CCTV - need more cameras but

[TeleFragger]

ok so when I posted people were getting in our cars, I didnt have time to really look into it. My wife picked up the samsung kit from Sams club and it has been great... 1080p, 1tb dvr box, 4 cameras but can do 8.

anyway I have been noticing some inconsistencies and curious if anyone else with other cameras see this?

example is I have 2 cameras facing same way mostly.
first one is in the right corner of my house to capture the full driveway
second one is closer in to catch who walks up the steps

what im seeing is that when i review the software that at times... the one closer gets the video but the one watching the driveway doesnt. It is weird...
almost like it isnt reaching that far.

so anyway wife and i were talking and she wants 2 more cameras. on on left side of house and one on right to watch the gates.

BUT if im having this issue trying to capture distance then maybe I need to figure that out first???

so also before i go and drop money on 2-4 hd 1080 bnc cameras, possible to go POE but I need a full solution that wont kill the bank.

so I know i can buy the DVR, NVR, PVR or whatever it is (could never follow that) for POE and buy 2 or 4 cameras and run both systems until i figure out how to get this in HSTouch.. then I can replace the others...

so recommend me a POE recorder box that will do 8 cameras and brand cameras for IP to start looking at?

appreciate it. I can google all over the world but really since yall have them, I can get real world does and dont's

fyi remember you can see all kinds of thoughts I had here
https://forums.homeseer.com/showthre...ht=cctv&page=3

[Pete]

I used outdoor PIRs (Optex) to detect motion as video motion detection algorithm do not work outside well. There are many NVRs that include terminals / power for PIRs and software on the NVR to utilize said detectors. Driveway CCTV was configured with one between the two garage doors, one facing the house at the end of the driveway and one facing down from the 2nd floor eave. (all of the outdoor cams faced other cams). The Optex combo cams are stealthy and looked like PIRs and you could turn off the LED motion detection light. You couldn't really tell what it was. Today you can get nice LED coach lamps with IP HD cameras built in. You cannot see the cams there and the focus is on the lighting. In the old old old house used photo optic beams front and back of a long driveway. Lightning would trigger these a lot of the time. These were nested inside of bushes on both sides of the driveway. I utilized 6" X 6" posts and a long 1.5" drill bit (6' foot length) down the center of the post and out and underground at the base of the post for LV wiring. Top of post was just decorative LV garden lighting. Also purchased a plastic boulder once (it really did look real) to hide LV infrastructure. (well mixed it with 300-400lb real boulders)

[TeleFragger]

wow I posted this a long time ago and still have the same issue. I have a friend (newly acquired through my son.. hah...
but he is a cctv installer and his own business.

so my son came home with his GF (he is 18) and my one camera caught them coming up as it is close and angled down but the one hovering the entire front yard never saw them.
in addition the night before, I took stuff out of the garage which the close one got me but the full yard didn't AGAIN... grrrrrrrrrrr


he told me he has removed many of these Samsung cctv systems but told me first thing is to see if there is a new firmware. So I did and my old one was 2016 and they had a 2017 version so I installed it.
I still need 3 more cameras and I asked him if it was time to go to poe, etc.. and he said I have the cable ran, hd over coax is just fine so no need to replace.

I then asked him about these new face recognition cameras and he said you need an IP camera that supports it, etc... and he said frankly not really needed.

he also recommended that I take my cameras that are not getting everything and set them to motion like I got but to also set them to just record all the time.

so while I have done these steps, he is still going to get me a box he recommends as it is only $90 and said for me to just drop my HD in it and go.

but I'm getting him to price out a 2tb and 4tb drive as they are what.. purple drives?

so looks like ill replace it with an 8x1 box which will do 1 ip camera and 8bnc so I can eventually toy with a face reg cam later...
3 more cameras
2 or 4tb drive....


more to come on the PN's

but my Samsung kit pn sdr-b74301n -
in it
DVR (SDR-B74301) - https://cdn-docs.av-iq.com/other//SDH-B74081_Quick%20Start%20Guide.pdf
Cameras x4 (SDC-9443BC) - https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/48/48a5a387-91db-43a5-8f99-2222d43cb850.pdf



but this looks tempting.. hah... 5mp...
https://www.samsclub.com/sams/wisene...lp_product_1_5

[Krumpy]

So, how are you adding these into Homeseer? I have Lorex 4K cameras and they all don't support MJPG that well.

[TeleFragger]

not caring about that part. I don't have custom screens or anything and my wife will connect to the wiseview app for the cameras at this time if she needs to see something.

so my bud said we will talk hopefully tonight but he said, yes go 5mb cameras so more to come on that.

not sure how HS integration goes, but last night I did play around with streaming through vlc using rtps - think that's it..
but I haven't really done much since google home integration stopped working.. WAF that I had.. is gone... and I'm too busy to really care. I mostly want to have cctv there if needed..

[Rvtravlr]

You may want to check out beerygaz’s Blue Iris plug-in and Blue Iris software (NVR) for your needs. It certainly works for us.

[randy]

Just a few observations to offer. We don’t care about HomeSeer integration, because the iOS and PC apps give so much more flexibility. You can review recordings, digital zoom and set up multi camera displays. We don’t bother with motion triggers, the cameras run 24/7 at full 4MP resolution, 15fps and next to the highest quality. There is honestly very little difference between 2 and 4MP, but we capture 4MP. They are all POE IP cameras recorded on a 32 channel NVR. A single 8TB Seagate enterprise HDD stores about 7 days of video from all 18 cameras. The images are clear, everything is available for 7 days. We were able to help Aurora PD solve a theft at a neighbors house a few weeks ago, by providing a time stamped video of the vehicle involved. While we were unable to read the license, we were able to identify the car and some unique features. Here is our front yard from this morning, just a screen cap from my iPad



Here it is digitally zoomed



The images we we have gotten have been invaluable in the few instances we have needed them. The uptime for the system is now at 339 days, without missing a second. The POE switch and the NVR are on a UPS that can run them for about 40 minutes, our whole house generator kicks in when we lose power, leaving all the cameras up.

We we have tried a Vivotek solution with software on a Windows computer (too unstable and too much energy, but a great phone app), Zoneminder was horrible and Blue Iris eats CPU, limiting the number of cameras. This NVR just runs, consuming a reasonably frugal 26 watts.

Just $0.02 from the perspective of someone who has been down a few roads.

[TeleFragger]

so I was at my buds house last night and we got talking. I showed him the videos I was talking about. he helped me realize im an idiot!! HAH.. not too hard to figure out.
I went in and adjusted the sensitivity... I went from 3 to 2.. but I went the wrong way. he said no 5 is the most sensitive.. so gonna set that now as I forgot to do so...

wow actually they were on 4 and I went to 2.. and there are 8... weird number..

anyway even if this fixes my issue. I need 3 more cameras and he said if im gonna do it.. do it right.. he is going to get me an 8x2 box.. so 8 bnc and 2 ip box. he said I have 4 cameras mounted and cables ran, no need to go IP there... BUT.. im going to swap some out. and going 5mp cameras.

I want to do face recognition as well... and he said I need IP cameras and specific ones for that. but ill get that later after I get this box and installed and 5mp cameras in..

so...
here is the box he will be getting me..
http://www.ltsecurityinc.com/hd-tvi-...d8508k-st.html

cameras
http://www.ltsecurityinc.com/platinu...t1352n-28.html


still gotta research the face rec ip cameras...

[TeleFragger]

here is a screen capture of my current 4 cameras in IE...

[wpiman]

I will Chime in and recommend Blue Iris as well. It integrates well with HS: the only downside is it runs on Windows....

[MStan]

Just a few observations to offer. We don’t care about HomeSeer integration, because the iOS and PC apps give so much more flexibility. You can review recordings, digital zoom and set up multi camera displays. We don’t bother with motion triggers, the cameras run 24/7 at full 4MP resolution, 15fps and next to the highest quality. There is honestly very little difference between 2 and 4MP, but we capture 4MP. They are all POE IP cameras recorded on a 32 channel NVR. A single 8TB Seagate enterprise HDD stores about 7 days of video from all 18 cameras. The images are clear, everything is available for 7 days. We were able to help Aurora PD solve a theft at a neighbors house a few weeks ago, by providing a time stamped video of the vehicle involved. While we were unable to read the license, we were able to identify the car and some unique features. Here is our front yard from this morning, just a screen cap from my iPad



Here it is digitally zoomed



The images we we have gotten have been invaluable in the few instances we have needed them. The uptime for the system is now at 339 days, without missing a second. The POE switch and the NVR are on a UPS that can run them for about 40 minutes, our whole house generator kicks in when we lose power, leaving all the cameras up.

We we have tried a Vivotek solution with software on a Windows computer (too unstable and too much energy, but a great phone app), Zoneminder was horrible and Blue Iris eats CPU, limiting the number of cameras. This NVR just runs, consuming a reasonably frugal 26 watts.

Just $0.02 from the perspective of someone who has been down a few roads.

Randy What cameras and NVR are you using?

[randy]

Randy What cameras and NVR are you using?

They are all Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-I and a Hikvision DS-7732NI-K4 NVR. I use the iVMS-4500 IOS app for remote viewing and playback. Here is a link to a full size image from one of the cameras.
Here is a screenshot of my iPhone.

Any camera can be full screen with digital zoom and pan on my iPhone. I do expose a port to the NVR, but it is locked down from the rest of my network. I can check the house from most anywhere. This is also a screenshot from my iPhone


The cameras remain configured at 4MP (2688X1520), though they look about as good at full HD (1920X1080)

One thing my wife really likes is that we can switch to an input on either of our 4K TVs and view all of the exterior cameras. The NVR has a 4K output that I run through a splitter and send to both of our TVs. Here is the upstairs 65" in 4K. Either Harmony remote has a "Cameras" activity.



It has a single 8TB drive which keeps 15FPS 24/7 on every camera for about 7 days.

There is also a PC application I have on my desktop and laptops.

[TeleFragger]

Ill be going to 5mp cameras and wow... i dont see a benefit to 4ķ cameras aka 12mp but 5mp is the sweet spot. Check this comparison out...

https://youtu.be/CD0QS6xd2D0

[randy]

A 4K camera would be 8mp. The 12mp cameras are usually fisheye cameras. The beauty of a 12K fisheye is the coverage. A 12K fisheye can cover as much area as 4 or more 3mp cameras, so they definitely have a use. They are primarily used for indoor surveillance of business. They will give adequate detail and when mounted looking down from the ceiling and they can cover a large area without needing to scan. When you review the recording you can electronically PTZ over a very large area, that otherwise might need 4 cameras or miss coverage due to programmed panning (patrol). They are really not well suited to home use, unless you wanted interior monitoring. Then one mounted in the ceiling of a living area would give very good resolution and 100% coverage. Outdoors it is tough to IR illuminate such a large area, so you would usually be better off with a couple of standard 90 degree view cameras. Mine all have 2.8mm lenses which gives an angle of view of 100+ degrees. That seems to be the sweet spot for coverage, though the reach is reduced. Since I really am not wanting to cover my neighbors house, I prefer angle of view.

[Rvtravlr]

Randy is correct that Blue Iris is CPU intensive. However, we like the integration with HS3 through the BI PI. We have various profiles set up and can manipulate these based on logic and events. As an example, we have interior cameras that, when we are home, we don’t want to see - a WAF thing. If a particular trigger occurs, though, all cameras including interior ones will start recording.

We particularly like when my wife is home and I am at work that one living room interior camera is made active so that I can say “hi” to the grandchildren.

We also like that we can make a Sonos announcement or send a Pushover notification that someone is at the front door, or that someone is on a particular camera that is behind gates and walls, meaning they shouldn’t be there. We find that, in our case, BI motion detection is better and more granular than that built into the cameras.

We did just upgrade to a used Dell OptiPlex i7 and went wired to the BI machine and are now 24/7 continuous on active cameras.