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IP Camera Monitoring System REQUIREMENT

Posted by Mayyas12
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Physical Security General Hardware

Hello,

I have:

1- 150 HIKVISION IP camera 4MP 

2- 5*32-CH HIKVISION NVR 

I want to display a live view of the 150 camera on a video wall.

What is the additional required devices should I have?

I think I just need a video wall controller and a high performance pc with ivms software, is this right?

Spice (50) Reply (32)
Mayyas12

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32 Replies

  • Avoid HIKVISION like the plague.
    If you use a system like DW Spectrum, you can build your video wall with 2 computers (or more) and each monitor can get cameras by computer (or you can build essentially a gaming system, with multiple graphics cards, and super high resolution (multi-4k) outputs (say 4x4k monitors).

    I like a single dedicated NVR, independent VLAN for the cameras, and capturing it all in one location. Then the cameras can be IP based and vendor agnostic.  I've built multiple systems with more than 50 cameras. I'd look at DW Watchdogs requirements for more than 50 cameras, to see if they require more NVRs or not.  Either way its a nicer system.

    Spice (9) flagReport
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  • To provide balance I have no issues with Hikvision cameras but I don't use their NVRs.

    That said scale may be the issue (Im a small shop)

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  • SHNOOL wrote:

    I'd look at DW Watchdogs requirements for more than 50 cameras, to see if they require more NVRs or not.

    With 150 cameras, I would expect that a single NVR would not be sufficient. And I did not get anything about the network infrastructure of the OP neither as otherwise his network might get too much traffic if these cameras are not directly attached to NVR.

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  • At a place I was at, we had a computer hooked up to a TV running iSpy software. It gave us a live view down the hallway we couldn't see from the office. It's free software and works really well.

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  • I use Hikvision cameras with DW Spectrum software, running on custom built linux servers.
    A second monitor would allow a video wall.

    DW Spectrum is licensed per camera for recording, but you can set it up and try it at no cost.

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  • Regarding Hikvision, no, they are not the best, but the cameras are decent and support Real Time Streaming Protocol. The NVRs are junk, but the IPs cameras are ok if you can't afford Verkada.

    How many TVs in the video wall? I suspect quite a few (18 in a 3x6 arrangement?) if you want to display 150 pictures. I've never displayed 150 different streams on a video wall, but I have set up a 3x6 video wall with multiple RTSP streams, I used Userful: https://www.userful.com/video-wall. Here's a demo of Userful with RTSP streams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyUuBbd_m8c

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  • scheff1 wrote:

    With 150 cameras, I would expect that a single NVR would not be sufficient. And I did not get anything about the network infrastructure of the OP neither as otherwise his network might get too much traffic if these cameras are not directly attached to NVR.

    150 is the model of the camera, he has a total of 3 cameras.

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  • We use Synology with Surveillance Station. Above two cameras you need additional licenses but they aren't terrible

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  • mrsleep wrote:

    150 is the model of the camera, he has a total of 3 cameras.

    Where are you getting this info from?  OP doesn't mention a quantity of 3 cameras anywhere in his post.  Also doesn't make sense that he would have 5 32 channel NVR's for only 3 cameras, but that would make perfect sense for a quantity of 150 cameras.

    I don't know the math but I think that many camera's is going to be WAY too much for a single system just for the network bandwidth alone.  If you can even get that to work, performance is going to be awful.  No experience with DW Spectrum - using Exacqvision here and on a 1Gb connection when I go to a 6x6 grid the video gets pretty choppy.

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  • How big will your video wall be? (how many displays? What resolutions?)

    How big is the budget? You may need multiple Core i7 type PCs to handle 150 streams.

    Do the NVRs have any capability to output across more than one monitor?

    Will you be making 150 streams for people to actually monitor? Software can do a lot of the monitoring for you now. Trying to watch 10 video feeds would put me to sleep 20 minutes into my shift if I tried a job like that.

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  • We currently have an HIK system that was chosen without my input. I am guessing that they must make some higher end cameras because the ones we use are not that great. I am trying to picture how much monitor real estate needed to display 150 cameras at once in a usable size.

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  • ChrisN315​ I was able to get Spectrum to work well on a Linux Mint installation, worked great. Somewhere I sent them a step by step to get it working. Turned out to be a stellar setup for it, nice and stable.

    For others I mentioned multiple NVRs, and also mentioned VLANning off the network so its on its own. You'd need to do that regardless of the brand, for IP based cameras.  I noted the OP didn't put in a number of camera feeds needing to be watched, but given the requirement of a large video wall I assumed it was more than 3 video feeds.

    Presently we have an ancient HIKVISION system with about 5 NVRs, some IP some BNC, and our security watches (2) 24 inch monitors and over 40 cameras. I didn't design it, and I agree with the assessment that the software should be watching for changes in images, as that gets to be a lot to monitor for a single person.

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  • You might want to check out our NetBotz security and environmental monitoring system. It's got:

    • Integrated surveillance, sensing, and badge access control requiring only a single IP address simplifies management and speeds installation;
    • New high definition, low-light cameras provide the enhanced visibility required to mitigate unique edge data center threats;
    • Video clip capture based on alerts like motion detected or door opened reduces complexity in managing surveillance footage;
    • Combination of badge rack access control and clip capture provides a powerful audit trail, helping organizations maintain compliance with various data standards bodies;
    • Native support for wireless sensors speeds installation, eliminating the rigid cabling infrastructure typically required of environmental monitoring.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4uS582Y56w

    Feel free to tag us on any questions.

    • local_offer Tagged Items
    • apcapc
    0 of 1 found this helpful thumb_up thumb_down

  • 150 is the ip camera number not a model.
    What about using a "decoder" and configure it to collect cameras from NVRs and display them on the monitors?
    I will use a fiber optics patch cord between the decoder and the switch.
    I will use a pc ( cpu:intel core i7 gen8 , ram:16g , graphic card:nvidia geforce rtx2080)

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  • 150 is the ip camera number not a model.
    What about using a "decoder" and configure it to collect cameras from NVRs and display them on the monitors?
    I will use a fiber optics patch cord between the decoder and the switch.
    I will use a pc ( cpu:intel core i7 gen8 , ram:16g , graphic card:nvidia geforce rtx2080)

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  • mrsleep wrote:

    scheff1 wrote:

    With 150 cameras, I would expect that a single NVR would not be sufficient. And I did not get anything about the network infrastructure of the OP neither as otherwise his network might get too much traffic if these cameras are not directly attached to NVR.

    150 is the model of the camera, he has a total of 3 cameras.

    • Where did you find that information in the OPs original post or followups?
    • Which URL to that model in the web site of Hikvision HikVision Network Cameras​ do you have for product description and specification?
    I couldn't find a model name 150 on the web site of Hikvision nor a product family of that name. The product family name and the model name might eventually be helpful though. And there seem to be almost 120 product matches on their web site when searching for 4MP and none when searching for IP or 150 in addition to 4MP.
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  • Mayyas12 wrote:

    150 is the ip camera number not a model.
    What about using a "decoder" and configure it to collect cameras from NVRs and display them on the monitors?
    I will use a fiber optics patch cord between the decoder and the switch.
    I will use a pc ( cpu:intel core i7 gen8 , ram:16g , graphic card:nvidia geforce rtx2080)

    The post and later comments suggest just a single camera at IP ending in 150 (OP replies), but two DVRs.

    How many cameras do you have and how many do you want to display on the video wall? If the 150 is an IP and not a quantity, yet you have multiple DVRs, I'm confused on what the project is.

    If it were just a single camera you could tap a direct feed URL so you can just display it on the video wall using a web browser set to open that page by default and display in full-screen mode.


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  • Mayyas12 wrote:

    Hello,

    I have:

    1- 150 HIKVISION IP camera 4MP 

    2- 5*32-CH HIKVISION NVR 

    I want to display a live view of the 150 camera on a video wall.

    What is the additional required devices should I have?

    I think I just need a video wall controller and a high performance pc with ivms software, is this right?

    I see a lot of people not answering your question. 

    I would think that it would depend on the capabilities of your specific NVRs but in general you should be able to do this with the IVMS? If you install IVMS on a computer will it let you see one camera from one NVR and one from another at the same time? If so, then yes, all you should really need is as you described. The PC that you connect to your system should only need connectivity to the NVRs themselves so I would not imagine that bandwidth would be too much of an issue (presuming that you do not have issues as your configuration is already). 

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  • I'm a user of QNAP NAS. QNAP is closing down its security surveillance brand and integrating the remaining and new products (including appliances) into its main brand as product lines. I don't use such solutions. But here is a calculator intended for model selection. It also provides data on bandwidth as a function of resolution, number of cameras and some other settings. And when used for recording events, it calculates storage needs as well based on number of days in addition to the bandwidth requirements. So with such calculator, you get the impression how to limit resolution and frames per second to come into an order where the number of NVR might become sufficient. I couldn't find a 4MP configuration for this calculator.

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  • Why not buy 5 TV connected directly to NVR if it's very far and different display port use video converter with receiver. Setup NVR with 30 camera each. With this you can monitor them live and buy one PC with IVMS with control to all the NVR and I think you can only have a max of 64 channel live feed in a single screen. 
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  • 1- 150 HIKVISION IP camera 4MP

    2- 5*32-CH HIKVISION NVR

    I want to display a live view of the 150 camera on a video wall.

    I read this as item #1 150 HIKVISION  4MP Cameras, item #2 5 x 32 Channel HIKVISON NVR's

    5 * 32 = 160 inputs

    VLANS will not be of any use for network congestion. Putting 10 1 GB VLANS onto a 1GB switch doesn't make it 10GB switch

    I would compare HIKVision with Blue Iris (my preferred software NVR) 

    4MP isn't much don't you mean 4K cameras? 


    Spice (1) flagReport
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  • David452309 wrote:

    5 * 32 = 160 inputs

    No. It means 150 inputs among 160 possible inputs.

    • Where did you find the extra 10 signal sources?

    David452309 wrote:

    Putting 10 1 GB VLANS onto a 1GB switch doesn't make it 10GB switch

    Yes. But the OP didn't mention any specific switch model or any limitation to GbE. He did not disclose if he uses switches at all, of which quantity nor of which type. His followup let's assume that he may use a several GbE switches and one 10GbE switch. Eventualls, he may make use of such mixed switches with e.g. 2 or 4 10GbE ports and 24 or 48 GbE ports.

    David452309 wrote:

    4MP isn't much don't you mean 4K cameras? 

    No, the OP meant 4MP cameras when he wrote so. Hikvision has several product families with several models per product family as 4MP cameras. As the OP did not disclose neither product family nor model, I can only assume that these models are using a 2688 × 1520 resolution, probably not higher 4K resolution. But the OP did not disclose neither which resolution he wants to use with how many frames per second. As he intends to use some Hikvision NVR, this resolution may be supported. But this may compatibility issues. He might prefer a lower resolution to increase compatibility, e.g. with his video wall.

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  • I'm not very knowledgeable on that brand, but it sounds like it supports RTSP.  If so, you can simply use a Raspberry Pi and use Chrome to view the stream.  We have done this for single streams before.  Keep in mind that as you go to scale, you need to make sure that the processor can handle the number of streams you are looking for.
    See the below link for a helpful guide on setting something like this up:
    Spice (1) flagReport
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  • I just started using DW Spectrum and I love the system! The software is intuitive and works exactly the way that you think it should. 

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  • I can see how it is confusing as I don't think English is his native language and he is missing the pluralization.

    I think what he is saying is:

    150 IP cameras

    Spread across 5 x 32 channel NVR's.

    And he wants a way to display all (150) IP cameras on a video wall in a security operations center type of environment.

    I think that is what Mayyas12 is trying to say, am I correct on that?

    (I think at this point it would behoove us to wait for Mayyas12​ to reply before we continue with highly speculative answers.)

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  • Luice c.
    Yes, you are right

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  • In that case, you have a few options. Everything from building a "poor man's" video wall, which is just a bunch of PC's with 2 or more monitors attached, each running it's own keyboard, mouse and monitor and a copy of the viewing client, all operating independently.

    All the way to the other end, if you want a more advanced video wall solution like you see in security operations centers (SOC), where you have a rack of PC systems feeding into a video matrix processor with multiple outputs that lets you move displays around like you see on TV.

    Some examples of systems here in the West are products like...

    AMX

    Christie

    Cyviz  a very good video wall system for the price

    I'm not sure what is available or popular in your market area or what export restrictions there might be.

    General rule is, depending on the size of the monitors, humans can only focus on 16 to at most 24 cameras on a monitor at a time. So for 150 cameras, that's about 7 monitors at least.

    But it's not just about having a video card to throw multiple monitors on it. You need a video card that works for the system that you are using. And that doesn't mean just using any nVidia card for example. Some models work better than others, and it's not always about price and doesn't mean just a gaming card. Plus you need a powerful enough CPU to decode all those video channels for the displays. And not all software takes advantage of GPU decoding or does it very well. A lot spills over to CPU processing.

    I've heard that Hik's software is not as efficient running lots of cameras and monitors for displays, so be prepared to add more workstations to spread the load if you find the ones you start with are having a hard time keeping up. Generally you don't want to exceed 50% to 60% constant CPU utilization per workstation.

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  • Interesting! First time hearing of iSpy. It looks like a great free option. I love that you can also integrate it with license plate recognition via platerecognizer.com. Excited to integrate this with my Reolink cameras. 

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  • I've had good luck with a dedicated PC, managed switches and a program called Go1984. Interface is straightforward and offers plenty of motion recording features needed for some small businesses I've used it in. Largest install I used was 32 cameras, I don't know the max number of supported cameras.

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  • I use Hikvision cameras.  They're on an isolated VLAN with no internet access.  They work great.  
    For displaying video feeds I use a raspberry pi.  There are quite a few tutorials out there but here's my script:
    BASH
    #!/bin/bash

#save this script to ./cameras.sh and add to .config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
#copy lxsession folder from here if needed - "cp -r /etc/xdg/lxsession ~/.config/"

#enter urls starting with row 1 column 1, going by column then row
#changing the number of cameras might require a reboot
url=(
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.16.204:554'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.16.209:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.16.208:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.16.235/11'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.232:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.235:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.236:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.246:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.249:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.250:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.16.233:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.241:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
'rtsp://admin:password@192.17.20.239:554/Streaming/Channels/2'
)

#this will create a symetrical grid layout, see further down for custom layout
#enter number of columns, rows are autocalculated
cols=3

rows=$((${#url[@]}/$cols))
if [ $(($rows*$cols)) -lt ${#url[@]} ]; then
    rows=$(($rows+1))
fi

width=$(xrandr --current | grep '*' | uniq | awk '{print $1}' | cut -d 'x' -f1)
height=$(xrandr --current | grep '*' | uniq | awk '{print $1}' | cut -d 'x' -f2)

cwidth=$(($width/$cols))
rheight=$(($height/$rows))

col=1
row=1
x1=1
y1=1
x2=$cwidth
y2=$rheight

while [ $row -le $rows ]; do
    while [ $col -le $cols ]; do
        coord+=("$x1,$y1,$x2,$y2")
        col=$(($col+1))
        x1=$(($x1+$cwidth))
        x2=$(($x2+$cwidth))
    done
    col=1
    row=$(($row+1))
    x1=1
    y1=$(($y1+$rheight))
    x2=$cwidth
    y2=$(($y2+$rheight))
done

#outputs the calculated coordinates, useful when doing a manual layout
#( IFS=$'\n'; echo "${coord[*]}" ) > /tmp/coords.txt

#alternate option to specify the dimensions manually
#allows for non-symetrical layouts
coord=(
1,1,341,192
342,1,682,192
683,1,1023,192
1,193,256,384
257,193,512,384
513,193,768,384
769,193,1023,384
1,385,341,576
342,385,682,576
683,385,1023,576
1,577,341,768
342,577,682,768
683,577,1023,768
)

echo "$(date) Camera check" >> /tmp/cams.log

for i in "${!url[@]}"; do
    if !(screen -list|grep -q "camera$i"); then
        if [ $i -le ${#coord[@]} ]; then
            screen -dmS camera$i sh -c "omxplayer --win ${coord[$i]} ${url[$i]} --live"
            echo screen -dmS camera$i sh -c "omxplayer --win ${coord[$i]} ${url[$i]} --live" >> /tmp/cams.log
        fi
    fi
done

    I'm not sure how many feeds a raspberry pi can handle.  It might take a few pis to get that many.  But I'm sure it's doable.
    All the other comments here about network congestion are definitely something to consider.  But if you're using h.265+ i do not think you'll have much to worry about.  
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  • asadkhan890 wrote:

    I use Hikvision cameras with DW Spectrum software, running on custom built linux servers. A second monitor would allow a video wall.

    asadkhan890​, welcome to Spiceworks!

    A second monitor would mean 75 cameras on each monitor. That's a LOT of cameras to try and squeeze on each monitor. Even if they are big, the camera windows are going to still be very small. Plus, trying to decode and display that many channels will probably bring the workstation to it's knees. If it doesn't crash, you might get lucky to get maybe 1 frame every few seconds to update. Unless he maybe makes it so that no more than 25 cameras are displayed at a time on each monitor, and maybe using rotating tour layouts to cycle through the cameras instead of trying to display them all at once.

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  • As seen above, I have used multiple 12-bay Synology NAS devices for camera storage and viewing. I never tried to put 150 on a single screen. Multiple camera walls were set up throughout the facilities for monitoring based on an area. Managers could individually logon from their computers to view things with custom layouts, or review recordings.
    Synology Licenses are cheap and easy to get per-camera. The CPU, RAM, RAID level, and drive type used in the NAS are important for optimal performance.

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