IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance system?

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intrepidrenov8r
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:20 pm

IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance system?

Post by intrepidrenov8r »

Can some of you ZoneMinder veterans give me some pointers regarding camera types please? I'm trying to decide which type of cameras to use for my first ZM setup so I can prewire my house correctly. I have absolutely no experience with analog cameras so I'm have a difficult time deciding if I should even consider these cameras. It seems like the higher resolution of IP cameras would make them the better choice.

System requirements...
12-16 camera locations
-- Front Door
-- Back Door
-- Exterior (about 4 locations)
-- Interior (about 6 locations)
-- Garage
Record on motion detection - For a home surveillance system I can't think of any reason to record continuously.
Motion Detection on about 6 camers

And as far as wiring is this correct?
-- Ip Camera - cat 5 and 16/2 stranded wire for power if not PoE
-- Analog Camera - RG6 coax and 16/2 stranded wire for power
theforce
Posts: 129
Joined: Tue May 11, 2010 5:22 am

Re: IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance syste

Post by theforce »

I personally had it all. Analog, IP with passive POE and IP with POE.

In my opinion if you have the money go with IP with POE.
$390 per Axis camera. 800x600 from newegg
$200-$400 on POE switch. I bought a 24 port with gig ports for $350 at newegg
In my opinion this is a much better setup and easer to manage. One cable and your done.

Or cheaper IP setup with passive POE.
~$100 Cheap IP cameras. Find 12v minimum. Anything less you will have cable length issues with passive POE. Or if you have AC power next to the camera you can just plug the power in and not worry about passive POE.
~$5 per passive POE cables.
This works but you have to have power strips with a bunch of wall warts and wires to mess with. Plus you have to waterproof the passive POE cable connections outside. Use a sealed box or durable plastic bag sealed VERY WELL.

In my opinion analog cameras are crap now days. Low resolution, crap video quality, and signal interference on long runs or runs next to AC power lines.

I'm in the middle of upgrading my passive IP camera setup with regular POE IP cameras. Wish I went with regular POE first time through mostly because of the cheap cameras I bought keep failing.
jameswilson
Posts: 5111
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:07 pm
Location: Midlands UK

Re: IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance syste

Post by jameswilson »

Just run cat 5. You can then use ip or analogue later. Coax is only used now for hdsdi and for patch leads. Use a genie utp balun to send video up a pair of the cat 5 and use the rest for power. Then you can upgrade to ip later. However ip (decent) will out perform anything analogue
James Wilson

Disclaimer: The above is pure theory and may work on a good day with the wind behind it. etc etc.
http://www.securitywarehouse.co.uk
neuronetv
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:01 pm

Re: IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance syste

Post by neuronetv »

It seems like the higher resolution of IP cameras would make them the better choice
most certainly, especially when an axis207w off ebay can do 1280x720.
remember if you want high quality image, don't skimp on processing power on the zoneminder machine. Push it to the limit, and then some more...
use CAT5 cable, avoid wlan.
skyking
Posts: 84
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:07 am

Re: IP or analog? How to decide for home surveillance syste

Post by skyking »

neuronetv wrote:
It seems like the higher resolution of IP cameras would make them the better choice
most certainly, especially when an axis207w off ebay can do 1280x720.
remember if you want high quality image, don't skimp on processing power on the zoneminder machine. Push it to the limit, and then some more...
use CAT5 cable, avoid wlan.
If you go all axis and use the camera's built in motion detection, you don't need much processing power. That's the beauty of those cams.
http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... ion+solved
I have 20 axis cams running around the country, and all of them are set to nodect.
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