CCTV recommendation and siting

[morfmedia]

Hi,

I am looking for a high end CCTV system, primarily with good night vision as there seem to be a lot of people trying out car doors in the midnight - 6AM timeframe. Front area is approx 16 metres wide and driveway about 9m deep

I've seen the new HikVision Colorvu cameras and the look superb at night however I can't get away with leaving the bright LED on at night as the neighbours would go crazy. I have good PIR lighting on both pillars of the garage and ether side of the front door so I think they would suffice for light. Else is it a good idea to mix up some IR cameras and some Colorvu. Ideally I'd like sound on all the cameras too.

I am wanting to future proof the design so thinking of going 8 channel Hikvision I series NVR (additional cameras to the side of the property to cover the gate and 2 * side doors) and also one more camera to cover the patio door and rear window. I also have a QNAP NAS so wondering if Hikvision do an I series level recorder but just in DVR format without all the POE bits and I can just get a 16/24 port POE+ switch?

I am thinking perhaps cameras on 1, 2 and 5 in the picture below and possibly a PTZ on 6 or 7.

 

[Kyle]

Hi morfmedia, just working on a potential setup for you now.

Can I ask what it is specifically you want the cameras to cover? Are you just looking at covering the front of the house for now (the door, driveway etc?)

PTZ cameras are pretty big so we normally only recommend these as useful for much larger properties. They're also only really beneficial if you're going to have someone constantly monitor and control them - it's common for people to focus the camera on a particular area of interest only to forget to return the camera to it's original viewing position and miss any significant events while the camera is left unmanned! One of the smaller PTZ models would work if you're really keen on the pan/zoom/tilt function, but a turret in position 6 would suffice too.

I'll get back to you shortly with my suggestions.

 

[morfmedia]

H Kyle,

Thanks very much, greatly appreciated. The idea is to capture anyone who crosses over the threshold of my property, ideally in colour 24 * 7 and be able to identify faces etc.

The PTZ camera idea was just because I'd seen some videos of the Hikvision cameras which do the auto tracking and zoom which looked impressive but as you say they sound pretty meaty and perhaps wouldn't fit in with the house! I like the idea of being able to zoom into read car numberplates and leave it zoomed in on the road area

/Edit: yes coverage wise the front of the house, close up of anyone coming into the porch and also good coverage of where the car is as that's where we park 99% of the time and have people trying to see if the car doors are locked etc

 

[Kyle]

No problem, sorry for taking a while to get back to you - the house is an unusual shape so I've been trying to work out what setup will give you maximum coverage. I've attached an image with my suggestions marked up, I think your best option is as follows:

3 x Hikvision DS-2CD2545FWD-I 4MP Mini Dome Network Camera in positions 1, 2 and 4.
1 x Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I 8MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera in position 6.

The 10m IR range of the mini domes makes them ideal for low light performance at close range (which is what you want at that height), and positioning them as such will give complete coverage of the front drive with good detail of anything close to the house and cars.

The 4mm turret mounted higher in position 6 is ideal as it has a longer, 30m IR range and of higher resolution. This should give coverage of the whole drive within one frame due to its narrower field of view, and give enough detail in the image to see everything you need to clearly from range. You may well get away with not mounting a camera here and fine the 3 mini domes give you all the coverage you need, but I can't be sure.

All the mentioned cameras come equipped with Hikvision's Darkfighter technology too, which really helps with low-light performance.

Unless you were opting for a specialist ANPR camera, reading number plates is pretty problematic for most cameras (including the PTZ). Even with the auto-tracking, you would need someone manually controlling the camera to do things such as follow cars and being able to pick out number plates still isn't guaranteed (definitely not at night). ANPR cameras are great for reading number plates but the software they use means that they're not much good for seeing anything else.

Hope that's useful and let me know what your thoughts are!

 

[morfmedia]

Thanks for the feedback Kyle. Just a couple of questions:

1) I am very keen to get colour pictures at night, would a colourvu camera in the no 6 position work well do you think?
2) From what I have read the dome cameras tend to attract spiders and also get fogged up etc, are the dome definitely the way to go rather than turret?

 

[Kyle]

Hikvision's ColorVu range use specialist sensors that rely on white light (the light visible to the human eye) to deliver colour picture in extremely low-light levels. Colour can only be extracted from white light (as opposed to infrared/IR) and the sensors can detect it to a far greater extent than we can see and use this to develop the image. However, there is a minimum level of available light needed for the ColorVu technology to work. Once the light level drops below this threshold the camera's bright built in light switches on so that
it can continue to deliver a colour image.

The Darkfighter range, on the other hand, use IR light that is invisible to the human eye to develop a black and white image when the available light drops below a certain level - which is higher than the ColorVu's threshold.

So, in essence, a ColourVu camera will give you a colour image in lower light levels than a Darkfighter, but will illuminate the whole drive with a bright light when a certain level of darkness is reached. A Darkfighter, on the other hand, will never turn a visible light but will give a black and white picture in low levels of light. So, if you opted for a ColorVu, you'll need to be sure that you (and your neighbours) are happy with a bright light emanating from the roof at night. A lot of customers don't realise what they're signing up for when they purchase a ColorVu, impressive as they are!

You're right about the drawbacks of using a dome camera - they can be problematic when it comes to spiders webs and also sometimes IR reflection from the inside of the dome. Fogging up isn't such a problem as they are built to be watertight and also come with silica gel in the dome that should absorb any moisture, should it happen to find its way in. We only recommend mounting domes at a reachable height so cleaning webs etc is easy enough. We normally recommend mini domes to be mounted at lower heights purely for their vandal-proofing as they're often easily within reach. If this isn't a huge concern for you then a 2.8mm turret is an option, but bear in mind that the turrets have a 30m IR range designed for long distances so dense areas close to the camera (eg. your car or porch) will appear whited out, making domes the better option for close range use.

 

[GLO]

Good thread and I'm curious how the colorvu handles number plates at night with the contrast from headlights or taillights?