Surveillance camera questions

Hi.

I am new in here and please be gentle as I am a beginner in terms of surveillance camera.

I am trying to set up the new surveillance camera system for the church.

Currently, we have 4 dome cameras and a dvr system set up by ADT.

We have set it up at the corners of the church that there is one at the front right corner, and another one at front left corner, another one at back left corner and the last one at back right corner. They are basically surrounding the church.

We had it for 3 years and one of the camera that was showing the front right corner got out (Light was too bright that it was all white) due to Auto Iris problem (According to the technician from ADT).

Since we were out of the warranty, repair cost was around $400 to replace the half working camera (Working in night, but not working in day).

However, there were big hassles as we were going through repair process, and we ended up not replacing and we right now have 3 cameras working and 1 camera missing (They took it and threw it away).

Anyway, we are not looking to replace or repair but try to set up the new one since we had it for long according to the technician (He said that technology is growing too fast that we have to switch out every year which I do not even believe a word about it).

The picture quality that we have right now is very poor. It has a function of zoom in and out, but it does not help with anything.

We could not even verify a clear object (There was one time that the police came in to verify the one who broke into the church but could not do anything since the quality was poor).

Recording wise, it is good since it stores up to 1TB which is good for probably about a month or so.

And for us to be able to view the camera from different places, we have to have the static ip from TWC and that costs about $10 a month and we have to pay for another service for $10 to just view in different places like from computer, iPad, or iPhone. and we have done that for over 3 years.

And they use the program called Rasplus and it functions ok but not really good. I would assume it is impossible to expect to see real time live feed to be shown but it looks like it is cutting the motion move very frequently.

So here is what I have searched.

I went to Sam's club and found that there were Samsung and Swann camera that seemed like better than our camera. It was 700 TVL(If I am right) for samsung with 16 cameras which are too many. And same goes for Swann except it is with 4 cameras.

The price range for both of them is around $400 to $600.

And camera was bullet type (not sure if you call it in that way) that is different from the dome type we have.

I personally like to have 1080p but I think it is too pricey I guess? I looked into one site that has a comparison of 1080p, 720p, 700 and 480 and down but they cost about $2,800 which is too much.

In addition to that, I also looked into slickdeals to find out which one is better or where I could get the good camera with the fair amount of money.

There seems to have lots of deals on Q-See, Zmodo, LaView, Swann products.

There were people saying that the NVR is better than DVR, some of the people recommend to have 1080p than going with the cheaper one.

I am not quite sure what to choose honestly since I am lack of knowledge in surveillance camera.

My budget is around $500-$1000 max.

Though we spent around $2,000 to set up the current system from ADT, but that was when we did not know anything about it.

Can you guys suggest any recommendation for me?

I do hope that I could get the better picture and possibly able to view from multiple devices (Laptop, tablet, smartphone) without having to have static ip which costs around $20 total, and is not difficult to install.

And I don't have to have many cameras, 4 is more than enough for me (But 8 is also fine).

I appreciate your time on reading this as I know it may be long but it is very important so I do ask for your help.

Please give me every possible advice you can give and the things that I should know before doing this and all that stuff.

Thanks in advance and I hope you guys have a wonderful day.

Well, I see the first response was of no help to the matter.

You will definitely benefit from dropping ADT. They charge premium rates for garbage.

If there is a serious problem with bad resolution on the existing cameras, I would try and go for better than 700tvl.

Are you looking to keep the dvr?

If you do use 700tvl cameras, you will need a 960h dvr to benefit from all the extra tvl.

Best bang for your buck in your case may be an hd-cvi setup. You can get high def on the existing lines (provided they're not hacked by a botched install)

Are your existing cameras run with coax cable.

For remote viewing your cameras, there is no need to have to pay extra money for anything.

Ddns allows you to not have to pay for a static ip and most remote view apps are free.

Since you have a restrictive budget, lets see if we can replace that defective camera..

What will help if you can tell us make and the models of the DVR and cameras - ADT uses many different manufacturers, so because it is ADT does not mean it is Tyco product line.

Based on that info, it is possible to suggest replacement of the camera or all of the cameras and then focus on the DVR... If it currently has 1TB for a month of recording, it can upgrade to higher storage... which also means that you can increase recording resolution, FPS (or IPS) and extend number of days storage. It is possible that what ADT delivered, they set everything to normal resolution and low FPS setting, thus the playback picture quality is very low. With increase storage, you can adjust to record higher resolution, thus the playback video quality will be much better.

Get back to us with this info... I am sure other will jump in to help.

yoseph6375

With having cameras already with your budget you could add rather than change.

You may have a poor quality dvr from ADT as in poor quality CIF.

your budgerigar would get you a good hybrid .....which means you can use standard cameras ( you already have) and ip 1080 cameras.

With your budget hybrid your existing cameras and 2 or 3 ip

Thanks for all your help.

The cameras we have are color bullet 2.8 to 12mm 24 ir leds TKC3612 and the dvr is 4 ch 500gb TKC3107.

I researched about the camera and it looks like it is 700 TVL and I can see why the resolution and the quality of the picture was not great.

After considering about few products out there, I decided to go with the Q-See 4 1080p camera system that is selling in Sam's Club.

It will be arrived in Wednesday, and I don't know if this will be the right product.

But I will install it and try it for few days to see if this is the right product.

Anyway, thanks for your support, I was in hurry that I had to order before see all the comments.

It would be much better if I saw this earlier. And I will post updates on this system.

Thank you guys.

Glad to hear you've got a plan on going forward.

I hope it works out for you.

Just beware that you may have to run new cables (which the set may include some premade ones) if the original cables are coax.

If you own the 700tvl cameras (not sure if ADT leases them) then they're worth holding onto as 700tvl aren't bad as far as analog goes but it was probably the dvr that was more of a bottle neck (4cif or D1 resolution which doesn't use all if the 700 lines)

Good luck

Yoseph,

I tried to search for tkc3107 to get hints on DVR type. But nothing googled up. BTW, as you bought 1080P, one concern could be on cabling issue, if the camera is not for HD-SDI type. HD-CVI of 1080P may not be available on the market, yet. But if it is for IP camera, you have to also install Cat5E type, LAN cable, POE, and NVR, kinds of things for IP camera system.