Spec me a CCTV System

Vimes · 3 Apr 2015 at 10:56

My replacement camera has arrived and if size is an indication of quality then this one must be better...

you can see the one it is replacing underneath. Now that this cam is EXIR capable its night image does seem cleaner and less noisy than the smaller cam it has replaced.

Still tinkering with various settings etc.

mattyg · 3 Apr 2015 at 11:02

Vimes said:
^^^ Very nice images.

Why did you choose 8 and 15 FPS....? What would your bitrate be and are you using VBR or CBR and if CBR have you tried the smoothing setting...?

Have you done a walk video test to see what you are capturing in terms of motion video for face recognition etc....?

On the front cam do you have one pointing from the opposite side, thus capturing the front and back of a person regardless of their direction of approach...?

Nice clean images yes. But would they actually help in identifying anybody. They look a little high up. Have you tried to identify say, the postman etc.

When we designed our driveway we installed noisy gravel but then added a nice path that they could walk on without making a noise. And then made sure we had a camera at head height pointing down the path to capture faces.

Craigius · 3 Apr 2015 at 21:36

Looks good Vimes please post and let us all know what you think to the images off the new camera

Vimes · 4 Apr 2015 at 23:26

The positioning of that new camera is less than ideal, in terms of ambient light, but it is needed where it is. As the direction of movement could well be transversing the FOV a fast exposure is also needed. Nothing can be done to change that. Those two factors, and others, do not add up to a relatively good night picture compared to the other cams. Still it is a noticeable improvement over its replacement so I'm glad for that.

Overall I do miss the good quality analogue CCD images of night capture compared to that of the HD and CMOS based sensor type.

sprite1275 · 5 Apr 2015 at 01:41

With out me trawling this thread, could some one point me in the right direction for a cctv set up? It would be for a semi detatched house and would need 2 cameras. Not sure of budget, what would £300 get? Ive done no research on this so im a total novice.

TS7 · 11 Apr 2015 at 14:40

Need some advice - considering the following Swann CCTV cameras but I'm struggling to establish what is the main difference between them:

http://www.costco.co.uk/view/product/uk_catalog/cos_10,cos_10.7,cos_1.9.1/183644

That one has 2 normal and 2 dome cameras. What difference does the dome make?

Then there's these:

http://www.costco.co.uk/view/product/uk_catalog/cos_10,cos_10.7,cos_1.9.1/184822

I don't need 6, so 2 would go to waste / be sold. Is there any tangible difference between the 2 packages?

How would the quality be on them?

mikeh501 · 11 Apr 2015 at 19:18

Yesterdays tech. They are not HD and not IP based. I'd spend more on the cameras and go for a freeware based NVR.

Daniel · 11 Apr 2015 at 22:10

mattyg said:
Nice clean images yes. But would they actually help in identifying anybody. They look a little high up. Have you tried to identify say, the postman etc.

Yep, I can identify people. The cameras are mounted at around window sill level using the turret mounts which means I can easily adjust the angle by reaching out the window. I don't like heights and climbing ladders

At a later date I may mount another camera under the door canopy that will then show the centre of the drive and be nearer face level to any visitors.

Craigius · 12 Apr 2015 at 13:21

Daniel said:
Yep, I can identify people. The cameras are mounted at around window sill level using the turret mounts which means I can easily adjust the angle by reaching out the window. I don't like heights and climbing ladders

At a later date I may mount another camera under the door canopy that will then show the centre of the drive and be nearer face level to any visitors.

I think I would have looked at mounting them lower down personally.

Oh Ed not again. · 22 Apr 2015 at 09:38

Can anyone recommend a small (couple of inch square, maybe a little bigger) PoE IP camera ideally with IR?

Bonus points if it supports rtsp, or some means to pipe video to Zoneminder.

Ish · 22 Apr 2015 at 12:28

I've just fitted a Hikvison setup comprising of the DS-2CD2332-I cameras with the 4 channel DS-7604NI-E1-4P NVR with a 2TB WD Purple hard drive in it. I purchased from the UK as I can get trade pricing through a friend.

I'm very impressed with the quality of the system for the price. The phone app is the best I have seen and I've used quite a few different ones.

I'd certainly recommend the Hikvision equipment.

phill · 23 Apr 2015 at 09:36

Any Hikvision users here experiencing issues with Chrome recently?

Live View / Playback always worked well through the Webcomponents, and since the last couple of days I just get "Please click here to download and install the plug-in. Close the browser when installing the plug-in."

I've tried re-installing Webcomponents, cleared cache on browser etc.. annoyingly it works fine in IE. I wonder if a Chrome update has broken it...

mikeh501 · 23 Apr 2015 at 12:00

phill said:
Any Hikvision users here experiencing issues with Chrome recently?

Live View / Playback always worked well through the Webcomponents, and since the last couple of days I just get "Please click here to download and install the plug-in. Close the browser when installing the plug-in."

I've tried re-installing Webcomponents, cleared cache on browser etc.. annoyingly it works fine in IE. I wonder if a Chrome update has broken it...

yep. its to do with a chrome update on the 14th april which disables any plug ins which use NPAPI. you can re-enable using a chrome flag.

Twirlywoos · 23 Apr 2015 at 12:39

mikeh501 said:
yep. its to do with a chrome update on the 14th april which disables any plug ins which use NPAPI. you can re-enable using a chrome flag.

This is affecting BF4 plugin so I know the flag

1. Type chrome://flags/#enable-npapi in the browser's address bar and hit enter.
2. Find the "Enable NPAPI" option and click "Enable"

Longbow · 23 Apr 2015 at 13:17

Daniel said:
I have taken screenshots of the recommended settings PDF which you can see below.

I presume that's kbps and not bps? I can't imagine a minute of 2MP footage will be about 50 KB.

Bigpops · 23 Apr 2015 at 13:31

Excellent info on the NPAPI thing.

After a few days I did find out it was that update that was stopping me viewing my cameras in Chrome. I didn't know you could re-enable it, so installed FireFox just to view the cameras.

Daniel · 23 Apr 2015 at 17:27

Longbow said:
I presume that's kbps and not bps? I can't imagine a minute of 2MP footage will be about 50 KB.

Yes, it's kbps. Hikvision have put bps at the top of the chart but my settings definitely say kbps.

Scream · 26 Apr 2015 at 15:53

Need to purchase a Hikvision NVR as I have other needs for my microserver so looking for some advise on them.

You get 4-8 Channel models etc so you can connect each camera to each port. Are they set to only accept 4 cameras etc or can you have the unit view more cameras and record 5 cameras for example on a 4-port unit?

I have cameras in different buildings on my property so only about two can be connected directly to the Poe ports on the unit but all the other cameras can be accessed over the network. Just wondering what the limitations are with these units.

Thebug · 26 Apr 2015 at 16:39

Pretty sure there is an option to add remote sites on my 4ch but i think the 4ch is bandwidth limited and would struggle

Vimes · 26 Apr 2015 at 18:06

My 8 channel Hikvision NVR has none of the cameras connected directly to the POE ports but to a Netgear POE switch. However it does have a limitation of a total of eight cameras you can add and a maximum bandwidth of 40Mbs when recording.
I have six cameras connected and use just under 40Mbs so if I used all eight channels I would need to make compromises with the bitrate etc....
I would assume that the 4 channel NVR would also have a maximum of 4 devices and a further limitation on its recording capability.