IP Security Camera Systems, ready for the wash?

[Hoser06]

After my PVR's proprietary power supply died recently, I threw together a PC based PVR to get me by with old PC parts. It's running eight analog Bosh cameras that are five years old.

As most of us can attest, a high performing security system is a must these days, even up here in friendly Canada We've had three break and entries in three months (way higher then usual). I've added more lot lighting, replaced damaged exterior doors with higher gage steel, repaired forced un-alarmed vacuum doors and added nightly random patrol car visits. And still they come.

On rain days I'm trying to learn about digital ip cameras right now. I can almost justify the substantial cost increases, based on major performance gains and the ability to cover the whole site with less cameras (at least with the 1-5 mega pixel cameras).

One of my main concerns has to do with the mega-network bandwidth these cams eat up. Example: a 1.3 mega pixel ip camera (1280*1024) at 15 frames per sec, with high quality H.264 encoding eats up about 22 gigs a day, and thats ONE channel!

I really don't want my existing high speed credit card network to compete for network bandwidth with bandwidth hungry mega pixel ip cams.
If I were to take the plunge, I was thinking of creating a separate gigabyte Ethernet local area network, with the ip cams and NVR (network video recorder) totally apart from my Hamilton DAN computer and its associated auto tellers and in-bay cc acceptors. But then that prevents remote access and smart phone access into the network -I'm guessing.

My head is starting to hurt...sorry for the long post.
Anyone take the plunge yet?

BigLeo might have some valuable input based on his extensive network engineering background.

Thanks

 

[MEP001]

One of my main concerns has to do with the mega-network bandwidth these cams eat up. Example: a 1.3 mega pixel ip camera (1280*1024) at 15 frames per sec, with high quality H.264 encoding eats up about 22 gigs a day, and thats ONE channel!

That's if you keep it at full recording frames/quality. You would typically record at a reduced frame rate until motion is detected and a higher framerate/bitrate is used. If you consider also that 1.5 terabyte hard drives are about $150, that's a lot of recording time available.

 

[Louise]

As someone who has had LOTS of break-ins - I will just add this which is off topic.

I installed shock sensors on my autocashiers, changers and vendor. The moment the machine is whacked by a hammer or crowbar, the alarm sounds. My surveillance system is top of the line, but getting pictures of thugs breaking in never stopped them from breaking in and rarely resulted in an arrest. The shock sensors have worked better than anything and they were CHEAP. About $60 each plus install.

 

[bigleo48]

Hoser,

Having a fair bit of experience with the whole aspect of this, I would first reconsider the IP camera route and consider a traditional DVR with 700 line cameras. This can now be done with a $200 card in a $400 PC and $150 cameras. I must say I love my $200 Tag capture camera.

Back to your question...there are a few things to consider here. First what you are looking at are subnets for both the credit card and the camera networks. That won't change remote access, but require a little configuration of the routers. You can set the class of service of various device so that the Credit Card network has priority over the cameras. Both of these can be designed and configured by a junior networking tech.

Also, you need to get good Ethernet switches & routers. Using Ethernet Packet Simulators, I was able to stress test most residential & semi commercial switches and routers. I must say that they are pathetic when trying to push a lot of data through them. The two more difficult tests are with lots of small packets (tests the processor) and very large packets (tests the memory) and all of them lost over 90% of packets. Commercial switches never lost one single packet. Anyway, you can PM me for my phone number and we could talk about it.

Finally, I think we would all like to hear about your break-ins. I know I have learned a lot by how thieves are trying to attack our sites and made many mods with the info. Perhaps we can also help you. So post away in the crime section.

 

[Kevin James]

Camera systems are all well and good, getting a license plate number is wonderful. The problem is like Louise has stated to police will do very little if anything if you don’t have a quality picture that you can identify the person in court that yes he’s the guy that broke into your car wash. When the police lay out 6 pictures and one of them is of the registered owner of the vehicle and you can’t positively identify him as the person who broke into or damaged your car wash it’s the end of the story as far as the police are concerned. You need more than just a tag number or license plate number

 

[bigleo48]

Cam systems are great deterrents...but not the end all be all. It's part of my defensive strategy, along with a number of other systems and factors.

I use my system for many other issues, like does the lot need plowing, are my boilers working, is the IBA working properly and I can also watch it during remote testing, do I need to fire a message from my PA system to stop someone from doing something stupid...etc, etc, etc.

With regards to the police...well the force in my city help me out even if its not criminal. They realize that an idiot doing something stupid in one place is likely doing the same or worst somewhere else. So when they can catch them, it saves paperwork down the road. Last time the cops called the guy (based on my plate capture) and said "You did this...want to watch yourself doing it from multiple angles?" They typically know that if the system was good enough to capture the plates that it's good enough to capture their faces. My system has face recognition built into it too.

 

[JustClean]

I've got one IP camera - all 15 others are analog. I am not so sure about any advantages of the IP camera over the analog. The analog ones are cheaper, more reliable, easier to set up, not dependend on a router and can also be accessed over the Internet via the DVR software, etc.

My IP camera is a 360 degree Geovision fisheye indoor camera that I thought I could use outside. Big mistake. The idea of having a 360 degree camera is great since the camera constantly monitors 360 degrees - but the result is poor due to a limited brightness range. Some areas are too bright and some others are to dark. In addition the resolution of 1.3MP is not good enough and on top of that my router doesn't like the camera. So I just ordered another DVR card and put more cameras up in strategic places. For me I keep running the analog ones.

 

[mjwalsh]

As someone who has had LOTS of break-ins - I will just add this which is off topic.

I installed shock sensors on my autocashiers, changers and vendor. The moment the machine is whacked by a hammer or crowbar, the alarm sounds. My surveillance system is top of the line, but getting pictures of thugs breaking in never stopped them from breaking in and rarely resulted in an arrest. The shock sensors have worked better than anything and they were CHEAP. About $60 each plus install.

Louise --- I agree & to have certain absolute sensor violations go to one or more person's cell phone on call or otherwise within a second seems to make sense.

More to the original topic it seems like having IP sound & ability to IP record in strategic places could make sense also.

Mike