How to organize video surveillance in a large outdoor area?

Question

CCTV

Good afternoon. It is required to organize street video surveillance on a fairly large area (about 250 meters from the far camera to the server room). Recording quality is excellent is not required. Recording around the clock. Shelf life 30 days. External access required. The ability to scale the system, at first there will be about 15 cameras, but later it will reach about 30.
There is no experience as such. Need advice on equipment and the principle of building a network.
- What equipment? I've settled on hikvision for now.
- Use a DVR or something like a Synology NAS?
- The distance to the server room is large. Use UTP with repeater? Or, for example, a group of cameras at one point to combine and use a directional wifi antenna?
What important points have I missed due to lack of experience? Underwater rocks?
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Answer 1

1. Hikvision is also possible.
2. Registrar.
3. Install outdoor switches like tfortis or osnovo, connect optics and power to them, power the cameras from them via PoE. Those. you get groups like these: https://yadi.sk/i/WmbhKUplV7UOmw
4. Wi-Fi is evil.

Answer 2

hikvison has good value for money plus good delivery and support. They also work well with a wide range of other video surveillance systems.
You can use the registrar, you can use the same hikvision, you can use alternative, soft ones.
If the quality is not critical, you can use hdtvi cameras, they give quite decent quality and work normally at such distances.
Of the shortcomings of this approach. Each camera has its own wire, i.e. there will be no switches, separate cable management, separate power supply, as a rule, there are no smart functions in the cameras (such as search in the traffic area, detection of sabotage, fire, smoke, etc.).
If we talk about IP cameras, then it will be difficult to manage the registrar.
For 15 cameras per month, this will be at least 10TB. Considering that for reliability it is at least two disks. And you will need 20TB for 30 cameras, and this is at least a 2Mbps stream. 2Mbit stream is more or less for cameras up to FullHD (i.e. up to 2MP, with a stretch up to 3MP). In fact, with cameras from 3MP and above, the stream needs 4-6Mbps, sometimes more.
If you take 4Mbit for 30 cameras for 30 days. This is 4 * 3600 * 24 * 30 * 30 about 40TB, in total 8 disks of 10TB each (raid 1).
For this configuration, you will need either 2 recorders of 16 channels, each with support for 4 disks, or 4 recorders of 8 channels, each with 2 disks.
WIFI is not about video surveillance, there will be a lot of different non-obvious difficulties.

Answer 3

Big topic. It's hard to grasp everything at once.
Wi-fi only as a last resort, when it doesn’t work at all over the cable.

What important points did I miss?

- You missed the food. At such distances, PoE may not pull (a bunch of cameras), or there will be a lot of trouble. So at least these are switches ("repeaters", but in fact, still switches) with PoE-out at a distance of no more than 100 meters from the cameras, and the switches themselves receive full (not PoE-in) power. Even better - full 12V to each camera. Better from a redundant (uninterruptible) source - these are always used for OPS. Accordingly, it is advisable to look for switches with 12V power supply (there are few of them, but they exist, low-power ones are chasing such).
Next moment. What is your climate? If not Crimea \ Sochi, etc., then in winter the switches will need a heat-insulated box with heating. Well, regardless of the climate (although... you don't have the Gobi\Sahara\Karakum?) IP65 will be required for these boxes.

Use UTP...

- another cool topic about lightning protection and UTP / STP ... I won't even talk about it ... :) Different experiences, different opinions, discussed a hundred times everywhere.

Ability to scale the system

- at least at the points where traffic from a bunch of cameras will converge, it makes sense to install gigabit switches.

Use a DVR or something like a Synology NAS

- And what does NAS have to do with it? An iron DVR or a video server (an ordinary PC with special software, there are many options, most of them are paid). This is a difficult choice, this topic has been discussed in many places, including on the Toaster, you need to use the search. The advantage is that this choice does not affect the solution of other issues, and the choice can be delayed until the last moment. :)
But... You can do it in a completely different way. There are digital cameras, but not ip. Another technology is AHD. Why? And they transmit the signal over the good old coaxial cable, and I think that they can work at 250 meters without problems. No need to fence boxes with switches and heating.
Of course, all IT people are more familiar with ip-technology. :) But it's better to understand what alternatives are and make an informed choice.

Answer 4

Hik or daha, uniquely reg/server and switching through intermediate cabinets. Wi-fi is greatly affected by weather conditions. For reg you need from 30Gb of storage (depends on cameras and requirements with a margin). It is better to put a separate server trassir or ip-line. From the personal experience of a weak current adjuster.