CCTV home security

[Henry-F]

I stand by what I have written and believe we are good guys in the world of CCTV. We are trying to promote best practices which means we are as anti the cheap CCTV in a box solutions as you are. Those fundamental best practices are the same regardless of which technology you use. I think you are ignoring chapter 1 and trying to race ahead to chapter 4.

CCTV isn't a one size fits all solution and we never claim it to be. The hours we spend each day talking over customers requirements are testament to that. I disagree strongly with a lot of what you have written but to argue against it would merely be re-stating what has already been said.

I think the mark of a good man is being able to discuss things without resorting to personal insults. You struggle on that score which for me weakens your argument. There are elements of sense in what you have written, the problem is they are hidden in all the rest of it.



Henry

[LordFlathead]

I struggle Henry because I vehemently disagree with what you say. You are a fly by night outfit in my opinion, using your established car sales business to branch out into other areas which are clearly not your field of expertise.

If you didn't come out with such ridiculous statements I would have offered you some help. Indeed, I offered you help the last time you made factually incorrect statements and you declined, obviously not bothered about the quality of the information you supply.

Why don't you do the industry a favour and do some proper research into the products in the market place. At least then you could spiel off some factually correct information and also use your existing customer base to upgrade to the current technology. That's what I would do, you know best advice and all of that

[Aviz]

I can't read this whole thread but I'm over the moon with my ip setup. There's no way I was going to run coax cable all over my house for an old Skool style system.

Hikvision dome 3mp cameras. I have a few different lenses depending on application.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/FREE-shipping-Hikvi... (£55)

These are great as they are powered using the network cable.

http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1942 for example footage

I have some running via a small poe switch in the attic (£30) , and some in more remote areas running using powerline sockets (£10) to give network connectivity.

The cameras themselves can do motion detection and save to a nas drive or share, or even email alerts , but I also have blue iris software (£30) running on a laptop, an iPhone and android app, with push alerts when there's motion. It records 24/7 and send clips off site to my onedrive in the cloud when detecting motion .

In fact I've just set one up in my shed temporarily to try and spot what's digging in the garden. Took me about 5 minutes with a powerline adapter.

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 15:37

[Spare tyre]

Aviz said:

I can't read this whole thread but I'm over the moon with my ip setup. There's no way I was going to run coax cable all over my house for an old Skool style system.

Hikvision dome 3mp cameras. I have a few different lenses depending on application.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/FREE-shipping-Hikvi... (£55)

These are great as they are powered using the network cable.

http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1942 for example footage

I have some running via a small poe switch in the attic (£30) , and some in more remote areas running using powerline sockets (£10) to give network connectivity.

The cameras themselves can do motion detection and save to a nas drive or share, or even email alerts , but I also have blue iris software (£30) running on a laptop, an iPhone and android app, with push alerts when there's motion. It records 24/7 and send clips off site to my onedrive in the cloud when detecting motion .

In fact I've just set one up in my shed temporarily to try and spot what's digging in the garden. Took me about 5 minutes with a powerline adapter.

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 15:37

Hello aviz

What's the nighttime performance like? This is where I struggle

I've seen that link you posted but I'd prefer to hear what a real punter thinks. Got any screen shots etc?

I have a reasonable garden and we are a little vulnerable

Got analogue setup already but hope to move to ip

Bue iris is my favourite so far

[Henry-F]

LordFlathead said:

You are a fly by night outfit in my opinion, using your established car sales business to branch out into other areas which are clearly not your field of expertise.

My car sales business has nothing to do with the CCTV business. The 2 are linked under a parent company purely for accounting purposes. Clearly you have some kind of agenda. What I will never know, one of the benefits of hiding behind the cloak of internet forum anonymity.

Nothing I do is fly by night and with the greatest of respect you know not of my skill set or that of the people I surround myself with. I don't hide under a cloak of anonymity on here or anywhere else. If anyone has a problem with any of my business interests they can get through to me personally with a single phone call, there are no guard dog secretaries to get through. The majority of people who do business with us know where I live. I wonder how many "fly by night" outfits offer that degree of transparency?

You can't please all the people all of the time but if someone has a problem it concerns me.

CCTV42 was born out of a passion to better the experience of people like me looking to buy equipment. I see the likes of Swann and Maplins as the villains because of the ludicrous claims they make and I want to help people avoid making common mistakes. The problem is they aren't the only ones out there, the industry is rife with problems. I'm here for the long haul.

The bit I don't understand about you is that if you really were a CCTV expert you would understand those underlying first principles which I am trying to promote. What equipment you choose is very much a secondary concern. Different ways to skin the cat but you have to understand how the cat must be skinned. You might use 1 high resolution camera, you might use 2 D1 resolution cameras but you have to know what you are aiming to achieve.

To me those first principles are incredibly obvious and easy to understand but virtually every system I see fails to abide by them. When people first speak to us they are almost always going to make the same mistakes and I want to help them avoid doing so.

If that makes us fly by night then so be it.

Henry

[sparkythecat]

Seeing as we've some pro's contributing to this thread, I'd like to ask a couple of question.
Is all H.264 compression the same or are some manufacturers producing better code than others?

The more you compress something, the more is lost, although you can obviously store more.
So, given 2 equally specced DVR's, if I buy a more expensive one, will I get a better quality video product or a greater storage capacity or will I just be buying a more durable machine?

Given that the cost of memory is much cheaper comparatively than it was in the infancy of DVRs why not use a less lossy recording format such as MPEG 2 the standard of which seems more universal and from my own very limited experience, usually better than MPEG4 of which H264 is a derivative?

[Magic919]

H.264 will usually look better than MPEG2 at the same bit rate. Even at lower bit rates it can look better.

There are various forms of H.264 and some look better than others.

[LordFlathead]

sparkythecat said:

Seeing as we've some pro's contributing to this thread, I'd like to ask a couple of question.
Is all H.264 compression the same or are some manufacturers producing better code than others?

The more you compress something, the more is lost, although you can obviously store more.
So, given 2 equally specced DVR's, if I buy a more expensive one, will I get a better quality video product or a greater storage capacity or will I just be buying a more durable machine?

Given that the cost of memory is much cheaper comparatively than it was in the infancy of DVRs why not use a less lossy recording format such as MPEG 2 the standard of which seems more universal and from my own very limited experience, usually better than MPEG4 of which H264 is a derivative?

H.264 is a replacement for mpeg4 which used to feature in previous generations of DVR and other video technologies. The compression technology is licensed but the performance can vary widely depending on the chipset and performance of the hardware. H.264 offers some extra clarity and also some security functionality with watermarked video allowing legal entities to prove that the original video has not been modified in any way. As future generations of firmware are updated, the quality and performance improve - think of it as a Java update. It is this standard that has allowed the widespread adoption of H.264 technologies as without proof that the video is genuine there is no point in recording if it cannot be used for legal purposes.

You have to put not just the whole device into context but all of its sub-devices: firstly you have the hardware which has moved on leaps and bounds. Secondly we have to consider the operating system. These are typically Linux based as they offer more reliability compared to other operating systems. Then we have lots of firmware updates which maximises the code efficiency, and finally but certainly not least, we have the third party hard drive manufacturers. These have also made a substantial contribution to DVR performance, allowing fast data transfer for drives that are effectively writing data 24/7. The drive does not power down or sleep so reliability is crucial. Manufacturers have realised that there is a large emerging market here and has been using technology from the Enterprise market to design and deliver performance drives at a reasonable cost. The Western Digital Purple range of drives is a good example of this. Hard drives (7200rpm as an example) get hot when spinning all the time and this has been an issue with long-term performance of the DVR. Now that slower spindle speed has arrived with better algorithms the DVR is able to write tons more data than ever before and it needs to, due to the huge frame-rate requirements from modern DVR's.

On purely digital HD-SDi DVR's that I have been associated with, it would seem that the process of compressing video via the H.264 protocol has changed. As 16 cameras all pulling 1080P in real time, appears to take up slightly less space than old fashioned analogue cameras. I'm afraid I do not have any answers as to why this is, but it is a good thing for consumers as you get more footage on a disk than previously. I've put in about 40 purely digital installations and they are very different in their performance delivery.

[Aviz]

Spare tyre said:

Hello aviz

What's the nighttime performance like? This is where I struggle

I've seen that link you posted but I'd prefer to hear what a real punter thinks. Got any screen shots etc?

I have a reasonable garden and we are a little vulnerable

Got analogue setup already but hope to move to ip

Bue iris is my favourite so far

sorry.. on reflection, I've removed the photos. I'll PM you..

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 20:24

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 20:27

[LordFlathead]

They look nice and sharp. We recently used DS-2CD2332-I which are IP based and give a great picture from such a small dome.

It's not silly expensive and the results are stunning. Their DVR's are great too because you can adjust the camera picture from the DVR which is novel considering its price point.

[Aviz]

LordFlathead said:

They look nice and sharp. We recently used DS-2CD2332-I which are IP based and give a great picture from such a small dome.

It's not silly expensive and the results are stunning. Their DVR's are great too because you can adjust the camera picture from the DVR which is novel considering its price point.

I've removed the screenshots , but Exactly.. These HIKs are amazing value. my requirements are mainly for "observation" of the property as a whole, but luckily the points I do need to ID people are right up close and even the wide angle lenses give me great ID shots.. I have no interest in people on the other side of the street. I am going to put a 12mm up down the side alley to get a great long range shot of people if they peer , or climb the side gate.

[SVS]

Aziz's photos are interesting, because he may he overlooked some important, basic security in favour of CCTV. Whereas I'd say he should have sorted out his physical security, before considering CCTV. For example:

• Garage security: Aziz appears to have an up-and-over garage door, with a lockable T-handle. I wonder if he's upgraded the cylinder in the lock. If it's just the standard lock cylinder, then it'll be pretty low security. Also, those T-handles can be popped (unless he uses a Garage Guard). Even then, the door could still be peeled open.
• Front door: Aziz looks to have a multi-point lock with a euro cylinder. (Though I can't be certain from the photo.) If it's a euro cylinder lock, and he hasn't upgraded to a TS007 3* cylinder, then someone could get in very quickly and grab the keys to his XK8.
• What about the CCTV? How about wearing a baseball cap under a hoodie?

I'm probably doing Aziz a disservice, because he seems like a security conscious kinda guy and may have these things covered. The point I'm making, however, is that CCTV is the icing on the security cake. I reckon it's better to get the basics sorted first.

Edited by SVS on Saturday 22 November 20:59

[Aviz]

SVS said:

Aziz's photos are interesting:

• Garage security: Aziz appears to have an up-and-over garage door, with a lockable T-handle. I wonder if he's upgraded the cylinder in the lock. If it's just the standard lock cylinder, then it'll be pretty low security. Also, those T-handles can be popped (unless he uses a Garage Guard. Even then, the door could still be peeled open.
• Front door: Aziz looks to have a multi-point lock with a euro cylinder. (Though I can't be certain from the photo.) If it's a euro cylinder lock, and he hasn't upgraded to a TS007 3* cylinder, then someone could get in very quickly.
• What about the CCTV? How about wearing a baseball cap under a hoodie?

I'm probably doing Aziz a disservice, because he seems like a security conscious kinda guy and may have these things covered. The point I'm making, however, is that CCTV is the icing on the security cake. It's more important to get physical security sorted first.

So you spotted them before I took them down.

The garage centre lock is disabled, it's motorised and has relay controlled deadlocks either side. Front door has upgraded locks when I swapped from a upvc to composite.

I can't do anything about balaclavas. . But the push alerts to my phone at least mean I know someone is there.

You are spot on. Cctv is the icing on the cake !

[SVS]

I guess I'll have to nick an XK8 from someone else then

Hopefully the OP will have gathered that he should sort out the fundamentals, before spending money on CCTV.

[Aviz]

SVS said:

I guess I'll have to nick an XK8 from someone else then

Hopefully the OP will have gathered that he should sort out the fundamentals, before spending money on CCTV.

Haha.. The xk8 isn't here anymore. You can break into the garage and nick some paint and an old sofa if you want though

[SVS]

Aviz said:

The xk8 isn't here anymore.

It's gone!

I hope you caught the bast*rds on CCTV

Edited by SVS on Sunday 23 November 00:15

[ctsdave]

Hi All.

Been away to Cadwell (4 year memorial for dad and a trackday on the same day at the place his ashes are scattered at not to be missed!!!). Teaching sister how to drive fast but safe, she certainly got better throughout the day!

Anyway, not had time to read in full the replies but want to thank everyone loads for their input!! Mam is fine, been with me all weekend (stayed at ours last night too). There were some tall bushes at the front, they went friday so the front of the house is now fully visible. Alarm fixed and security elsewhere in process of being 'beefed up'. Will read the links re fundamentals today.

Police reckon they wont come back for a while as too much damage for us not to be aware! All neighbours in the estate are aware and are being far more vigilant now. Sadly we get a lot of 'drive by's' in the street - downside of being in one of the more desirable areas I guess... We are going to chat to local 101 police regarding what security we can do too.

Hopefully this is the wakeup call we maybe needed and there wont be any more trouble!! Fingers crossed...

[LordFlathead]

Good stuff happening there. It's always a shock when you are on the receiving end of an attempted break in. Security is all about layers, not just CCTV as others have mentioned.

Good luck with your projects

[Spare tyre]

Aviz said:

Spare tyre said:

Hello aviz

What's the nighttime performance like? This is where I struggle

I've seen that link you posted but I'd prefer to hear what a real punter thinks. Got any screen shots etc?

I have a reasonable garden and we are a little vulnerable

Got analogue setup already but hope to move to ip

Bue iris is my favourite so far

sorry.. on reflection, I've removed the photos. I'll PM you..

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 20:24

Edited by Aviz on Saturday 22 November 20:27

Thanks aviz, they went to junk, got em out

Very good info from a neutral source

Thanks again

[LordFlathead]

BIANCO said:

Just fitted a 16 camera system using the hikvision stuff. Mix feelings about it we mainly used the DS-2CD2132-I dome's which gave a good day image but because the IRs travel through the same glass has the image. The IR tends to leak around the glass so the night images are not the best. Also like other NVRs I've used as soon as you get near the Max number of camera's they start to struggle with the data load and become slow and glitchy.
Impressed with the data storage it was a 9 tera system and it gives very good record time the camera's are all 3MP and it gives a months recording at a good frame rate. Unlike another NVR I've fitted which had the same hard drive size with less number of lower resolution 2MP cameras which struggles to get half the record time at lower frame rates.
As for adjusting the cameras from the NVR it does allow you some control but you can't access the full camera menu. Which was a bit of a problem as I had to adjust the day night settings on a few of the cameras.

As for advice to OP on CCTV I would always go for HD stuff now either IP or hd sdi unless you are on a tight budget. Once you've used and see them almost every analogue camera image and recording you see you think there must be something wrong with it.

I agree, with a 16 camera system, the performance is all about the configuration of NVR disks. The massive bandwidth of 16 cameras is heavy enough on the network (for that reason we always use a dedicated LAN with switches) but the key is down to fast NVR server hardware, with RAID 01 disks so you don't get a disk bottle neck. I would not recommend 16 IP cams on a domestic install (commercially is a different thing as their IT department should have routes already installed), better to go proper RG59 and HD-SDi at both ends, but the cost would be higher due to cabling demands.

The night time IR Dome issue you cannot do a lot about other than screen off the LED's with tape and use supplemental IR support lighting. This is a 'fashion' issue. Still at £70 a pop they are indeed remarkable.

Are you an installer? Try the Serage gear, it's about the best on the market at the moment .. in my opinion