N/A Security camera configuration?

gkainz

gkainz

Final Approach
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Greg Kainz
More random non-aviation questions but all y'all are good at this stuff!

Our church/we/us/volunteers are installing security cameras, and I'm now staring at 3 16 Channel DRVs and trying to figure out how to build the control center monitoring station. For a test, we ran an HDMI from 1 DVR to a large screen monitor, where all 16 channels are displayed. This is not really useful, as the DVR is out of range of the remote control to change anything (change display, zoom to a camera, etc).

The DVRs are on the network, and visible/controllable via TCP/IP. The control center has 3 large screen monitors, but the HVICWQ (Head Volunteer In Charge Who Quit) convinced the GWTB (Guy With The Budget) that a single HDMI cable from each DVR to the monitors at the control center is all we need. Nay, nope, veto....

So, what say you? How to monitor and control 3 (for now - 1 more DVR coming on line next year for a remote building) 1 PC with multiple video boards? Multiple PCs with standard video boards?
 
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What brand DVR/NVR is it? What brand camera?


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Your first mistake was the 3 dVRs. You can buy IP gear now for the same price as the old analog stuff.


Tell us more about the system. Make/model, distance from the recorders to the monitoring station, any software you are running to network it?

If it were me, I woulda bought a stand alone server, some PoE switches and a router to start with.
 
The whole bundle was purchased, delivered, and the install underway before I got involved, so what's done cannot easily be undone at this point. Over a mile of cable pulled in 1 building, 2nd building waiting install.

24 interior cameras installed and functional, 24 exterior cameras wired but not yet installed.
Cameras are GW-239HD IR Color
DVRs are (unknown - even tho I'm holding the User Manual in my hand, make and model not identified anywhere in this book) - will update tomorrow.
- H.264 video compression
- Windows style gui, embedded real time Linux 2.6 os
- 16 channel
- 250G (?) HD
- TCP/IP network
- USB 2.0 port
- cloud storage capable (Dropbox)
- ActiveX Web App Manager
Splash screen startup says H.264 DVR
Camera monitor software provided is RXCamLink 1.0.1

Distance to monitoring station from each of the DVRs is ~100 ft.
 
48 cams on .75T storage?


All I can say is good luck with that. Even at the lowest CIF and 5FPS, which is pretty worthless, your retention is going to be measured in hours, not days.

Did you pull CAT5e or coax?
 
Typical junk system IMHO.

If you ran cat5, you'll need baluns on each end. You can run power no prob on the cat5 as long as it's clean. If the power supply is dirty, you'll see it on the monitor.

Calling it a megapixel system is false advertising. Analog cams are not capable of MP resolution.

Basically, you have 3 stand alone systems. You won't be able to combine them into a single controllable system. Three mice and three monitors.

A lot of these no name systems are coming our of China and Korea. China is now even cloning name brands and selling as genuine. All fun and games till you try to get support or warranty service. Then......suprise!!
 
Ugh. I want to help but it sounds like this project is messed up clear back at the "goals" stage. 12 cameras even on a really big nice screen is going to yield little dots that resemble human forms and be pretty useless for real-time monitoring. Trying to keep an eye on 48 of them on three screens is nearly ridiculous. I think your mantra should quickly become, "It's not a casino.", to anyone who asks why you're paring down from 48.

I want to say... knowing the original goal was "someone thought they had a good idea"... that maybe even if it's a budget buster, a phone call to a reputable real security company who can help sort out the actual goals and requirements of the whole system and recommend real gear and prices to meet the agreed upon goal(s) might be the best course of action.

I can send you a PM here or you have my number, if you want the number of a good company.

My boss didn't ask and whoever he chose for the office spent two months installing and it took three extra techs and a month just to figure out how to hook up the Ethernet to the thing. Oh well. Didn't help that they shoved their crap inside my data center cable trays and stapled crap to my telecom wall crossing over other cables. We decided not to bother having them try again -- when the time comes we'll re-route and fix it ourselves. By the time they call someone to tell us their crap is showing a fault, we will have the new cables connected and in proper locations on the wall. Beat. Head. Here.
 
Don't use the DVRS GUI at the monitoring station. The DVRs should have a Web server. Install a PC at the monitoring station and use the Web interface to view and control the cameras. This also gives you the option of putting other monitoring stations using a tablet and wifi.
 
to the above (weilke) response - that's how I was envisioning managing the DVR display - so to that point - how to drive 3 54" displays from a single PC with each DRV displayed to a separate screen/monitor? Do I need more video cards in said PC?
And Nate - believe it or not, the 4x4 default display mode does show enough detail to see movement, as well as green or red tattletale motion indicators on each camera display. Easy to pop into fewer cameras, bigger display with a click or two, or any smaller number subset of the 16 cameras.
It may not be pretty, it may not be the best, but it's what we have to work with, so "fall out and carry out the plan of the day!"
 
gkainz said:
to the above (weilke) response - that's how I was envisioning managing the DVR display - so to that point - how to drive 3 54" displays from a single PC with each DRV displayed to a separate screen/monitor? Do I need more video cards in said PC?
Click to expand...

There are 'quad monitor HDMI cards' that can drive 4 TVs as monitors. That's what I would look at. A cursory google search suggests that a company called Gigabyte makes a series of GeForce cards that can do this. NVidia is another company that makes 3 and 4 monitor cards. A lot of this equipment is geared towards the gamer market. You won't need half of the processing power concentrated on those cards. Whatever PC you hook it to needs some horsepower to shuffle around the image data and you need a stable network connection between the DVRs and the display PC.

As for the software. I use workstations with a 3 monitor setup. A 24in color monitor for the control software and 2 3MP B&W displays. Windows 7pro (and before that XP Pro SP3) has no problem managing multiple monitors. Just make the mouse pointer ridiculously large and switch it to a blinking mode so you can find it on all that real estate.
 
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Thank you for the above - greatly appreciated!
 
I'm not a camera guru, nor a security guru... So my question and comments are more on the operations end of it. What exactly are you monitoring... And what brought this on?

Did something happen in the form of a break in? or is the collection basket coming up light?

I would presume/hope that you have EYE/FACE level at each of the entrances to the building, as well as to the sanctuary. Some dedicated cams to secure/sensitive areas like the cash room or the safe in the pastors office... etc... Area cams are good for foyers/halls/the sanctuary but the eye level/face level cams at chokepoints are how you will identify someones face. Realistically I dont think you guys will be doing real time catching of bad guys. What you are wanting is the ability to capture evidence of someone stealing your sound gear or raiding the treasury office. Also, parking lot area cams with choke point cams that can get plates coming and going if you have a problem with burglars during services. You need the ability to store 30 days of data from the cameras because you wont always know you've been hit right away if its an inside job. Finally, the guy managing the cameras/data needs to be independent of the guy counting the money... I'm sure the church has an executive board/BOD that everyone including the pastor answers to..
 
Those 'surveillance in a box' systems rarely provide the resolution needed to actually prosecute crimes. It has been mentioned to go with IP cameras and NVRs, the prices for good cameras capable of providing license plate level images cost multiples of the box sets on a per camera basis.
 
Weilke, what camera systems would you recommend looking at?
I have a large mfg. plant and think about 32 cameras would work. That is about as far as I have gotten on my research. I have googled it and a million mfg's, resellers show up. Internet just makes everything too damn confusing.
 
Getonit said:
Weilke, what camera systems would you recommend looking at?
I have a large mfg. plant and think about 32 cameras would work. That is about as far as I have gotten on my research. I have googled it and a million mfg's, resellers show up. Internet just makes everything too damn confusing.
Click to expand...

That's probably above my paygrade. I have used Axis cameras, Cisco POE switch and a Bosh NVR, but that doesn't mean that they are particularly good or applicable to your situation.

Whatever you do, you probably want to:
- hire a professional
- go with IP cameras and an all Cat6 wired setup (not coax+DC wiring and DVRs)
- use PoE switches to power most cameras (all but the ones that suck a lot of power due to things like IR illuminators)
- have the central wiring point, switches, NVR(s), UPS in a secured room that is alarmed and difficult to breach even with the tools available in your plant (once your data is on the NVR, any PC or tablet can be a monitoring station, your camera room does not have to be colocated with either your office or a security guard shack)
- have either cloud or off-site backup for your data
- be aware that you are creating a torrent of data that needs to be moved around and stored. It may not play nice with the network you already have.
- did I mention hire a professional
 
Getonit said:
Weilke, what camera systems would you recommend looking at?
I have a large mfg. plant and think about 32 cameras would work. That is about as far as I have gotten on my research. I have googled it and a million mfg's, resellers show up. Internet just makes everything too damn confusing.
Click to expand...


To give you perspective, I just finished a review of a new installed system for a major retailer.

48 cams, 7 are 7mp, and the rest 2 mp cams. All Samsung, a reliable CCV provider. The NVR is a Dell 37TB and hot swappable drives.

The company is installing Their own software so we just looked at the installation QC aspect.

I don't know the cost they paid, but you can guarantee it's not cheap. I estimate it was about $150k-ish without the software, monitors or any off site retention costs.
 
Getonit said:
Weilke, what camera systems would you recommend looking at?
I have a large mfg. plant and think about 32 cameras would work. That is about as far as I have gotten on my research. I have googled it and a million mfg's, resellers show up. Internet just makes everything too damn confusing.
Click to expand...

Axis, Pelco, and Samsung are all excellent cameras for a commercial CCTV installation and ones we have used extensively.

Full disclosure: I work for a national low-voltage contractor (structured cabling, CCTV, access controls, etc.). If you're in need of some help, feel free to message me.
 
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