Need advice on IP Camera purchase and setup

[lsweeney]

I have two houses. Both have a cable modem and router (Cisco and Linksys). The house with the Cisco router currently has no computer and is not lived in except for a cat. I would like to monitor the home for security purposes and identify what animal is coming in that is eating the cat's food. The second house is my home where I'm also interested in security and wild animal monitoring (for fun). I'm in a rural setting with a pond.

Ideally, I would like to use Blue Iris. I've also been looking at Hikvision cameras. I'm interested in excellent clarity. I would love to be able to use wireless cameras, but I don't know if they are there yet.

Can I forward a port to give access to the camera at the unoccupied home over the internet where Blue Iris could see it from my home. (I want only one installation of Blue Iris.) Will this be too slow streaming from one house to another to record? Are there other technical issues with going through two routers to get to a PC at my home?

What cameras would you recommend? Other ideas?

 

[bp2008]

Streaming security video 24/7 over the internet is possible but it has lots of problems. A good multi-megapixel video stream tends to require at least 2 or 3 Mbps. Multiply that times the number of cameras and you've probably exceeded your upload speed after about 2 cameras. Beyond this, ISPs oversell their product. Consider 5 Mbps continuous for 30 days is 1.62 terabytes of bandwidth usage, aka 1620 gigabytes per month just for two cameras. And remember you'll be using this much bandwidth at both houses! Most ISPs are accustomed to their customers using perhaps 100-200 gigabytes in a month, and many of them much less. ISPs plan for this level of usage so if you use many times that, they might take notice and penalize you or worse cancel your service. I am a fairly heavy internet user and I am usually in the 250-350 GB per month ballpark.

Beyond bandwidth concerns, there are also security concerns since you'd be port forwarding directly to your cameras which are bound to have vulnerabilities that go unpatched for years if not forever. To be fair, the risk is not huge. For someone to exploit a vulnerability in your camera firmware, they'd first need to discover it. But better safe than sorry in my opinion. I don't port forward to my cameras except in special, temporary circumstances!

You can't go wrong with Hikvision's 3 megapixel cameras. DS-2CD2032-I and DS-2CD2332-I are popular for outdoors. DS-2CD2432F-IW is a popular indoor model with WiFI (W in the model number) and microSD card support (F in the model number). DS-2CD2132F-IW is an outdoor model with WiFi and microSD card support if you are dead set on trying WiFi. I recommend avoiding WiFi cameras since it rarely performs well enough. Lots of people come to the forums asking for help with unreliable cameras and are not pleased to find out the WiFi is the problem. You still have to run a power cable to each camera no matter what, so you might as well use PoE cameras so the power cable is the network cable and just like that half your wiring job is done.

 

[lsweeney]

OK I figured the wireless would be shot down. If I go with a wired solution, I still have the issue of uploading video to a computer in another location instead of a closed network, right? So I would need to add a computer and another copy of Blue Iris, to keep the recording local and not impact the bandwidth. I feel like I will be mostly reviewing historical footage, looking at what is triggering the camera to record.

 

[bp2008]

Right. You would need to add a computer and another copy of Blue Iris to keep the recording local. You could try sending sub streams out over the internet to your main Blue Iris just to help you keep an eye on the place, but really any 24/7 streaming you do will have a huge impact on your bandwidth consumption totals and I would not recommend it.

Also, if you go to amazon.com and search for "powerline adapter" you will find all kinds of adapters to let you run data networking over your electrical wiring as an alternative to running network cables through walls, attics, crawlspaces, etc. They come in speeds from 200 Mbps to 1200 Mbps but just like WiFi the real life speeds and reliability are dependent on a lot of other factors.

 

[woodsie]

I have two houses. Both have a cable modem and router (Cisco and Linksys). The house with the Cisco router currently has no computer and is not lived in except for a cat. I would like to monitor the home for security purposes and identify what animal is coming in that is eating the cat's food. The second house is my home where I'm also interested in security and wild animal monitoring (for fun). I'm in a rural setting with a pond.

Ideally, I would like to use Blue Iris. I've also been looking at Hikvision cameras. I'm interested in excellent clarity. I would love to be able to use wireless cameras, but I don't know if they are there yet.

Can I forward a port to give access to the camera at the unoccupied home over the internet where Blue Iris could see it from my home. (I want only one installation of Blue Iris.) Will this be too slow streaming from one house to another to record? Are there other technical issues with going through two routers to get to a PC at my home?

What cameras would you recommend? Other ideas?

Using port forwarding to VIEW over the internet is no big deal. Very simple and easy to do. Trying to 24/7 RECORD over the internet is going to chew a ton of bandwidth and your ISP might have fits depends on any data caps that may exist.

Many Hikvision cams, including their wireless cube cams, have an onboard SD slot that you add a card and record to it. All Hikvision cameras that I've used have built in NVR capabilities so you can play back recorded footage directly from the camera using it's web interface. Set it up to record on motion only and your 64GB card will last months and months in many situations before overwriting old data.

It's the PERFECT solution for when you only have one or two cameras in your setup and don't want to hassle with a dedicated NVR or computer running NVR software.

The Late Great Network Camera Critic has a recent review that covers most of this stuff on the DS-2CD2132F-IS mini dome. Works the same for cube and bullet cameras with onboard storage.

http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2542

 

[lsweeney]

OK so if I'm hearing Woodsie correctly. I could open a port, and using either a phone app or my desktop computer in my other house, I could remote into the camera and use its built-in functions to read to the SD card. Since I'm only going to be recording motion that is detected, it probably won't be storing a whole lot.

This also doesn't preclude me from upgrading to a PC/Blue Iris solution at a later date.

 

[corkangel76]

Why not just buy a cheap $99 NVR and be done with it? You can get one from NellySecurity.com, connect that to your router, and boom, problem solved. You have full storage, 24x7 recording on the NVR, and then just remotely monitor the connection. Or better yet, leave the NVR set behind your firewall, get a better router, and VPN into the router so that you don't have to punch a single hole in the firewall.

 

[woodsie]

OK so if I'm hearing Woodsie correctly. I could open a port, and using either a phone app or my desktop computer in my other house, I could remote into the camera and use its built-in functions to read to the SD card. Since I'm only going to be recording motion that is detected, it probably won't be storing a whole lot.

This also doesn't preclude me from upgrading to a PC/Blue Iris solution at a later date.

Yes, you are 100% correct. I have a single camera set up at my vacation home and I remote in through external ports forwarded to local port 8000 for the phone app and local port 80 for the web interface. The camera records motion events to the SD card and I can play it back on my phone or from a web browser. The interface isn't that much different than that of a dedicated Hikvision NVR. It's a good solution if you want quick, cheap, and easy.

As corkangel mentioned, a dedicated NVR is better if you want to spend the dough. I think the only issue is if the extra functionality (24/7 recording and easy multiple camera management) has any value to you. I think once you go to more than 2 cameras, the dedicated NVR solution starts to be a much better choice.

 

[lsweeney]

OK Another good idea Corkangel! Thank you for the quick responses!