PC for surveillance

[RedWulf]

I'm planning on building a PC to monitor my IP cameras(about 25). I plan on using about 6 TVs and prefer hdmi. I don't plan on recording a great deal of video, but I may store a few hours. I'd like cheap but not garbage, maybe $600, I'm still working on the budget. Give me some ideas please?

[samcool55]

WD purple drives, not really familiar with surveillance but i know WD purple drives are designed for such thing.

[vanished]

So are you wondering about the whole setup (minus the cameras)?  So, the PC, parts to make it, TVs, etc.?

[Crowes]

Some pointers:

• Nvidia NVS. Graphics cards built for merely powering loads of displays.
• WD Purple. Plenty of them. You'll need the storage if you plan to be recording all the time, and you'll even need to consider pruning

[RedWulf]

I don't plan to record often, just live feed.

I just need PC set up, I have everything else.

[Crowes]

Just now, RedWulf said:

I don't plan to record often, just live feed.

I just need PC set up, I have everything else.

I mean, you're still going to need four or five 6TB purples.. if not more... just to record twenty five inputs all at once. Do the math.

[vanished]

Just now, Crowes said:

I mean, you're still going to need four or five 6TB purples.. if not more... just to record twenty five inputs all at once. Do the math.

If he's not recording, why would he need any storage at all?

[RedWulf]

Just now, Crowes said:

I mean, you're still going to need four or five 6TB purples.. if not more... just to record twenty five inputs all at once. Do the math.

I know I'll need storage, but I'm just clearing up that recording will be limited.

 

[vanished]

1 minute ago, RedWulf said:

I know I'll need storage, but I'm just clearing up that recording will be limited.

 

I would think one purple should do it then.  But to be sure, we do need to know what quality (bitrate) the video feeds are coming in at.

[Trikein]

First, could you confirm this is for your home? Not meaning to pry, but wow, you must have a huge house to need 25 cameras. I don't even have 25 rooms in my house. I only ask because the given suggestions should be in scope with what you are doing. 

Second, what camera will you be using? How you stream, record, and display the video will depend on the software you will be using, which depends on the cameras.

Third, do you already have a PC in mind to use? Getting 6 HDMI inputs is going to be diffacult. Most GPU only have 2 HDMI, which means 3 mid end video cards, which means a pretty big case, PSU, etc. 

Forth, why do you want 6 seperate TVs? Will someone be monitoring all the camera feeds at once? You can record everything without needing 6 TV. You can just use one and have 4-6 feeds that cycle through all your cameras. 

[Belgarionbg]

UPS

Don`t forget the UPS if you want long life for the components of the system.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Belgarionbg said:

Also be careful when choosing cameras. If you are too cheap on them you`ll get very bad image, even at max daylight.

At work in the last three months we had 2 major incidents and because of bad image from the cheap cameras police failed to catch the criminals. I`m still in quarrel with my boss to buy something better.

That's too bad... you would think people would realize that the system is pointless unless the cameras are good enough to actually get intel from, so why spend any money if you don't spend enough to make it useful 

[Belgarionbg]

I just deleted that from my post because I double read the main post and op already said that he use ip cameras which are ok in most cases.

[RedWulf]

Well its my house and my parents house who are near by, it's not so much the rooms in the house as the large yards. I'm using at least 4 tvs because they're only 24 inches and their are several cameras. I run an online store from home and would like to keep an eye on it. 

The cameras will be ethernet, a couple are wifi though. It's 780p video and I'll have plenty of storage. I'll use a purple for the main storage then I have cheaper storage for backup if needed. 

I'm starting a pc from scratch for this, I was hoping for 3-6 video outputs of some kind. 

[Streetguru]

2 hours ago, RedWulf said:

I'm planning on building a PC to monitor my IP cameras(about 25). I plan on using about 6 TVs and prefer hdmi. I

So you need a lot of display outputs and storage? How are all the TVs going to be connected? the APU here supports up to 4 displays, and the motherboard has all those ports, with the 5450 for extra displays you should be fine, however double check that the motherboard allows you to use the iGPU and GPU at the same time for output, it should anyways, add more drives if you need more storage, I'm also not sure if it would be better to get an nvidia card like a 210 to avoid any driver issues, or maybe it would make more driver issues, not sure.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-A10-Series%20A8-7600.html
"The number of supported displays: 4"

And despite having 3 display outputs on the 5450, you can only use 2 at the same time, probably due to shared lanes, at least according to this forum post, but you'd still have a total of 6 display outputs, you might need an adapter for the display port though.

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/242436-setting-up-3-monitors-radeon-hd5450-without-adapters.html

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9DmJYJ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9DmJYJ/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD A8-7600 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($81.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($95.91 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($30.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital WD Purple 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($84.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 5450 1GB Video Card  ($27.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: DIYPC FM08-Blue ATX Mid Tower Case  ($30.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $382.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-01 17:11 EST-0500

 

[vanished]

56 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

Well its my house and my parents house who are near by, it's not so much the rooms in the house as the large yards. I'm using at least 4 tvs because they're only 24 inches and their are several cameras. I run an online store from home and would like to keep an eye on it. 

The cameras will be ethernet, a couple are wifi though. It's 780p video and I'll have plenty of storage. I'll use a purple for the main storage then I have cheaper storage for backup if needed. 

I'm starting a pc from scratch for this, I was hoping for 3-6 video outputs of some kind. 

780p?  That's an unusual size.  But I was talking bitrate.

As for the cards, you'll want a special card designed to have a lot of ports and not much else.  Otherwise you'll be paying for typical gaming GPUs which would cost more and give you fewer outputs.  Look into the nvidia cards mentioned earlier - they offer up to 8 miniDP on one card.

[RedWulf]

Thank you all,

I'm thinking this, but I think I need a better MoBo. More storage and maybe cooling will be added after its up and running.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/B8C93C

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/B8C93C/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($168.89 @ OutletPC) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.44 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Corsair Force LS 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($34.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.95 @ Amazon) 

Video Card: AMD FirePro W600 2GB Video Card  ($449.99 @ B&H) 

Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I Epic Edition (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1002.22

[vanished]

19 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

Thank you all,

I'm thinking this, but I think I need a better MoBo. More storage and maybe cooling will be added after its up and running.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/B8C93C

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/B8C93C/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($168.89 @ OutletPC) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.44 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Corsair Force LS 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($34.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.95 @ Amazon) 

Video Card: AMD FirePro W600 2GB Video Card  ($449.99 @ B&H) 

Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I Epic Edition (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1002.22

Here are my thoughts on that build, for whatever it's worth:

• That CPU is overkill for watching/recording security cameras (surely... anyone with experience here?)
• that in turn makes that cooler unnecessary
• why three 4 GB sticks of RAM?  Usually it is done in pairs (2 or 4 sticks).  Also, 12 GB seems excessive
• Have you looked around at all the other options for video cards?  It feels like a FirePro is more than you need to pay since you don't need a lot of processing power, just ports.

[Streetguru]

47 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

Thank you all,

 

Going to stick to my above recommendation

Although check out this special 7750, it has 6 mini display ports, costs $230, though the APU rig above is still less expensive on that front

Also are all the cameras wireless? You may need some more powerful or just more wireless networking hardware on the machine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129274&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=