Since you all have been a wealth of knowledge in my endeavor to upgrade my entire surveillance system, I figured I would give you an installation thread from testing until completion. I mentioned what I was planning to do in my introduction page https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/hello-from-california-may-need-some-guidance.40070/, but now it's time to get down to business.
Other than some of the conduit that was run by the previous tenant (aka...the wife's ex), this will be a gut and replace. The system that up there now is an old coax, 720p, non-adjustable anything POS. It will be going from 8 cameras to at least 16 so that it covers some MAJOR blind spots. It's amazing the quality difference from these junk cameras in comparison to a 5321R-ZE. Not even close! My amazing wife, even though her interest in this project doesn't go much further than having moved it up to high priority status on the project list, seems to be impressed already with the quality upgrade. If she happens to read this, I love you and thank you for not kicking me out after all of the camera talk and research
For starters, the critical areas will use 5321R-ZE cameras so that I can utilize face detection (of which was just made aware to me to is a useless gimmick, so strike that idea...going with the cheaper 2231RP-ZS). I have paid close attention to all of your wisdom about using certain cameras/angles for identification, whereas others can be used for an overview. We have too many people come up to our door in this quiet neighborhood, and the house is large and well insulated enough to where we can't hear them whatsoever. I want to record every single soul that crosses into my domain so that the we and the neighborhood can be aware if we are getting any shady characters.
A bullet will be used if I decide changing one of the current junction boxes isn't worth the trouble or I'm having a hard time mounting a turret for the angle needed.
If I can get cabling to the front door (one of the very difficult spots),I will use an HDBW4231F-AS at a low mounting point since I have seen some great threads about how well that camera does for clean face shots in that scenario. Yes, dome and outdoors, but even my wife liked the look of something smaller than the turret cameras. At the price I figure it's expendable/upgradeable if it degrades too quickly. It's about 75% sheltered from the elements except for sunlight, which varies depending on the year because the front door faces due south. We'll just have to see about rain when it happens.
To be continued...I got busy while in the middle of typing this!
Other than some of the conduit that was run by the previous tenant (aka...the wife's ex), this will be a gut and replace. The system that up there now is an old coax, 720p, non-adjustable anything POS. It will be going from 8 cameras to at least 16 so that it covers some MAJOR blind spots. It's amazing the quality difference from these junk cameras in comparison to a 5321R-ZE. Not even close! My amazing wife, even though her interest in this project doesn't go much further than having moved it up to high priority status on the project list, seems to be impressed already with the quality upgrade. If she happens to read this, I love you and thank you for not kicking me out after all of the camera talk and research
For starters, the critical areas will use 5321R-ZE cameras so that I can utilize face detection (of which was just made aware to me to is a useless gimmick, so strike that idea...going with the cheaper 2231RP-ZS). I have paid close attention to all of your wisdom about using certain cameras/angles for identification, whereas others can be used for an overview. We have too many people come up to our door in this quiet neighborhood, and the house is large and well insulated enough to where we can't hear them whatsoever. I want to record every single soul that crosses into my domain so that the we and the neighborhood can be aware if we are getting any shady characters.
A bullet will be used if I decide changing one of the current junction boxes isn't worth the trouble or I'm having a hard time mounting a turret for the angle needed.
If I can get cabling to the front door (one of the very difficult spots),I will use an HDBW4231F-AS at a low mounting point since I have seen some great threads about how well that camera does for clean face shots in that scenario. Yes, dome and outdoors, but even my wife liked the look of something smaller than the turret cameras. At the price I figure it's expendable/upgradeable if it degrades too quickly. It's about 75% sheltered from the elements except for sunlight, which varies depending on the year because the front door faces due south. We'll just have to see about rain when it happens.
To be continued...I got busy while in the middle of typing this!
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I'm definitely aware of the power of Blue Iris, but I think I'll be ok for my needs for now. I know there is Mac OS software out there for surveillance systems, but that's a perfectly good waste of a (usually expensive) machine. PC's are cheap and fun to build, but I still don't like them.
