Need advice on building surveillance system from scratch

[uncommonlich 0]

Hi, new user here. My parents wants to have security and surveillance system installed at their house. I've been looking and reading on various forums and site about the basics of how everything works. I think the best solution for the surveillance portion is probably to DIY. This is what I think they would need:

 

8 cameras - the house is 4500 sq ft and I want to cover the entire outside plus any entrance into the house, I think 4 outside and 4 inside should do it. I see most people recommend IP camera running on PoE because it's simple for wiring and they have the best quality image. A lot of recommendations are for Dahua and Hikvision branded camera, but I can't find any "authorized" vendors that sells direct online, only 3rd parties or distributor that wants you to open an account with them. Which vendor is reliable and can sell cameras that is covered by manufacturer warranty? Looking for 1080p camera with IR

 

NVR - I don't know if it's worth the time to set up a server to run a NVR software or just buy one from a manufacturer. It seems like the software on these things are pretty poor from reviews. For someone that's new to security, do you think I should go DIY or just stick with a brand name NVR? For those that have used ZoneMinder, was it worth the trouble and was it compatible with a lot of cameras?

 

Budget is flexible, but I'm not looking at high end equipment that cost many hundreds a piece. I want to finish setting up the system before end of month. I'm located in the US.

 

Thanks

[Caroline.N 0]

You can buy a suit with 1 NVR and 8 wifi IP camera.

 

It is quite easy, cost about USD300

[Wonderlands 0]

Well, I don't think wifi cameras could do a good job. Wireless is not reliable for outdoor surveillance, because the wifi signal is not stable when penetrating walls. Hard-wired or POE camera system is recommended. IP / POE cameras mean you will be running ethernet cable through the walls of your house - this is the frustrating part (same with wired system).

If you buy everything yourself, you will need some server space to keep images and recordings - this can be in your home or in the cloud (preferably both). You will need a decent upload speed (The higher resolution, the higher requirement of speed) and likely have to pay for software if you want to upload to the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.).

[Boogieman 1]

PC based vms offers way more options and flexiblitly over nvrs. Look at blue iris. http://blueirissoftware.com/

The latest release offers hardware acceleration for intel HD video, which significantly improves performance .

Get 8 1080p hikvision or dahua cameras and a 300 dollar HASWELL based i5 (tons of dells/hp business machines on ebay) (dont get the older generation i5's) and you are good to go.

[uncommonlich 0]

PC based vms offers way more options and flexiblitly over nvrs. Look at blue iris. http://blueirissoftware.com/

The latest release offers hardware acceleration for intel HD video, which significantly improves performance .

Get 8 1080p hikvision or dahua cameras and a 300 dollar HASWELL based i5 (tons of dells/hp business machines on ebay) (dont get the older generation i5's) and you are good to go.

 

My parent's house has Cat 5 cable built in so for the indoor cameras it's just simply running cables to the jacks. I can get an electrician to wire the outdoor cameras. Would you recommend the Swann 3MP camera from Costco? I read that they are Hikvision rebrand. If not, what other vendor should I look at? Is there a particular feature of Haswell CPU that makes it more effective than older Xeon based rack server of similar price? Thanks to everyone who helped.