Electronics & Appliances CCTV

Due to the frequency of recent home invasions in the area we are seriously thinking about getting CCTV installed so can anyone in the group give me some feedback on their experience with getting CCTV, ie the best type and installer ?
After that we might get a moat and a drawbridge lol.

 

CCTV is a must in my opinion; our system I sent from Japan and the wife had installed. I will find out who she used to install. I'll be heading home sometime next week so can definitely help you out on sourcing things as I have a lot of experience with cameras and security systems.

Shawn

 

I have been looking into getting a replacement for our old camera system (almost 10 year old, no wifi) with a more modern system, maybe even one or two solar powered cameras, but definitely with wifi connection for the local central storage hub (I don't want to pay a subscription fee for cloud storage).
I haven't ordered anything yet but the Tapo series from TP-Link (link to their website, you can order their stuff from Lazada) is my favourite thus far, because they offer a local storage hub and integration with an alarm system.
One of the main questions you'd need to answer is how you want to store your video files. There's basically three options, a. storage in the camera, that requires buying a micro sd memory card for each camera; b. paid storage in the cloud which requires a subscription or c. local storage in a central hub (that has a ssd harddisk).
The other questions to answer is whether you want to wire your camera's or go wireless, and whether you can supply power easily or want to go battery/solar powered.
Installation of a wired system is obviously more complex/expensive than a wireless alternative, and the same goes for the power supply.

 

I just want a Gatling gun - and I'm being serious this time.

 

So if nobody can as yet recommend an installer how about telling of an installer to definitely not use ?

 

CB, the guys I used were ok - ish. What I mean is they did what I asked them to do. They installed the cameras and NVR (Network Video Recorder) I wanted in the places I wanted them. They ran the cables the way I wanted. All done cleanly and with care. Do they know how to set up a system with alarms, yes. Would I have let them choose were the cameras should be placed and aimed, no. To be fair, I didn't give them the chance to suggest placement and aim. Would I let them choose the make and models of the cameras and NVR for me, no. What I would say is don't accept any installers component suggestions without researching them first. Having experience with CCTV at our previous home I knew what I wanted before calling around. I knew I didn't need solar powered cameras as our place is already off grid with enough production and battery to not worry about the cameras going down with every brownout and I didn't need to place one where a cable couldn't go. Cloud storage has one big advantage, they can't take your hard drives or memory cards with them. I opted not to pay for cloud storage and go with 12tb of HDD in a secured NVR. Now if I told how I know it's secured then it wouldn't be as secure. Two 6tb HDD gives me 30 days of 24/7 mainstream recording, of all my cameras. I have a mixture of 2mp (1080p) and 4mp (4K) cameras. Some suggestions are to have some cameras obvious to passers by on the street or visitors to the house. Have CCTV warning signs. CCTV is not a deterrent if no one knows you have them. Have some less than obvious cameras that will capture people that aren't deterred but think they are sneaky clever. When you do have visitors, don't show off your monitor or phone app. No one but you knowing what all is covered is being secure, which is also a deterrent. I say that knowing 100% coverage is often not possible or going to be too expensive. PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) cameras are fun to play with but cost about the same as four to six fixed cameras. All cameras will digitally zoom, with some level of pixelation. Better cameras will have a small 4x optical zoom. Features like motion sensing, line crossing, AI, facial recognition, substreams, bit rate control, tracking are the most common possible camera features. Mainstream is your 2mp or 4mp. Ideally what your NVR records for playback when something of interest comes up. Substream is just a lesser resolution, primarily for using less phone data when viewing remotely. A good camera can do both at the same time. If you go with an NVR they generally come with connections for 8 cameras, 16 cameras or 32 cameras. Those aren't set in stone as cameras can be added via a POE (Power Over Ethernet) switch.
I'm rambling. I worked with Michael at AnnexTech. https://www.facebook.com/annextechx/