serverguy

FluidMesh is good as well, have used that before. If you need a gig probably better of going with an optical link if you've got something solid to mount it on? IP / digital cctv is definitely the future, makes wireless very possible. Should think analogue cctv will be dead in a few years time.

What wireless gear do you us? Mostly Ubiquiti stuff for simple hops. Alvarion for more mission critical stuff. For more unusual sites we use a variety of mesh gear. We have tested a lot and the Ubiquiti gear always comes out well even against equipment costing 10x as much. You can easily get 75 meg both ways out of a Ubiquti bridge up to 2 or 3km costing £50 in total. Can't run cat5 for anything like that.

Why do you need 900Mhz? We have literally hundreds of wireless bridges out in the field running on 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz all operating trouble free. And price is a lot less than you suggest especially if buying in any quantity.

We do loads of wireless IP cameras, on most large external sites it is far cheaper than running cable. But you have to be network engineer first and cctv installer second. Not the other way round.

Have you any night shots from the CH-120? I have a couple of these on order to test out Wondering how they compare to the Axis P1344 or it's expensive brother the CH-140

Don't try and backhaul too many cameras to one access point at the base station - have multiple access points (say 5 cameras per AP) and sector / directional antennas. Its better to have an over capacity network than one that is running at it's limit, and the Ubiquiti stuff is dirt cheap anyway compared to other wireless stuff.

Thanks That is what I am thinking - camera sees person - sends alarm for farmer - farmer looks at ipad and sees pikey - farmer leans out window and shoots pikey (of course the last part is said tongue in cheek!) Or farmer hears alarm - looks at ipad - sees ghost inspecting the camera - farmer goes back to sleep (hopefully there won't be too many of these) We already put a speaker out with the camera and that works really well. I am looking at some sort of live monitoring but the cost most of the monitoring centres want is prohibitive for an alarm that may only go off a handful of times a year.

Hi tom Will try to answer your questions it just depends on how its installed and the quality of the equipment used. The figures aren't good for cctv Only 1 in 1000 crimes in UK that get recorded on a cctv camera get solved And the fact that the police know full well which group of people who do all the thefts are anyway (gypsies...) and still fail to do anything about it whatsoever I would say for rural security just recording for playback after the crime is a bit of a chocolate fireguard. The only time the police are interested is if they can catch them in the act. you can get DVRs/NVRs that will do just the same and on a farm you will get some bad alarms. I was under the impression the VideoIQ stuff was the best of the bunch when it came to analytics especially at a price point - I could be wrong however? I also like the idea of the VideoIQ cameras because of the 'edge' recording - having all the recording done on a central NVR would mean lots of traffic on the network all the time. I much prefer the idea of edge recording and the network only being used when it is sending an alarm or archiving. if you are looking at IP then no need for a DVR but you are looking at some good money to build a good wireless network . Surely if the camera does not have onboard storage there is going to have to be a storage box of some sort somewhere to record. We install wifi networks in awkward places / build temporary networks at public events / shows. The cost of wifi kit is peanuts compared to IP cameras! Of course it depends what you use, if you are using something like Ruckus or Fluidata its a lot more. how many cameras are you looking at what is the size of your area to cover and the big one. what is your budget. Not massive areas. A typical example would be enormous shed (100 x 50 metres) with a 20 x 50 metre office / workshop opposite it with a 30m concrete area between them where 99% of the action is and the access to workshop / office etc. My thoughts would be to have a megapixel camera looking at this area and if it sniffs out a human send an email. We have experimented with other ways of doing it and have had quite good success with infared beams to act as the alarm triggers and then a camera to have a look. However, by the time you price 500 quid for a camera 250 quid for a box to record the camera 300 quid on infared beams 100 quid on networking kit 100 quid on a UPS Lots of £££ time setting it all up And take into account the inevitable problems of tractor parked in front of the beams / someone knocks the beams off with tractor bucket / recording software crashes etc etc The idea of 1300 quid on a camera that 'just works' is quite appealing Thanks

Hi all, been a while since I have been on here, see things have moved on a bit and IP cameras falling in price I have a job to install some cameras at somewhat remote farms. Generally large areas of concrete surrounding a shed with some machinery parked about the place. The original idea was just to install cctv that records 24/7 but I am reluctant to go down that route a) because it required lots of cameras to cover an outdoor area effectively, b) because 99% of the theft would occur at night and at night getting an image that would be useful in investigation is even more difficult and c) the logistics of streaming lots of IP cameras back to a central DVR over a wireless connection is not easy. I am very reluctant to install a cctv system that just shows some ghost stealing scrap and driving off in it. Numberplate capture is useless because the plate is stolen. CCTV like that is completely useless and a total waste of money - and this is what 95% of cctv systems provide. So I have come across the VideoIQ stuff. Considering that the farms will be very (read VERY) low traffic areas, and the only humans likely to visit will be people who should not be there, how many false alarms am I going to get? My idea is a couple VideoIQ megapixel cameras giving an overview of the important areas of the farm and if it recognises a human fire off an email (or we are investigating remote monitoring). We have toyed with PIR sensors and trip wires etc but they all add hassle and complexity. The idea of distributed storage with VideoIQ is very nice as they will work well with the mesh networks we install. Secondly, by the time you buy decent IP camera + decent recording server + network / cable infrastructure + PIR / beam sensors the VideoIQ seem very attractive especially if they can work proactively. I am going to puchase one to have a play with it but basically, how reliable / accurate is the detection (in favorable circumstances - basically zero traffic / floodlit) or would we just be plagued with false alarms every night? Thanks for any insight.

Thanks for the comments. They are useful. One other possibility, I actualyl have one of the new Axis P1344 cameras under my desk right now. I haven't even taken it out of the box yet. It has a 1/4" CMOS sensor but it is a CS mount. Is it possible to get a 50mm lens for this camera? Does it matter that it does not have a 1/3" sensor? The only lenses I can find are 1/3". All I want this camera to do is pickup numberplates from 50m.

Sorry to start another thread but I think I am getting somewhere now. Thanks for all the replies I have had so far. I have decided to use Arecont cameras. I like the range of cameras they have and they are also affordable for me in the UK. First of all, how is there own software, AV 100? I don't mind if it is a pain to setup as long as it works reliably. I assume that you have to use their own software to use the on camera motion detection? Secondly, how much better are their dual lens day/night cameras compared to the cameras with an IR cut filter? Any comparison shots? And thirdly, is there any difference between the 1300DN and the 1310DN other than the size and that the compact one has less lens options? I want to put a 50mm lens on it. Finally, one of the cameras will be watching a gate about 50 metres away as I have mentioned before. What Arecont camera would you suggest for this job? There is limited light at the moment but I will probably install some floodlighting (white light). I am thinking of a 2100DN with 50mm lens. Should be plenty good enough day time, not sure about night time?

Thanks for your responses. I will try to answer your questions in line below. I want a camera that will pick up the numberplates at the gate (and maybe get some details if people get out of the car to unlock the gate. A greater field of view would be nicer but not necessary. Yes it can be located not directly head on to the gate if that would be better. Maybe up to 20 degrees off if it is on the other corner of the house. The other views on the diagram are less relevent. Mainly general coverage, the farm is too big to try and have closeups of everything. But this is why I think megapixel cameras will be advantageous in this situation. I will start with just 2 cameras and gradually increase. Both buildings with green ticks have dual gigabit fibre backhauls to the main network. The bulding opposite will have the same as well soon, the fibre is in but the building is still being converted. There is no problem with networking I plan to have the cameras on a separate VLAN to segregate the network and will either have a NVR with it's own storage or if I go for Mobotix cameras I will use some of the existing SAN (10TB available, no problem there). Well we live in the middle of nowhere so the internet is not good, but we get about 30Mbps down and 3Mbps up over 6 bonded DSL lines. Hopefully soon we will either get a wireless link or dedicated fibre. But it is mainly retrospective surveillance, if we have problem we want to be able to see who was there at the time and a general overview. Would like the numberplate camera to be able to work day and night ideally and the other cameras to be good in low light (we have floodights but most only come on on motion). Some ambient light. Cost effective but I am prepared to pay for Mobotix M12s or the like. No, I plan on doing it myself. I am very experiencing in the networking / computer field and doing outdoor electrical work. I like to do things properly. I have had one security company come and visit but I was not impressed with his attitude, and I mentioned megapixel IP cameras to him and he said they were not ready for professional systems and he could get better quality from analogue cameras. Hmmm. And the company wanted a lot of money for the system (I could buy Mobotix M12s for the same price as his anlogue cameras installed). Second guy would do IP cameras but I was still not impressed. So with all that out the way, what cameras! Do I go for a Mobotix system, but have trouble with night time numberplate recognition? And the cameras are expensive, especially if I just need some cheaper cameras to do less important areas. I think Mobotix cameras need to be used exclusively to get the best out of them and their ability. Or do I go for Arecont cameras, slightly cheaper, similar specs but how is their night vision (especially on the dual lens ones, compared to Mobotix) and software such as Milestone? I like the Mobotix cameras as they look less like traditional cameras. They are also easy to install with PoE. Not sure how the Arecont housigns are on this front. I will buy the cameras in the USA as they are 40-50% cheaper and I am in the US almost weekly and if I'm not I have family in Chicago.

As the title, what IP camera do I need that will capture a license plate at 150ft? It seems a relatively simple setup to me - long drive with farm at the end of it. Electric gate 150ft from house, with direct line of site from house to driveway, completely headon. See my image here: Gate is red line before junction in road, camera will be on house pointing straight down the road. I want a camera that will be focused on the gateway area, that will capture numberplates. I don't need them automatically recognised, and it isn't mission critical. I want it to work at day and at night. I am thinking of a Arecont AV3105DN with a 50mm lens on it. What would your opinion be, or is what I want to do simply not possible.

Mobotix M12D-Sec with the L135 lens?

My new plan is to use just Mobotix cameras. I like the very integrated system they have, and there cameras look more attractive. I also like the way the system is decentralised - computers and IT will move more and more this way in the future. I will return the Axis camera I have on demo. I want a PC based system, DVRs seem like old technology to me. I also think that by the time you buy a decent DVR that can do autotracking I could have just brought another 3MP camera. As I said, I have two main aims. To monitor what comes in and out of the gate, and to get a general overview of the yard. There is no sense in having other close up cameras, because it would require so many of them, there are hundreds of way you could walk into the farm from any direction. But the road is the only easy way. Thanks, will send you a PM now.