Suggestions for a new system

[Corky]

Hi everyone, I'm new to all this but I am looking to purchase my first cctv system for my home an would like some help if possible please. I'll attach some pics to try and show what I want to cover. I was thinking 3-4 4mm(not sure this is right choice) hikvision Turret cameras (ds-2cd238561-i 8MP). I need to cover the cars down the side of the house and the gate, the front of the house, the back garden/patio doors. I need to cover the back of the garden as the railway track is right behind the fence and is easy access to my garden. The garden is about 12m long an 10m wide Would one camera cover the patio doors and the back or should I get 2 cameras on the back, one towards the patio doors and one towards back of garden? Also as you can see from the pics, it's a town house style house so it's taller than usual houses so how high do you think I should place them as I presume the soffit are too high and I'd mostly get tops of heads? Also the side of the house, not sure if to place the camera at the front side of the house looking down towards the car and gate, or at the back side looking down? It's also very dark at the back at night so are the cameras I've chose good enough in very dark conditions? I'd like 24/7 recording and push notifications to my phone if there's motion. Would I need 4tb hard drive or more for 4x 8mp cameras? Sorry for all the questions, it's alot money to spend so I want to get this right.
Thanks very much.

 

[Kyle]

Hi @Corky,

A 3 camera setup should be sufficient if you were happy to cover just the approach to your patio door, rater than having a camera pointing directly at it. You were right to be looking at a 4mm turret to cover the driveway/side gate, as well as your back garden/patio door approach. The turrets have a 30 metre IR range so should give perfect visibility of both the entire back garden and of your driveway at night. However, I would recommend a 2.8mm mini dome to cover the front door as they give greater detail at short range (ideal for identifying people at the front door), and only have a 10 metre IR range, which means people's faces wouldn't appear to be whited out by the IR at night as they would with the turrets. All the cameras mentioned also come equipped with Hikvision's new Darkfighter technology that will give you improved low-light images.

You might also opt for a 4 camera setup if you wanted complete coverage of the patio door. This would involve fitting a mini dome above/beside the patio door for a short-range, detailed image covering the door rather than just its approach, as well as a 4mm turret to cover the rest of the garden.

In summary, your setup would look like as follows:

1 x Hikvision 2545 (2.8mm) 4MP Mini Dome Network Camera mounted at head-height, to the right of your front door.
1 x Hikvision 2385 (4mm) 8MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera fitted above your gate, about 3 metres high, covering the driveway and gate approach.
1 x Hikvision 2385 (4mm) 8MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera fitted to the left of the patio door, at the same height, covering the entire garden and patio approach.
(Optional) 1 x Hikvision 2545 (2.8mm) 4MP Mini Dome Network Camera fitted to the right of the patio door, at head height, covering the entrance directly.

You will also need an NVR to connect your cameras to. A Hikvision 7604 (4 channel) NVR will do you fine (4 channels allows for 4 cameras.) However, if you wanted the option to expand your setup beyond 4 cameras then you will need an NVR with more channels - eg. a Hikvision 7608 (8 channel) NVR). We always recommend matching the manufacturer of cameras to that of the NVR to ensure full compatibility and access to all of the cameras' features.

I hope this helps!

 

[Corky]

Hi @Corky,

A 3 camera setup should be sufficient if you were happy to cover just the approach to your patio door, rater than having a camera pointing directly at it. You were right to be looking at a 4mm turret to cover the driveway/side gate, as well as your back garden/patio door approach. The turrets have a 30 metre IR range so should give perfect visibility of both the entire back garden and of your driveway at night. However, I would recommend a 2.8mm mini dome to cover the front door as they give greater detail at short range (ideal for identifying people at the front door), and only have a 10 metre IR range, which means people's faces wouldn't appear to be whited out by the IR at night as they would with the turrets. All the cameras mentioned also come equipped with Hikvision's new Darkfighter technology that will give you improved low-light images.

You might also opt for a 4 camera setup if you wanted complete coverage of the patio door. This would involve fitting a mini dome above/beside the patio door for a short-range, detailed image covering the door rather than just its approach, as well as a 4mm turret to cover the rest of the garden.

In summary, your setup would look like as follows:

1 x Hikvision 2545 (2.8mm) 4MP Mini Dome Network Camera mounted at head-height, to the right of your front door.
1 x Hikvision 2385 (4mm) 8MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera fitted above your gate, about 3 metres high, covering the driveway and gate approach.
1 x Hikvision 2385 (4mm) 8MP IR Fixed Turret Network Camera fitted to the left of the patio door, at the same height, covering the entire garden and patio approach.
(Optional) 1 x Hikvision 2545 (2.8mm) 4MP Mini Dome Network Camera fitted to the right of the patio door, at head height, covering the entrance directly.

You will also need an NVR to connect your cameras to. A Hikvision 7604 (4 channel) NVR will do you fine (4 channels allows for 4 cameras.) However, if you wanted the option to expand your setup beyond 4 cameras then you will need an NVR with more channels - eg. a Hikvision 7608 (8 channel) NVR). We always recommend matching the manufacturer of cameras to that of the NVR to ensure full compatibility and access to all of the cameras' features.

I hope this helps!

Thanks very much for your great reply, that's really helped. Can I ask would the mini dome on the front door be good enough to cover the car parked at the front on the pic I've attached to this post aswell or would you recommend a 4mm Turret on the front of the house for that? Sometimes we don't have both cars on the driveway you see and I'd like to cover that area too? I have the Nest doorbell covering the door at the moment but the notifications aren't reliable enough and sometimes delayed or don't come through at all, are the Hikvision notifications quick and reliable?
Thanks again.

 

[Corky]

Thanks very much for your great reply, that's really helped. Can I ask would the mini dome on the front door be good enough to cover the car parked at the front on the pic I've attached to this post aswell or would you recommend a 4mm Turret on the front of the house for that? Sometimes we don't have both cars on the driveway you see and I'd like to cover that area too? I have the Nest doorbell covering the door at the moment but the notifications aren't reliable enough and sometimes delayed or don't come through at all, are the Hikvision notifications quick and reliable?
Thanks again.

 

[Kyle]

No problem - you're very welcome. A mini dome on the door should be fine to cover the car you're talking about as the distance between them isn't huge. The resolutions of the mini domes are typically twice that of the Nest cam you've got installed, so if you wanted an idea of how the picture would look it would typically be twice as sharp as the one you're currently getting. The 4mm turret I suggested you fit to the side of the house (above the gate) would cover the cars in your driveway and the section of road directly in front of it; so with that and the mini dome on the door all of your parking spots should be covered.

Re. the Hikvision notifications, we have had some reports of issues with the reliability of notifications they give. However, this is normally dependent on the complexity of the scene recorded and the event settings selected. It looks like a nice quiet road so I wouldn't imagine the complexity of the scene being an issue and finding the right event settings are normally achieved through trial and error (e.g. motion detection works perfectly for some while like crossing/area intrusion suits others better.) Once people find their best suited setting they rarely have any issues with notification reliability and speed. Hope that makes some sense and has cleared things up a bit!

 

[Corky]

No problem - you're very welcome. A mini dome on the door should be fine to cover the car you're talking about as the distance between them isn't huge. The resolutions of the mini domes are typically twice that of the Nest cam you've got installed, so if you wanted an idea of how the picture would look it would typically be twice as sharp as the one you're currently getting. The 4mm turret I suggested you fit to the side of the house (above the gate) would cover the cars in your driveway and the section of road directly in front of it; so with that and the mini dome on the door all of your parking spots should be covered.

Re. the Hikvision notifications, we have had some reports of issues with the reliability of notifications they give. However, this is normally dependent on the complexity of the scene recorded and the event settings selected. It looks like a nice quiet road so I wouldn't imagine the complexity of the scene being an issue and finding the right event settings are normally achieved through trial and error (e.g. motion detection works perfectly for some while like crossing/area intrusion suits others better.) Once people find their best suited setting they rarely have any issues with notification reliability and speed. Hope that makes some sense and has cleared things up a bit!

Thanks alot, for the Turret on the side of the house, would I need some sort of bracket or will it be OK attached straight to the wall? Thought I read something about ir glare on the wall if pointing down the side of a house, I may be wrong though? Would 2tb hard drive be enough for say 10-14 days recording aswell for the 3-4 cameras you've suggested?
Thanks

 

[Kyle]

Most people manage fine with mounting the turrets directly to the wall, although there are options to mount them on a bracket (which would help with eliminating IR glare from the wall as it allows you to mount the camera further from it) or a junction box. If mounting the cameras without a junction box, to ensure your connections are weatherproof, you need to be sure that the wall is less than 30cm thick and that you're happy to drill a 3cm hole through it so that the cables in the back of the camera fit through it correctly. Using junction boxes means the mounting wall can be thicker and the hole smaller, as it means you can pass a thinner cable through it. The thicker section of the cable is housed in the junction box and connections are all kept completely weatherproof.

You're right to think IR glare from walls can be problematic but I wouldn't be too concerned about it. You just need set the viewing angle of the camera slightly away from the wall so that as little of it as possible is in its field of view. A slight adjustment to the viewing angle will still mean the frame should cover everything you need to in the driveway.

If you set the frame rate for each of the cameras to 15fps (which we recommend all customers do as it massively reduces storage needs while still giving ample video quality/smoothness), then a 2TB hard drive will store 14 days worth of footage for either the three or four cameras mentioned. However, if you wanted to run the cameras at their maximum of 30fps then you'll probably be looking at more storage space - but there's really no need to do so. We use this CCTV storage calculator to work out storage requirements so feel free to have a play around with it. The latest Hikvision cameras all use the new H.265+ codec to compress data, which cuts down on storage needs massively (approx 60%) compared to the previous H.265. These calculators don't include an H.265+ option yet, so just make sure to select H.265 for compression and then reduce the total sum by 60% to get your true value. Our posts on Hikvision's H.265+ codec and how much bandwidth and storage does Hikvision's H.265+ save? are really useful for understanding how it works and its benefits.

 

[Corky]

Thanks again for your information/tips. Do you think a 4mm Turret would work in the position I've marked on the picture attached? Just last night we had someone trying the car doors/front doors in our road and they walked from the direction I've marked. Not sure I would of got a decent look if the mini dome was to the right of the door because I only got the back of him on the Nest doorbell.
Thanks very much.

 

[Kyle]

No worries, hope it all makes sense and sorry to hear that - it's understandable why you would want the cameras! A turret on the position that you've marked wouldn't have any real benefit as the only coverage it would give that the other camera's wouldn't already is of the front lawn and main road and so the gains of the new camera wouldn't justify its cost. If you wanted it to cover the front path then you would be pointing it downwards which would only leave you with the top of people's heads. Furthermore, the 30m IR range on the turrets would be too long for use here anyway and would probably result in whiting out in the image. This new position will not give you any greater coverage, especially at night, than the system already recommended. The only thing I would maybe suggest is mounting the turret on a bracket to give you the extra coverage of the full length/width of the driveway (as it would be positioned further from the house and more central to the drive.) The mini dome would probably be mounted higher than your Nest doorbell is, meaning it would cover more of the front door and it's therefore unlikely you'll only catch someones back as you did last night.

 

[Corky]

No worries, hope it all makes sense and sorry to hear that - it's understandable why you would want the cameras! A turret on the position that you've marked wouldn't have any real benefit as the only coverage it would give that the other camera's wouldn't already is of the front lawn and main road and so the gains of the new camera wouldn't justify its cost. If you wanted it to cover the front path then you would be pointing it downwards which would only leave you with the top of people's heads. Furthermore, the 30m IR range on the turrets would be too long for use here anyway and would probably result in whiting out in the image. This new position will not give you any greater coverage, especially at night, than the system already recommended. The only thing I would maybe suggest is mounting the turret on a bracket to give you the extra coverage of the full length/width of the driveway (as it would be positioned further from the house and more central to the drive.) The mini dome would probably be mounted higher than your Nest doorbell is, meaning it would cover more of the front door and it's therefore unlikely you'll only catch someones back as you did last night.

Don't think it could go higher than the green mark I've made there because of the porch above the front door. Is that where you mean to put the dome?
Thanks

 

[gp116126]

Hello

Could I give a view on whether to use brackets or proprietry junction boxes when mounting the cameras. In my limited experience as a DIY installer, mounting cameras directly to the external wall is fine if the cable is going to go through the wall immediately. I.E. you won't see the cable. If however you intend to route the cable around the external wall then I would mount the camera to a junction box in which the cameras cabling is connected to the CAT 5e before it passes out of the junction box and around your wall.

Whether you run cables around your wall will depend on whether you want a neat internal job, so you have cables coming into the house at an appropriate point in each location (I.E. in between floors / ceilings or in the loft) that doesn't mean you see them in your rooms as would be the case if you took them directly through your wall, as 3m high from ground floor = coming through half way up the first floor.
Then the biggest decision you'll need to make is where to put the NVR. Idealy it needs to be secure and out of sight of any intruders but needs to be accessible for setting NVR and Camera configuations which you can do using the NVRs GUI and of course viewing recordings, unless you plan on connecting the NVR to a PC to access the NVR and Cameras GUis through a browser.

To a pro, all this stuff would be pretty simple but to me, though an experienced DIYer it took a bit of thinking about.

I ended up with an NVR hidden-ish but accessible and connected to a monitor that I can use to access NVR and cameras, etc. Mounting all cameras on Junction boxes and routing cables on exterior walls, through my soffit up to my loft space and then bringing the cables down internally in one bunch to the NVR.

Of course there is always the option of routing cables in cavity walls but its a tricky job that I thought best to avoid.

I can also get access to the NVR through my WIFI network that its connected to.

Hope this helps rather than hinders.

Cheers

 

[Sonic007]

To avoid any water getting in and for peace of mind I use junction boxes that have a good seal for wires and room in the box to hide wiring.
I'd only consider mounting to the wall directly if there is no chance of water getting in between wall and camera and if you could pass cables directly through the wall.
Assuming you have power in the loft, I would place NVR in the loft so all wires go up through soffit into the loft and then just one cat6 cable from your router to the NVR.
You can stick a small switch up there too to give you room to add more items in your home if required or just connect the NVR.

I also use a RJ45 coupler so that if your cable connectors break, it hasnt ruined the entire cable.

If you want to get technical, you can also add your NVR to a seperate network so there is no way of accessing anything from your private network and CCTV network but most people wont need to do this.

I didnt bother trying to get in to cavity walls as you have no idea whats in there, whether you'll be in between electrical cables, etc.

When routing cables, especially CAT6 try to avoid 90 degree bends.

 

[Kyle]

gp116126 and Sonic007 have pretty much summed up the bracket/junction box situation perfectly. I should have clarified that junction boxes also eliminate the need to pass cameras directly through the wall. The cameras all have a 30cm long/3cm thick pigtail lead (hence the wall needing to be less than 30cm thick) with an RJ45 connector (which is what needs to be waterproofed) at the end into which you will plug your network cable, which in turn will need to lead to an NVR inside the house. The junction boxes house this pigtail lead and allow you to run the network cable as far as you like around the house, or straight through a smaller hole/thicker wall.

Waterproofing when mounting directly to the wall shouldn't be a concern, so long as it's mounted properly. Some still opt for a junction box, use waterproof tape on the back end of the camera or the weatherproof gasket on the RJ45 connector (which comes with the camera) for peace of mind.

Re. the camera position, yes that's where I meant to put the dome. These are mounted at about head height in order to capture people's faces, rather than at chest height which I assume the Nest is? I'll mark up where I suggest putting the cameras on the photos in a moment so you can see what I mean.

Edit: Pics below.

 

[Corky]

Thanks very much for all the help everyone, I really appreciate it, I'll come back with an update once everything is installed, hopefully it all goes smoothly. Seems like it may be difficult to wire the mini dome to the NVR without external wiring to me but that's just me looking at it, I won't be doing it so it may be easier than I think.
Thanks again.

 

[Kyle]

No problem - glad to be of help. If the thickness of the wall exceeds 30cm (including the column beside the door that you'll be mounting it on), then you might be right about the mini dome. A junction box would be the simple solution and would still allow you to pass a thinner network cable directly through if you wanted.

Look forward to the update and good luck!

 

[Corky]

Directly behind where the mini dome will be is a toilet an the electrics are in there aswell, don't know if that'll make any difference

 

[Kyle]

As long as your installer knows what they're doing and takes care not to drill through any cables in the wall (seems obvious I know), then you should be fine.

 

[Corky]

I have placed the order and realised I have ordered the mini dome ending 'IWS' by accident, not the 'I' one you suggested. Its also slightly cheaper, is it just the same anyway?

 

[Kyle]

Hi Corky, thanks for ordering with us!

The IWS and I are the same model/both from Hikvisions latest line (so both will receive all the latest firmware updates), just with slightly differing features. The model you've ordered will work perfectly fine, with full functionality, as I can see that you've gone for a Hikvision NVR as well. Both cameras have exactly the same resolution so there won't be any variation in image quality. The main differences are:

• The IWS comes with two-way audio built in, but it's optional as to whether you use this (hence S for 'sound' in the suffix).
• The IWS also comes with an optional WiFi connection, but you won't need to use this as you'll be connecting the camera directly to the NVR rather than an SD card (hence W for WiFi).

Because of its audio capabilities, the IWS will come with more connections in the back of it that need waterproofing. So, you will definitely need to use the junction box that you've purchased with it. It's not essential that you plug anything in to the audio connection though if you aren't fussed about using it, the camera will work fine without it.

If you did want to amend your order then just drop us an email at info@use-IP.co.uk with your details/what you'd like amending, or hop on our live chat, and we'll try get the camera shipped to you with the rest of your order.