Shadow_Walker Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Looks like i have got a cctv project which needs implementing ASAP. Our Campus is on the large size and has over 8 different buildings, all varying in size. All buildings are connected back to our main building with our core switch in using OM4 Fibre. I have only ever done CCTV in one building so have all cameras going back to one NVR. We had our network upgrade last year so have brand new Aruba switches so how would you go about getting roughly 70 cameras setup across the campus? We would have a cable company installing the cat6 runs for the cameras then it is just how we can feed it into one NVR. Open to suggestions.
Shadow_Walker Posted March 17, 2019 Author Posted March 17, 2019 Do you have VLANS setup across the campus? Yes, I think i will need a new one creating but that is fine depending on number of cameras.
6Foot2 Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 We have room for 64 cameras across two NVRs (32 cameras each) We have VLANs and the IP cameras have their own VLAN. We currently have 48 cameras across a medium sized site in multiple blocks. The planning, camera siting, and implementation were all done by the CCTV engineer. Very happy with the result, without a problem after three years of use.
snagrat Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Then put all the cameras and nvr on the new VLAN can just link them up via the network. No need to run each camera back to the nvr directly. If the nvr doesn’t support all the cameras then you can have multiple nvr.
Shadow_Walker Posted March 17, 2019 Author Posted March 17, 2019 We have room for 64 cameras across two NVRs (32 cameras each) We have VLANs and the IP cameras have their own VLAN. We currently have 48 cameras across a medium sized site in multiple blocks. The planning, camera siting, and implementation were all done by the CCTV engineer. Very happy with the result, without a problem after three years of use. How are they connected as i am struggling to get my head round it due to the size of the campus? Is it Camera > Patch Panel > Switch > Core Switch > NVR? I don't get how i will get the feed from the core to the NVR
mavhc Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Surely it's a question of write speed of the storage array mostly, unless it's doing recognition or recompression on the central server
6Foot2 Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 How are they connected as i am struggling to get my head round it due to the size of the campus? Is it Camera > Patch Panel > Switch > Core Switch > NVR? I don't get how i will get the feed from the core to the NVR Cameras (physically) near the server room go back to the NVRs via the server room switches. Cameras in remote locations connect to the network via the nearest switch, with the port that they are patched into configured for the CCTV VLAN. 1
Shadow_Walker Posted March 17, 2019 Author Posted March 17, 2019 Cameras (physically) near the server room go back to the NVRs via the server room switches. Cameras in remote locations connect to the network via the nearest switch, with the port that they are patched into configured for the CCTV VLAN. Ok still confused about where it goes after going into your switch.
6Foot2 Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Ok still confused about where it goes after going into your switch. Because I am familiar with my setup I am probably not being clear enough. Cameras close to the Server Room: Camera -> Switch -> HikVision NVR. The NVR handles whether the data should be retained or discarded due to no activity. Cameras in remote locations from the Server Room: Camera -> Switch -> Switch -> HikVision NVR.
Shadow_Walker Posted March 17, 2019 Author Posted March 17, 2019 Because I am familiar with my setup I am probably not being clear enough. Cameras close to the Server Room: Camera -> Switch -> HikVision NVR. The NVR handles whether the data should be retained or discarded due to no activity. Cameras in remote locations from the Server Room: Camera -> Switch -> Switch -> HikVision NVR. Ok making more sense now. On the Hikvision NVR do you just specify the ip addresses of the cameras?
6Foot2 Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Ok making more sense now. On the Hikvision NVR do you just specify the ip addresses of the cameras? Yes. The NVRs 'know' the cameras by their IP addresses, but they also have helpful (memorable) labels: Court, English Corridor, Art PTZ, etc.
Katy Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 We've got 42 cameras across the site including separate buildings at the far opposite side of the site, we are using Hikvision IP cameras so they just plug into their local PoE switch on a separate VLAN for CCTV, traffic works its way over the existing fibre to the core where we have one 64 channel NVR sat on the same VLAN. No noticeable impact on the load over 10Gig backbone, think the most we have is 100Mbps on one of the fibres due to the way the cameras are spread over so many comms cabs.
Sibrows Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 We’re using 49 UniFi video cameras back to a windows host. All on a dedicated VLAN cameras record on motion simple.
mavhc Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 Still waiting for someone to sell a camera with open source software so at least people can see if it's terrible or not
Davit2005 Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 (edited) Still waiting for someone to sell a camera with open source software so at least people can see if it's terrible or not Blue Iris? Not used it myself but checkout some YouTube videos. Edited March 18, 2019 by Davit2005
mavhc Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 Blue Iris? Not used it myself but checkout some YouTube videos. I meant an IP camera that ran open source software itself, don't really want a load of badly written rarely updated computers with cameras on the network if I can help it.
Davit2005 Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 I meant an IP camera that ran open source software itself, don't really want a load of badly written rarely updated computers with cameras on the network if I can help it. Just block outbound traffic as far as possible. My CCTV is blocked at home apart from smtp, DNS and NTP to specific external hosts.
Bionic Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 We have 64 CCTV cameras located throughout several buildings. We have a CCTV VLAN. Each camera is connected to a network port that runs to a nearby PoE switch and configured with a static IP using DHCP. Each port connected to a CCTV camera is on the CCTV VLAN. All switches configured to trunk the CCTV VLAN traffic. We use BlueIris software installed on a "beefy PC" in the IT office. Each camera IP is added to BlueIris. BlueIris then configured to record only when movement is detected and configured to delete recordings after a pre-agreed period. Any footage that needs to be retained for longer than 30 days is copied to a secure folder on the network. Feel free to drop me a PM if you want any more details.
Net-Ctrl Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 If you're open to looking at Mobotix IP-CCTV cameras, please let me know and we can assist with project design and we can take care of all the cabling. The Mobotix cameras are more expensive that the likes of Hik, but come with some great functionality that we can show you. You can read about some of this here: https://www.mobotix.com/en/products/software/camera-integrated-video-analysis They are really great cameras and we have a lot of schools/colleges using them.
mavhc Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 Just block outbound traffic as far as possible. My CCTV is blocked at home apart from smtp, DNS and NTP to specific external hosts. That's easy, it's more them being used to hack into the network because of bugs/having to be removed from the network because no one bothered to fix the bugs/not getting features that we require in the future that could just be software updates
PotNoodleTech Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 Just started rolling out our own CCTV cameras after years of not getting value for money from a cctv company. Using a cheap Hikvision 16 channel box (going to upgrade that to a 64 when more money available) and rolling my own hikvision CCTV cameras out. Getting a contractor to run a cat6 cable and powering all cameras via POE. Cameras are connected "into the network" rather than in to the back of the DVR. I would recommend getting a DVR with 2 x network ports so you can have 1 x port on a dedicated CCTV VLAN and the other port can be on one of your existing vlans for the person/people that need to access footage. Using DS2DE4225IWDE2MPcameras as outside PTZ cameras and DS2CD2335FWDI3MP cameras as indoor and performance of both cameras is fantastic - the PTZ one being quite amazing quality and zoom for the money. Business manager took one look at the footage from one of my new cameras and decided to replace all the old ones and dump the old company. Roll it yourselves, it's easy.
Shadow_Walker Posted March 20, 2019 Author Posted March 20, 2019 So a lot of similar ideas to what we are having. Hikvision will be our cameras and got a cabling company to run the cat6. I need a few more 2540 Aruba switches to stack them to our current switches which are full. I will create a cctv VLAN and tag each port with the cctv VLAN which a camera is plugged into. Looking at around 45 cameras altogether so can anyone see any problems or any slowness on the network?
Katy Posted March 20, 2019 Posted March 20, 2019 So a lot of similar ideas to what we are having. Hikvision will be our cameras and got a cabling company to run the cat6. I need a few more 2540 Aruba switches to stack them to our current switches which are full. I will create a cctv VLAN and tag each port with the cctv VLAN which a camera is plugged into. Looking at around 45 cameras altogether so can anyone see any problems or any slowness on the network? Depends how your network is organised and what your backbone is really. If you have the spare fibre you could use a separate uplink for the CCTV vlan from each switch to the core, then it'll have almost no impact on the main network.
PotNoodleTech Posted March 21, 2019 Posted March 21, 2019 (edited) In terms of camera load, mine are set to 1080p, variable bitrate, medium quality 10fps, image quality is good on a 27" 1080p screen. Each camera uses a constant 1.3Mbit/s so basically you could run 75 of them on a 100Mbit link. That's not using the new H.264+ encoding either so I need to try that out (buy my DVR may not support that as it's old). If you only record on detect movement only as mentioned above then your bandwidth usage should be miniscule. If your cameras are using huge chunks of your network bandwidth then you've got them set up wrong (many people run them at too high quality at too high framerate). Edited March 21, 2019 by PotNoodleTech
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