Discussion
Gents.
Thinking about getting some IP CCTV in the key rooms of my house. I'd like to be able to monitor them myself from the Internet whilst at work.
I have a wireless network in the property, and good unlimited broadband which is a consistant 5-6Mb connection.
Few questions
1/ I'm looking at 3 cameras, what sort of bandwidth would this take up?
2/ Could I turn them off when I'm in the house to conserve bandwidth for Internet activities?
3/ Any recommendations? I'm happy with a DIY solution if easy to set up.
Thinking about getting some IP CCTV in the key rooms of my house. I'd like to be able to monitor them myself from the Internet whilst at work.
I have a wireless network in the property, and good unlimited broadband which is a consistant 5-6Mb connection.
Few questions
1/ I'm looking at 3 cameras, what sort of bandwidth would this take up?
2/ Could I turn them off when I'm in the house to conserve bandwidth for Internet activities?
3/ Any recommendations? I'm happy with a DIY solution if easy to set up.
We don't sell IP cameras, not yet anyway. At the moment a traditional wired camera costing around £60 would be in the £200 plus bracket as an IP camera. Certainly the camera part on all the cheaper IP cameras on the market is pretty average.
If you just want 1 camera that you can remote view then I can see the appeal of IP cameras. Once you start building up a series of cameras then IP technology looks expensive. We are keeping an open mind, I was supposed to be out in Asia a couple of weeks ago until they pulled all the flights when one of the things on my to do list was have a good look at IP technology and see where it had moved on from a year ago.
Things to consider :
If you're going to store footage, and I suggest if you're having CCTV cameras then you really should, then you need a bespoke AV grade hard drive system to store the data on rather than a normal computer which is only designed to operate 8 hours a day with nominal data churn. Using your computer will also put more strain on it and slow things down. Should the worst happen and you're burgled have a guess what the first thing they nick is !!
Do you want to monitor the inside of your house or the outside? I'd suggest the latter. Film people before they get in, you may find that you catch attempts rather than just wait for an actual break in. Your car is probably one of the most at risk items of property and rarely parked in the living room !
With "wireless" cameras they still need power. You can power a normal digital CCTV camera and transfer video signal using a single cat 5 cable these days using a thing called a balun to transfer the video signal.
Modern Professional grade CCTV DVR recorders are available from around £150 and feature remote access over the internet, email alerts, motion triggered recording etc. A good 1/3 inch CCD based digital camera is available for £50-60 upwards, so you can now see how multi camera systems become cheaper with traditional CCTV.
Avoid anything with the word digital zoom in the title
I'm quite passionate about cctv and making sure people fit something which works well for them. So if you're thinking of fitting CCTV then have a read of our guide to CCTV Systems
As already said I'm not an authority on IP CCTV specifically but only because we couldn't see the advantage. No yet at least - but we are keeping an open mind. That said all the principles are the same for both traditional and IP based CCTV.
Henry
If you just want 1 camera that you can remote view then I can see the appeal of IP cameras. Once you start building up a series of cameras then IP technology looks expensive. We are keeping an open mind, I was supposed to be out in Asia a couple of weeks ago until they pulled all the flights when one of the things on my to do list was have a good look at IP technology and see where it had moved on from a year ago.
Things to consider :
If you're going to store footage, and I suggest if you're having CCTV cameras then you really should, then you need a bespoke AV grade hard drive system to store the data on rather than a normal computer which is only designed to operate 8 hours a day with nominal data churn. Using your computer will also put more strain on it and slow things down. Should the worst happen and you're burgled have a guess what the first thing they nick is !!
Do you want to monitor the inside of your house or the outside? I'd suggest the latter. Film people before they get in, you may find that you catch attempts rather than just wait for an actual break in. Your car is probably one of the most at risk items of property and rarely parked in the living room !
With "wireless" cameras they still need power. You can power a normal digital CCTV camera and transfer video signal using a single cat 5 cable these days using a thing called a balun to transfer the video signal.
Modern Professional grade CCTV DVR recorders are available from around £150 and feature remote access over the internet, email alerts, motion triggered recording etc. A good 1/3 inch CCD based digital camera is available for £50-60 upwards, so you can now see how multi camera systems become cheaper with traditional CCTV.
Avoid anything with the word digital zoom in the title
I'm quite passionate about cctv and making sure people fit something which works well for them. So if you're thinking of fitting CCTV then have a read of our guide to CCTV Systems
As already said I'm not an authority on IP CCTV specifically but only because we couldn't see the advantage. No yet at least - but we are keeping an open mind. That said all the principles are the same for both traditional and IP based CCTV.
Henry
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