Ultra Master Blaster Cheap Hardware for 2/3 1080p 60fps IPCam

[DiegoWEB]

Hey guys!

I'm in a small budget. I'd like to invest in 1 good camera with good video quality for my front yard, and maybe in the future add one more close to the street and one in the back yard.

For now, I'm looking for good and cheap IP Camera and I was able to find @nayr topic about Dahua's IP Cameras.

Since I'm not in USA and in my country there are TONS of taxes that may inflict while I'm importing them, I need precaution to not invest too much and may have to pay more customs duty taxes to get them in my hands (yes, I may have ending up paying 120% more in taxes).

So I was looking to import the cameras and the hardware I'd use something that I already have in my hands.
I own one Raspberry Pi 3 and I may import a new one to use for "NVR", but I'm not sure if it will handle 2/3 cameras in 1080p 60 fps with a good bitrate.

The camera model in question would be one of the Fixed Bullets in Nayr topic (the cheapest that I may find in AliExpress):
Fixed Bullets:

• Round Mini Bullet (3.6mm & 6mm): IPC-HFW4231S
• Square Mini Bullet (3.6mm & 6mm) w/SD:IPC-HFW4231E-S
• LXIR Bullet (50m) (3.6mm & 6mm) w/SD, External Audio & Alarm: IPC-HFW4231B-AS
• LXIR Bullet (80m) (3.6mm & 6mm) w/SD, External Audio & Alarm: IPC-HFW4231D-AS

I also have an old Asus EEE PC 1201T Laptop, but I'm not sure if it's more powerful than one Single Board Computer like Raspberry Pi 3.

For this Old Laptop I was thinking about installing Xpenology or Zoneminder / Blue-Iris software.
For the RPI-3 I was thinking about this Github script: Moonfire-NVRor maybe installing some other custom OS for Surveillance Station purpose (I'm quite sure I've seem a "Zoneminder" app-like for RPI some years ago).

What do you guys think? What would you recommend me?
I'm not planning to add any other camera to the system except for those that I've mentioned. Since it's too expensive to import and I'm not comfy to wire all my house to have tons of cameras installed (and I don't need them, since I live in a pretty good place and this is for extra-safety only).

My english is kinda rusty, so... I'm sorry if I misspelled something wrong or wrote in wrong verb tense.
I appreciate in advance for your help and for reading all this bs that I may have written (I've never worked with IP Cam, but since I'm a tech guys, this things are usually pretty simple to me ).

BTW: No Motion Detection required. 24 hours / day is okay.

TL;DR:
I need a ultra small budget for NVR and I want to have it to run 1 to 3 cameras 1080p 60FPS - Dahua Fixed Bullets. I'm not sure if an old Laptop would be wiser to use instead of a Raspberry Pi 3, or if both would be really bad and I should (must!?) invest in some proper equippment to record those camera videos.

Thank you !
Regards from Brazil.

 

[fenderman]

1) you dont need 60fps.
2) buy a starlight turret fixed...

 

[DiegoWEB]

1) you dont need 60fps.
2) buy a starlight turret fixed...

Hey
1) Why not? 60 fps is way smoother than 30 fps. Even for games this apply. The changes between each frame will be more visible and clear, without ghosts and "stuttering".
2) OK
3) What about the device to record!? What do you recommend me?

Thanks

 

[fenderman]

Hey
1) Why not? 60 fps is way smoother than 30 fps. Even for games this apply. The changes between each frame will be more visible and clear, without ghosts and "stuttering".
2) OK
3) What about the device to record!? What do you recommend me?

Thanks

No, this is not a game .... start reading and learning..

 

[bp2008]

Hello. Look at this frame rate comparison video.


You do not need 60 FPS or even 30 FPS for home security. In most situations you can go all the way down below 5 FPS before you really start losing much. There is no denying that high frame rates look nice, but they also increase the system requirements without providing much practical benefit, so they are usually the first thing to sacrifice for efficiency. 15 FPS is a common compromise, but you can safely go much lower than that and still have usable recordings. That said, nobody is stopping you from streaming at 60 FPS if your system can handle it. Just be aware that you need to increase the video's bit rate to make up for it, and it will require more network bandwidth and more storage space that way.

Assuming it is stable and not missing any critical features, that moonfire nvr project you linked looks like it should be fine to start with, since it was designed to run on raspberry pi. However the pi's SD card will fill up very quickly. Do you have a USB external hard drive you could use for storage? (Note that USB external hard drives are not ideal for reliability; you should use internal HDDs whenever possible)

Blue Iris is a very popular NVR software, and I definitely recommend it if you can get capable hardware for a good price in your country. Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk

 

[DiegoWEB]

No, this is not a game .... start reading and learning..

Hello. Look at this frame rate comparison video.



You do not need 60 FPS or even 30 FPS for home security. In most situations you can go all the way down below 5 FPS before you really start losing much. There is no denying that high frame rates look nice, but they also increase the system requirements without providing much practical benefit, so they are usually the first thing to sacrifice for efficiency. 15 FPS is a common compromise, but you can safely go much lower than that and still have usable recordings. That said, nobody is stopping you from streaming at 60 FPS if your system can handle it. Just be aware that you need to increase the video's bit rate to make up for it, and it will require more network bandwidth and more storage space that way.

Assuming it is stable and not missing any critical features, that moonfire nvr project you linked looks like it should be fine to start with, since it was designed to run on raspberry pi. However the pi's SD card will fill up very quickly. Do you have a USB external hard drive you could use for storage? (Note that USB external hard drives are not ideal for reliability; you should use internal HDDs whenever possible)

Blue Iris is a very popular NVR software, and I definitely recommend it if you can get capable hardware for a good price in your country. Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk

Indeed 30 fps is ok.
I've seem crap chinese cameras that claims to be 30 fps but the image quality looks terrible (low fps).

And yes, I have some spare external hard drive but I can also buy a Single Board Computer with sata support.
But speaking of cheap NVR, this Super Mini NVR is reliable?
BESDER Mini NVR Full HD 4 Channel 8 Channel Security CCTV NVR 1080P 4CH 8CH ONVIF 2.0 For IP Camera System 1080P With Radiator-in Surveillance Video Recorder from Security & Protection on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

It costs almost what a RPI3 costs.... Have you ever seem this kind of NVR in use? Should I trust them?
Of course I'll need a switch to connect the cameras, but I could buy a good in my country, pretty cheap.
Thank you guys for your help. I appreciate.

 

[bp2008]

The IP camera / NVR market is full of cheap junk. I would not trust an NVR from a brand like this. Go with Dahua or Hikvision if you want a simple plug-and-play NVR. For best integration you should match the NVR brand with the camera, though any ONVIF compliant NVR is supposed to be compatible with ONVIF compliant cameras.

When you buy a switch, make sure it follows the 802.3af or 802.3at PoE standard, and take note of the number of PoE ports and the total power budget. Here are some good examples:

http://a.co/eYBkBCS
http://a.co/bvr13bh
http://a.co/bHE7E21
http://a.co/7O1GkWu
http://a.co/8OZom4v

If you are from an IT background you are probably used to using gigabit switches, but you don't really need your PoE switches to have gigabit speed if you are only using them for video streams from 4-8 cameras.

 

[mat200]

Indeed 30 fps is ok.
I've seem crap chinese cameras that claims to be 30 fps but the image quality looks terrible (low fps).
..
It costs almost what a RPI3 costs.... Have you ever seem this kind of NVR in use? Should I trust them?
Of course I'll need a switch to connect the cameras, but I could buy a good in my country, pretty cheap.
Thank you guys for your help. I appreciate.

Hi DiegoWEB,

Wow, 120% in taxes.

I would drop Andy @EMPIRETECANDY a line and see what experiences he has had with customers in your country. ( note China is currently in a major holiday season )

So far for many of us we've had great experiences with his service and found import taxes low ( if any ).

In terms of vendors on Aliexpress and other locations - do be careful as often they may sell Chinese region products which have hacked English or other languages added, and when you need to update the software or do a factory reset you get into trouble.

Right now many of us really like the Dahua OEM starlight model of cameras, and you should look closely at them.
( I have a similar mini-bullet to what you mention and really think the starlight HDW5231xx camera I have is so much superior at night )

Perhaps try a IPC-HDW4231xx camera.

Also look at our notes at the end of the thread here:
Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs

 

[DiegoWEB]

The IP camera / NVR market is full of cheap junk. I would not trust an NVR from a brand like this. Go with Dahua or Hikvision if you want a simple plug-and-play NVR. For best integration you should match the NVR brand with the camera, though any ONVIF compliant NVR is supposed to be compatible with ONVIF compliant cameras.

When you buy a switch, make sure it follows the 802.3af or 802.3at PoE standard, and take note of the number of PoE ports and the total power budget. Here are some good examples:

http://a.co/eYBkBCS
http://a.co/bvr13bh
http://a.co/bHE7E21
http://a.co/7O1GkWu
http://a.co/8OZom4v

If you are from an IT background you are probably used to using gigabit switches, but you don't really need your PoE switches to have gigabit speed if you are only using them for video streams from 4-8 cameras.

Yeah yeah, Gigabit is not necessary for this setup.
Currently I run a Linksys EA8500 with Lede Firmware and I was thinking about creating a solution to record a single camera using this router. But this is by far a bad idea, probably the CPU will fail to deliver good performance for this purpose (and also this is not a good idea to do... trust a router to hold sensitive data and that may fail to record, lol).

So probably I will have to stick to a Dahua NVR or Hikvision.
Just one question, since I have never worked or seem a IP Camera installation. What should I look in the NVR features? I mean, my purpose you already know what it is, 1080p camera running in 30fps or maybe even 60fps. It will be running 24/7/365. Can you recommend me the cheapest and realiable model available in AliExpress? Unfortunately, buy from Amazon is quite hard for me, I can indeed use a freight forwarders, but this things are usually a big package and I'll probably have some problem with customs (pay high taxes). Coming from China helps a little bit, because they receive a lot of big and small packages and I may have luck not paying taxes

Hi DiegoWEB,

Wow, 120% in taxes.

I would drop Andy @EMPIRETECANDY a line and see what experiences he has had with customers in your country. ( note China is currently in a major holiday season )

So far for many of us we've had great experiences with his service and found import taxes low ( if any ).

In terms of vendors on Aliexpress and other locations - do be careful as often they may sell Chinese region products which have hacked English or other languages added, and when you need to update the software or do a factory reset you get into trouble.

Right now many of us really like the Dahua OEM starlight model of cameras, and you should look closely at them.
( I have a similar mini-bullet to what you mention and really think the starlight HDW5231xx camera I have is so much superior at night )

Perhaps try a IPC-HDW4231xx camera.

Also look at our notes at the end of the thread here:
Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs

Federal Taxes: 60% (customs duty)
State Taxes: 25% (but this tax is applied over the parcel value + federal tax).
So if the parcel costs 100$, I would pay 60$ for Customs + 160*25% = 40. 60+40= 100$. But they also overcharge me for their "customs clearance".

Ahh!! And Customs may not accept the declared value. Which means that I mean end up paying too much more for a product that didn't cost the price they "expect" it to cost. Really bad.

But, thank you for the tip. I've seem some AliExpress sellers saying they sell genuine Dahua products but without Dahua Logo!? WTF? Which brand would not print their logo to their original product. Bad joke.
And I'm thinking to buy with EMPIRETECANDY. I've sent a PM over AliExpress to him to ask for a discount, but he said he can't give me any discount because it's too expensive to ship to Brazil

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Yes, ship to Brazil only EMS each time 1-2 cams, and need 2-3 weeks DHL or FEdex NEVER passed, they always reject the shipment and return back to CHina, we have to pay a big fine by their customs!! I have to say Brazil has the worst customs in the world, 2nd one is India, 3rd one is Russia.

 

[bp2008]

They want you pay a customs fee for the privilege of having the shipment returned to China???

 

[DiegoWEB]

Yes, ship to Brazil only EMS each time 1-2 cams, and need 2-3 weeks DHL or FEdex NEVER passed, they always reject the shipment and return back to CHina, we have to pay a big fine by their customs!! I have to say Brazil has the worst customs in the world, 2nd one is India, 3rd one is Russia.

I completely agree with you.
We have the worst Customs ever.
They say that we have to pay high taxes to "protect the local industry". BS.

I ALWAYS tell Asia-Sellers to ship via e-Packet. It's the fastest shipment method and trustful.
As I can see, you already ship via this method (express after customs, low chances of customs duty). It's like standard shipment, but after customs release without taxes, it becomes a kind of express shipment method.
So it usually takes 2-4 weeks to be delivered (pretty fast if we consider it can take up to 3 months to be delivered).

They want you pay a customs fee for the privilege of having the shipment returned to China???

I'm not sure about this because I'm not the seller. But I have a friend who runs a freight forwarder company in the USA and he only complains about the package integrity (it always arrive damaged when it returns) and how long it takes to return (almost 1 month to return).