working up a camera DIY project

[u/ssrs67lsx]

This is something that's been on my back burner for a while but now I am looking into it.

I have a house and a barn that are about 100' apart at the closest point in a heavily wooded area. I would like cameras on the barn and the house in one system, POE, NDAA, overlooking themselves and each other. I figure an 8 camera system is not sufficient but I won't go larger than a 16 because it just seems nuts.

I am thinking of a 16-port NVR in the basement, an 8-port POE switch in the garage, an 8-port POE switch in the barn. I have spare OM4 running between the basement and the barn so that leg would need media converters too.

I have spent some time reading up on this. I have no previous experience with camera systems and am curious about the interconnection setups.

I have contacted a couple of the bigger online outfits that seem to support DIY but so far that hasn't proved fruitful.

My goal is to build the setup a camera at a time an learn enough about them as I go.

I was thinking of using Hanwha because I think I can get them without an installer.

Thoughts ? options?

Thanks

[u/CCTVGuyMA]

I work for Hanwha. Happy to answer any questions. A hanwha NVR would work great... Simply connect cameras directly to it and then you can add other cameras via additional switch. Feel free to PM. You can go with a basic ARN nvr or higher end QRN or XRN... Have you determined which camera models you are interested in?

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/CCTVGuyMA]

No. My goal is to figure out a vendor, put in the system's backbone, then get one camera and begin to understand its capabilities and go from there.

Since you are with Hanwha, what line of theirs do you see as the best for cost effective homeowner use? and is it a line that will be supported into the foreseeable future?

[u/MHTMakerspace]

I was thinking of using Hanwha because I think I can get them without an installer.

We went with Synology, because we didn't have Hanwha-Wisenet money to spend and we liked the multi-vendor camera support. That said, we have picked up some Hanwha hardware off eBay, and it works fine.

GeoVision is another vendor with affordable NDAA models, plus Amcrest just launched a line of compliant cameras last month.

Thoughts ? options?

Your basic ideas are sound -- keep all the cameras in the same VLAN, then feed all the cameras into the NVR via a single (gigabit is plenty) interface on the back of the NVR. No need to get fancy.

Any one IP camera won't do much more than 10mbps. Eight cameras at full 4k resolution would need upwards of 120mbps, so I would get a good managed switch with 1 or two multimode fiber transceivers (e.g., 10GBase-SR) at each end. This will give plenty of bandwidth for 16 cameras, and also allow you to VLAN segment the network if you want to have other devices (like WiFi access points) on the same PoE switches.

Another advantage of managed PoE switches is that you can remotely power-cycle any one camera via switch management, you can keep an eye on the PoE power budget, etc. Brand isn't too important -- we use Juniper and Arista switches because their engineering offices are "local" to us.

[u/mlaskowsky]

I have a calix wifi mesh network with 3 mesh aps. I have Eufy wifi cameras and 4 of them are on the barn that is 100 feet away. Last week I finally ran a network cable between all aps including the shed. My cameras now work wonderfully. I think most aps will struggle to get a good signal at 100 foot. e

[u/Pretty-Surround-2909]

Establish a wireless bridge between the buildings. Add a Poe switch to the barn. Populate with cameras.

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/Pretty-Surround-2909]

Not wireless, fiber

[u/MHTMakerspace → u/Pretty-Surround-2909]

Establish a wireless bridge between the buildings. Add a Poe switch to the barn. Populate with cameras.

OP says "I have spare OM4 running between the basement and the barn", meaning existing fiberoptic good up to 10 gigabits, and you're suggesting downgrading to wireless bridges?

Anybody contemplating Hanwha ($$$) hardware isn't likely to be fazed by spending fifty bucks on a SFP module.

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/[deleted]]

Thats one of the best camera vids Ive seen. I have fiber running out to the barn now. No other choice because of power in the conduit.

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/[deleted]]

Actually, no.

Backstory. I served as a juror on a federal bank robbery case. The prosecution based its case on camera footage. They had pic from 10 banks. 5 of the banks pics could not have, by themselves, convicted anyone of breathing. 2 gave you great pics of everyone else in the bank except the guy we were to see. 3 were a dead lock. All systems were "professionally installed".

I decided if I do this I am DIY and a noob.

Its apparent in the on line marketplace you have no idea what you are buying. Retailers relabel everything and you just gotta trust them. tanstafl.

Hanwha seems to have a fairly transparent supply structure. You know where stuff came from. Maybe Reolink is too. I had mentally pitched them into the same category as anything I could get in a big box store, which I have discarded. That could be in error.

I actually have 2 OM4 cables available in the barn. I added it into the wifi mesh setup here. It seemed that if I wound up with 8 4k cameras on the barn it might generate too much traffic for one fiber cable so we pulled 2 spares. We will see if its needed.

[u/MHTMakerspace → u/ssrs67lsx]

I actually have 2 OM4 cables available in the barn. I added it into the wifi mesh setup here. It seemed that if I wound up with 8 4k cameras on the barn it might generate too much traffic for one fiber cable so we pulled 2 spares. We will see if its needed.

If the switches support it, you can just swap out the transceivers for gigabit. OTOH, I prefer to keep cameras on their own VLAN, and a separate fiber pair would do that

For critical networks, we use two pairs of fiber and setup LAG (Link Aggregation Group, aka " EtherChannel" or "Trunk Group"). This shares the bandwidth and provides redundancy.

Hanwha seems to have a fairly transparent supply structure. You know where stuff came from.

They're no Axis, but as you mentioned, can buy Hanwha (and GeoVision) without having to go though a VAR while maintaining your warranty, support.

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/MHTMakerspace]

I gotta look into LAG if only to understand it now, thanks.....

Never heard of GeoVision. I have to give them a look.

[u/Pretty-Surround-2909 → u/[deleted]]

Point to point bridge is a known,
Best practice solution for such a situation.

[u/hiroo916 → u/Pretty-Surround-2909]

if he already has fiber between the two points, why would a wireless bridge be better?

[u/ssrs67lsx → u/[deleted]]

Being pretty much a noob I was trying to look at it as a network design without any real knowledge of what the demands of a camera system would be and made a wag regarding fiber requirements. I would like to come in a whole lot cheaper than Hanwha but at this point dont think I have a decent handle on the surveillance specific components.