Getting started with CCTV systems

[sid41299]

I need to put a two-camera system in a fairly remote location without any internet access. Motion-activation would be a nice bonus too. But I have no idea how to get into look at these. I don't even know what I don't know. How do I get started? What companies are the best and cheapest? What are some things I should know before buying a CCTV system?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

 

[Viper_]

If you go to any 3rd party security systems store if will charge you more and can even quote 15k+
If you are okay with 360 camera you can look for Mi.
But if you want a complete cctv system setup you can check cp plus it's good.

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amzn.eu

By getting the parts and getting it installed locally will save your bucks.

 

[adder]

What is the purpose of the camera, is it for indoors or outdoors, ip camera or analog camera.

But generally whether its indoor or outdoor, analog or ip camera the following below is critical.

Typically cameras have DORI distance .

Detect meaning from the installed location the distance it can detect a human from background scenery.
Observe, distance from which what you can notice what the person is doing.
Recognize, distance from which you can be able to recognize a person.
Identify, distance from which you can positively identify a person without any reasonable doubt.

So a camera 1 in location A will be able to detect and observe from location A but it may not necessarily be able to recognize a person due to wide angle lens such as a 2.8mm or 3.6mm lens.

So if you want to recognize or identify a person then you probably need a second camera with 6mm to 12mm lens. If you use only 1 camera with a 6mm or 12mm lens, it may miss whats happening everywhere else.

Or use a camera 2 at location B with a wide angle lens, now since this is location B, one may not necessarily have a power source for the camera or it is in outdoor which means the camera should be ip68 certified.

Third is the camera going to mounted high or at hand held high level. If a person is going to commit a crime doesn't want to be identified he or she may just turn the camera away or place a cloth on it, like when you use a camera with a bullet form factor.

But if you have a vandol proof camera like a turret or a dome camera, they cannot use the above methods, then can ofcourse smash a camera or spray paint.

But if its mounted high, they can't do much.

Now megapixels do also matter, in a ip camera 2mp means 1080p recording, 8mp means 4k recording. They can record directly to a NVR, NAS. It can send data and power on same cable cat 5e or cat 6 cable.

The same 2mp or 8mp in a analog camera will at best be 640x480 recording, although some newer DVR are able to record at a bit higher resolution.

Analog camera apart from recording in poor resolution also record in poor frame rate.

Analog camers will require a seperate power source and lots of wires if you are using more cameras.

Wifi camers are ip camers but may have poor resolution and frame rate and are heavily compressed. In the security camera world this is the least preferred option.

 

[6pack]

OP, hope you don't mind me sharing your thread. I have a similar requirement for a cctv setup where there is no internet connection and with only 24/7 power. We need 3-4 cctv camera which record to a NVR or directly to a shared local storage. With night vision and motion detection. Quite similar to your requirement i think.

Searching YouTube gave me reasons to avoid these tiny home cameras that are being sold everywhere now for ₹2k+. Why? All of them require an active internet connection and their own app which wants all permissions on the phone. None of them record to a DVR or computer. Some of them won't even record to the sdcard without internet connection to setup the camera. And all of them have some sort of costly subscription plan to sell cloud storage. Plus some of them even push updates that cripple the camera after 1-2 years (Dahua). So these cameras don't fulfill my requirements. Oh, stay away from those AHD cameras. They are analog cameras which record in less than 720 resolution but still called analog HD. They are not hd.

 

[adder]

OP, hope you don't mind me sharing your thread. I have a similar requirement for a cctv setup where there is no internet connection and with only 24/7 power. We need 3-4 cctv camera which record to a NVR or directly to a shared local storage. With night vision and motion detection. Quite similar to your requirement i think.

Plus some of them even push updates that cripple the camera after 1-2 years (Dahua).

If no Internet connection then stick with hikvision, dahua, cp plus(orange line rebadged dahua, while there purple line is rebadged uniview cameras).

Of these hikvision availability is more in India. Of late dahua is expanding in india.

I mainly have dahua camera, since at time of first purchase there cameras had better sensors.

Nvr you get 2 types one with built in poe switch and one which requires a seperate poe switch.

Motion detection is quite old tech, when you have to sit and view a recording for severals hours it will be a PIA to go through all the video.

These days you have AI in the camera or the NVR which only records humans or vehicles, since otherwise just switching on Motion detections records or give false events on rustling leaves, rain, vehicle headlight, birds, birds shadow etc.

Avoid bullet style cameras at all cost.

 

[6pack]

If no Internet connection then stick with hikvision, dahua, cp plus(orange line rebadged dahua, while there purple line is rebadged uniview cameras).

Do Indian brands rebadge the Chinese stuff? Godrej, Hero group, etc all of their cameras look like Chinese stuff.

 

[blr_p]

Avoid bullet style cameras at all cost.

Why's that ?

 

[adder]

Why's that ?

Its because of the form factor alone, its not vandal proof. Its form factor makes it easy to place a cloth to hide the crime. Its also gives a idea from far to the everyone about the general direction the camera is aimed. Dome cameras makes its hard to know which direction the camera is facing, until one observes it from near distance.

Do Indian brands rebadge the Chinese stuff? Godrej, Hero group, etc all of their cameras look like Chinese stuff.

Yes there is zero indian made cameras, all are rebadged cameras or made to order. Most have hisilicon chipset, only the sensor varies from sony, omnivison, panasonic, samsung, aptina.
With tier 1 mainstream security camera brands like Dahua and hikvison using some of the best up to date sensors and chipset and lenses with competitive pricing relative to the below mention brands.

If one doesn't want chinese stuff, brands like Axis are used, they are one of the most expensive brands but spend so much time on video processing to get some of the best images. Most government high security buildings in the world use brands like Axis, Sony, Bosch. sadly in India you will find chinese.

Cheap brands especially in night vision, use long shutter to show details in poor light, the footage from it useless, at best we will know its a male or female. Some have so much digital noise that the person blends into a wall.

Cheap cameras also do poorly to get a simple thing such as a number plate of a vehicle.

Even camera footage from brands like Amazon RING and google Nest are butt of all jokes in CCTV camera world.

 

[blr_p]

Its because of the form factor alone, its not vandal proof. Its form factor makes it easy to place a cloth to hide the crime. Its also gives a idea from far to the everyone about the general direction the camera is aimed. Dome cameras makes its hard to know which direction the camera is facing, until one observes it from near distance.

A slingshot with decent aim will blind any camera. Or just a paintball gun. The only way I can think to vandal proof is to obscure it somehow. Can't take it out if you cannot see it or know where it is.

There needs to be some trickery with misdirects in the placing of cameras. Even a decoy or two has minimal deterrence value. If its obvious they don't look further.

All goes for a toss if detecting IR with a mobile camera will reveal exactly where they are. Do any of these cameras emit IR for better night vision?

 

[adder]

IR in camera will turned on only when the light is really low or it runs on a schedule, I rarely turn on the IR since the street is well lit.
I don't think theives have time for sling shot and paint ball guns, unless its a pre planed event like stealing a high end store.

In india due to piss poor installation they can just cut the dangling wire from the camera and disable it.
Professional level install in western countries use ip67 steel conduit, which makes it hard to cut.

Newer cameras like Dahua TIOC series have active deterrence like on board high dB alarm and led lights to deter them from coming close to the camera.

In my house I do not have a alarm, even though the camera as a port for alarm out, I couldn't find good ip67 rated connectors, speakers. They do sell them but no one is bothered to sell one or two pieces. Only 100 pieces or more.

So the way I do is I had a PTZ camera like those in traffic signals, the movement of the PTZ panning around deters intimidates people, many think that some one is controling the camera live, like those in traffic signals.

Another thing is in a tropical country like ours, water protection of connectors, enclosure is critical. I have infact have removed or shutdown all the outdoor cameras directly in rain, due to poor IP67 connectors and mounts sold in India. If one does find those connectors then either they are too expensive or are not UV rated(mine). Many cameras you see in bangalore traffic signals or streets are non functional, those expensive PTZ cameras all appear to be kaput and have not moved a inch. All due to poor installation.

Not one dealer sells official accessories in India, with aliexpress not shipping, I have to wait for someone to bring the accessories from other countries.

In western countries where houses buildings are made of wood, they just hide all the wires by making a hole in wall and wire/cable run are all inside the wooden wall and the dry wall. Since in our countries we have brick walls, we have to use a conduit pipe. Even if one builds a house with this in mind for laying cat6 cables strategically through the house with internal conduit plastic pipes, the moment they terminate out of the wall, one steel needs a ip67 rated flexible /rigid conduit pipe and mounts which are just not available in India or pay 5x the price for imported ones.

 

[6pack]

Can we use webcams for 24/7 recording inside the house?

Edit: this tplink camera has that tamper detection.

TP-Link VIGI C400HP 3MP Security Outdoor Bullet Network Camera | 2.8mm Lens | Night Vision | 3D DNR | Smart IR Detection | WDR | H.265+ | PoE/12V DC, White.

https://amzn.eu/d/9L6sbid

Description says bullet camera but it's a turret camera according to pictures.

 

[adder]

Tamper detection will give you alert if the camera position is changed. But no Internet means no live alerts.

Also the few amazon reviews state poor video quality. I would stick with mainstrean cctv brands, one thing hikvison or dahua get right is quality of the recorded video.

 

[6pack]

For diy folks. Video is in Hindi but it's easy to understand what he's doing.

Tldr:
You need IPTV CCTV cameras, a Power over Ethernet switch, a Network Video Recorder and a laptop to change the default ip addresses of the cameras since all cameras have the same ip address and will clash if you connect them to the network first without changing ip address. Same problem as if you had multiple pc with same ip address in a network.

 

[sid41299]

Hello folks, thank you for all the advice earlier but now the requirements have changed. We need a SIM-enabled camera that can upload to any cloud service we want, with decent quality. Sorry if this is too little information, so feel free to ask me anything.

Thanks in advance

 

[rajneeshrana]

For two cameras it would be better to go with Mi 360 or similar cameras and use Wifi hotspot to access them through Internet.
have used Mi cameras and their app is good and picture quality is above average.

 

[Soyab0007]

What is the purpose of the camera, is it for indoors or outdoors, ip camera or analog camera.

But generally whether its indoor or outdoor, analog or ip camera the following below is critical.

Typically cameras have DORI distance .

Detect meaning from the installed location the distance it can detect a human from background scenery.
Observe, distance from which what you can notice what the person is doing.
Recognize, distance from which you can be able to recognize a person.
Identify, distance from which you can positively identify a person without any reasonable doubt.

So a camera 1 in location A will be able to detect and observe from location A but it may not necessarily be able to recognize a person due to wide angle lens such as a 2.8mm or 3.6mm lens.

So if you want to recognize or identify a person then you probably need a second camera with 6mm to 12mm lens. If you use only 1 camera with a 6mm or 12mm lens, it may miss whats happening everywhere else.

Or use a camera 2 at location B with a wide angle lens, now since this is location B, one may not necessarily have a power source for the camera or it is in outdoor which means the camera should be ip68 certified.

Third is the camera going to mounted high or at hand held high level. If a person is going to commit a crime doesn't want to be identified he or she may just turn the camera away or place a cloth on it, like when you use a camera with a bullet form factor.

But if you have a vandol proof camera like a turret or a dome camera, they cannot use the above methods, then can ofcourse smash a camera or spray paint.

But if its mounted high, they can't do much.

Now megapixels do also matter, in a ip camera 2mp means 1080p recording, 8mp means 4k recording. They can record directly to a NVR, NAS. It can send data and power on same cable cat 5e or cat 6 cable.

The same 2mp or 8mp in a analog camera will at best be 640x480 recording, although some newer DVR are able to record at a bit higher resolution.

Analog camera apart from recording in poor resolution also record in poor frame rate.

Analog camers will require a seperate power source and lots of wires if you are using more cameras.

Wifi camers are ip camers but may have poor resolution and frame rate and are heavily compressed. In the security camera world this is the least preferred option.

NVR vs DVR what's the difference, and which one will be best for 8 CCTV cameras in farmhouse having an internet connection
Cost-wise, Is there a big difference between HD vs. IP cameras?

 

[adder]

NVR vs DVR what's the difference, and which one will be best for 8 CCTV cameras in farmhouse having an internet connection
Cost-wise, Is there a big difference between HD vs. IP cameras?

NVR uses IP cameras, where data and power is sent with just one cat 6 cable/camera. The recorded resolution can be uptil the native resolution of the camera(no limit), with high frame rate upto 60fps as of now, depending on the camera and nvr. Ip cameras all have onboard video decoding(.h264 or h.265 or propietary h.264+, .h265+), so the stream can be recorded to a NAS without need of a NVR, in which case a router will need to do the DHCP. A NVR can also do the DHCP, without any router. You can watch the stream with just a router and a ipcamera on a phone or via local network/internet. Quality of video can be as high as 16mb/s per camera for a dahua/cp plus orange line or hikvison.

DVR is used for analog legacy cameras with BNC connector. They are cheap, they can typically record in 720p or lower resolution, irespective of camera sensor mega pixel and with low fps less then 15fps, some do record in 4k but resolution and fps may drop with more channels. The DVR does the video decoding and is usually heavily compressed. Each camera needs a power and video wires. So without DVR you cannot watch or record a feed. Most DVRs record in D1 resolution which is typical dvd resolution.

So yes IP cameras are more expensive, atleast twice as expensive. Whether its worth it depends on the individual use case. Majority in India use dvr with analog cameras, soley because of the el cheapo price or because of the old existing connections in the building. Many business in the west do not upgrade to nvr and ip camera because of the labor cost alone for removing wires and installing new cat6 cables. New buildings mostly always use IP cameras.

But big business, companies and people who know stuff or want the installation to look neat use IP cameras, the extra resolution and lesser compression could be of help in postively identifying a person or a number plate in the court of law. Big difference between it sort of looks like this person vs its 100% that person in the court of law.