MCYSEKA-Maritime Cyber Security Knowledge Archive

I’m very new to this community, and generally speaking, a novice in home security. I’m very knowledge with smart home technology, and also a video engineer by trade, but I find that what I’m looking for in home security is a middle-ground I don’t know much about.

For context, I’m heavily in the Apple ecosystem, and have a half-dozen Eufy cameras (mostly 1080p, some 4K) around my home. For one reason or another, I’m interested in upgrading one of my cameras, which faces directly at the street, to something that is high quality, can record indefinitely (meaning allowing me 24-hour scrub), and allow me the ability to view the camera’s view with low latency.

My goals are:

• To be able to capture indefinite video of the activity in front of my home, including every car driving by (preferably with the ability to store several days worth of video somewhere so I can review it at leisure).

• Capture high enough quality (in daylight) that I could make out the license plate of the cars driving by, which drive at roughly 20-30 feet in front of the camera’s location.

• Capture high enough quality (at night) to be able to make out the type of vehicle, and as much detail as possible.

• Be alerted when activity occurs in front of my home, including when a car drives by or a person walks by.

The mounting location of the camera allows for me to hardwire it electrically, as well as run any sort of video or networking (I’m presuming that’s HDMI, SDI, or Ethernet) without having to open any walls, given the unfinished garage.

What I was thinking:

My video engineer knowledge pointed me to considering something like a PTZ camera, a decent 4K one. I considered the idea of then mounting this at the desired location, and running a SDI cable into a recorder, such as a Blackmagic Hyperdeck, that could record indefinitely. However, this is where I get stuck. Capturing 4K video is going to require massive amounts of space; do most people only keep a certain amount of footage and go through it constantly to keep only what’s needed? Are there options in the hardwired camera/CCTV space that do most of what I want, without ad-hoc video production equipment as a solution?

Grateful for any and all help in advance!