Home Security

Hi all,

I'm very new to IP cameras / home security, so I'm likely to ask some silly questions, but here goes anyway.

I'm interested in installing a couple of cameras in my house to basically record 24/7, with a rolling storage on my NAS (of whatever size I need). At the moment the Geovision GE-FE520 look pretty good as I can use them with PoE, look like they would easily meet the requirements of a home install, plus I like the fact they're reasonably unobtrusive.

The camera locations I'm thinking of are:

- I have a central location in my house that can see lots of areas (open plan) and it's unlikely that if anyone got in the house that they would go there. All sort of close up 5-10m distances.

- Out the front under a veranda / eve type thing, that covers a wider area. You'd struggle to get in the house without being up by this camera. Up to 15-20m in distance.

I guess for home security it would be about picking up enough info of the 'bad guy' to be useful to the police etc. The home alarm itself will hopefully be the deterrent part.

So, a couple of questions

- Setup looks very simple, I literally install the camera, plug in a cable from a PoE switch, and it will obtain and IP (or static IP) and I'm good to go? I can't find a manual online to confirm this.

- Is this camera suitable? Particularly the 520 being 'outside', but in a very protected area. Has anyone installed one of these in a similar area?

- I assume that if I store the files on the NAS, that I can access the camera's IP from the Internet (if I'm not home) and playback video as well as live? Can you allocate a certain amount of space so that it overwrites older files?

- Can the cameras store to the SD card and to the NAS at the same time? or is it one or the other? It's a Linux based NAS, but I assume that shouldn't be a problem either.

- The front camera is also near the front door and would easily be a good a video intercom... has anyone used this? I suspect it'd just be a novelty anyway, but I'll ask anyway.

- Have I forgotten anything?

If you need anymore info then let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

So, a couple of questions

- Setup looks very simple, I literally install the camera, plug in a cable from a PoE switch, and it will obtain and IP (or static IP) and I'm good to go? I can't find a manual online to confirm this.

- Is this camera suitable? Particularly the 520 being 'outside', but in a very protected area. Has anyone installed one of these in a similar area?

- I assume that if I store the files on the NAS, that I can access the camera's IP from the Internet (if I'm not home) and playback video as well as live? Can you allocate a certain amount of space so that it overwrites older files?

- Can the cameras store to the SD card and to the NAS at the same time? or is it one or the other? It's a Linux based NAS, but I assume that shouldn't be a problem either.

- The front camera is also near the front door and would easily be a good a video intercom... has anyone used this? I suspect it'd just be a novelty anyway, but I'll ask anyway.

- Have I forgotten anything?

Thanks in advance.

Setup is very simple, you dont neccesarily need a POE switch, if your just going to have 1 or 2 cameras then buying a few POE injectors is probably cheaper. Then simply use the IP Device Utility and it will scan your network and find the camera(s). From there you can change the IP address, etc.

I have a 520 installed indoors in a retail makeup store and its wall mounted. If you are interested id be happy to PM you the login info for the guest account and you can look at it and get a idea of things. I would not be concerned about outdoor mounting as long as you buy the outdoor version of the 520. Thats why they offer 2 versions, indoor/outdoor.

Yes you can remote live view as well as play back recordings remotely and on your LAN but there are some limitations.

1) You cannot access the 520 from a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android, etc) since the 520 does not dual stream and is a 5 megapixel camera. The GV-iView and GV-Eye apps only support 2 megapixel, so you will get a error message saying "Resolution not supported". The only workaround to this is if you are running the GV NVR software along with the 520 and have the webserver configured for remote access. Even then your resolution is limited to 320x240 and the picture quality is not very good.

2) For Live view and playback there are a few options:

Installing software on the local or remote machine you wish to use to access the camera.

The app you will need for live view is called DMMultiview, but there is no mac support.

For remote playback the app is called Remote Viewlog. It too is windows only, no mac version.

OR

You can also access the camera directly through any web browser for live view and remote playback but some options (such as motion detection) will be missing from the configuration page if you are not using Internet Explorer and you will not be able to play anything back unless you install Remote Viewlog on the PC your accessing the camera remotely from.

And YES, you can configure the recycle threshold for overwriting older files in both the GV-DVR/NVR software as well as directly through the web interface of the camera itself if your using the onboard storage with a MicroSD card.

And NO, you cannot record to both simutaneously, and be aware there is no support to record directly from the camera to a NAS without first having a PC with the GV-NVR software running, but you can set it up so you can record to the NAS through the GV-NVR software running on a PC and if the connection is ever lost from the camera to the PC then the camera will record to the onboard microSD card until the connection is restored. There is a utility called GV-Sync that you can set to run at any interval to check the onboard storage of the camera and if it finds files it copies them to the NAS (or whever you like) on the PC running the GV-NVR software. You can also just record directly to the microSD card in the camera itself, which negates any requirement for a PC running the NVR software and is much simpler.

A better option for you would maybe be to just forget having a NAS and PC running the GV-NVR software all together and simply just buy a microSD card for the 520 and record directly to it. The only downfall to this is that you cannot get some of the advanced features that are supported with the GV-NVR software (counter/intrusion triggering, etc) but you can still access it from any method I mentioned above.

Yes, the audio recording/microphone feature works fine on the 520, although ive never used the microphone feature, just the audio recording feature.

Hope this helps,

Hi,

Thanks, that's a fantastic reply. But I think I've found an issue. Can I confirm that I cannot record directly from the camera to the NAS unless their is a PC up and running? I was planning on just sharing some disk from the NAS and have the camera record directly to it. The NAS is running 24/7, but I tend to turn the computers off. Also, the NAS is Linux, which there seems to be little support for.

With this setup I assumed (maybe wrongly) that the camera can access the storage for recording and playback (part of the house intranet), and then I can open up the camera to remote access for playback and live viewing from the Internet. That way I'm not opening up the NAS to the world. I could set up firewall rules on the router and the NAS itself to lower the risk, but still it's not as simple as I thought it would be.

Hi,

 

Thanks, that's a fantastic reply. But I think I've found an issue. Can I confirm that I cannot record directly from the camera to the NAS unless their is a PC up and running? I was planning on just sharing some disk from the NAS and have the camera record directly to it. The NAS is running 24/7, but I tend to turn the computers off. Also, the NAS is Linux, which there seems to be little support for.

 

To clarify, you will NOT be able to record directly to the NAS from the IP camera. You can specify in the camera settings a FTP port and make it a ftp server to FTP into and download files from as well as have it upload screenshots to any ftp server of your choice, (eg, one you have running on your nas), but you cannot record directly to the NAS whatsoever.

Also, the camera does not have any remote playback software built in, you must download the remote playback application and then run it from any computer, then you will be able to access the IP camera for playback of video stored on the SD card. For live view you can view live video through your web browser.

Sorry for the delay in replying, im actually in southern california attending geovision certification training at the moment. .. sort of ironic in a way, lol.

I think the CCTV cameras with monitoring services is the best way to secure your home.Because in this you way you can easily monitor your security system from any place by using your phone with the help of security apps.