indboonies

Ok, do I need an nvr or can I just plug it into a Poe switch

With ganz plug and play system all cams plug directly into NVR. The NVR provides POE

Scallop 180. Great 180 panoramic view. Wroks great outside also. Outside pic files were to big to load here.

Pelco has fiber PTZ control camera that only uses one strand of fiber for viewing and controls. Farthest run I installed was 2250 meters. Worked great.

Sorry, just realized I missed the other half of your post. Image quality is sort important, I mean, I would like it to be clear, but doesn't need to be 1080p.

 

I could go with a normal DVR system too if capture cards are really that disadvantaged. Not a huge deal.

 

Besides, I have a few U's to spare in my wall mounted server cabinet - do DVR's come in the rack mountable variety?

The best variety I can give you is speco brand. The sell 4,8, or 16 channel dvr's. Hard drives are scalable to fit your needs. The system can do all you want without breaking the bank.

Their analog cameras that I have bought range from 100 to 350. They come with different settings depending on what you want to see. The more expensive ones have light intensifiers that will give you very nice low light color images..

Hope this helps some.

I have 35 exacq systems. They are the best. Just remember you get what you pay for. I have installed 1 avigilon system. I really like their cameras. Installing non avigilon cameras was a little more difficult than I expected but that could be because I was not very familiar with their software. A vendor of mine is trying to steer me toward a company called milestone. I trust his opinion of how good they are but I am to deep in exacq to even consider looking at something different.

Look at GANZ. They have an 8 channel IP plug and play system. Minimal cost

Yikes. I know that when you get a hybrid server now you get three years right off the bat and that is good for 8 IP cameras. For the servers I get with 16 analog inputs the extra years ore only $300 retail which is not bad at all for us anyway. That includes the 8 IPs it shipped with. The cost of a single cheap IP camera, so we are okay with paying that. Then you pay for each IP camera over 8.

 

I'm up to 22 separate hybrid servers in service here now and I only have 30 to go or so. Another 20ish are IP only so I'm building those myself and just purchasing the licenses.

You seem in a similar situation as me. I have 7 systems left to upgrade and all 43 of my sites will be at exacq. I recently upgraded 10 of my older systems to the latest 5.10 software. Exacq had a promo going and got full software upgrade for $250 per system. I jumped on it.

I have about 80 exterior arecont 5mpdn cameras currently up and running for about three years now. Had some issues with the new casing style overheating it. The casing style was changed toward the end of this project. Last 5 I installed where the ones with the problems. I replaced with IQ eye to prove to company it was their cameras. Did not buy any more for about three years due to that reason. I have installed 180's to cover parking lots about two months ago and have had no issues yet. If they hold up will look at their 10mp camera for key hallway coverage.

Ganz makes a sturdy plug-n-play IP system. I am not sure what the max number of IP cameras can be used on one system is though. Largest I have seen is 8. If you need more? Exacq and Milestone are the two that I am most familiar with. They can fit any need you may have.

I have thought of doing that myself. What types of servers are you building? Biggest question what type of processor?

True story,

Went to upgrade a 3 y\0 exac hybrid dvr that had never had any upgrades done. Over $2500 in upgrade fees.

600-for each year up to the current year

300- for the current year

Then $25 per ip camera per year. (14 ip cameras on the system)

Was shocked and actually looked at other hybrid\NVR systems. In my research have found that most major system players do the same thing. Just have to watch how they word it.

Have been just sticking with cameras that I know will work with my systems I have in place. That way you don't have to upgrade unless you are wanting to do something special.

Look at Speco HTINTB8 Intensifier 3 series. Greet low light Bullet Cam

and Speco CVC6246IHR also Intensifier 3 series Indoor Dome.

Have installed about 30 of these in the past year. All function great. and great quality in low light setting.

I haven't done side by side testing but the searching etc seems to be similar on both systems, but avigilon is faster if i had to guess.

 

What about cameras? Any preference on price/performance ?

We started with Ganz Ip cams not sure of the pricing on those as they were installed under budgets of new schools. The Exterior Ganz 2mp work great. Not the best in low light settings but ok. The interior ganz 640x480 ip cams were a mistake to buy. Wish we could throw them away and start over from scratch.

Have been using IQeye IP exterior and interior cameras as of late and are very pleased with there performance. Cost ? Interior 450 for a 1mp and exterior around 750 for a 3mp

I am with a large school district in MS. We have over 1000 cams county wide. The county did invest in integral (who where bout out by pelco 3 years later and went straight down hill) DVR's about 6-8 years ago. They are starting to go by the way side fast. On our newer sites we have been installing full Exacq IP systems with about 60 IP cameras per site. Older schools with preexisting analog systems I have been installing the Exacq Hybrid systems witch covers my existing analog cameras and leaves room for growth with IP cameras. I have been very pleased with the Exacq systems and their Tech support is top notch. Some of their licensing fees bother me, but I guess you get what you pay for.

 

I do have an Avigilon rep coming in next week to show me some of their product line. I too have only heard of them recently.

 

Are you happy with Exacq's ability to search video on your megapixel cameras? How long does it take you to search a weeks worth of video on 8 cameras?

First off I have no need to search a weeks worth of video on 8 cameras. Would not have time to search through all that. Would go through them by 2's or 4's. I cant set and try to watch 8 camera playback at one time.

I would not even know how to guesstimate that. Takes about 1 minute to pull up video on 4 cameras in a 3 hour time frame.

I have been very pleased with the Exacq systems and their Tech support is top notch.

 

I am really curios to hear your opinion after u play with Avigilon

so far I convert few customers from Exacq to Avigilon

takes about 5 min to convince

I will give my honest opinion....

No candy coating here.

I am with a large school district in MS. We have over 1000 cams county wide. The county did invest in integral (who where bout out by pelco 3 years later and went straight down hill) DVR's about 6-8 years ago. They are starting to go by the way side fast. On our newer sites we have been installing full Exacq IP systems with about 60 IP cameras per site. Older schools with preexisting analog systems I have been installing the Exacq Hybrid systems witch covers my existing analog cameras and leaves room for growth with IP cameras. I have been very pleased with the Exacq systems and their Tech support is top notch. Some of their licensing fees bother me, but I guess you get what you pay for.

I do have an Avigilon rep coming in next week to show me some of their product line. I too have only heard of them recently.

IQeye 852 2.1mp with light grabber feature

In my school district I have over 20 Integral Dvr's. From 16 channel - 32 channel.

Back in the day they were awesome. Over the years and after being bought out by Pelco the product has diminished and the tech support is worse. My school district has moved in a different direction now and I can't give you much info on how they are today. The oldest DVR I have is about 6 years old to the youngest about 4. They do real good for about three years. After that the first thing that happens is it will quit recording and you have to rebuild the DVR then after that just tons of glitchy errors. Never seem to function properly again.

For that price not to bad but I would make sure to get the software with it.

Hi all,

 

Been reading through the forum and have learnt a fair bit but after some advice. I currently have 2x CCTV cameras (vandle/dome/IR) connected up to a DVR which I obtained through a friend who owns a security company. Issue I have is he doesn't deal in IP based systems as yet so doesn't really know all that much about them.

 

I understand how they work on a networking side and will have no issues configuring them, the issue I have is more around product selection and the best way to go about it.

 

The reason for changing to IP is because I am not totally happy with the picture quality of my current setup, the image is pretty decent overall I guess but it's rather hard to determine a persons face and without that it makes the footage pretty much useless. At night insects are attracted to the IR lights and the DVR (CNB) isn't smart enough to work out it's not a human, turning down the sensitivity results in humans being able to walk around a fair bit without the device logging an event. So I now record 24x7 and it's also set to log an event.

 

Trying to find IP vandal proof dome cameras with IR isn't all that easy. What's taken my interest so far is 2x Samsung SNV-7080R cameras, one each for the front and rear of my house. I am open to suggestions here on alternatives but I don't really want to exceed the $600US per camera price tag.

 

My primary requirement is to see clearly roughly 15-20m at night time but I don't want seperate IR lighting, image quality is also essential and the lighting can vary a great deal, reflections from the sun off pavement etc. I would like to be able to view the cameras remotely via web, android and apple phones.

 

From what I understand the cameras can record onto an SD card or a network store, this is where it gets a little confusing. The cameras appear to do lot of the processing themselves but it's unclear what level of functionality I will have. If you can do pretty much everything I could do on my DVR then I would only need storage for the video to be saved which is taken care of by the FreeNAS box I have running 24x7.

 

Is NVR software really worth it? I have read about some software that can detect humans, this would be a nice to have feature even if it helped in searching through content.

 

Advice is much appreciated.

 

cheers

Jason

If you are still considering Analog cameras look at speco brand with the light intesifiers. If you are in no light situations they are not for you. But low light situations they work great. No IR's. They take the available light and turn image into a nice color picture.

I have only installed one brand of IP cameras that have light grabber options and that is the IQ invision centinal series. They also work great in low light situations but may be out of your price range depending on if you want Mega Pixel or not.

I did not mean to start such a fuss. This is what I am having to deal with. Not sure I like the idea of 1 dvr to handle analog cameras then purchase an NVR to handle IP. Encoders are hugely expensive I am not comfortable with them.

 

 

Where are u located ?

if I can ask you

and on serious note go with Avigilon and be happy

I am in North MS. Have only been shown high end IP cameras from Avigilon. Not sure of the rest of their product line.

Know that the Axis 4 port encoders only require once license except the Q7404.

 

Yes I would recommend 20 encoders but I would not use Exacq or Axis.

 

Encoders give you more flexibility for system design.

Question about encoders?

If I put an encoder in place and over time replace analog cameras with ip will that not render the encoder obsolete once I have all analog cameras replaced?

This is where my knowledge of encoders is limited.

Thanks

I did not mean to start such a fuss. This is what I am having to deal with. Not sure I like the idea of 1 dvr to handle analog cameras then purchase an NVR to handle IP. Encoders are hugely expensive I am not comfortable with them.

I would like to thank everybody for their input.

Has given me plenty to think about.

Not sure of your budget concerns,

Look at Specotech.com

They are a very good small-medium size installation system. They have quality cameras and if you are like most of my sites low light coverage is becoming a huge concern.

They have their own brand of cameras with a feature called light intensifier. Witch takes the available light and makes a good crisp night color picture.

These are analog cameras. If you are looking more for an IP system I would not recommend them.

Their tech support is very good also.

Remote monitoring is included with purchased DVR.

Try powering the camera locally at the building it is hanging on. If the power wire goes all the way back to your shop you could be having uncommon grounding issues with the buildings. I have run into that in the past and powering locally to the building has cleared it up.

Most of the cameras/housings that I have installed in the past have a pigtail out of the circuit board to power the camera after you power the heater in the housing.

Or you can just split the power wire in the camera housing to run both.

Most 24vac power supplies are sufficient to run both devices unless the housing is just a power draw beast