and had to start again with the right quality cameras.

Z12E is an excellent choice. Go with a Dahua NVR with AI also.

If you are ready to buy, check out this sale: EmpireTech 2023 Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday Sales Nov.20-24th

EmpireTech is a trusted seller here.

 

[nicpottier]

Thanks @actran

One thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around are the interactions of the camera smarts and NVR smarts. From what I can tell the Z12E has IVS which means it would trigger on detecting of vehicles. Is that right? Or would that not work when zoomed in sufficiently to read license plates?

How do these trigger interact with an NVR recording 24/7? Do you get timestamps for those alarms? If so then it doesn't sound like the NVR needs to handle that detection / classification internally is that right? What do you give up when the NVR doesn't do this kind of processing locally?

 

[actran]

@nicpottier Z12E will capture the video but you'll need NVR with ANPR or BlueIris with CodeProject.AI to read the license plates (i.e. do OCR on license plate image to pull out plate text) and make searchable.

Here is an NVR with ANPR EmpireTech NVR8CH-8P-2AI 8 Channels 1U 8PoE 2HDD Network Video Recorde

Google ANPR for more details.

 

[nicpottier]

I don't need plate recognition. I really just want an event tagged so I can later go back and not have to look at weeks of footage to find which vehicles entered and left. This area is very very low traffic. If I just used a tripwire IVS alert on the camera, would that be tagged in the 24/7 recording on the NVR?

 

[actran]

Yes, IVS should work if properly configured and you should record 24/7 with NVR.

There is alot of details around getting good images of license plates, especially at night. Check out other threads specifically on ALPR/ANPR.

P.S. You may not think you need ALPR/ANPR at this time but it's very useful.

 

[actran]

@nicpotter BTW, you might be thinking of only setting up Z12E at this time, but later you may realize that you need 2 Z12E, to point in opposite directions. Because some cars may not have front license plates.

 

[nicpottier]

Yes, IVS should work if properly configured and you should record 24/7 with NVR.

So as a start could I get away with spending my budget on a Z12E zoomed into plate area, a B23IR for overview and have the latter set up with tripwires? All that to a 4 series NVR ($300 with 2 TB drive?) that is just recording 24/7 and saving the tripwire events from the cameras? I realize I could have a nicer experience by spending much more but would that work?

 

[nicpottier]

@nicpotter BTW, you might be thinking of only setting up Z12E at this time, but later you may realize that you need 2 Z12E, to point in opposite directions. Because some cars may not have front license plates.

Good point, though there's only one exit and entrance so in theory we should catch them going in or out regardless of plates. (front is required in Washington but ya, lots of people forego that) I realize adding more cameras is a possibility and could mean upgrading NVR later and I'm ok with that if it comes to it.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

Oh ok, so it won't capture plates during the day? I thought I could have different settings for day and night to handle that. What would be the recommended camera for capturing plates during the day? Is the reason I need an overview for triggering of events to timestamp? What's a good option on the overview side of things?

Remoting in will be very rare if that makes a difference, only when trying to retrieve something after the fact. Again, even this could be an acceptable compromise. What's a $400 that would work? On the analytics front if I remove vehicle detection does that open up my options more? (and only depend on movement detection?)

I'm in the process of convincing my hoa to add cameras. I've learned a few things during my research so I may be able to address some of the things that I did not know that I didn't know when I started.

The Z12E is popular for catching plates. I've got 2 set up for just that purpose. They are both hooked up to a computer running Blue Iris (BI). BI had the ability to run the footage through an AI server, it can be set up locally, so BI can turn the footage into a searchable plate number. I do not have that set up. I must scrub through the footage and read the plates myself. The camera does not process the video for plates.

I recently purchased and am setting up a proper ANPR (automatic number plate reader) camera (IPC-LPR437B-IR). The camera has AI with OCR built in. It will process the footage and embed the plate number, and other information, into the video's metadata.

Because you are setting it up remote, you've figured out an NVR is better than a pc. There's a $400 NVR with AI built in (EmpireTech NVR8CH-8P-2AI 8 Channels 1U 8PoE 2HDD Network Video Recorde). That NVR has a smart search feature that allows you to search the metadata for stuff like color or plate or other things. That NVR also has built in POE so it may simplify installation.

I do not know if the $400 NVR with AI has OCR. If not, it may only be useful with the ANPR camera.

The plate reader, especially the Z12E, may not capture much detail about the car. With the Z12E's at night, all I can see are the lights and the plates. So another camera is needed for the rest of the details. If there's enough light, you can go with a color camera (EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-T 8MP 1/1.2" CMOS Full-color Fixed-focal Warm L). It's pretty good about picking up color in low light. Or a good IR camera would work (EmpireTech IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP IR Starlight Vari-focal Tur). That camera is variable focus so you can set it up with whatever zoom you may need for that location. Or both.

Color Camera - $220
IR Camera - $180
NVR - $400
Z12E - $250
ANPR - $570

So one spotter camera with the camera that can read plates would be around $830 per entrance. To go all in with the ANPR camera and both a color and an IR camera would be around $1370. How much functionality would you like in the system? How important is it to capture all of the details at night?

 

[actran]

@nicpottier For overview, go with something better than the 2MP. Right now, any Dahua cam with 4MP 1/1.8" lens is the best all around performer. See @CaptainCrunch links.

And don't skimp on hard drive, 2TB is small by today standard. Get the largest you can afford. Make sure it's intended for surveillance recording.

 

[wittaj]

Oh ok, so it won't capture plates during the day? I thought I could have different settings for day and night to handle that. What would be the recommended camera for capturing plates during the day? Is the reason I need an overview for triggering of events to timestamp? What's a good option on the overview side of things?



Remoting in will be very rare if that makes a difference, only when trying to retrieve something after the fact. Again, even this could be an acceptable compromise. What's a $400 that would work? On the analytics front if I remove vehicle detection does that open up my options more? (and only depend on movement detection?)

The Z12E will capture plates day and night.

You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

 

[wittaj]

Thanks @actran

One thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around are the interactions of the camera smarts and NVR smarts. From what I can tell the Z12E has IVS which means it would trigger on detecting of vehicles. Is that right? Or would that not work when zoomed in sufficiently to read license plates?

How do these trigger interact with an NVR recording 24/7? Do you get timestamps for those alarms? If so then it doesn't sound like the NVR needs to handle that detection / classification internally is that right? What do you give up when the NVR doesn't do this kind of processing locally?

IVS triggers will not work at night since all the camera sees are plates and head/tail lights. You need to switch to motion detection at night.

 

[nicpottier]

Thanks @CaptainCrunch that's super useful. Our use cases sound similar in some ways though as I said we have very very little traffic and no need for actual license plate recognition, only ability to go review with good enough footage to use our own eyes to recognize plates if it comes to it.

Is my "plan" of using on camera IVS tripwires unreasonable? Again, this is out in the middle of nowhere with next to no traffic, we could almost get away with only motion detection if it weren't for wind and trees moving. We may get a dozen cars a day passing this point during our busiest days.

So say a 4mp overview that takes care of adding triggers, that gives me a timestamp I can then review for the zoomed in Z12E. Can I get away with a 4 series NVR in that case? Cameras are being mounted on a tree, turret form factor seems less ideal for that. What would be a decent bullet to use that would work for triggering even at night?

IVS triggers will not work at night since all the camera sees are plates and head/tail lights. You need to switch to motion detection at night.

Ah, super useful, thank you. Do the warm light cameras work well enough to trigger for vehicles at night?

@wittaj Thank you for the additional info, that all makes a lot of sense. For your setup you have one camera with different settings for day and night is that right?