Advice on what to buy.

[10bad10]

Hello all,

First off this place is great for info and I want to thank everyone in advance for any input. Second I want to apologize for all of my questions. I am a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of options this whole endeavor offers.

So, I’ve finally been greenlit by the wife to buy a camera system. As it stands now I prewired all 4 second story corners of my house with cat6A and can easily hit the bottom corners if necessary. I at minimum want a camera at the front door and am debating whether it is better to have cameras up high on the second story corners or down low on the first story corners. Hikvision cameras seem to be a good compromise of quality and price but even within that brand there are so many options (dome, turret, bullet; 3mp, 4mp; lenses). The only thing I know for sure is I want POE and I want high enough quality that I could recognize a face or see the plate of a passing car. If there is another brand of camera that could accomplish this then I would be open to it. I’ve attached some pictures to help show what I want to cover.

The next thing I am trying to decide is recording. I have a QNAP TS‑451 with 10tb of open WD red storage but have been turned off by the high cost camera licenses and limited functionality. Due to this I am looking at either a HIKVISION DS-7616NI-E2/8P , DS-7608NI-I2/8P or building a PC to handle a Blue Iris install. What are other people out there using and what are the advantages of each?

In all of this I do not want to be cheap. I want to do it the right way the first time and build slow if I have to.

I’m really eager to get this project going and welcome all advice.

-Dave

 

[nayr]

Lower the better unless you have massive zoom.. you need to be closer to head-hight plane as possible.

forget domes outdoors, turrets or bullets are your choices so that makes it a little easier to decide.. Turrets usually trump most unless you have a narrow mounting point like a beam or box.. avoid IR that has an array of round diodes, the square surface mount diodes are vastly more powerful and the camera usually only needs one or two.. they wont give you halo effects or attract near as many bugs since they direct all the IR away from the camera and dont rely on reflectors.

Avoid the temptation for wide angle outside (2.8mm), those are for inside at close range.. I can piss farther than they can ID humans at night.. using appropriate amount of zoom is the best way to get that detail needed for an ID in the dark..

Hardware NVR's are simple and bullet proof, BluIris is feature packed.. If you want to mix and match brands in a piece meal setup, or use cleverly trained motion recording then BluIris is the only way to go.. If your going to stick w/Hik til the end and would rather a simpler setup then by all means go for the hardware NVR.. it comes down mostly to personal preference.

Building slow is a fantastic idea, I am 2 years into my build and still adding cameras.. addressing weak spots and figuring out how to make it better and easier.. and I been playing with security cameras for well over a decade now.

Its your money, I'm not going to tell you what to buy.. but also consider Dahua and LTS brands.. and research until your happy with what your spending money on.

oh yeah, https://ipvm.com/calculator <-- learn to use this to its fullest extent, use the map and fill in all the slots correctly.. maintain PPF > 100 at night for ID capabilities.