Camera setup for House - suggestion

Flerken

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Hello guys,

I would like to install cameras on house, because number of burglaries is increasing. But I am totally new in this. Can you please help me?

Here is the plan:
1614629015899.png

I decided to use 4MP Turret ColorVu series from Hikvision - DS-2CD2347G2-LU which has 2.8/4/6mm fixed lens.
  • Camera 1 (green) : 2.8mm, installation height approx 3.7m, distance 16m
  • Camera 2 (red): 4mm, installation height approx 3.7m distance, 14m
  • Camera 3 (blue): 2.8mm,installation height approx 3m, distance 14m
Everything will go to Synology DS220+ (2x6TB) in RAID. First of all, I have checked compatibility list from Synology but there is not 2CD2347 2nd gen, only G1. Will it work? Or could be there some issue?
And main question...is this setup ok? Can I do something better?

Thank you very much for any advice!
 

wittaj

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You are picking the wrong cameras for what you are trying to capture. 3.7 meters high will get you tops of heads and hoodies and 16meters distance will let you know something happened, but not who did it. Needs to be like 2 meters high and no more than 3-4m for a 2.8mm camera.

You need to pick the right camera for the location you are trying to capture images of. A 2.8mm lens is the wrong camera to identify people 14 meters away. A 32mm lens is the wrong camera trying to ID someone 2 meters away. Both cameras are great, but used in the wrong location results in not capturing what you want to identify.

Take a look at this chart - to identify someone with the 2.8mm lens popular someone would have to be within 3-4 meters of the camera.

1604638118196.png



My neighbor was bragging to me how he only needed his 4 cams to see his entire property and the street and his whole backyard. His car was sitting in the driveway practically touching the garage door and his video quality was useless to ID the perp not even 3 meters away (mainly because he also had cameras that provided zero ability to dial them in so the perp was a blurry motion mess). They provide a great overview but that is it unless it is in a confined area like a hallway or at the front door to Identify someone that knocks on the door and not to identify someone walking in the street.

Get a good varifocal camera and test and then buy. @SouthernYankee or @sebastiantombs will jump in here soon with their standard welcome message.

Do not buy into the ColorVu hype or full color or some marketing buzz word - all cameras need light and a lot of it and that is simple physics.
 
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sebastiantombs

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:welcome:

Welcome to the enchanted land of video surveillance lunatics, good guys, nut jobs and miscreants (yes, I fit into at least three categories). There are a lot of knowledgeable people on here and knowledge and experience are shared constantly. That's how I got to be a lunatic (already a nut job and miscreant).

Start out by looking in the WiKi in the blue bar at the top of the page. There's a ton of very useful information in there and it needs to be viewed on a computer, not a phone or tablet. The Cliff Notes will be of particular interest although the camera models listed there are a generation old at this point. The best way to determine what kind of camera you need in each location and where each location should really be is to buy one varifocal camera first and set up a test stand for it that can be easily moved around. Test using that, viewing using the web interface of the camera, during the day and at night. Have someone walk around behaving like a miscreant and see if you can identify them. There is also information for choosing hardware and securing the system along with a whole bunch of other good stuff.

Don't chase megapixels unless you have a really BIG budget. General rule of thumb is that a 4MP camera will easily outperform an 8MP camera when they both have the same sensor size. Reason being that there are twice as many pixels in the 8MP versus the 4MP. This results in only half the available light getting to each pixel in an 8MP that a pixel in the 4MP "sees".

A dedicated PC doesn't need to be either expensive to purchase or to run. A used business class machine can be had from eBay and various other sources. The advances made in Blue Iris make it easily possible to run a fairly large system on relatively inexpensive hardware which also makes power consumption low, as in under 50 watts in many cases. The biggest expenses turn out to be hard drives for storing video and a PoE switch to power the cameras and, of course, the cameras themselves.

The three basic rules of video surveillance cameras-

Rule #1 - Cameras multiply like rabbits.
Rule #2 - Cameras are more addictive than drugs.
Rule #3 - You never have enough cameras.

Quick guide -

The smaller the lux number the better the low light performance. 0.002 is better than 0.02
The smaller the "F" of the lens the better the low light performance. F1.4 is better than F1.8
The larger the sensor the better the low light performance. 1/1.8" is better (bigger) than 1/2.7"
The higher the megapixels for the same size sensor the worse the low light performance. A 4MP camera with a 1/1.8" sensor will perform better than a 8MP camera with that same 1/1.8" sensor.

Don't believe all the marketing hype no matter who makes the camera. Don't believe those nice night time captures they all use. Look for videos, with motion, to determine low light performance. Any camera can be made to "see" color at night if the exposure time is long enough, as in half a second or longer. Rule of thumb, the shutter speed needs to be at 1/60 or higher to get night video without blurring.

Read the reviews here, most include both still shots and video.

Lens size, focal length, is another critical factor. Many people like the wide, sweeping, views of a 2.8mm lens but be aware that identification is problematic with a lens that wide. Watch this video to learn how to analyze each location for appropriate lens size and keep in mind that it may take two cameras to provide the coverage you need or desire. Another factor that effects view angles is the sensor size. Typically larger sensors will have a larger field of view in any given lens size.

The 5442 series of cameras by Dahua is the current "king of the hill". They are 4MP and capable of color with some ambient light at night. The 2231 series is a less expensive alternative in 2MP and does not have audio capabilities, no built in microphone, but is easier on the budget. The 3241T-ZAS has similar spcs as the 2231 and has audio. There are also cameras available from the IPCT Store right here on the forum and from Nelly's Security who has a thread in the vendors section.

5442 Reviews

Review - Loryata (Dahua OEM) IPC-T5442T-ZE varifocal Turret

Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+

Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ Turret

Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Turret, Full Color, Starlight+)

Review: IPC-HDBW5442R-ASE-NI - Dahua Technology Pro AI Bullet Network Camera

2231 Review
Review-OEM IPC-T2231RP-ZS 2mp Varifocal Turret Starlight Camera

3241T-ZAS Review

Less expensive models -

VPN Information Thread
 

SouthernYankee

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:welcome:
Start with one good quality variable focus IP camera. Use a test mount for the camera. Use the camera to test the lens and camera placement. test with a "bad Guy" at night wearing a hoodie, with motion. If the video will not help the cops ID the bad guy and standup in court.
From you picture you are trying to do to much with to few cameras, you will get OK video of what happened, but not who did it. So the video is next to useless.

Provide pictures of the front and back of the house. If you have large windows or doors on the side then pictures of the side.


Start slow build a little at a time and learn as you go.

For my house: (Yes it is a little over the top)
============================================
1) the front door needs three cameras, one doorbell camera pointing out, one pointing at the package drop area, one pointing back to the front door from the overhang
2) the garage door entrance two cameras pointing out mounted no higher than the top of the garage door, on each side of the door for car door checkers, I use 6mm cameras.
3) the inside of the garage need two cameras one point at the garage door and one point at the house entrance
4) each entrance to the house must be covered by a camera.
5) each camera must be covered by another camera, If i can destroy a camera it must be covered, recorded by another camera.
6) in my house all public areas inside are covered, kitchen, living room, dining room, halls, game room, den
7) all outside doors are covered by a camera inside, pointing out.
 
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SouthernYankee

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My standard welcome to the forum message.

Read Study Plan before spending money
Cameras are for surveillance to get information for after the fact.

Please read the IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes and other items in the IP Cam Talk Wiki. (read on a real computer, not a phone). The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) in the wiki also.



Quick start
1) If you do not have a wired monitored alarm system, get that first
2) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras if you need good low light cameras.
3) Start with a good variable focus camera, so you test for the correct lens,lighting, camera placement.
4) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
5) Do not use wifi cameras.
6) Do not use cloud storage
7) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
8) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
9) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
10) Do not use reolink, ring, nest, Arlo, Vivint cameras (they are junk), no cloud cameras
11) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
12) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
13) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
14) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 7ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
15) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
16) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3
17) POE list PoE Switch Suggestion List
18) Camera Sensor size, bigger is general better Sensor Size Chart
19) Camera lens size, a bigger number give more range but less field of view. Which Security Camera Lens Size Should I Buy?
20) verify your camera placement, have a friend wearing a hoodie, ball cap and sunglasses looking down approach the house, can you identify them at night ?
21) DO NOT UPGRADE your NVR or camera unless you absolutely have a problem that needs to be fixed and known what you are doing, if you do you will turn it into a brick !!

Cameras to look at
IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED . Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+) - 4MP starlight
.................... Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED review
IPC-T5442TM-AS ..... Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ - 4MP starlight+
IPC-HDW5442t-ZE .... Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE 4MP Varifocal Turret - Night Perfomance testing -- variable focus 2.7 mm-12mm 4 MP Starlight
IPC-B5442E-ZE ...... Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+ -- variable 2.7mm-12mm bullet
IPC-B5442E-Z4E .... bullet 8mm-32mm variable focus zoom 4MP
IPC-HFW7442H-Z ..... Review - Dahua IPC-HFW7442H-Z 4MP Ultra AI Varifocal Bullet Camera -- 4 MP variable focus AI
IPC-T2347G-LU ...... Review of the Hikvision OEM model IPC-T2347G-LU 'ColorVu' IP CCTV camera. (DS-2CD2347G1-LU)
IPC-HDW2231R-ZS .... Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal
IPC-HDW2231T-ZS-S2 . Review-OEM IPC-T2231T-ZS Ver 2, 2mp Varifocal Starlight Camera
IPC-HDW5231R-ZE .... Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE
IPC-HFW4239T-ASE ... IPC-HFW4239T-ASE
IPCT-HDW5431RE-I ... Review - IP Cam Talk 4 MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera
IPC-T5241H-AS-PV ... Review-OEM IPC-T5241H-AS-PV 2mp AI active deterrence cam
IPC-T3241-ZAS ...... Review-OEM IPC-T3241-ZAS 2mp AI Lite series Varifocal -- 2mp AI Lite series Varifocal
IPC-HFW2831T-ZS ... Review-Dahua IPC-HFW2831T-ZS 8MP WDR IR Bullet Network Camera -- 8MP Bullet 1/1.8” sensor variable focus.
DS-2CD2325FWD-I
N22AL12 ............ New Dahua N22AL12 Budget Cam w/Starlight -- low cost entry
IPC-T2347G-LU....... Review-Loryta OEM 4MP IPC-T2347G-LU ColorVu Fixed Turret Network 4mm lens & Junction Box -- 4MP ColorVu
.................... Review of the Hikvision OEM model IPC-T2347G-LU 'ColorVu' IP CCTV camera.

My preferred indoor cameras
DS-2CD2442FWD-IW
IPC-K35A Review-Dahua IPC-K35A 3mp Cube Camera
IPC-K42A

If interested in Blue Iris and other setup items see the following post

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
Doing it right the first time will save you money.
Test do not guess
 

Flerken

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Thank you guys for showing me direction. I would like to install cameras on soffit which is only place where I can get wiring.
I am not hyped by ColorVu, but on the street there is enough light for this type of camera. I dont like reflections which are caused by IR.

Backyard of house is complete in dark, so there I am satisfied with IR, but not in front of the house.

Should I go for Darkfighter instead of ColorVu?
 

mat200

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Hello guys,

I would like to install cameras on house, because number of burglaries is increasing. But I am totally new in this. Can you please help me?

Here is the plan:
View attachment 83697

I decided to use 4MP Turret ColorVu series from Hikvision - DS-2CD2347G2-LU which has 2.8/4/6mm fixed lens.
  • Camera 1 (green) : 2.8mm, installation height approx 3.7m, distance 16m
  • Camera 2 (red): 4mm, installation height approx 3.7m distance, 14m
  • Camera 3 (blue): 2.8mm,installation height approx 3m, distance 14m
Everything will go to Synology DS220+ (2x6TB) in RAID. First of all, I have checked compatibility list from Synology but there is not 2CD2347 2nd gen, only G1. Will it work? Or could be there some issue?
And main question...is this setup ok? Can I do something better?

Thank you very much for any advice!
Welcome @Flerken

Camera specs look good

1614637023259.png

Try to mount the cameras low, plan for more cameras cover the front of the house. ( start with just a couple cameras at first and learn about them more before cutting any holes in the walls )
 

Flerken

n3wb
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@mat200,

I will add one more camera above the entrance. Sides are safe and covered by neighbor's dogs. Goal is to cover front and backyard.
Front doesnt need addtional light, there is enough from street lights. As @wittaj pointed out, I need something else.

I dont want to use cameras with IR (at front), because licensing plate will be unreadable thanks to reflection.
Because of range and height I cant use 2.8mm. It is like 15meters from the corner of the house to the road.

As I understand, best option is to look for varifocal camera. Worst part is that I need to buy camera to test it out.
 

wittaj

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You would be surprised how much light these cameras need to stay in color at night (for the cameras that can switch to B/W with IR).

You buy the varifocal to test at each location you want coverage, then you install that camera at one of the locations - so it isn't a wasted camera.

I have 33,000 lumen radiating off my house and I have to force the camera in color as it is not enough light for the camera to automatically stay in color at night. The sensors are small in cameras and need a lot of light.

I have enough light at this location that the little LED white light on the camera didn’t make a difference. This is a 4MP camera on the 1/2.8" sensor with an LED white light as part of the camera. So with this 1/120 shutter speed, I wanted to see if the camera could perform with only the white light from the camera and the flood lights turned off. As you can see from this video, it never recognized me at these settings. You would need to run 1/80 shutter with just the white light to be able to start to make a person out, but the image is way too dark. But if I run a slower shutter to make the image brighter, then I get blur.

The average Joe will not spend the time to calibrate and will just leave the settings on auto and love the great still image they get and then just accept a blur/ghost motion at night. When do we need these to perform - at night!

Keep in mind that with the shutter at auto, it is a nice bright image and looks like noon at midnight, but motion was a blur...once you dial the camera in to actually be usable, you see the limitations...



Regarding license plates....You will not read license plates at night in color. And certainly not with a fixed lens camera at that location. In fact, you need to rely on the reflective nature of the plates and need infrared. And you need to run a fast shutter (1/2,000). The screen should be black except for the headlight/tailight and plates popping out! This is why too many people that try to use it as an overview camera and LPR are mad they cannot get plates at night - you get one or the other but not both with a camera for LPR unless there is a ton of ambient light or the car comes to a stop, neither of which you have by looking at your image above.

Here is my plate capture from 175 out. My angle is about 40 degrees vertical, 45 degrees horizontal. Camera is 35 feet above street at this location.

1608390461393.png


The go to camera is the 5241-Z12E as it has enough zoom to make the plates large. But this camera serves no other purpose than to be able to view plates. At night the image will be completely black except for the headlight/taillight and the plate. Look at this subforum for all the details:

 

Flerken

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Probably I will pick something like this (for licensing plate) later. I have checked Hikvision series and got this 2 options with DarkFighter:
  • DS-2CD2H45FWD-IZS
  • DS-2CD2H46G2-IZS
These cameras has 4MP and varifocal lens from 2.8mm to 12mm. I would go for Acusense. Your opinion guys?
 

wittaj

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I do not know the distances you are at, but guessing based on that aerial, there is no way a 12mm will get you plates unless you stick it right at the street - from your house, no way.

You do not need 4MP for plates. 2MP is fine. Darkfighter is marketing and not much value for plates. I think you need this one as you will have to angle it quite a bit to get a shot of the plate and it will be at a distance:

 
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