Depends....both are about the same once you do it, bullets mostly are easier in that you don't have the cover over the mounting holes to remove, but domes are much harder to adjust the angle of the lens and just general camera position.
Any camera in proximity of a stray light source at night will screw with the IR and the ambient light sensor the camera uses to switch from daytime (no IR) and nighttime (IR) modes, every time the camera switches modes it will trigger a false event, it's a good practice to avoid stray light sources but sometimes to cover a area it's unavoidable.
Easiest way to figure it out is to just do a temp camera mount and let it run a cycle (24 hrs) to see what happens, if your satisfied then finish the install, if you get a lot of false triggered events then you'll want to re-think the location.
Yes....bullets are basically for any type of installation, they can be mounted in just about any position and be manipulated, think of a bullet as a universal type of camera that works in just about any situation, domes by contrast really only have two ways of mounting although most dome firmware does allow you to flip the image or skew the image several degrees right or left in a 360 degree arc....but mounting a dome in the correct position is more critical than a bullet because you have less adjustment after mounting then a bullet provides.
You really have no right or left adjustment to a dome after it's mounted only a slight vertical adjustment (up and down camera angle) after it is mounted....both types of cameras have their uses but bullets are far more flexible after mounting, you can even swing a bullet that it mounted from one vantage point to another in just a few minuets where a dome will require you to basically choose a fixed position that will be all you every get without remounting the camera.
That's a hard question to answer, on a dome yes a box would be nice but not a necessity, and unless the box is made for your usage it will have to modified, I'd really at this point just get the cameras and play around with a couple temp installs, then make a decision after on how to run the cable and terminate it.....just don't be in a big hurry to get it finished I know it's cold and winter is coming but take your time and figure it out before doing something that you'll rip out in the spring because your not happy with it.
Just run the cable out to the camera, of course you will have to mount the camera in the location you choose (3 screw holes) then just run the cable to it and don't worry about really mounting the cable in a permanent manner just let it hang there for the amount of time it takes to make your decision, yeah it will be noticeable but you don't want to do a bunch of cable mounting (wasting time) to find out it's not going to work in that position.
The thing I'll tell you is that just mounting the camera and viewing the image is one thing but you really need to see both day and night images to decide where is the best location or angle, an example, if you have a camera covering your drive and it points at the drive but includes the neighbors house and the neighbor has a out-door light that will shine into the lens of your camera (stray light source) it will effect your camera, view, and the IR everytime it is turned on, if it is motion activated then it will cause a lot of false triggers of your monitoring software unless you create a mask (in the motion detect portion of the software) that excludes the area of the light source.....but the light will still effect the IR because the light sensor in the camera will see it when it is on.
There are lots of different things that can trigger false events, you just want to limit the amount you create by how you mounted the camera or the angle you choose to view.
Awesome paragraph! Haha I know that you driveway, front of house and side of house have no motion sensing lights, my neighbor also do not have motion lights. I just need to find a place for the porch since there is a motion light there. Might temporarily install the camera a few meters in front of light.
I have a camera that points out our back drive to a side street, at night car headlights going up and down that street will trigger events even though the camera is a good 80-90' from the street and about 12' up the side of the building sad thing is during the day a car pulling into that driveway to turn around (just entering the property by the length of a car) will not trigger a event but at night it will...so I have a secondary camera on another building pointing in the same general direction covering the drive that will trigger when a car comes in off the street but not when cars go up and down the street, it's all about angle and distance combined with the spec of the camera itself. at this point since we have a L shaped driveway that has entrances at two different streets I have to do whatever it takes to cover the area...
.and I still have more cameras to install even though my system 18 cameras running today I originally thought that I could do everything with 14 cameras but as it stands I'm looking at something more like 21 or 22 and that doesn't really cover anything inside any building except one camera in 2 different buildings showing me interior shots.
It's like I always try to tell people the more cameras you have the more you will want or find areas that you'd like to keep a eye on...lol I'm eventually going to have a camera pointing that a stop sign (we are on a corner lot) where the side street meets the main street because people never stop and we have wrecks there all the time....
Just got the cameras,testibg them out. There's an option for motion detection in the trendnet software either camera motion detect ("fulfilled by a capable edge device (camera) option recommended for network cameras and is subject to availability depending in device model")
OR software notion detection ("software is sensitive to input image quality and availability of CPU resources, recommended for raw video frame grabber hardware")
I would choose the software motion detect it should provide less false triggers, the problem with doing it at the camera level is that you have to log back in to the camera firmware to change it, I try to do everything I can at the monitoring software side of things it is just easier to keep track of, change, and in the case of replacing or moving a camera it's still intact....but you can play around and see what suits your purpose.
I'll add that on the Trednet cameras I use their detection software to find the camera based on the MAC addy of the camera, then set the network stuff (I like to give it a IP and keep all the cameras in a specific range of addresses (I have a reason for this that I haven't implemented yet) and on my network I give them the area above 150 and keep them below 180 so I have plenty of addresses to use and not many conflicts. I then change the login and password (all my cameras use the same alpha-numeric password that would be hard to guess but easy for me to remember) , then go to the camera and set the geo location, the time and how it gets it's time and the format for date and time, name the camera in the overlay and save the settings, everything else I do from the monitoring software.
I also keep a written log of the cameras that lists the MAC, IP, Login info, and the data path that I use, I do this for my own benefit but if I was to drop dead it would give my wife a fighting chance at figuring things out....I actually use that info pretty often as we have a pretty big network with lots of devices...along with IP scanning software it's easy to see what is going on and if a conflict exists.
If you have any problems or questions just post here, I'm going to busy this weekend but will check back in the evenings and try to give you advice if you need it.... lol
PoE is really easy to setup. Many "kit" camera systems will come with ethernet cable bundled in usually 60' or 100' lengths. You can also just buy a 1000' spool of Cat5e and make your own connections very easily. ALWAYS check mfg. pinning diagram for PoE applications, they can vary. As for equipment I have installed a lot of Samsung , Q-see, Lorex, and Pelco(RG6) systems of varying complexity and applications. Always leave room in your PoE switch/multiplexor to add more cameras! If you think you need 4, buy the capability for 6 or 8 etc. Main cost will be the cameras themselves and storage. 720p and 1080p are becoming fairly standard in homeowner kits now which are great clarity at 3-6fps(but they chew up a lot of hd space quickly at 1080p if you want to keep video more than a month). Most will also have good day/night viewing. IR cameras are great, though you do need to be conscious of the IR emitter throw distance when selecting correct camera for application. You also asked about adding cameras to areas where you currently have no ethernet cable. If basement, or attic/crawlspace is accessible run your cables through there back to a centralized location when switch/multiplexor hard drive array will be located. Then run viewing line to where monitor will be located. I would stay away from wireless cameras unless it is the last resort. Hope this helps your project turn out like you wish!
Should I set up up the IPs before I install the cameras tomorrow? That geo location ,time, location setup can be done by just entering the ip of the camera into a browser. But will the information entered be saved even if I unplug the cameras afterwards? Thank you
Turn OFF DHCP and just assign ipv4 to life 192.168.0.151? (this is the web interface)
I still need to learn how to use the trendnet pc software, not many tutorials online.
BTW, is there a way to group all the cameras to one page so I can view on LAN?
Yes... I would, but it's your choice, if your network router provides DHCP for all your devices then it's way better to give each camera a fixed IP addy, as long as you know that the IP you choose isn't already used you'll be fine, I try to keep them like I said above in a certain range so say your gateway is 192.168.0.1 then I'd go up to say 150 or 160 and give the first camera a fixed IP of 192.168.0.150, the next camera can be 192.168.0.151 and so on.
So then to find the camera just open any browser and type that IP into the address bar and you will see the log-in for that camera....(I bookmark them..lol)
If you need to find IPs that are not used on your network try this program...
Sorry for the long URL.....anyway it doesn't need to be installed and will run from the executable file which makes it kinda' nice, there are other free programs just Google IP scanner.
Yes....if you enter all the info including the IP it is written to a small section of memory in the camera and will be there even if you unplug the camera, it is how I pre-test cameras by setting them up and letting them run a few days before I install them, makes it very easy as it's plug-n-play once you mount the camera. I like to pre-test cameras before installing, like the dome EXIR I told you about above it has been running a week or so and I noticed some distortion or interference in the image sometimes it turned out I was using the wrong data stream and it was sending too much data to Zoneminder, I switched the channel from 1 to 2 and it cleared up and has been perfect ever since.
yeah...the monitoring software will take a little figuring out but it's kinda' easy once you get the first camera going....
I'm not really sure what your asking....if you mean by IP I answered above if you mean something else rephrase the question...lol
Project Looking good @Blanger !! That looks like a ton more work than my camera and cabling install lol!
I just installed another camera today. One of my cameras keep disconnecting and there is an error message that says: "invalid video format. Restarting". This happened today and yesterday.
I still have one camera to install which is a dome cam. I don't know if I should return that and just get a bullet camera since the image looks a tad bit nicer and a bit less glare (nighttime) on the bullets. Bullets are also so nice for adjusting angles, just worried they won't last as long as bullet in the cold. Thoughts? Thanks
Same basic camera as a bullet, just different housing, longevity should be the same as far as I know, the camera with the error may have a issue as long as the settings your using in the monitoring software is the same as the others.
So how do you like it so far?
My project, well yes it is a huge project that the heat/AC is just one aspect, when the contractor left in May we had a shell of a building that was secure (all doors were installed) but we have spent months working on the interior to get it to the point it is now (ready for Winter), we have studded all the walls, built a mezzanine around 3 of the interior walls, installed the electric (and wired the building), installed water and gas to the building and associated plumbing for both, of course network access and cameras. We probably have about 1/3 of the interior finished (secondary insulation and plywood on the walls) most of the electric is finished, plumbing is finished with the exception of putting insulation on the water pipes that run in the walls, the list goes on and on but we are good for winter at this point.
The project t has been pretty msooth, pretty good weather and sufficient amount of materials. Just need to install the one camera and tidy up the wiring since it is all on the exterior. Still need to figure out the recording features like motion sensing
The settings are the same, i checked. The camera is disconnected again. I tried pressing the reset button yesterday and still no luck. Might have to return it. IDK, thoughts? (ethernet cable should be fine, since I did get consistent feed from yesterday night to this morning.
If the settings are the same, it's the camera, I have found that some cameras need to acclimate themselves (another reason I test before installing) what I mean is I've had cameras create artifacts in the displayed image for a day or so then clear up and never cause a issue again, kinda' like burning in a new PC if you want to think of it that way. A quick (well maybe) way to tell is to replace it with another camera and see if it does the same that would tell you pretty quick if it's the cable, but it's doubtful it would be the cable unless you have a loose connection where the RJ45 was installed and it's not making a good connection.
If I understand you correctly the camera is showing a error in the monitoring software, I'd probably switch it out with the other camera you have yet to install that will tell you pretty quickly which it is....you might have noticed the cameras get warm when running for a long time, this is normal at least all of mine do so it's not inconceivable that it could have a cold solder joint that is reacting to changes in both the ambient temperature and the temperature of the camera as it heats up from running.
