Advice on Layout & Installation

PlaidSheep

New Member
The house:
  • New construction, 1500 sq ft ranch
  • Your basic rectangle, short sides are the front and back
  • 10 ft ceilings indoors
The plan:
  • My initial thinking is a camera on all four corners
  • Camera views crossed slightly inward
  • No views down the long walls between neighbors
The hardware:
  • I'm looking at Axis POE cameras, though I've no idea which model(s) yet.
  • I've got a six bay QNAP NAS with an i3 and 8GB of RAM I'd like to use for storage
I welcome all comments on the above, but I really want to clear up the hardware installation.
 
The POE cameras themselves seem pretty simple.  Drill a large hole into the eave for the RJ-45 and a few smaller holes to mount the camera.  I'm guessing a standard five port POE switch from a quality manufacturer is fine.  I can mount that near an outlet in my attic and probably not have a camera run longer than 50 ft.  Then, I just run a single RJ-45 from the switch down the inside of a wall into my office and the QNAP box, right?  Is there any reason to doubt such a setup could handle traffic from four 4k cameras running 24/7?
 
I'm grateful for any hardware suggestions - switch, Cat5E vs 6, etc. - or installation ideas.  I've an electrician I can use for the basic wiring, but I'd like to handle the rest.  I could see a professional installation easily doubling my cost.
 
I'll research software before I start a post for guidance there.
 
Thanks-
 
Depending on where you live and how hot the attic will be, some switches may not survive that environment.  There are switches made for this.  You will probably find that most only support up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.  I have a switch in my attic but it was designed for harsh environments.  It is rated up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit with no airflow at all and can handle higher temps with airflow.  This is not a consumer grade switch though.
 
Also you need to look at the low temp the switch can support; you'll find that many only support down to 32 degrees.  Mine can handle down to -40.
 
Most 4k camera use H.265 (HVEC) and you will need to see what your QNAP can handle and what features you want.  This will ultimately control what you can do and the FPS you can set.  H.265 is more processor intensive to decode, so if the QNAP needs to decode it, you might run into issues.  If the camera doesn't timestamp and you want timestamps, then if you need the QNAP to handle it, you'll need to see what it can handle transcoding wise.  It will need to decode the H.265, add the timestamp in and then encode it.
 
I don't know which QNAP you have but take the TVS-682; it states the following:
Transcode Management

  1. Transcode video files to 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p resolution
 
So per the specs; 4k is not supported.
 
Quite a few people like BlueIris for their camera setup and it is fairly cheap.  You still need a server and storage but you could still use your QNAP for storage by using iSCSI.
 
Also confirm whether the PoE required is 802.3af (15W) or 802.3at (30W). If you want IR for night and heaters for cold days, you may exceed what standard PoE can provide and will have to use prorietery injectors or separate power cables.

Sent from my SM-N9500 using Tapatalk
 
lanbrown said:
Depending on where you live and how hot the attic will be, some switches may not survive that environment.  There are switches made for this.  You will probably find that most only support up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.  I have a switch in my attic but it was designed for harsh environments.  It is rated up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit with no airflow at all and can handle higher temps with airflow.  This is not a consumer grade switch though.
 
Also you need to look at the low temp the switch can support; you'll find that many only support down to 32 degrees.  Mine can handle down to -40.
 
Most 4k camera use H.265 (HVEC) and you will need to see what your QNAP can handle and what features you want.  This will ultimately control what you can do and the FPS you can set.  H.265 is more processor intensive to decode, so if the QNAP needs to decode it, you might run into issues.  If the camera doesn't timestamp and you want timestamps, then if you need the QNAP to handle it, you'll need to see what it can handle transcoding wise.  It will need to decode the H.265, add the timestamp in and then encode it.
 
I don't know which QNAP you have but take the TVS-682; it states the following:
 
So per the specs; 4k is not supported.
 
Quite a few people like BlueIris for their camera setup and it is fairly cheap.  You still need a server and storage but you could still use your QNAP for storage by using iSCSI.
 
Good point about the temperature rating.  I had a vent fan put in, but it will still reach 120 F up there.  What switch do you use?  I suppose I could always have longer cable runs and put the switch in my office.
 
My QNAP box is a TVS-671, which shows the same frame rates you listed, so that looks to be a non-starter.  Guess I'll need an NVR.  Any suggestions on higher-end brands?  I'm by no means made outta' money, but my approach has always been to buy quality, even if I have to wait longer to afford it.  My most basic needs would be an easy way to feed recorded video to my Mac and scrub through it, along with some way to offload video for permanent storage.  Motion alerts and feeds to cellphones sounds cool, but I'm not sure at what cost and level of complexity.
 
I've heard of Blue Iris.  Briefly looked at their page.  A $60 one-time fee is certainly reasonable.  I'd imagine major updates are half that or so.  I'll spend more time looking over it.
 
Looks like I gotta wait another 24 hrs before I can post my next reply, so...
 
The main switch is a stack of Cisco 9300's.  In the attic I have two Cisco IE 3000's.  One of the IE 3000's has a PoE (802.3at capable) module on it.  The module is not cheap at all and would likely break the bank.  The IE line stands for Industrial Ethernet and it is designed for harsh environments and the hottest I saw my attic this summer was 114 degrees.  So I was well within what it could handle.  One switch is dedicated to IPTV and the other is for the other items; like a My Q gateway feed via a PoE splitter, a Kevo Plus (also feed via a PoE splitter) but I also use the IE 3000 for non-gigabit connections.  No need to use expensive mGig ports for fast Ethernet or in the case of the My Q gateway, Ethernet (10 Mbps).  I also have TV's, Roku, FireTV, alarm system and RS-232 to Ethernet devices connected to it since they primarily fast Ethernet devices.  So the 20 fast Ethernet ports on it is fed via 2x1Gbps connections; so no oversubscription issues.
 
My advice since you're building.  I built my house about three years ago and I paid for conduit to be put down walls and then ran my Cat6a cables after closing.  This would allow you to get the cables for the cameras down the wall with ease.  The conduit they used was fiber conduit; so corrugated plastic.  I easily got six Cat6a cables down them with room to spare.  I'd guess about 50% full.  In the TV areas; there is one that goes from the attic to outlet level on the wall.  The second goes from that same outlet level area (so double gang) up to where it will be behind a TV.  This way even HDMI cables and the like can be hidden.  This also allows me to loop cables in the double gang box up the TV for the TV and a FireTv plugged into the TV.  I just wish Amazon offered a PoE USB adapter; this way it could be powered via PoE.  For your front door, I would also run an Ethernet cable down to it along with the doorbell wire.  If you ever wanted to go with a video doorbell, you could go with a DoorBird and tie that into Blue Iris and probably SecuritySpy since the stream is directly accessible and ONVIF compatible.  Also at the ringer you could do an IP chime; so that would be another ethernet cord there as well.  Really easy to run when there is access and a pain when there is limited access.
 
Your approach mimics mine.  You could buy an Intel NUC to run Blue Iris on and then just have external storage on it or use your NAS.  The other option for a Mac would be SecuritySpy.  I'm mainly Mac based but Android phones.  I do have Windows Servers for 802.1x wireless authentication; so I use the AD portion and bind the Mac's to AD.  I don't know what mac you have and if SecuritySpy would handle the cameras; but it is something you could look into.
 
The major upgrades to Blue Iris is the regular price; even the regular price is cheaper than the upgrade that many of the competitors offer.  He does sell a support plan which includes major upgrades.
http://blueirissoftware.com/support/
The mid tier is half the price of the license and it is for one year.  So even if you don't buy a support plan and need to spend $60 every few years for the major version upgrade, it isn't that bad.  SecuritySpy upgrade pricing is 35% off the full retail price.
https://www.bensoftware.com/securityspy/upgrade.html
 
I would say Blue Iris is still cheaper even when you have to pay full price for major upgrades.  It is not like they are released every year.  Keep in mind that Blue Iris is Intel centric and not AMD.  So if hardware encoding/decoding is required; it will work on an Intel box, not on the AMD.  NVIDIA GPU's are also not supported.  There are hardware boards that can be added though.  In 2020 things will get interesting when Intel releases their standalone GPU and I would expect that Blue Iris will be able to support it to offload transcoding to it.  Until Intel announces some details, who knows though.
 
Blue Iris also supports Android and iOS devices with an app.  So you would have your mobile access.
 
Since you're also a Mac person, Indigo is a Home Automation system that runs on a Mac.  There are plugins for Blue Iris and SecuritySpy.
 
Looks like you have some decisions to make.  Another location for your switch, the garage.  Depending on where you live; it would not get terribly hot or terribly cold compared to an attic.
 
giesen said:
Also confirm whether the PoE required is 802.3af (15W) or 802.3at (30W). If you want IR for night and heaters for cold days, you may exceed what standard PoE can provide and will have to use prorietery injectors or separate power cables. Sent from my SM-N9500 using Tapatalk
 
I definitely want IR capable cameras, but I don't think I need to worry about low temperature functionality.  To be sure though, what's considered 'low'?  I'm thinking of fixed view cams, domes &/or bullets.  Also, assuming a quality cable, at what length should one consider injectors?  If a switch in my attic is a no-go, I'll need longer cable runs to reach the switch in my office.
 
Ethernet is good for 100 meters (328 feet) which includes patch cables.  Without patch cables, it is 90 meters.  So you shouldn't need to worry about length in a 1500 square foot ranch.
 
PlaidSheep said:
I definitely want IR capable cameras, but I don't think I need to worry about low temperature functionality.  To be sure though, what's considered 'low'?  I'm thinking of fixed view cams, domes &/or bullets.  Also, assuming a quality cable, at what length should one consider injectors?  If a switch in my attic is a no-go, I'll need longer cable runs to reach the switch in my office.
 
You need to check the specs on the specific cameras you are considering.  Some are good down to 20°F or so.  Others, like some of the Hikvision models, are spec'd for as low as -30°F.
 
You can also find 4k 8MP cameras that do not require heaters and can operate from negative 22 degrees to 140 degrees.  They also run on 802.3af (15 watts) as well.
 
I would think more about camera placement. Depending on the size and shape of the house cameras just on the corners might not give you all you need, and may not be useful at all. 
 
When I placed my cameras I focused on areas of entry into the house. I also added one wide 4K camera to get an overall view of the front driveway and street in front of the house.
 
So I installed a camera right above the front door to get a closeup view of anyone approaching. Same with the back door. For my basement bulkhead it was tough to get an outdoor camera placed there so I placed one inside shoting the interior of the door. Bonus with that camera is it covers most of the kids playroom so we can keep an eye on the kids when they are down there. 
 
I also have one that is inside the corner of the garage which covers any entry from the garage.

I have a mix of mostly Axis cameras and one Hikvision, all POE and they have worked out well.

P3215-VE on the back door with auto tracking
P3214-VE on the front door
P1428-E as the wide angle covering the front with auto tracking
M3005-V in the basement
M1025 in the garage

Hikvision DS-2CD2432F that I put up inside covering our kitchen and living room, only when we are on vacation

I am using Blue Iris and it works great for what I need, handles the 6 cameras at a decent frame rate using about 30% CPU of a dell poweredge server. It is actually handling 8 streams as I take the auto tracking streams separately as if they are a second camera (auto tracking is an excellent feature)
 
bucko said:
You might also run some 22/4 to the camera for alarm inputs.
 
Sorry for the blackout.  Life snuck up from behind and pantsed me.
 
Seems I mistyped when I wrote "new construction."  My wife and I found our current home 95% complete.  We moved in shortly after the wrapper came off.  Someday, I'd love to build a home.  Maybe if one of my Wile E. Coyote schemes gets angel funding and bought out by ACME.
 
As spec'd by the builder, the house has no alarm system.  The town I'm in is tiny and borderline narcoleptic compared to an average city.  Call me a plebe, but I've looked a few times at standalone WiFi systems just to see what's what.  Nothing I've come across so far is Apple Homkit compliant, so I'll likely hold off till then.
 
lanbrown said:
The main switch is a stack of Cisco 9300's.  In the attic I have two Cisco IE 3000's.  One of the IE 3000's has a PoE (802.3at capable) module on it.  The module is not cheap at all and would likely break the bank.  The IE line stands for Industrial Ethernet and it is designed for harsh environments and the hottest I saw my attic this summer was 114 degrees.  So I was well within what it could handle.  One switch is dedicated to IPTV and the other is for the other items; like a My Q gateway feed via a PoE splitter, a Kevo Plus (also feed via a PoE splitter) but I also use the IE 3000 for non-gigabit connections.  No need to use expensive mGig ports for fast Ethernet or in the case of the My Q gateway, Ethernet (10 Mbps).  I also have TV's, Roku, FireTV, alarm system and RS-232 to Ethernet devices connected to it since they primarily fast Ethernet devices.  So the 20 fast Ethernet ports on it is fed via 2x1Gbps connections; so no oversubscription issues.
 
My advice since you're building.  I built my house about three years ago and I paid for conduit to be put down walls and then ran my Cat6a cables after closing.  This would allow you to get the cables for the cameras down the wall with ease.  The conduit they used was fiber conduit; so corrugated plastic.  I easily got six Cat6a cables down them with room to spare.  I'd guess about 50% full.  In the TV areas; there is one that goes from the attic to outlet level on the wall.  The second goes from that same outlet level area (so double gang) up to where it will be behind a TV.  This way even HDMI cables and the like can be hidden.  This also allows me to loop cables in the double gang box up the TV for the TV and a FireTv plugged into the TV.  I just wish Amazon offered a PoE USB adapter; this way it could be powered via PoE.  For your front door, I would also run an Ethernet cable down to it along with the doorbell wire.  If you ever wanted to go with a video doorbell, you could go with a DoorBird and tie that into Blue Iris and probably SecuritySpy since the stream is directly accessible and ONVIF compatible.  Also at the ringer you could do an IP chime; so that would be another ethernet cord there as well.  Really easy to run when there is access and a pain when there is limited access.
 
Your approach mimics mine.  You could buy an Intel NUC to run Blue Iris on and then just have external storage on it or use your NAS.  The other option for a Mac would be SecuritySpy.  I'm mainly Mac based but Android phones.  I do have Windows Servers for 802.1x wireless authentication; so I use the AD portion and bind the Mac's to AD.  I don't know what mac you have and if SecuritySpy would handle the cameras; but it is something you could look into.
 
The major upgrades to Blue Iris is the regular price; even the regular price is cheaper than the upgrade that many of the competitors offer.  He does sell a support plan which includes major upgrades.
http://blueirissoftware.com/support/
The mid tier is half the price of the license and it is for one year.  So even if you don't buy a support plan and need to spend $60 every few years for the major version upgrade, it isn't that bad.  SecuritySpy upgrade pricing is 35% off the full retail price.
https://www.bensoftware.com/securityspy/upgrade.html
 
I would say Blue Iris is still cheaper even when you have to pay full price for major upgrades.  It is not like they are released every year.  Keep in mind that Blue Iris is Intel centric and not AMD.  So if hardware encoding/decoding is required; it will work on an Intel box, not on the AMD.  NVIDIA GPU's are also not supported.  There are hardware boards that can be added though.  In 2020 things will get interesting when Intel releases their standalone GPU and I would expect that Blue Iris will be able to support it to offload transcoding to it.  Until Intel announces some details, who knows though.
 
Blue Iris also supports Android and iOS devices with an app.  So you would have your mobile access.
 
Since you're also a Mac person, Indigo is a Home Automation system that runs on a Mac.  There are plugins for Blue Iris and SecuritySpy.
 
Looks like you have some decisions to make.  Another location for your switch, the garage.  Depending on where you live; it would not get terribly hot or terribly cold compared to an attic.
Doooood... you are seriously down the rabbit hole.  Impressive.
 
So per your later post, I'm more than fine running network cables into a router located in my office.  Check.
 
What's hot in cable these days?  I've used Bluejeanscable over the years (Audiophilus Deafasaurus), and they've an interesting write-up on their site about how the bulk of what's out there doesn't measure up when measured.  Their stuff is expensive, but for my install not out of the question.
 
I'm in my office typing this on a 6,1 Mac Pro, but I've numerous decommissioned Macs I could press into service.  The one that makes the most sense is a 4,1 Mac Mini (last of the optical drives).  Suppose I could always dual-boot it if Blue Iris is the preferred software.  Then again, a NUC is prolly cheaper than a good NVR.  I've never heard of Indigo, so I'll have to research that option as well.
 
The Wife has just informed me it's past my bedtime.
 
Welcome to the Cocoontech forum PlaidSheep.
 
Most important during construction is infrastructure.
 
Here during new construction built a centralized wiring closet in a one story home (elevated ranch - FL). 
 
Made changes to drawings with construction company related to said wiring closet. 
 
Infrastructure cabling related to network, alarm panel, av media et al inside and outside of the home.
 
PlaidSheep said:
Doooood... you are seriously down the rabbit hole.  Impressive.
 
So per your later post, I'm more than fine running network cables into a router located in my office.  Check.
 
What's hot in cable these days?  I've used Bluejeanscable over the years (Audiophilus Deafasaurus), and they've an interesting write-up on their site about how the bulk of what's out there doesn't measure up when measured.  Their stuff is expensive, but for my install not out of the question.
 
I'm in my office typing this on a 6,1 Mac Pro, but I've numerous decommissioned Macs I could press into service.  The one that makes the most sense is a 4,1 Mac Mini (last of the optical drives).  Suppose I could always dual-boot it if Blue Iris is the preferred software.  Then again, a NUC is prolly cheaper than a good NVR.  I've never heard of Indigo, so I'll have to research that option as well.
 
The Wife has just informed me it's past my bedtime.
 
Well, it is also my career.  I think more of it as a production lab.
 
All of my cabling is probably one of the most expensive vendors you can buy; Panduit.  In the attic I used their QuickNet; which actually gives you six cables.  They terminate the ends, test every cable and provide you the report.  I then use a 19" panel to put them in and then ran individual Cat6a (small diameter and regular) down the walls which were terminated with Mini-Com jacks.  In the attic they go to a panel and I use either a 1' or 2' patch cable.  Typically I have six cables going down to each wall plate.
 
The SD Cat6a or small diameter is good for 10Gbps at 70 meters with full PoE capability.  The regular is good for 10Gbps at the full 100 meters with full PoE capability.  The QuickNet cables are even thicker than the regular and this is because they expect you to have a lot side by side and that in itself can cause interference and crosstalk issues.  So the larger diameter helps remediate it as well as if all of them are carrying 802.3bt PoE power as well.  They test up to 100 cables in a bundle for the heat rise.
 
When you look at cabling, any company that sells Cat6e, stay away from.  There is no TIA Cat6e standard; only Cat6 and Cat6a.  Obviously the cable cannot meet Cat6a but could be better than Cat6.  Anyway, I wouldn't buy Cat6e cabling.  Also look for solid copper cable and not stranded.  Stranded is used for patch cables, not long runs.
 
I've been happy with Indigo Domotics for Home Automation.  You really need to look at what you want to accomplish and what fits into what you're looking to do.
 
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