CCTV recommendations

[iowlee]

Just my little input, I have installed CCTV at my home/work (Hotel) and it regularly gets used by the local boys and girls in blue, as the road I'm on quite often gets used for people going to or coming back from being  little naughty. Unfortunately I had an intruder on Thursday night /Friday morning. they broke in and thankfully I managed to disturb them mid job. I can put some sample images up a bit later as I'm just about to go out to a meeting.

The lessons that I learnt was to have a camera that is head height as without a facial image the police are restricted as to what they can do. Normally offender (here anyway) have a hood up or hat on so cameras that are mounted quite high are helpful but not admissible. I am about to put in another 4 cameras for exactly this reason (I currently have 14 running). The placing of the cameras is as, if not more important than the cameras you use.

Also make sure you have very good IR coverage as the night time is when most things tend to happen and make sure you get a good anti spider system set up, be it regular cleaning or coming the cameras with deterrent spray, as mentioned earlier they are a pain in the rear at night.

Lee

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I wholeheartedly concur with the head-height advice. Mine are at ground floor soffit height and even that is a bit high when the subject gets closer than a few paces. SpiderX has a slight effect but there's no substitute for daily cleaning. The stop action clip on my earlier post shows Septimus (for it is he) demolishing and rebuilding his web overnight, a task he carries out every couple of days. I hardly like to add to the homelessness problem but he simply has to go!

[Lyonspride]

RE: spiders, open the camera up, disconnect the IR LEDs and wire them to an external PIR sensor, as if by magic spiders won't go near it any more AND it prevents false detections caused by IR light reflecting off rain/mist/fog, but as soon as someone walks past the IR will come on as normal and everything will work. Not sure why these cameras don't ship with PIR sensors tbh.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Interesting idea Lyonspride! Quite innovative but I am not sure I want to break weather seals on the camera though. There is, I believe, a firmware route to switching the integral LEDs off but I could be wrong. I'll look into it. 

[djm]

Don't know anything about it but today's Screwfix Deal of the Day is this:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/swann-sodvk-845806-uk-8-channel-cctv-dvr-kit-6-cameras/8254x?mi_u=COM_3795447341&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=E19W02BX7&utm_content=DOTD&utm_term=CCTVKit

A big reduction but is it any good?

[Chris Brading]

20 hours ago, Archibald Meatpants said:

I use one of these combined with a gravel drive. Nothing gets close without him being on high alert.

Of course if they get in, they get licked to death. 

Other models are available. 

My dog has reduced its security zone to the bedroom only at this time of year, rubbish!

[Blatman]

10 hours ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

but you still have to run a power cable s

To me if there is a power cable involved then each camera gets a TP-Link (or similar) homeplug and bingo, all wired CCTV.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

10 hours ago, Blatman said:

To me if there is a power cable involved then each camera gets a TP-Link (or similar) homeplug and bingo, all wired CCTV.

It may depend on the particular situation. I've got a couple of indoor IP cameras running through TP Link extenders and they not as stable as wired-in cameras but that can be for a number of reasons in my experience. I had a Netgear router before going on fibre and it was very poor, but a TP Link Archer ADSL router from a charity shop for a fiver was perfect. Now I'm on a Plusnet supplied fibre router and that is not quite as reliable but acceptable nonetheless.

[Blatman]

You sure it's the router? And if you are, what's behind this apparent lack of performance?

I'll agree that they are built down to a price but in my experience they are usually pretty good, mostly because they aren't doing much other than getting traffic to and from the internet. BUT... I think folks generally (not pointing the finger here...) underestimate the number of devices connecting not just to the internet but to each other via the router, especially if there are smartphones and tablets loafing around. If you look at the traffic stats, especially for Apple devices, they're pretty chatty over the internet connection and this could be having an impact. Add in smart TV's/Apple TV's (or any other IP TV service)/blu-ray players/Alexa (or any other smart speaker) etc etc, and along with whatever else is going on I'll bet the ISP router will start to be stretching it's compute power. Throw in a handful of 1080p CCTV cameras and I suspect the ISP router could really start to wilt.

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

My first four cameras were on an NVR connected to a TP link extender via ethernet cable in my workshop. No problems with stability there. I then bought a single, static, IP camera (720p) which worked through another TP link extender nearby in my garage. Again no problems. The second IP camera (also 720p) was a P&T version in my garage and also connected through the same TP link extender as the first IP camera. As soon as this was on line the whole TP link system seized but the NVR paradoxically remained on line but nothing was using the wifi feature on that. At that time I was on conventional ADSL with the Netgear router and a third TP link extender in my sitting room ethernet cable connected to the Panasonic smart TV. No other wifi device was continuously connected but a laptop and a smart phone were periodically. After extensive consultation with both the makers of the cameras and TP Link no conclusions were reached so I decided to await the imminent fibre connection being commissioned in my road. This did nothing for my problem so it wasn't a connection speed problem with the outside world. Co-incidentally I found an Archer router (TP Link make) for a few pounds in a charity shop locally (I love finding gadgets that cost a fiver in such places and have a Panasonic HD 500Gb PVR that cost £5). This solved the problem instantly and I have since bought yet another IP camera (1080p) which is P&T and that is perfectly happy as well. The only small instability I have is usually a fibre drop-out signalled by the router tell-tale changing colour. It is never more than a minute or two and seems to coincide with the local traffic rising at school chucking out time. My daughter's partner is a self-employed IT bod and he tells me that the local fibre connection is not only no as fast as promised, but is a sometimes apparently saturated. I am 300m from the cabinet (FTC) so the distance effect to mine is only slight. As you said Blatters, the hidden traffic is not insignificant from phones and tablets but we have only one smart phone (always on) and one tablet (almost always off) plus a smart TV which is off (not on stand by) most of the time. So, to summarise, I have an NVR 4-camera system and three IP cameras running constantly and all of the cameras use the Internet to function but the NVR will work on the local network if the Internet is down but won't allow remote access of course. The IP cameras will not work even locally without the 'net as far as I know. There's a room full of Chinese voyeurs in Shanghai bored stiff with watching CCTV of my back door, garage, and basement!

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

I've been recommended this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reolink-Security-Surveillance-Recording-RLK8-410B4-5MP/dp/B01C5JE3DS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1550221580&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=reolink+rlk8-410b4&psc=1&smid=ARGDLBF91D6J6 any thoughts @Man On The Clapham Omnibus

[tc3nitro]

I have heard and seen good things from the Blink XT wireless cameras. They are available on amazon and claims 2 year battery life from 2xAA batteries.

The app seems good to use also.

[BugMan]

I thin the Blink cameras are connected to the Amazon Alexa platform and a buddy of mine has them outside his gaff, and it caught a bird dive-bombing somebody, bl**** impressive as it tracked the bird in-flight..

Just be aware most cameras are now using web based storage over a local SD card or disk recorder with a physical hard disk in them, bit like that Ring Doorbell advertised on the telly, so they have a bit of a charge, but the advantage is you can check them on your phone from anywhere.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Home-Security-Detection-Included/dp/B01M675RC9

Obviously you need an Amazon or Amazon Echo type subscription to start with, but have to say the Amazon one looks a lot better than the Google Home one, with lots of support for all sorts of things like my buddies setup reads his calendar and turned the heating on in his remote office at the end of his garden if he's working from home, but then he's TBH a bit of a geek with this stuff, and has spent a massive amount on all the bits in his home.

That's not to say you can't get to a home based recording platform, with stuff like the original one at the beginning of the post.

I'm also thinking about camears linked to my setup at home, but TBH need cash for other things, like upgraditis cures etc. 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

1 hour ago, IanK (Bagpuss) said:

I've been recommended this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reolink-Security-Surveillance-Recording-RLK8-410B4-5MP/dp/B01C5JE3DS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1550221580&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=reolink+rlk8-410b4&psc=1&smid=ARGDLBF91D6J6 any thoughts @Man On The Clapham Omnibus

It's a different brand from mine so I would not have any information on their customer service, but they look to be good cameras from a definition point of view and the reviews are generally positive. It looks as if you can add cameras (it is an eight channel NVR) which could be handy, and it also means that you can get spare or replacement cameras too. I don't think Annke's system that I have offers this.  The price at >£490 is higher than the total of c.£330 that I paid (hard drive separate in my case) but that may be exchange rate effects in part. Amazon's replacement/return service is good in my experience so if you were to buy it I would set it up temporarily on a bench first to evaluate it before making it 'shop soiled' as it were. Suppliers of 'proper' CCTV systems such as CCTV42 will poo-poo turnkey systems like these as 'one-size fits all' that does nothing properly. They say that lens length is more important than pixel counts where ID of suspects is concerned and this is true, but it comes at a cost. These off the shelf systems seem to always have wide angle lenses and cheaper systems can struggle to read number plates or ID people at a distance. The still frame below shows that plates are legible on a 1080p (claimed) camera at a reasonable distance (est.. 20 m)

 

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

Thanks @Man On The Clapham Omnibus I fully understand your reply. I hope you whipped the Engine out of the S2000 whilst it was on your land  They go much better in a Westie!