New Video Surveillance System - Suggestions and input wanted

kcenter

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Hello everyone. I have been poking around and asking questions for the last week or two trying to work up a half decent video system for my store. This is what I have come up with so far and would love any input from more experience people!

Cameras - Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I with the 4mm lense seems to be a pretty good all around camera from the reading I have done so far. I don't know if I would really require much else in cameras. I don't care if they are visible or not, or worry about vanadium - just watching for theft. I plan to run all of these over cat5e PoE.

I plan to have one watching each of the two gates into my storage yard.
Two watching the storage yard out back of my shop.
Two watching the merchadise and rental traffic supplies on the north side of my building.
And one watching my front parking lot.
So 7 cameras out side.

Then 6 in the front sales part of my store. 4 watching merchandise and 2 watching the tills (I might be able to get away with one, but not sure. The two cash registers are stilling about 6ft apart and I would have the camera mounted ~15ft strait above them on the ceiling. I would like enough claritiy to see what is going on).

1 watching my back receiving doors from the inside.

and 1 watching my small format printing department.

So I'm at 15 cameras total.

And to provide PoE I am looking at one of these:
WS-POE-16-48v120w 16 port Poe injector

I saw this company recommended on a post in the Accessories sub-forum.

And for the switch to run all this through:
TP-LINK TL-SG1024D 10/100/1000Mbps Unmanaged 24-Port Gigabit.

I figure the 24 port switch gives me some room to grow and I can always get another 8 port PoE injector to add more cameras.


As for the NVR I am going to do a customer built PC running Win7 Pro x64, and Blue Iris. i5 or i7 CPU - use the onboard video, 8 gigs of ram, and a 4TB WD Purple HDD.

So at this point I have a few questions:

To link the switch to the PoE injector do I use standard Ethernet cables or cross over cables?

Also the cameras say they use a max of 7 watts each with IR on. That PoE injector will deliver 7.5 watts to each port. Will that work just fine or is better to have more of a clearance between what the manufacture says the camera will draw and what the PoE will deliver?

And the switch I'm am looking at is gigabit (mostly for the one leg that goes to the NVR). but the PoE is only 100Mbps. Will they work together correctly?

Does the specs on the computer look adequate for what I am trying to do?

Will that camera do everything I am trying to do or should I go for different camera in a few spots? If one style of camera works for all 15 I figure its easier to configure?

Then of course any comments/concerns/helpful information would be greatly appropriated!

Thanks!
 
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nayr

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Straight Through Ethernet cables for it all.

I would opt for a multiport injector solution that can provide full spec to all ports when running that many cameras; look on ebay for POE Midspans and you can find managed ones you can power on/off remotely for cheap.

100Mbit and Gbit play along just fine; no problems here..

Your going to want alot more storage for that many cameras; I would suggest recording a decent FPS 24/7 which would need several 4TB purples for any reasonable amount of archive... if your just saving video streams to disk the rest of the specs will be good.. you might put a better video card in there; one that provides you with some good h264 decoding abilities and make sure you have a good NIC, Intel is typically the best.. when dealing with a ton of packets a weak NIC will cause a bunch of avoidable CPU load.

You can probably find a really nice 2/3MP Bullet camera that will do most everything you want but some places like above your registers your going to want less of a wide angle and more of a zoom; 6-9mm.. so you may want to find a camera model that you like and order several of them all with different fovs and try them out in various spots to see how many of each different lens you need.
 
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bp2008

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Hi. Responses are in bold red below:

Hello everyone. I have been poking around and asking questions for the last week or two trying to work up a half decent video system for my store. This is what I have come up with so far and would love any input from more experience people!

Cameras - Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I with the 4mm lense seems to be a pretty good all around camera from the reading I have done so far. I don't know if I would really require much else in cameras. I don't care if they are visible or not, or worry about vanadium - just watching for theft. I plan to run all of these over cat5e PoE.

I plan to have one watching each of the two gates into my storage yard.
Two watching the storage yard out back of my shop.
Two watching the merchadise and rental traffic supplies on the north side of my building.
And one watching my front parking lot.
So 7 cameras out side.

Then 6 in the front sales part of my store. 4 watching merchandise and 2 watching the tills (I might be able to get away with one, but not sure. The two cash registers are stilling about 6ft apart and I would have the camera mounted ~15ft strait above them on the ceiling. I would like enough claritiy to see what is going on).

1 watching my back receiving doors from the inside.

and 1 watching my small format printing department.

So I'm at 15 cameras total.

And to provide PoE I am looking at one of these:
WS-POE-16-48v120w 16 port Poe injector

I saw this company recommended on a post in the Accessories sub-forum.

And for the switch to run all this through:
TP-LINK TL-SG1024D 10/100/1000Mbps Unmanaged 24-Port Gigabit.

I figure the 24 port switch gives me some room to grow and I can always get another 8 port PoE injector to add more cameras.

You are correct and that isn't a bad choice. However consider saving space with an all-in-one solution such as a NETGEAR ProSAFE FS728TP: http://amzn.com/dp/B000M0WALA
(I have that model, but also you can get switches similar to this one, USED on ebay, for a lot less money)


As for the NVR I am going to do a customer built PC running Win7 Pro x64, and Blue Iris. i5 or i7 CPU - use the onboard video, 8 gigs of ram, and a 4TB WD Purple HDD.

So at this point I have a few questions:

To link the switch to the PoE injector do I use standard Ethernet cables or cross over cables?

Standard cables.

Also the cameras say they use a max of 7 watts each with IR on. That PoE injector will deliver 7.5 watts to each port. Will that work just fine or is better to have more of a clearance between what the manufacture says the camera will draw and what the PoE will deliver?

I would feel better with a bit of clearance there. I haven't seen my Hik 2032s go beyond about 6 watts though so you are probably fine.

And the switch I'm am looking at is gigabit (mostly for the one leg that goes to the NVR). but the PoE is only 100Mbps. Will they work together correctly?

Yes, they should work together fine. The PoE injector might force the speed down to 100 mbps but that is more than enough for each camera.

Does the specs on the computer look adequate for what I am trying to do?

Yes, but definitely get the i7, especially if you were planning to run Blue Iris. Further, if you want to do constant recording, be aware this will eat up your disk space like crazy and 4TB may not last as long as you think before it starts having to overwrite files.

Will that camera do everything I am trying to do or should I go for different camera in a few spots? If one style of camera works for all 15 I figure its easier to configure?

That is a very flexible camera. However as long as you stick with the same manufacturer (e.g. all Hikvision) then you will find the software side and compatibility is basically identical. You may consider some Hikvision 2332 cameras because you can get them with 2.8mm lenses (wider angle than the 4mm available in the bullet). Just be careful choosing lenses. It can be tempting to buy all wide angles because they let you see more, but sometimes that wide angle can be a bad thing because it doesn't give you the clarity and detail you need in the relatively small area where someone's face is going to be.

Then of course any comments/concerns/helpful information would be greatly appropriated!

Thanks!
 
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kcenter

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Thank you guys for the input!
I'm thinking now I might get a few DS-2CD2612F-I for the variable focus (2.8mm to 12mm lense). I know they are a bit more but I should be able to dial them in to get a good clean view of the cash register(s). Maybe use one out back to look at the far end of my lot.
Then maybe one or two of the Hikvision 2332 with the 2.8mm lens. How well do they handle being positioned at funny angles or on walls?

I will got with the i7, an a couple 4TB HDD. Is there a way to have BI save to multiple drives (save to drive A until fullish, then more to drive B?). Or should I just setup something like a Raid 5?

I think I will stick with the PoE midspan injector and the TP-Link Switch. I'm glad to hear you have had good luck with that switch, but I have had TERRIBLE luck with Netgear products in the past.
 

fenderman

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If you are going with the varifocal may as well go for the DS-2CD2632F-I which is 3mp vs the DS-2CD2612F-I which is 1.3...
 

Razer

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Varifocal will definitely be good option indoors at least. For me with my outdoor cameras I prefer the Hik fixed as they are glued in focus and do not "creep" the focus with outdoor heat changes. I have a ton of cameras over 5 states so I cannot easily run out and adjust/tweak focus and I find my ACTi and Vivotek fixed bullet cameras still go out of focus too easily even though they are fixed lens cameras. After several months some of them move just enough to make my nice crisp shot look horrible. (to me anyway) Varifocal are worse for me, even my analogs creep and loose that perfect focus so I'm moving to fixed on those too in the future.

I record only on motion myself so that I can get a good archive, I personally do not need images of empty locations so I save space that way. I average 100 days footage at all locations and I use from 1tb to 4tb total depending on the cameras. I just checked a location that I have 10 3mp Hik cameras, one 2mp ACTi, one 1mp ACTi, and one 5mp Vivotek and another 13 analog cameras and I've got 4tb of space total. I currently have 163 days footage. This is not a store though it does have many people there a store would generate more traffic for sure. Even if 4tb would be enough for you I'd still get two 2tb drives and spread it out over two HDs, if one goes out you are not dead in the water.

I use enterprise class WD drives with good results, I purchased three WD 2tb RE4 enterprise drives late last week on Amazon for $94 each shipped. I see today they are at $115, but still there are plenty of good drive options out there.

Agreed that you'll want the i7 for Blue Iris.

Switch and POE injector are fine, me personally I would prefer a POE switch only so it's just less to mess with. I would be slightly more than your solution, but 24 port POE switches are in the $400 range. A quick search found something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-SG3424P-24-Port-Gigabit-1000Mbps/dp/B0087ECDLA/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1408556608&sr=8-9&keywords=24+port+poe+switch

http://www.amazon.com/24-Port-Managed-Personality-Uplinks-ES3500-24HP/dp/B00A6GEBJY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1408556891&sr=8-3&keywords=zyxel+poe+24

I just prefer less cabling mess, but your solution would work with no issues. I use ZyXel switches with good results, but usually the smaller 16 port versions with 8 POE so I've not personally used wither one of those. I too have had bad luck with Netgear stuff...
 
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bp2008

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I must admit I did have one port go bad on my big Netgear switch. And the web interface is hosted by a terrible web server. You get about 10 KB/s transfer rate from it, so pages take ages to load. But other than that it has been purring along fine.

Anyway, Netgear is by no means the only option for 24-PoE port switches with gigabit uplinks. Ebay has them from a lot of different brands, typically between $100 and $200.
 

kcenter

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If you are going with the varifocal may as well go for the DS-2CD2632F-I which is 3mp vs the DS-2CD2612F-I which is 1.3...
Err yah, that's the one I meant. Must have grabbed the wrong part number :p.
@Razer
I never thought about the variable focus shifting. Good to note. But I do work in the building the are being installed in every day, still don't want to have to adjust them that much.

Also I like the look of the all in one TP-Link switch. For some reason I had a hard time when I was search to find a 24 port switch that all 24 ports where PoE, kept finding ones with only half.
 
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eyeball

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You might consider going with a 240g Solid State Disk (ssd) - for your os & software drive - sure helps on boot times. I use Crucials; a lot of folks like Samsung EVO's. It's cheap insurance for quick boots.

Also, don't forget about UPS for your PoE switch and BI PC.

I like TP-Link also - have two gb switches that have been up a while now.
 

kcenter

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I was going to do a SSD for my boot drive. Then a larger drive or two for BI to record to. I wasn't going to record all the time, only when there was motion. I know it takes a good amount of CPU cycles, but an i7 should be able to handle it.
I order the switch yesterday along with 1 each of the cameras I was looking at, all using Amazon prime so anything I don't like I can return for free. Most of it should be here Friday so I can start playing with it.
 

bp2008

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Prime is amazing :)

That TP-Link PoE switch is a real beast! Gigabit on all ports, PoE and PoE+ support, and a 320W power budget!
 

kcenter

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Prime is amazing :)

That TP-Link PoE switch is a real beast! Gigabit on all ports, PoE and PoE+ support, and a 320W power budget!
Yah, I like that it can supply up to 13 watts per port, as opposed to 7.5 watts on the midspan injector I was looking at. I know the cameras say they only draw a max of 7 watts, but have that extra headroom makes me more at ease. Also ordered these EZ-RJ45. They look amazing and should make everything a lot easier.
 
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eyeball

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I've always taken the easy way out and purchased cat5e with ends already on them, even for the longer runs, but I've wondered about making my own cables - what's the deal with putting an end on - do you have to strip the ends off of each individual wire before placing the end on and crimping or is it as simple as just using the crimping tool on an end and a cable? (I guess I can go google it, but after all, this is chit-chat... :cool:)
 

nayr

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it takes a lil practice but its a piece of cake.. you just pull the jacket back, untwist the wire, put the wires in the right order, cut em all to the same length and then shove the connector on and press it closed with a crimping tool.
 

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Cool, thanks @nayr ! ... it'd be worth it just to fix the d@mn ends that the fragile locking tab has broken off ... (hate it when that happens :livid:) .. that EZ-RJ45 http://amzn.com/dp/B00939KFOU looks like it'd do the job.
 
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nayr

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yeah thats one of the better ones you can get; its made for there push through EZ connectors (dont have to trim the ends to all same length when loading the connector and its easy to verify the cables all remained in the correct order).. when working with toughcables and some outdoor/burial rated you wont be able to use those connectors but the crimper should still work.

A Good high quality crimper can really make things so much easier; the cheap ones dont do a good consistent pressure across the pins and this results in bad cables.. Dont forget to grab a cable tester too; its pretty much required if your making your own cables so if you have a bad crimp you can figure out what end it is on, etc.

The 2 bullet cameras I just installed pretty much required self made cables, they had a weather/yank proof connector (that I added shrink wrap over anywase) that replaces the boot/cover on a normal cable and screws to the camera side to hold em together.. a premade cable would have never been able to use that.

Also yanking cables through conduit tends to mess the ends up so you cut off the first few inches then put a connector on it; one with a connector already on it is sure to get damaged trying when trying to pull it through attics/walls/conduit.
 

bp2008

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I too prefer to buy them fully constructed. Less work for me!

But I am reasonably good at putting ends on myself when necessary.

1. Typically you strip the jacket with a knife or stripping tool. The tool I linked above includes a good stripping tool.
2. Cut off the crosstalk divider if there is one. Some lower quality cables don't have this divider.
3. Untwist the 4 pairs.
4. Put the wires in order. 568-B is by far the most common order -- google 568-B to learn more.
5. Cut the wires to the appropriate length. If you use EZ-RJ45 connectors, you do this step after the crimp which is a lot easier.
6. Insert wires into the RJ45 as far as possible. It is recommended that you get some of the cable jacket inside too, mainly so it can act as a strain relief. But this can be difficult with some thicker cables.
7. Crimp.

If you take it slow and double check everything then it is pretty hard to screw it up.
 

nayr

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If your looking for less work and cheaper for lots of long cables; get a Patch Panel for your wiring closet/shelf and use surface mount boxes on the other side.. a Punchdown tool is basically fool proof and they come color coordinated for you.. just write on the surface mount box the # of the panel port its wired to with a marker and you'll never get confused about which cable is what.

then you go to monoprice and buy in bulk a bunch of prefab jumper cables in lengths of 1ft for almost nothing.

This allows you run only the cable thats needed; and gives you more flexibility overall.. say your camera reset to defaults and you need to plug it directly into your desktop so you can change the network settings; Well all you do is take that patch cable going from the camera to the switch and plug it into the patch port going back up to your desktop; bingo now your straight thru wired directly to the cam with nothing inbetween and when your done you just put those patch cables back to there original locations.. another example is I have a cable run gong to a book shelf and another cable run going to behind my TV.. say I want to put a gaming console (Nintendo Wii in this case) on the bookshelf; well now I go from Component Video -> RJ45 -> Patch Panel -> RJ45 -> Component Video back out behind the TV; reusing those existing cables for a new purpose that was unimagined when I originally ran them.. no need to run a cable direct from the book shelf to the back of the TV; just route it through the patch panel.

You can also help organize things by buying patch cables in multiple colors, so perhaps the cables with PoE are orange, normal ones are white, a special VLAN is green and your uplinks to other switches/routers are blue... it helps alot when the number of cable runs start to get out of hand.

edit for links:
Patch Panels: http://www.monoprice.com/Search/Index?keyword=patch+panel
Surface Mount Boxes (also available in 2x ports): http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=105&cp_id=10517&cs_id=1051705&p_id=7092&seq=1&format=2
Punchdown Tool: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=105&cp_id=10509&cs_id=1050903&p_id=7043&seq=1&format=2
 
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