Reasonably priced video surveillance

[wewoapsiak]

Saw this today, Woot! usually has full security setups a couple times a month. If you want to check back with them every now and then.

Uniden 7

[z90HD]

If It helps anyone else as to what BPE explained in his post, I have a 8ch dvr with 4 cams recording 24/7 and I get a full 4 weeks stored on 1 tb hd before it starts to overwrite itself. Dont skimp on the cameras either. Get the best you can absolutely afford. The quality of pic,resolution,amount of led's,and distance really matters especially at night. Try finding a spy shop in your town. Start there and get educated. You will find good systems online for better pricing than local but be sure you know what your getting first.

[bigwakes]

I'm going to attempt not to thread-steal and/or turn this forum into a geek's wet dream but whenever I start to look into buying a product of substantial cost I like to know everything I possibly can about it. I have experience in this field so I intend to share what I know in order to help others.

The quick answer, Wyatt, is that the video is compressed heavily. In most systems, the H.264 codec is utilized being the one of the best and most common compressors out there now. With the ability to also load this compressor onto hardware for implementation instead of using a software based codec for compression it keeps costs down, as they're mass produced, high on reliability and it's easier for manufacturers to use as it requires less programming.

Wyatt, since I understand you to be a video/graphics guy from your other posts here, don't think of the AVI being in a standard you would expect regarding resolution. You typically deal with SD or HD video in common formats of 720x480(SD), 1080x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i). For some those may just be numbers so to explain the first number is the width, in pixels, of the video and the second the height, again in pixels. The more pixels, the greater quality the image. Compare it to digital cameras you would have bought back in early 2001-2002 to cameras purchased within the last few years. The quality is much better and once the still image you take is saved you can zoom in better on the newer digital image. The older cameras were grainy at best and look horrible printed on a 4"x3" photo. Specifically, 1080i HD, what most TVs today are made to show, is similar to the quality of a 3MP camera.

When it comes to digital video surveillance, video formats are not called SD or HD but are generally referred by CIF and D1. Now that you've seen the numbers for SD and HD signals, compare those to CIF and D1 formats.

CIF: 352x240

2CIF: 704x240

4CIF: 704x480

D1: 720x480

Those are extremely small!! In fact, D1 video resolution which is not support by all manufacturers is the best of the list and it is only even with SD video. Most manufacturers support 1/2 CIF, CIF, 1/2 D1, 2CIF. Any time there is a 1/2 preceding the video standard, take the numbers and divide by two. This means you're getting crappy video snapshots of whatever it is you're capturing. This is why I don't recommend webcams as security cameras as most models only support CIF for recording.

When it comes to storing these videos for usage later one needs to examine the compression used. Don't worry about the codec, such as H.264, so much as the bit rate of the video stored. The bit rate of the video directly correlates to how compressed the video will be. And no, compression is not some magical thing a computer does. It is a process in which patterns are found in the data and instead of storing 40 0's back to back they will store the number 40 and then 0. So compared the space stored to hold 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 versus 40/0. That may seem great but the next step the compressor does is to take and throw away data if the size of the resulting pattern finder is not enough to meet the needs of the bit rate. It will go through and take a square of 4 pixels and instead of showing each color on each pixel it will take and find the median color for the 4 pixels. It will replace the individual pixel colors with the new median color it calculated. It just made its own pattern so it can then compress the video further. So - the lower the bit rate supported the more often the compressor used is going to replace the video you're taking with a median of colors found within the picture.

When you are watching video through Comcast, Charter or any other cable company, they are compressing the video on their side before sending it to your cable box to keep down the bandwidth that the video takes up. Typically, you're watching video between 5-10Mb/s or Megabits per second. This is considered by the industry to be called Broadcast compression. Step it down a notch to 3Mb/s to get to industrial compression and that's where most moderately priced security DVRs reside. Wyatt, I assume you're used to either 50Mb/s compressed or 300Mb/s uncompressed in your projects. Now knowing the compression rate we can easily do some math to figure out how much space is required for a video you are recording for security.

Key:

MB = 8Mb

GB = 1,024MB

TB = 1,024GB or 1,048,576MB

MegaBytes per second: 3Mb/s = 0.375MB/s = 9MB for every 24 seconds

MegaBytes per day: 86,400 (seconds in a day) / 8 seconds = 3,600 * 9MB = 32,400MB = 31.6GB per day

4 Cameras: 31.6GB a day * 4 = 126.5GB per day for 4 cameras

You can see how much data will be stored per day, per camera and how much data is required for a full system of 4 cameras per day. Yes - this is quite a bit of data. But with prices on 1TB drives being what they are it's really not that bad. Also, don't forget to consider that most everyone will turn the cameras to only record during motion which generally eliminates 65% of dead time or more. That reduces your storage load to 44.3GB a day for a 4 camera system. Take that and save it to a 1TB drive and now you get ~23 days of storage for video. Perfect for most homes! Better if the motion isn't occurring more often than 35% of the time or you set the compression down lower. Also - the compression could be higher (meaning a lower Mb number and less space) on a lower cost system to save that all important storage space.

Wyatt, you asked how a person would possibly comb through all of this video. The answer is rather simple. You're not going to watch the video until you realize you need it. For instance, you now have a clean spot surrounded by dust where your TV used to be, your guns are all missing and you don't recall posting them for sale on TGO, you're wife's acting a bit strange and the sheets are all a mess, that sort of thing. And when you do go to review the "tape" you generally will know about what time of day you're looking for so that cuts down a lot of the searching. Now, you fast forward.

Some systems, including the one I have at my office, records all day long and marks events of motion for you. So when you go back to review you can easily click through the multiple events captured of motion and get to what you're looking for in under 2-3 minutes. Not bad considering all of the video I have on my security system. Which by the way is a 16 channel system with 8 cameras at the moment that records all day and night around the clock. I've put enough storage in the machine that it has been recording since November 1st and has only recently filled the drives to 85% capacity. I'm comfortable in knowing if something happens within my office, we have video of it and we have it for a long time.

I hope this has been helpful and not too off topic. Just do your research when looking at products. Always click to review the specs and look at those instead of the marketing and flash that is attached with the unit.

So can you suggest a wireless IP night vision camera that would be suitable for home use in the $200 range? I need the video to be as good as possible and need about a 50 ft range on the IR.

[BPE]

So can you suggest a wireless IP night vision camera that would be suitable for home use in the $200 range? I need the video to be as good as possible and need about a 50 ft range on the IR.

I would look at something by Foscam for what you're asking for. Generally I would just say you're just going the wrong direction here but it seems you know what you want. The issue with wireless cameras are:

1. When wireless issues arise that means no video which means no security.

2. Wireless isn't always wireless - you're going to still have to place the camera near a power source. If you have to add or install this power you might as well go wired. It's much easier to run CAT5 than it is to run power.

3. You can battery backup a central unit that provides power to your cameras and DVR. In a wireless situation you have to provide multiple battery backup points as you have multiple connections for power.

4. IR LEDs are generally not as good on wireless devices and sometimes completely missing.

However, if this is what you want and you're sold on the wireless idea - Foscam is where you want to go for quality. I say quality referring to picture and longevity of the product. Quality in the software and setup assistance is not quite there and it could be tricky depending upon your knowledge of networking. You can surely go to a LinkSys/Cisco/DLink product for ease of setup and use but the quality for picture is going to be lacking for sure.

If you're looking more at price range than installation ease look back at the QSee line of products I suggested earlier.

Q-See QS464-211 Security System - 4 Channels, & 2 Color Cameras, 400 TV Lines, 40ft Night Vision, Indoor/Outdoor, No Hard Drive at TigerDirect.com

This product from TigerDirect (best price online) is only $100. It does not include a hard drive in the unit but you can pick up your pick of size for roughly $50-$90 extra so within your budget. The system comes as a 4CH unit with 2 cameras. There is excellent support provided with this product and the quality is there all around. Note: while this unit does support D1 recording it only support D1 at 30FPS (frames-per-second) per the entire system. This means that with 2 cameras installed you'll only be recording at 15FPS at D1 quality. If you choose to record at CIF then you will have full 30FPS per camera support. But it's $100 so you're getting what you pay for in this arena. The loss of features here is reflected in the price.

If you have questions about the terms D1 or CIF seem my post prior to this one. I will again note that I am not affliated with QSee or TigerDirect. I'm just a fan of the product for home use and I think it fills this segment of the market perfectly. I have nothing to gain whichever way you go but want to make sure you get the best you're money will provide you. If you find yourself needing help getting this system installed or setup let me know and I'll see what free time I have available to help out.

[bigwakes]

I actually have a degree in networking and feel like I can set it up. Looking at the spot for the camera I could just as easily install a Cat5 cable as extend power up to the mounting point.

[BPE]

I actually have a degree in networking and feel like I can set it up. Looking at the spot for the camera I could just as easily install a Cat5 cable as extend power up to the mounting point.

Perfect. Then Foscam may be the thing for you for sure! Reviews on Foscam seem to conclude the biggest concern is the documentation either isn't written well or translated poorly. I'm sure setup to the camera would be either by first hard wiring and either doing a static IP or on a router and setting up the proper subnet for communication. Once you're in the admin panel I think you could probably set it up however you want. Best of luck. Please keep me up to date, if you don't mind, with the model you go with.

[Guest WyattEarp]

I'm going to attempt not to thread-steal and/or turn this forum into a geek's wet dream but whenever I start to look into buying a product of substantial cost I like to know everything I possibly can about it. I have experience in this field so I intend to share what I know in order to help others.

The quick answer, Wyatt, is that the video is compressed heavily. In most systems, the H.264 codec is utilized being the one of the best and most common compressors out there now. With the ability to also load this compressor onto hardware for implementation instead of using a software based codec for compression it keeps costs down, as they're mass produced, high on reliability and it's easier for manufacturers to use as it requires less programming.

Wyatt, since I understand you to be a video/graphics guy from your other posts here, don't think of the AVI being in a standard you would expect regarding resolution. You typically deal with SD or HD video in common formats of 720x480(SD), 1080x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i). For some those may just be numbers so to explain the first number is the width, in pixels, of the video and the second the height, again in pixels. The more pixels, the greater quality the image. Compare it to digital cameras you would have bought back in early 2001-2002 to cameras purchased within the last few years. The quality is much better and once the still image you take is saved you can zoom in better on the newer digital image. The older cameras were grainy at best and look horrible printed on a 4"x3" photo. Specifically, 1080i HD, what most TVs today are made to show, is similar to the quality of a 3MP camera.

When it comes to digital video surveillance, video formats are not called SD or HD but are generally referred by CIF and D1. Now that you've seen the numbers for SD and HD signals, compare those to CIF and D1 formats.

CIF: 352x240

2CIF: 704x240

4CIF: 704x480

D1: 720x480

Those are extremely small!! In fact, D1 video resolution which is not support by all manufacturers is the best of the list and it is only even with SD video. Most manufacturers support 1/2 CIF, CIF, 1/2 D1, 2CIF. Any time there is a 1/2 preceding the video standard, take the numbers and divide by two. This means you're getting crappy video snapshots of whatever it is you're capturing. This is why I don't recommend webcams as security cameras as most models only support CIF for recording.

When it comes to storing these videos for usage later one needs to examine the compression used. Don't worry about the codec, such as H.264, so much as the bit rate of the video stored. The bit rate of the video directly correlates to how compressed the video will be. And no, compression is not some magical thing a computer does. It is a process in which patterns are found in the data and instead of storing 40 0's back to back they will store the number 40 and then 0. So compared the space stored to hold 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 versus 40/0. That may seem great but the next step the compressor does is to take and throw away data if the size of the resulting pattern finder is not enough to meet the needs of the bit rate. It will go through and take a square of 4 pixels and instead of showing each color on each pixel it will take and find the median color for the 4 pixels. It will replace the individual pixel colors with the new median color it calculated. It just made its own pattern so it can then compress the video further. So - the lower the bit rate supported the more often the compressor used is going to replace the video you're taking with a median of colors found within the picture.

When you are watching video through Comcast, Charter or any other cable company, they are compressing the video on their side before sending it to your cable box to keep down the bandwidth that the video takes up. Typically, you're watching video between 5-10Mb/s or Megabits per second. This is considered by the industry to be called Broadcast compression. Step it down a notch to 3Mb/s to get to industrial compression and that's where most moderately priced security DVRs reside. Wyatt, I assume you're used to either 50Mb/s compressed or 300Mb/s uncompressed in your projects. Now knowing the compression rate we can easily do some math to figure out how much space is required for a video you are recording for security.

Key:

MB = 8Mb

GB = 1,024MB

TB = 1,024GB or 1,048,576MB

MegaBytes per second: 3Mb/s = 0.375MB/s = 9MB for every 24 seconds

MegaBytes per day: 86,400 (seconds in a day) / 8 seconds = 3,600 * 9MB = 32,400MB = 31.6GB per day

4 Cameras: 31.6GB a day * 4 = 126.5GB per day for 4 cameras

You can see how much data will be stored per day, per camera and how much data is required for a full system of 4 cameras per day. Yes - this is quite a bit of data. But with prices on 1TB drives being what they are it's really not that bad. Also, don't forget to consider that most everyone will turn the cameras to only record during motion which generally eliminates 65% of dead time or more. That reduces your storage load to 44.3GB a day for a 4 camera system. Take that and save it to a 1TB drive and now you get ~23 days of storage for video. Perfect for most homes! Better if the motion isn't occurring more often than 35% of the time or you set the compression down lower. Also - the compression could be higher (meaning a lower Mb number and less space) on a lower cost system to save that all important storage space.

Wyatt, you asked how a person would possibly comb through all of this video. The answer is rather simple. You're not going to watch the video until you realize you need it. For instance, you now have a clean spot surrounded by dust where your TV used to be, your guns are all missing and you don't recall posting them for sale on TGO, you're wife's acting a bit strange and the sheets are all a mess, that sort of thing. And when you do go to review the "tape" you generally will know about what time of day you're looking for so that cuts down a lot of the searching. Now, you fast forward.

Some systems, including the one I have at my office, records all day long and marks events of motion for you. So when you go back to review you can easily click through the multiple events captured of motion and get to what you're looking for in under 2-3 minutes. Not bad considering all of the video I have on my security system. Which by the way is a 16 channel system with 8 cameras at the moment that records all day and night around the clock. I've put enough storage in the machine that it has been recording since November 1st and has only recently filled the drives to 85% capacity. I'm comfortable in knowing if something happens within my office, we have video of it and we have it for a long time.

I hope this has been helpful and not too off topic. Just do your research when looking at products. Always click to review the specs and look at those instead of the marketing and flash that is attached with the unit.

wow, nice job. that's a great explanation of how it all works and how much data it takes up.

[DaveTN]

I haven’t read through this whole thread yet and the suggestions, but the storage was an issue I had had questions about. I was thinking I could use a wireless hard drive in hidden location for storage.

Wow… You are being awful hard on yourself. It’s the criminals fault not yours. I think it’s sad that you schedule your life around fear of someone breaking into your home.

I'm not so much worried about us getting burgled so much as catching this clown. There are chains and a 80Lb pitbull around the back of our house, a security door that STAYS locked out front and me and my wife live here with her parents. The number one rule of the house is: If me and my wife go off, they stay here. If they go off WE stay here. NO EXCEPTIONS. Everyone here carries daily and I realize that doesn't save you from anything, but something bad will happen when/if they come here. It may be MY blood they use for forensic evidence, who knows, but I'm just saying. Obviously I am also severely pissed about this because I thought I was fairly vigilant and it's clear I am not. I accept a percentage of the blame for this happening and have apologized to my neighbor. He doesn't see it my way and said it was no big deal, but it's a VERY big deal to me. I'd rather been punched in the face. This just confirms my own incompetence for not paying more attention to my surrounding environment.