Advice needed on CCTV cameras

poppellerant

I want to monitor a small area at the rear of a house. I am seeing all types of cameras on Amazon (where I will be purchasing from), but to be honest I am a bit lost amongst the details.

• Should I install a Micro SD card into the single camera that will be installed? The highest capacity card that the camera supports will be bought, as I am very aware that memory cards have a finite life. I don't intend to use a hard drive, as I don't want clutter and wires everywhere.
• I am determined to go wireless, as the router's wifi signal will be well within range - and, as above, less clutter and wires.
• I want night vision that I can see when I playback if I need to.
• On a similar note, I want good enough picture quality that detail can be picked out and identified if needed.
• The area isn't big enough that I need any pan and tilt functions. I think these might add to the cost.
• My budget is no more than £100 for the camera. A memory card will be purchased separately.

I have probably missed some questions or details out, so feel free to ask any questions if you need clarification on anything.

arciere

First of all you need to think about what you want from the camera, apart from what you have already mentioned.
Does in need to record or is it a "let's see what's going on" camera? What do you want it to record? Movements or 24/7? How accessible does it need to be (i.e. internet, only locally, etc...).

- Should I install a Micro SD card into the single camera that will be installed? The highest capacity card that the camera supports will be bought, as I am very aware that memory cards have a finite life. I don't intend to use a hard drive, as I don't want clutter and wires everywhere.Yes, that would be the easiest option. I wouldn't worry too much about the life of the card. In regards to the drive, you already have wires (at least the power cable). Once the camera is on your network, you can put the drive anywhere you like.
- I am determined to go wireless, as the router's wifi signal will be well within range - and, as above, less clutter and wires.No problem with that, just remember that you still need power. Another option is PoE camera, with a single network cable you get both power and network connection (wired).
- I want night vision that I can see when I playback if I need to.IR is a common feature. Note IR mode, sometimes is limited to a few meters (i.e. 20m), depending on the IR light on the camera
- On a similar note, I want good enough picture quality that detail can be picked out and identified if needed. I recently bought this and I am very happy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0798LGRT7/ref=ppx_od_b_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- The area isn't big enough that I need any pan and tilt functions. I think these might add to the cost.It depends on the camera. I have a couple of 'cloud-based' cameras with pan and tilt that were much cheaper than the one I purchased above. Quality is obviously much worse
- My budget is no more than £100 for the camera. A memory card will be purchased separately.I would say that's more than enough for a decent quality camera

forgotmyname

You want night vision but you want an SD card. With night vision unless you get an expensive camera your looking at infra-red lighting which wont work well through a window. The glare will reflect back off the glass.

So fitting it outside, that may make access to the SD card a problem and may have issues with exposing the SD card to the elements.

No wires, but it needs power. Unless you go battery operated and then worry if the battery will die before it captures anything.

If you have a power wire then you can run power and video through a single wire.

Lil306

Don't bother buying cameras with a memory card slot, if there's any activity you will have to take it out and install it with possibility of finding out it's corrupted

If you don't want wires just get a wireless one. There's plenty of good models around. I personally use Hikvsion gear (wired), but have no issues running wires myself

Just look for something that has 1080p with at least 20M/40M IR range and it should suffice. The budget models are usually Saance, Flureon etc. You can get models made by Edimax which are canny too.

With regards to wires however, you are still going to need a wire to power the camera

arciere

Lil306 wrote: »

Don't bother buying cameras with a memory card slot, if there's any activity you will have to take it out and install it with possibility of finding out it's corrupted

That's not true. You can access the memory card data via the camera itself if you want.
Without a memory card, you will need to buy a DVR/NVR/use a PC, which has to stay on 24/7. It can be done, but that's more wires, equipment and electricity.

Lil306

arciere wrote: »

That's not true. You can access the memory card data via the camera itself if you want.
Without a memory card, you will need to buy a DVR/NVR/use a PC, which has to stay on 24/7. It can be done, but that's more wires, equipment and electricity.

I had a complete brain fart there and never thought of that. Never understood the point of SD cards in cameras.

PC's use very little power, but depends on the requiprements of the OP. I personally wouldn't use a card in a camera, had too many issues with cards being corrupted.

I'd rather just use an DVR or PC, since it's going to need power wires to the camera anyway

arciere

Lil306 wrote: »

I had a complete brain fart there and never thought of that. Never understood the point of SD cards in cameras.

PC's use very little power, but depends on the requiprements of the OP. I personally wouldn't use a card in a camera, had too many issues with cards being corrupted.

I'd rather just use an DVR or PC, since it's going to need power wires to the camera anyway

That is actually my current setup, I have a DVR software installed on my PC which runs 24/7. Not a solution I particularly like (the PC wasn't built for this purpose) or that I was looking for, but all the others seemed less practical (NVRs are expensive, especially if you want full HD or 4K resolution).
The only reason I did that was because I didn't want any of the data to be stored on the internet. Unfortunately the vast majority of cameras for 'home-use' with remote access connect to their own servers in order for you to be able to see them from your phone. So, if you disable internet access on those camera, you are pretty much isolated.

bingo_bango

I have a standalone DVR setup. All in less than £100 for the DVR / HDD & 2 cameras. DVR is a linux setup on what looks like a Rasberry Pi board or similar. Doesn't matter about that as it has a decent GUI which lets you view and control the cameras. Point is that it is very low power. Less hassle than running a PC 24/7.

Initial install was a bit of a pain as you have to run 1 cable for each camera.

Has an associated app for remote viewing which connects directly to the box - no going through servers.

No pan & tilt, but both have IR night vision and the cameras are 720p which has been enough to show individual snowflakes falling. DVR will take 1080p cameras but I haven't felt the need.

One other point which nobody considers is siting. Mine are under the eaves (tamper proof unless someone is REALLY dedicated) and this has caused 2 issues.

1. One of the cameras does not always get enough light to automatically trigger a return from IR mode when the sun comes out. It can be done very easily from the DVR but not something I'm overly concerned about.

2. Spiders. I have motion detect and unfortunately spiders like to climb across stuff. The IR obviously gives off nominal heat which attracts them. This can amount to thousands of events being recorded each night. Not ideal if you want to search for something on the event log. Try to site the camera where you can stick a pole or something up to clean it when you remember.

arciere

bingo_bango wrote: »

I have a standalone DVR setup. All in less than £100 for the DVR / HDD & 2 cameras. DVR is a linux setup on what looks like a Rasberry Pi board or similar. Doesn't matter about that as it has a decent GUI which lets you view and control the cameras. Point is that it is very low power. Less hassle than running a PC 24/7.

Initial install was a bit of a pain as you have to run 1 cable for each camera.

Is that analog or IP? The problem with that setup, IMO, is that all the cameras will need to connect directly to the DVR, not simply to the network. Plus, you can't use WiFi as OP would like to do.

arciere

bingo_bango wrote: »

2. Spiders. I have motion detect and unfortunately spiders like to climb across stuff. The IR obviously gives off nominal heat which attracts them. This can amount to thousands of events being recorded each night. Not ideal if you want to search for something on the event log. Try to site the camera where you can stick a pole or something up to clean it when you remember.

I have so many spider-triggered videos that I could give them to the BBC. I didn't know that spiders could 'fly' until I saw them doing that in front of the camera.

bingo_bango

arciere wrote: »

Is that analog or IP? The problem with that setup, IMO, is that all the cameras will need to connect directly to the DVR, not simply to the network. Plus, you can't use WiFi as OP would like to do.

Analog cameras - hence the 'bit of a pain' to wire. And yes, that means directly wired to DVR, which then sits on the network.

The DVR does accept IP cameras (as long as they have ONVIF support) and will operate as an NVR / DVR hybrid. Think it's a max of 2 IP + 6 analog cameras on that basis though.

I take the point about OP wanting WiFi, but for their budget it might not be entirely possible to get that. I did consider the same type of setup initially, but ruled it out on cost.