Home Security Camera question

[TractorNH]

And plan to put cameras down low. Up on the soffit of a 2 story house is too high to have anything more than a general overveiw. If you want to catch the faces of people or license plates on cars you will need the cameras mounted close to what you want to capture. You walk up on my porch and you have a camera staring at you before you even realize it's there. You want to be sure they are getting useful images or the whole project is pointless.

 

[Code54]

The MP of the camera will not determine the "nightvison" ability of the camera. The lux rating will be what you want to pay attention to get a feel for how the camera will handle low light. Consumer grade CCTV use IR illumination to get "nightvison", basically just a frequency of light we can't see with out naked eye but the camera can. Most consumer grade camera will give color images in the daylight and a so so image at night. Generally speaking, the better the camera - better the low light ability.
As for cable, I know you said you don't want to go wireless but anymore that is where the entire industry is heading. I do some CCTV work for my job and get to attend one of the top professional shows for CCTV and 99% of it is wireless. IF done correctly and with good quality gear the wireless systems will preform as well as any wired system. I used to design and install commercial CCTV systems and in those times everything was BNC W/Coax - now I wont consider that as it really is outdated and limits what you can do without additional gear.
If you go wireless you can encrypt the signal, run on different frequencies to avoid interference, and honesty jamming is really not an issue in the real word. If the person "visiting" your residence is up to speed on jamming a system, has all the eqpt, and is going to that much work you need to be very concerned! The nice thing about wireless is not only can you run on standard WiFi you can also have a back up 4G (soon to be 5G) network and cloud storage so even if they burn down the house the images the CCTV system caught are safely stored on a remote server. Just some food for thought.....

 

[buckeyefarmer]

So Im lying in bed, can bring up my 3mp camera in the barn, using my phone.
This camera is connected to my network using IP over AC power, running on an extension cord.
Yep, havent ran power to my barn, my barn network comes to my house on an orange power extension cord. I wouldnt worry too much about 5e or cat 6.

There are no lights on in the barn, just the camera IR.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Couple more phone snapshots of remote cameras, that i can bring up on my phone. These 2 will notify my phone if there is motion detection.

Again, no lights on, just the camera IR.

 

[TractorGuy]

FYI anything over 2mp doesn't give good nightvision results.

I don't understand this either. Maybe my 5/4MP cameras have better night vision because they are wireless?

 

[chesternator]

I don't understand this either. Maybe my 5/4MP cameras have better night vision because they are wireless?

No not because they are wireless. Just need to know that a better, more expensive or high MP camera does not necessarily mean it has better night vision also. It may or may not be better than another cheaper low MP camera You have to specifically check this on the camera if night vision is important to you. Not sure if that's a game cam you have but game cams i expect would certainly have more focus on nighttime capabilities given their particular purpose.

 

[chesternator]

The MP of the camera will not determine the "nightvison" ability of the camera. The lux rating will be what you want to pay attention to get a feel for how the camera will handle low light. Consumer grade CCTV use IR illumination to get "nightvison", basically just a frequency of light we can't see with out naked eye but the camera can. Most consumer grade camera will give color images in the daylight and a so so image at night. Generally speaking, the better the camera - better the low light ability.
As for cable, I know you said you don't want to go wireless but anymore that is where the entire industry is heading. I do some CCTV work for my job and get to attend one of the top professional shows for CCTV and 99% of it is wireless. IF done correctly and with good quality gear the wireless systems will preform as well as any wired system. I used to design and install commercial CCTV systems and in those times everything was BNC W/Coax - now I wont consider that as it really is outdated and limits what you can do without additional gear.
If you go wireless you can encrypt the signal, run on different frequencies to avoid interference, and honesty jamming is really not an issue in the real word. If the person "visiting" your residence is up to speed on jamming a system, has all the eqpt, and is going to that much work you need to be very concerned! The nice thing about wireless is not only can you run on standard WiFi you can also have a back up 4G (soon to be 5G) network and cloud storage so even if they burn down the house the images the CCTV system caught are safely stored on a remote server. Just some food for thought.....

Agree that someone who can jam the wireless camera signal is way too determined to be stopped by any camera or even any lock. This is a non issue in regard to comparison. A tad off topic but no matter how good your lock is it's about the weakest point if determined. Just bust the jam or break a window.

If you go wireless I would not go cheap. I used to have a wireless backup camera in my car and driving around I would sometimes pick up others cameras on my screen in my truck. This type of wireless though is just a connection between the camera and the screen which can easily be picked up. This is not the same as Wifi but I would still be cautious about buying cheap

 

[EddieWalker]

Back in my Marine Corps days, I was an Embassy Marine, and every type of door lock had a number rating. 20 to 30 was the most common. The highest rating that we had on a lock was 45. These numbers where the amount of time in seconds that it would delay somebody from getting through them. At that time, there was no such thing as a lock that would delay somebody for a full minute!!!

I have two concerns with wireless. Batteries and quality of picture for similar priced cameras. I've also found that everything wireless seems to have a very limited lifespan with issues almost daily of one kind or another. Cell phones and home WiFi are a good examples. While this might change, I'm comfortable committing to a hard wired system at this time.

 

[hawkeye08]

If I were building our house now, I would run some conduit runs for new cable. I put in homerun Cat3 for phone and network to all the rooms, but now it is not easy to replace Cat3 with Cat 5/6.. I have a few cobbled cable runs (office and family room) to wired switches, but the rest of the house has to use wireless. Think also about some conduit run to where you might want to put wireless access points to get whole house coverage.

 

[EddieWalker]

I really don't want to run conduit, but realize that your advice is solid. There is one corner of my house that once I finish this room off, will be impossible to get to from the attic. AC ducts have it blocked and the only way to get to that corner will require sheetrock to be removed. One inch conduit wouldn't be difficult to install at this time.