New and looking to learn :)

[virtua.jdub]

I'm a newb looking to learn about ipcams.

I was looking to add some security cameras to my residence, and made the mistake of installing EZVIZ Wifi Cameras outside. I figured since I was using the new Google Mesh Wifi, it would be sufficiently strong for maintaining a connection to the cameras mounted on our garage, where I have no wired internet (POE not possible). EZVIZ as I understand it, are HIKVISION cameras, but use a proprietary connection. All things being equal, the picture quality was decent,and the app was OK. However, I added the EZVIZ NVR, and found out that you can not access the recorded video without the cameras being connected. In other words, if the camera was broken or stolen, it would not be possible to retrieve any of the recorded content. Seems to be a major design flaw.

Wifi cameras don't seem to be too popular, likely because of the unstable connection. That said, any thoughts about using Powerline adaptors to get a stable connection to the garage which would feed into a POE switch? I would then be able to connect the IPCAMs to this POE switch.

That said, I started looking into DVR software and it lead me to Blue Iris, which lead me here. I've also been impressed with the content around the Dahua cameras. I'll continue searching the forum to figure out how best to meet my security needs. It sounds like the Dahua turret camera with Starlight is very well regarded.

 

[mat200]

Welcome virtua.jdub

Feel free to check out the notes I made
Looking for some advice and direction!

I am also looking at either a powerline ( preferred at thie time ) or wifi connection to my garage. I would prefer to wire it - however it would require me to break some concrete to do so, thus I would like to try other options first.

Have fun.

 

[gwminor48]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

 

[virtua.jdub]

Thanks @mat200 for sharing your notes - lots of great info there I see. I'll definitely be investigating the VPN setup a little more closely, now that I've got my 3 x IPC-HDW5231R-Z mounted and configured. I started out testing the capabilities of the cameras by installing SD cards. I would advise against it, as it seems the the cameras are sensitive to the Brand of card. The cards and the camera end up getting corrupted when trying to format the card through the camera.

Once I got the cameras to a stable state of operation, I tested the Dahua PC NVR PSS software. While I got it to work, it's extremely clunky and the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. As Blue Iris is so well regarded, I decided to purchase a copy for my computer and mobile phone to try - and I can attest - it's a wonderful piece of software. I've got it working for my needs, but I'm certain there are things I can fine tune to make it even better. I'll be researching the forum on BI guides.

On a final note I am really impressed with the Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z camera at night. While by default (camera software) the black and white night vision is turned on when it gets dark out (9:30PM), I decided to see what would happen if you shut off the night vision. WOW - being able to see the neighborhood at night in full color is amazing. By adjusting some of the camera settings even the dark spots in the neighborhood are no longer dark (I was testing this at 1am). I should add, there are streetlights that provide some lighting to the neighborhood, but I can attest, all previous cameras I've used are not able to capture video without switching to BW night vision in very low light conditions.

Cheers,

J

 

[bigredfish]

Color night vision is great, and with some tweaking you can get amazing still images. But make sure and test movement at night to be sure that you really have enough light to allow your video capture to be worthwhile. (Act like a bad guy and snoop around in front of the cameras and see the results)

 

[virtua.jdub]

Thanks for the suggestion @bigredfish . I can attest the image quality is quite good as there are some streetlights which help. In reviewing the overnight content from Blue Iris, I captured an individual sneaking onto a neighbors property. I provided the video to them for their awareness. The one item I'm trying to figure out is how to improve the sensitivity of the motion detection. Many of the videos seem to capture the action part way through. So between the beginning and end of the entire action, there are moments where the the subject matter is teleporting in the video clip. Is there a way in Blue Iris to record continuously 24x7, while maintaining all the motion alerts/clips? That way when I jump to a clip - I can still view the content a few seconds before clip starts or a few seconds after the clip ends?

 

[bigredfish]

Excellent.
Sorry, I'm not a BI user so cant give you the skinny, but I would think you can record both full time and MD events like we do on DVR/NVR
As to the clips, there should be a setting to allow for both event pre-record and length of time it will continue to record after MD is detected.

 

[virtua.jdub]

@bigredfish thanks for the insight. I'm currently learning from scratch - coming from consumer grade cameras where everything is predefined, and relatively easy to setup. That said, migrating to Dahua cameras and BI, has been an eye opener in terms of capabilities. I'm really happy with my setup right now - but I know it can be improved upon. I just figured out how to hack my consumer grade Yi Home Cameras, to enable the RTSP feed so I can incorporate in my BI setup. Works fantastic - now I don't need to be running multiple apps for observing my toddler and observing the exterior of my house. While not likely to be useful to the hardcore users here, I'll probably post a quick guide for other newbie users who own the Yi Home Cameras and want to expand their functionality.

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks for the suggestion @bigredfish . I can attest the image quality is quite good as there are some streetlights which help. In reviewing the overnight content from Blue Iris, I captured an individual sneaking onto a neighbors property. I provided the video to them for their awareness. The one item I'm trying to figure out is how to improve the sensitivity of the motion detection. Many of the videos seem to capture the action part way through. So between the beginning and end of the entire action, there are moments where the the subject matter is teleporting in the video clip. Is there a way in Blue Iris to record continuously 24x7, while maintaining all the motion alerts/clips? That way when I jump to a clip - I can still view the content a few seconds before clip starts or a few seconds after the clip ends?

The BI help file is very informative.

 

[virtua.jdub]

Yes sir @looney2ns ! I started reading up the help file last night - and I've made some tweaks which definitely have improved how the timing and content of the "clips" generated from BI. Still have lots to learn for sure. Curious, does BI have the ability to generate an end of day summary for each camera? In other words, for each day, is it possible to simply take the midpoint in time (with a specified duration - eg 3 sec) for every clip to create a day summary video?

 

[fenderman]

Yes sir @looney2ns ! I started reading up the help file last night - and I've made some tweaks which definitely have improved how the timing and content of the "clips" generated from BI. Still have lots to learn for sure. Curious, does BI have the ability to generate an end of day summary for each camera? In other words, for each day, is it possible to simply take the midpoint in time (with a specified duration - eg 3 sec) for every clip to create a day summary video?

You can accomplish the same thing by playing back the video at 128x or 256x....
or if you want a timelapse, setup a timelapse recording.