Newbie: install IP Camera on warehouse

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HF2020
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:59 pm

Newbie: install IP Camera on warehouse

Post by HF2020 »

Hi All,

I'm a newbie on this security things, but I want to install 16 IP cameras (Hikvision/Dahua) on my warehouse and monitor it from my house, so I have couple of questions below

1. how to setup those 16 IP on warehouse,
2. do I need like router or switch 16 port to be able to do it?
3. do I need NVR or not?
4. do I need to port forward those LAN IP so that i can watch all 16 together at the same time?
5. at home do I need to setup server to run firewall then connect my monitoring PC to it? or I can directly connect those IP cameras to BI software?
6. how much internet bandwidth need to upload those 16 cameras for live monitoring? let say i want like 360p quality or 480p quality and not higher than 720p (we normally have 10 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload here, but i can upgrade it to higher if needed)
7. how much storage of harddrive i need to store 16 camera continues recording for 1 day with those quality?

Thank you All a lot !
Matts1984
Posts: 496
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:12 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Newbie: install IP Camera on warehouse

Post by Matts1984 »

Thats a bunch of questions that could be an hour (or more) long discussion. With that setup I think you'd be best served by setting up your Blue Iris machine at the warehouse, have all the cameras connect to it, and then monitor it remotely or wherever you like.

1. This is incredibly broad. Take them out of the box, mount them**, connect cable(s), access the web interface of camera to ensure IP settings are as desired, add them to BI.

** I generally connect the cameras, get them running and added, everything before mounting. It's much easier to tinker with them in your hands than way high on a roof or wall.

2. Yes. If you have 16 cameras, you'll also need a port (or more) for your BI server, and potentially one to connect to your ISP. Depending on your environment you may want to consider a PoE switch so that your cameras can get power simply from the one ethernet cable connected to them... otherwise you'll also have to figure out a way to get a power adapter up to them. By all means, you can use multiple switches and link them together.

3. No you don't NEED it. BI is essentially a NVR. As discussed elsewhere on this forum, you typically CAN use an NVR and then have BI connect to that.. but thats generally not done.

4. Assuming you deploy your BI server at the warehouse, you only need to provide inbound internet access to the server itself - NOT to the individual cameras. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, largely dependent on your ISP facing modem/router capabilities. If you instead decide to deploy the BI server at home/elsewhere, the BI server is the ONLY device that needs access to your cameras. I'd recommend a site-to-site VPN if you go that path but but but.... IMHO this is a much more complicated deployment and will be FAR more bandwidth intensive to continuously stream 16 camera feeds to a remove BI server. The more I think about it, it's a horrible idea. The server really needs to be as close to the cameras as possible.

5. Assuming your server is at the warehouse, the server is connected to the cameras and from home (or mobile phone client), you only need to connect to the server. There is a smart phone app that works pretty well for viewing - not full administration, and there is a web interface that you can get to with a browser (commonly referred to as UI3). You potentially would also want remote access to the actual server console which I would suggest using Remote Desktop or some sort of remote access tool like LogMeIn. I would protect that as best you can though, with a VPN if possible. Never make a Windows system publicly accessible directly over Remote Desktop.

6. If your server is local to the cameras, this is really a non-issue, but you'd be looking at easily exceeding your current pipe if they were feeding a remote BI server. Keeping the server on-site eliminates the bandwidth concern and then the only thing hitting your ISP is when you remotely view a feed in which case you're totally fine with that.

7. To be honest I'd have to do the math on that. Only needing 1 day of recordings it pretty small. Again, I haven't crunched the numbers but with easily available budget drives you should be able to get a week or so without hurting the bank - especially if you're looking at 480p quality.
Blue Iris 5.8.8.x | Server 2022 VM | Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz - 12 Cores | 12GB RAM | 7TB RAID | Sophos UTM WAF | 4x SV3C 5MP Bullet A | 1x SV3C 5MP PTZ HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Bullet HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Dome HX | 2x Amcrest 5MP Bullet
Matts1984
Posts: 496
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:12 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Newbie: install IP Camera on warehouse

Post by Matts1984 »

I did intend to add that another option in your situation could be a cloud camera security provider such as Verkada. They have some impressive looking abilities but I'm sure over the long run it would be more expensive (maybe even initially). The upside would be that you'd only have to deploy the cameras and give them internet access. The rest is handled by the provider.
Blue Iris 5.8.8.x | Server 2022 VM | Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz - 12 Cores | 12GB RAM | 7TB RAID | Sophos UTM WAF | 4x SV3C 5MP Bullet A | 1x SV3C 5MP PTZ HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Bullet HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Dome HX | 2x Amcrest 5MP Bullet
HF2020
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:59 pm

Re: Newbie: install IP Camera on warehouse

Post by HF2020 »

Thank you so much Matt,

I found 1 software that can handle thousands of camera (if your warehouse or we can call it site) keep adding up every month, it is called cathexisvision

it has like client & server connection so people at control room can monitor hundred or thousand camera at once base on analytic motion sensor / trigger / alert etc (which blue iris doesnt have because blue iris can only monitor live i think?)

we can also at the same time do live monitoring but only limited to hundred probably because the tv wall is not big enough to display thousand.

anyway let me research this new software first and thank again Matt.
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