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To be calm, you need to monitor the safety of the house, cottage, cottage. You can, of course, hire a watchman, but video surveillance for a private house works almost free of charge (electricity consumption is minimal), and even around the clock. Let’s talk about how to assemble such a system with your own hands.
Security video surveillance requirements
To understand what a video surveillance system for a private house or cottage should consist of, you need to decide what you expect from it. That is, it is necessary to determine the tasks that video monitoring should perform. To do this, answer the following questions:
- What to track:
- approaches to the house (windows, doors);
- internal territory (all or some objects);
- approaches to the territory (only entrances or the entire perimeter, it may be necessary to capture part of the passage along the street);
- From what distance to distinguish what kind of person (the degree of recognition and the distance from which they should find out).
First, we need to decide what objects we will observe. - The need to keep a record. Then you need a hard drive. Its volume depends on the “desired depth of the archive” and on what principle the recording starts:
- by movement;
- constantly.
- Night shooting: necessary or not.
- The ability to view the picture from the camera via the Internet from the phone.
- Do I need to view the image from the cameras on the TV.
Based on these requirements, they select the composition of video surveillance for a private house. The first thing to decide is the objects of observation. That is, you need to know what you want to keep under control. Accordingly, determine the location of the cameras, their number. To do this, you need a site plan on which draw cameras and the objects that they will control. Most often, this is a camera opposite the entrance to the house, to the garage and to the site. One is still in the garage. If necessary, add at the corners of the site or at key points.
Video surveillance for a private house: the composition of the system
After you have decided on the tasks and the number of cameras, you can select the rest of the equipment. Required:
- Outdoor and indoor video cameras (with or without infrared illumination).
- DVR. A device for receiving and recording images from cameras. The number of channels is equal to (or greater than) the number of cameras.
- Hard disk (memory size depends on how many days you need to store information).
- Camera power supply (selected depending on power consumption).
This is something without which video surveillance for a private house cannot exist. True, you can do without a hard drive. When using IP cameras, you can organize the sending of information to one of the cloud servers (if you have a stationary dedicated IP address). But for free, you can store a small amount of information on them, and to increase it, you need to purchase additional space. But there is always the possibility of access to the archive and there is no danger that intruders breaking into the house will take away the hard drive with information, which makes video surveillance for a private house useless.
In addition, you will need some materials for installation:
- To connect the cameras, you will need a twisted pair with transceivers or a coaxial cable.
- Cable for power connection (ShVVP or PVS).
- Platforms for installing cameras, a corrugated sleeve in which wires are laid, contactors for connecting wires, etc.).
This is a set of devices and materials so that you can make video surveillance for a private house with your own hands.
Additional elements of the system
There are several other devices that the system can exist without, but they make it more reliable (UPS) and more comfortable (monitor and modem). An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is the first thing to buy if your budget allows. It ensures the operation of the system during a power outage. It is selected depending on the power consumed by the system and the time of maximum shutdown. On this point, it is better not to save, and take reliable equipment.
You may also need a monitor and a modem with the ability to transmit a signal over the Internet. The monitor makes it possible to view the image from the cameras in real time, and not just in the recording. A modem (ADSL router) is needed if you want to view pictures from cameras remotely – via the Internet.
Wired or wireless
Few people want to pull wires around the site to all devices. It makes you want to install a wireless video surveillance system for your house or cottage. But behind the ease of installation lies a very low reliability. Conventional devices that support this work at a small distance. In addition, the presence of any atmospheric phenomena – a thunderstorm, a storm, bursts in the sun, nearby devices that interfere with your range – can greatly affect or even interfere with the operation of the system.
If you have even the slightest opportunity, it is better to consider wired systems. If you really can’t do anything with wires, look for reliable transceivers with a high signal level and a long range of reliable reception.
Home surveillance cameras
It should be said right away that the cameras are divided into internal and external. Internal put in heated and unheated rooms. The temperature range can start as low as -15°C, but the main difference is the level of weather protection. Internal cameras have an IP20 protection class, maybe a little higher. Outdoor – from IP65 (but 66 is better). There are also anti-vandal versions – with a reinforced body.
Next, you should decide on the type of camera design:
- Dome. They are named so because of their characteristic appearance – a hemisphere. Mounted on a flat surface. Reliable and compact design.
- Cabinet. This is what the first surveillance cameras looked like. This is a mounting platform with a camera body mounted on it. Street options can be covered with a visor. They are good because they can turn in different directions, in different planes.
- Cylindrical. These are, as a rule, hidden installation cameras (internal and outdoor). They are a cylinder, on one side of which a “pupil” is installed. All stuffing is hidden in the case. During installation, only the lens remains outside, everything else is hidden.
All of these types can be fixed or swivel. Swivels are selected according to the angle of rotation and tracking speed. The tracking function is useful. When the camera pans to follow a moving object that is within its range. There are also hidden cameras. They are miniature and, as a rule, cannot turn around, but “inspect” only a certain sector.
Analog or digital
When choosing a video camera, the main characteristic is the clarity of the picture that it can provide. For digital cameras, these are pixels (like cameras in phones and other digital devices), for analog cameras, the same indicators are reflected in the characteristic of TVL (television vertical and horizontal lines). In order not to go into details, we present a table of correspondence between TVL and pixels.
Usually video surveillance for a private house is done on the basis of analog cameras with TVL 600-800. Their characteristics are sufficient to perform the required level of recognition from a distance of 10-15 meters. If you want to recognize visitors from a long distance, you will need more powerful cameras with a TVL of 1000 or higher. There are monsters that have this characteristic – several tens of thousands, but such cameras cost … more than a dacha, for example.
Why are analog cameras used more often? Video surveillance for a private house usually does not require a large recognition range. And analog cameras with such parameters are cheaper. In addition, modern analog cameras no longer transmit a purely analog signal. It is also encoded, but the encoding has a different format. There are three types of analog-digital cameras on the market – AHD, TVi, CVi. The most common are AHD. They differ from conventional analog ones in that they can transmit a clearer picture. If you want video surveillance for a private house to be not too expensive, choose this type.
IP cameras. What is their difference?
If you need the ability to connect to cameras over the Internet, you will have to install IP cameras. They give a very clear picture with the ability to scale, but require system support (software needs to be updated). IP video cameras are more expensive, but they also represent a miniature computer system. Each camera has a processor, RAM and long-term memory, a built-in interface (to create a network) and a matrix that forms the image. It may also be:
- storage (Micro SD card);
- USB for connecting external devices:
- Wi-Fi;
- camera motion control module;
- zoom control module (zoom).
That is, it is a full-fledged digital device with the ability to adjust parameters and connect via a network. The network can be wired or wireless. In analog-digital cameras, some additional features can also be implemented (sending a signal to a specific phone number, for example). But this is becoming more and more difficult to implement – each function needs its own pair of wires.
But pay attention, even if the IP camera is wireless, it will have to be powered somehow. Yes, each has batteries. But it is better to consider them as a power supply option in case of loss of light. So the food will still have to be summed up. There are, of course, options with POE (technology for supplying power through wires through which information is transmitted). But they must be connected through a POE hub or to a DVR that supports this technology. And this is more expensive equipment. It is cheaper to put power supplies to each camera (but installation is more difficult).
Also, in addition to the usual ones with a fixed lens, there are varifocal and zoom IP cameras. Varifocals are manually adjusted at the installation site. That is, it is possible to change their characteristics within certain limits. Zoom cameras can be controlled directly from the recorder. The settings are changed via the zoom control module (for example, RS485), which is connected to the USB output of the camera. This is much more convenient, since you see changes in the picture during the setup process.
How to select camera settings
The required camera parameters depend on what degree of recognition is needed and from what distance. For example, the process of “recognition” is possible if the picture contains from 122 to 244 pixels. The parameters of the camera depend on the distance from which the identification should take place: the greater this distance, the more expensive the cameras will be. The more detailed you want to consider the visitor or the number of the car, the clearer the picture should be.
If you only need observation without recognition, choose wide-angle (with a wide viewing angle, lens size is approximately 1,8-3,6 mm). They will need less, as they “see” a larger sector. The resolution is sufficient on the order of 1,2-1,5 megapixels. This will be a very inexpensive video surveillance for a private home.
For a clearer image, you need a larger lens – from 4 mm and above (up to 50 mm are quite budget models). The larger the number, the larger the picture will be, the easier it is to recognize the object. But at the same time, the viewing angle is smaller. The larger the lens, the more cameras you need to cover the same area. They “capture” a smaller space, respectively, we get an overview of the quantity.
infrared surveillance
Many cameras have built-in infrared LEDs. They are located around the “eye” of the camera. In such cameras, there is an additional characteristic – the backlight range. Usually there are quite decent numbers – 30 meters or so. In reality, only a silhouette is visible at such a distance. That is, you can tell whether it is a person, a cat or a dog, for example. It is possible to determine the gender of a person. There will be no other details.
But from a distance of 10-15 meters you can already see something (with the camera in which the backlight hits 30 meters). So infrared observation really works from a distance two to three times less than the backlight range.
If there is no lighting in the place of observation, it is better to choose cameras with high sensitivity. This is the “minimum illumination” characteristic. The lower this number, the better. The minimum threshold at which it will be possible to disassemble something is 0,01 Lux, but even lower values uXNUMXbuXNUMXbare better.
Registrar
This is the part of the system that coordinates the operation of cameras and records information. It is clear here that the steeper this part of the system, the better. Important selection options:
- supported recording formats (should match the type of signal from the cameras);
- the type and number of cameras and the resolution it can work with;
- number/capacity of connected hard drives.
If possible, choose those options that can work with more powerful cameras than you have chosen and leave a couple of “seats” in reserve. This gives a double win. First, you can modify the system at any time. The second is that information will be processed faster and more reliably.
There are such types of video recorders for a home video surveillance system as hybrid. They are compatible with all types of cameras. Until recently, they were very expensive, now they are more affordable. A good option for a device to which you can connect any camera.
Some plan to organize video surveillance for a private house through an existing computer. It is possible, but the computer must be dedicated. You can’t work or play on it, it must have a processor fast enough to process the required number of video channels. You will also need a solid volume of a fast hard drive. And keep in mind that the PC should work around the clock, without turning off. In general, it is better to buy a DVR or at least plan to buy one.
There are video recorders with the ability to record sound. But for this, the cameras must also support this function, and additional wires will also need to be pulled. But then you can not only conduct video surveillance of the house, but also receive messages from visitors at a distance. It might turn out interesting.
Self-selection or ready-made sets
On the popular Aliexpress website, and many local sellers, there are ready-made video surveillance kits. They also have online selection options. You change the number of cameras or their parameters, the DVR and other significant components of the system automatically change. If we talk about Chinese manufacturers, if we don’t take the really cheap ones, there are pretty good budget options with a relatively low price: Dahua, BESDER, Hikvision. There is definitely a pattern here – the cheaper, the worse, so look for an affordable solution.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper if you take it not as a set, but separately? Maybe. You can make a set, then look for analogues and compare the results. There is one more trick. If it doesn’t work out for you with the selection of components, call a couple of consultants from companies that sell equipment for video surveillance systems. Explain what you want and how. They draw up a project for you with an approximate list of equipment, voice the price for equipment and installation. This service is free for almost everyone. Even if the service costs something, then a little money (be sure to check in advance whether it is paid or not, and if it is paid, how much it costs).
Comparing projects, looking for the same equipment from other sellers, analogues in the network, you will draw a conclusion. Either assemble video surveillance for a private house yourself, or buy a ready-made system. With or without mounting. It’s already your choice.