2 new installations

[stevewm]

In the past few months we have successfully installed IP camera systems at two of our retail store locations.. We selected and installed the equipment ourselves.

Location 1:

17 cameras total, all Vivotek brand using Vivotek's free ST7501 software (which is some of the best CCTV software I have ever used, beats most paid for software I have used in the past!)

Server is a self-built Intel Quad Core 2.93Ghz, 4GB RAM. 6 1TB SATA hardrives. Windows XP Pro. Using a dual gigabit NIC Gigabyte motherboard.

Cameras Used: Vivotek brand

8 IP7142 outdoor IR cameras
6 IP7153 Indoor cameras
2 IP7161 2 Megapixel cameras (running them in 800x600)

All new CAT5e was run for the cameras to be on their own separate LAN. All cameras are PoE powered using 3 Netgear FS726TP switches. (each switch is placed close to camera clusters to ease wiring installation and allow for easy expansion) Each PoE swtich has a Gigabit home run to a Netgear 8-port switch, which is then connected to NIC#2 on the server. None of the cameras are running on the existing in-store network.

All cameras run at 30FPS, 5 of them record full time during the day, the rest are all motion based recording. We have on average around 60 days of video retention time, which is more than enough.


Location 2:

26 cameras total. Server identical to above. Using same software.

11 IP7161 2Megapixel cameras (running at 800x600)
15 IP7142 outdoor/IR cameras

As before, 3 Netgear FS726TP PoE swtiches. Each switch is placed close to camera clusters. All cameras are on their own LAN. 3 of the IP7142 cameras are in another building on the premises linked only by wireless. Those are powered locally with the included AC adapters. They are connected directly to the Linksys WRT54G (running DD-WRT firmware) wireless AP that provides the wireless network to the building.

This location is not completely setup and working yet. But I estimate we will have about 40 days of retention time using motion record mode.



Previously both locations had cheap analog systems with a generic DVR. Software was horrible, and cameras constantly had ground loop issues that no one was able to solve completely.

Vivotek's software uses stream 1 from the camera for live view, and stream 2 for recording. For our setup, both streams on all cameras are set to max resolution/FPS and quality. Using MPEG4 on all.

I am glad I got the Quad core processor... The Vivotek software seems to make great use of it. It seems to spread decoding of the channels across any available processors. Using task manager you can see the Vivotek software using a bit of every core. For our first location total processor usage never goes over 35% with all 17 channels being viewed in realtime.[/u]

[Administrator]

Great news Steve, thank you for the details.

You give a pretty ringing endorsement for the free Vivotek software. How do you like the new 2MP IP7161 cameras?
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[bobby1471]

Did you have any trouble with the 7142's "pigtail". I have ran into trouble at times getting the camera to lock into a position due to the thick cable twisting the stand no matter how tight I lock it down.
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[stevewm]

[blurbfly]

Hi there. i have a problem with the ST7501 software.

i just cannot get it to record on motion. Ii have set up the recording group, added the camera to it (just trialing with 1). set up the settings in the group to record on motion but ..nothing. Is there some quirk here that I am missing or some procedure you might know of...?

Thanks in advance

[fatjohnny]

Like you, I build all my PC's. I use ASUS mother boards and have quad cores. Out of curiosity, what make and model mother board are you using for the quad-core PC? I assume it is server grade since it has two on-board 1 gb nics, right? What processor are you specifically running? Some can be very power hungry.

John
New jersey