CCTV (Right Location?) BNC/Non-IP Cameras with IP Servers?

[JRA]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm looking to change lots about our CCTV. Although not everything, just some things.

 

We have a system where cameras are cabled back with coax/BNC cables to half a dozen servers around the place. I'd like to keep those in place and go non-IP with whatever comes in.

 

Is anyone else running anything like that and have anything/anyone you could recommend?

 

Thanks much one and all.

[Chaniel]

Not sure if this is what you're after (or would even work with your system), but we have a bunch of AXIS M7016 Video Encoders that take our old coax cameras and allows us to use it with our Axis camera station server. We've been slowly replacing any of the old coax cameras with newer IP ones where necessary.

[markberry]

I upgraded our system a few years ago with an Axis system. They do a rack mounted blade which allows you to connect your old BNC cameras and then converts the signal to IP. We then added a load of new Axis IP cameras in addition. As the BNC cameras fail we add IP cameras to replace them.

 

They do the encoders in various sizes depending on how many cameras you have. We went with a fairly large one as we had about 60 existing cameras.

 

https://www.axis.com/en-gb/products/axis-q7436/

[JRA]

Thanks both that all looks promising!

 

What do you use for viewing and recording stuff? Axis I remember of old, but we're talking 2008 era lol. Is there software you use to view them as banks of cameras or no?

 

Cheers muchly.

[markberry]

Thanks both that all looks promising!

 

What do you use for viewing and recording stuff? Axis I remember of old, but we're talking 2008 era lol. Is there software you use to view them as banks of cameras or no?

 

Cheers muchly.

 

So when we started looking at replacing the CCTV we had something like 4 different DVR products at the time, each from different manufacturers, different software, all keeping different time and with about 16 cameras on each. We went out to get quotes for a replacements and installation. The quotes ranged from £25K - £80K so I decided to spec the system myself. Used a reasonable sized HP server for recording to. We then have a CCTV room with a decent PC with good GPUs hooked up to a couple of 42 inch screens. We use the Axis Camera Station software to view cameras and recordings on (it's free!). We also install the Axis software on a few PCs around the building (pastoral team etc).

 

Total cost for the install including the Axis decoders and a few new cameras, server and PC with screens was around £12K.

[Chaniel]

We also use Axis Camera Station software, we have it installed on a server (One of our old Dell R620's - Dual 2.2Ghz Xeon E5-2660 procs) connected up to a 24TB QNAP NAS.

 

Got about 100 cameras (mostly IP, about 16 are coax) and can record 30 days worth of footage. We just have the software installed as a client on various machines and dictate access to cameras based on AD groups which is nice.

[Chris_Cook]

If you know the manufacturer of your DVR, you may be able to google the RTSP feed URL, and put this into another system. This lets you use a DVR as an encoder, with the option of a backup recording.

 

We have about 6 or 7 DVRs and NVRs going into the free version of Milestone XProtect.

[JRA]

Thanks for the info all, still been chewing away at this one.

 

With the banks of Axis decoders, do you get an IP address for each camera or does it serve as a "bank" of cameras attached to each one?

 

If I had multiple 1u Axis decoders, can I view all the cameras from one instance of the software or do I need to address multiple "banks"? Or can I even group cameras into, well, groups myself irrespective of the hardware decoder any older BNC camera is plugged into?

 

I guess I'm asking "how does that work?" lol.

 

Thanks much for any help. I'm getting there but penny not quite dropped yet.

[markberry]

So we have the chasis which takes the decoder blades. The Chasis has 2 network connections on it (I think!). Each of the blades has something like 5 or 6 BNC connctors on it. Each camera (BNC connector) gets it's own IP address and appears in the software as an individual camera in the same way a standard Axis IP camera would. The beauty of the blades is each blade only requires a single Axis license but can connect the number of cameras attached to the blade.

 

The AXIS Camera Station software will display all your cameras in it. It think currently we have something like 20 of the old BNC connected cameras and about 40 new Axis IP cameras.

 

Sorry for the vagueness in detail above, it was years since I set it up and am trying to recall from memory!

[JRA]

Folks that's all been lovely and thank you all loads.

 

However, I've been overruled by leadership who want "a company to come in and just do it" rather than let me get creative. However however, I'll type up what I was thinking and how I would have gone about it had I gotten my own way.

 

I was in a situation where I'd wanted to use our old analogue/BNC cameras along with an IP system and, as pointed out above, you can convert BNC cameras to IP (sorta) ALTHOUGH I wasn't gonna do it that way.

 

You see, you can convert the signals to RTSP (realtime streaming protocol) with something like this, connected to your network: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302791315621?hash=item467fc4d0a5:g:RLEAAOSwroxfcYw2

 

Admittedly that won't give each camera an IP address (boohoo) but it WILL give each camera an RTSP feed. This is the thing you want.

 

Something like Maxpro NVR software will record cameras from RTSP streams as well as IP cameras. You can find out which RTSP streams your manufacturer/device of choice spits out from eg the following: https://www.getscw.com/decoding/rtsp

 

So, that integrates the old ones. As they pop or people get sick of the old-school footage looking like lego men walking around at 2fps you can replace them with IP cameras and can even use the old coax cable with something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/iaacctv-IP-Camera-Extender-over-Coax-RG59-PAIR-upto-220M-HD-IP-CCTV-DVR-NVR/153582800020?hash=item23c23f8c94:g:oUsAAOSwhXZdPMGG

 

(Some of the older EduGeekers will recall we used to use coax for networking back in the day!)

 

So anyway, that's how the back of my envelope looked in case this helps or even dissuades anyone from this in the future.

 

Thanks everyone.

[markberry]

I’d still get your Axis solution priced up and put into a proposal. When management see the quotes of £50/60K+ coming in from companies and you’ve got a solution for less than £10K they may change their minds!

[markberry]

We use these guys for Axis kit. The also provide technical support which is included for customers. You can use the prices on the website to get your costs but they’ll usually do discount for education customers.

 

https://www.networkwebcams.co.uk/