[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by bimmer456

The quality of the video on my cameras is as good as any others i've seen, including the screen shot above. It is black and white in night vision mode though. I'm not aware of any that are color in night vision mode.

I don't want to get into a potential pissing match, but the capture you posted above isn't that impressive to me. Here is one I just grabbed from the front door camera:



Note, the current weather is cloudy and rainy. The image quality pops more when there is more light.

Here's a night vision shot of a Hikvision camera posted by P1et in the long running IP camera discussion thread I posted a link of:



I'd post a capture from the camera I have in my garage showing how good the night vision is in a totally pitch dark setting but I'm a bit embarrassed by the current mess in my garage.

So far I haven't seen anything from the usual offerings from Lorex, Foscam, etc that comes close.

ETA: The image grab from the front door camera was done via the Hikvision Android app.

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I don't want to get into a potential pissing match, but the capture you posted above isn't that impressive to me. Here is one I just grabbed from the front door camera:



Note, the current weather is cloudy and rainy. The image quality pops more when there is more light.

Here's a night vision shot of a Hikvision camera posted by P1et in the long running IP camera discussion thread I posted a link of:



I'd post a capture from the camera I have in my garage showing how good the night vision is in a totally pitch dark setting but I'm a bit embarrassed by the current mess in my garage.

So far I haven't seen anything from the usual offerings from Lorex, Foscam, etc that comes close.

ETA: The image grab from the front door camera was done via the Hikvision Android app.

I didn't post that image capture, that was from another poster.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by bimmer456

I didn't post that image capture, that was from another poster.

Sorry. My mistake.

[Yas Marina F80]

I found these to work great. I’ve used Q-See for the longest. But Amcrest is my new favorite. They are a bit pricey.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C6DJXDI..._BB6JzbFR3WJX7

I’m actually getting a set for my new home. I’ve used them for new office setup. Have not had any issues nor complaints.

[c1pher]

Depending on how resilient you want the system to be and how handy you are, you want a system that uses power over ethernet (POE) and while it’s great to have a lot of local storage, consider using a cloud storage service. Bad guys know enough to steal your dvr and then you just wasted a bunch of time and money. It’s worth it to pay someone if you don’t know what you’re doing. Home security companies can provide this as well.

Wireless is easy to disrupt and if they cut the power to your house you’re hosed. POE is much more difficult to defeat.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by MGM135is

Depending on how resilient you want the system to be and how handy you are, you want a system that uses power over ethernet (POE) and while it’s great to have a lot of local storage, consider using a cloud storage service. Bad guys know enough to steal your dvr and then you just wasted a bunch of time and money. It’s worth it to pay someone if you don’t know what you’re doing. Home security companies can provide this as well.

Wireless is easy to disrupt and if they cut the power to your house you’re hosed. POE is much more difficult to defeat.

I agree PoE is the way to go when installing IP cameras. But it's more for better reliability in regards to wireless and more options on where you can install said IP cameras. PoE still depends on power from some source. PoE is just the ability to send power down the same cable used for data communications (Ethernet cable). The power being sent down the Ethernet cable is done via an inline injector or a PoE capable Ethernet switch. But these two devices still get their power from a wall outlet. If the crooks are that versed to cut the power to your house, you're screwed as all your PoE devices will go dead not to mention the rest of your electronics like any NVR or network equipment (ie dead cloud storage).

I'm a bit extreme and I don't think many people would do things like me. But my house has layers of power protection. If someone were to be able to cut the power, I have a 20kW backup generator. If that gets defeated, I have a 6000VA UPS with an add on battery enclosure which can keep all the my IT gear, including IP cameras running for 1.5 hours. The run time on batteries would be longer if it wasn't for all the servers and storage array I'm running. As another layer of protection, I have a security system which has comms over land line and via cellular. The security system has it's own battery backup which can keep the system fully functional for about 24 hours.

In regards to the risk of NVR theft, that is a danger. So the NVR should at least be hidden away some where difficult to find. With the layers of protection I have with my home, I just have to make the NVR difficult to find; don't need impossible. As if they're looking for the NVR, the security system should have the cops on their way so their time is limited. The ideal situation is what you brought up which is to have offsite storage. But I hate anything "cloud" related. To me cloud based systems trap you into having to pay recurring monthly charges. I have a vacation property which I am setting up some IT equipment to turn it into a sort of DR site to my main residence. Unfortunately, the ISP I have at my vacation property is total crap. So I can't rely on the service at my vacation property to be solid enough to accept real time video streams of an incident at my primary home.

[c1pher]

I hate cloud too, but not everyone has a way to offsite the data. I just sold my second home so my brother is letting put data at his house. And of course I will reciprocate.

Very good additional information. I was trying to keep it simple for the OP.

[bosstones]

Haven't really found many review on Hikvision's 5MP bullet cams. Thoughts?

[paliknight]

Originally Posted by bosstones

Haven't really found many review on Hikvision's 5MP bullet cams. Thoughts?

link to model youre looking at?

[dreamingat30fps]

I'm cheap and lazy (don't want to wire cameras). I have 3 foscams connected to my QNAP that I already use for storage and media streaming. Works fine for me. Will slowly upgrade my 2 older 720p foscams to the newer 1080p since its much better video

[wdb]

Cheap battery backup unit takes care of the power issue. Agree on offsite data storage.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by theriz

I bought a 16 camera package from lorex on black black Friday of last year. Was 1,200.00 for 16 2k cameras and DVR. The picture is incredible during the day and at night. My brother in law works for a security company (Level 3 tech) and is very impressed with the cameras. Dont waste your time at Sams, costco, etc.

I highly recommend Lorex.

https://www.lorextechnology.com/hd-s...meras/N-yk46px

Edit: Bought something similar to this - https://www.lorextechnology.com/hd-i...0804-1612W-1-p but it was MSRP 3,000.00 at the time. Cameras are progressing incredibly fast. Most camera companies are skipping 2k and going straight to 4k.

This company is owned by FLIR and they are one of the best company in the industry for Infrared technology, this is the company who develops this stuff for the Police and Military. No knowing anything else about them, I would have to imaging their night technology is probably one of the best. I use to use they Infrared systems back in the day when I did lots of engineering work. I know their products well.

[bosstones]

Originally Posted by paliknight

link to model youre looking at?

Guess I was looking at a different model earlier....found a couple on YouTube for the DS-2CD2055FWD-I. Noisier in low light than the 3MP flavors.

[paliknight]

Originally Posted by bosstones

Guess I was looking at a different model earlier....found a couple on YouTube for the DS-2CD2055FWD-I. Noisier in low light than the 3MP flavors.

I went with the 2k 3MP cameras and they work fairly well. I wish i had went with the 4k 5MP cameras though because the faces arent very clear on camera and at night they get worse. Still a decent system for the price though.

[paliknight]

Originally Posted by MGM135is

I hate cloud too, but not everyone has a way to offsite the data. I just sold my second home so my brother is letting put data at his house. And of course I will reciprocate.

Very good additional information. I was trying to keep it simple for the OP.

How do you guys have your offsite data backup configured? Im tech savvy but Im not familiar with offsite storage. my unit is connected to the internet, but Im not sure how to route backup storage to another HDD.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by paliknight

How do you guys have your offsite data backup configured? Im tech savvy but Im not familiar with offsite storage. my unit is connected to the internet, but Im not sure how to route backup storage to another HDD.

How I'm going to do it when I get some more free time to finish the setup is to stand up a site to site VPN tunnel between my primary home and my vacation property. I have two iSCSI storage arrays. One will be at my primary home and the other will be at my vacation property. I will be configuring these two iSCSI arrays to be replication partners. So when I want to replicate data, I will power up the remote array by using a managed PDU I have installed at my vacation property. Once the array comes up, the replication process will copy any deltas in data over to the remote array. After this gets done, I'll just power down the array. I also have plans to add in WAN op devices on both ends to increase performance over the ISP circuits I have at both locations.

[P1]

Here's a 4MP camera I just added to my system...

[bosstones]

Anyone have recommendations on PoE switches? Seems like most have few PoE ports. Looking for something w/ 10+ PoE ports.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by bosstones

Anyone have recommendations on PoE switches? Seems like most have few PoE ports. Looking for something w/ 10+ PoE ports.

I've had pretty good luck with Netgear switches. Particularly those in the ProSafe business line. You're probably looking at a 16 port PoE switch. I would also recommend considering getting a PoE+ capable switch. PoE or IEEE 802.3af provides up to 15.4W of power per port. PoE+ or 802.3at provides up to 30W of power. Why would you need that much power? Well, PTZ cameras need the extra power for the motors. Also 802.11ac wireless access points require PoE+ to run at full performance. You also want to look at the specs closely for any PoE/PoE+ switch. Some PoE/PoE+ switches do not provide full power across all PoE/PoE+ ports when all or some number of ports are supplying power. Switches that fall into this situation either cut power a set amount across all ports or degrade power in increments with either power output or the number of ports degraded. Ideally you want to find a switch which advertises full power output across all ports. The downside are these switches which supply full power will cost more due to the beefed up power supply.

[bosstones]

Thnx, zx10. Does an EXIR vs standard IR bullet make a difference? Also, I assume a camera being POE+ isn't a thing since the '+' on the switch-side just means more power is available for the camera to draw (if needed).

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by bosstones

Thnx, zx10. Does an EXIR vs standard IR bullet make a difference? Also, I assume a camera being POE+ isn't a thing since the '+' on the switch-side just means more power is available for the camera to draw (if needed).

You have to look at he specs of the camera. It'll indicate either PoE or PoE+. The specs should also show how much power the camera will draw. Many times it won't be at the maximum of the spec the camera was designed to operate. For instance, a PoE camera may only draw 13W.

If the camera is listed as PoE+, you need to provide PoE+ power which is anywhere from 15.5W to 30W.

[P1]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

You have to look at he specs of the camera. It'll indicate either PoE or PoE+. The specs should also show how much power the camera will draw. Many times it won't be at the maximum of the spec the camera was designed to operate. For instance, a PoE camera may only draw 13W.

If the camera is listed as PoE+, you need to provide PoE+ power which is anywhere from 15.5W to 30W.

I believe the higher power draw is related to motorized components, such as varifocal lenses or PTZs.