Sounds like an analog cam.  If you are going to send the stream over your network anyway, why not start with a network cam in the first place, and just hook it up to a wireless bridge?   That way you could get the stream over your existing wifi.

That's how I would do it.

I'm going to have to defer on the blue iris question.  I've never used it, so I can't speak authoritatively.

Depends on the type of TV, and what kind of ports it has on the back.  If the TV has a VGA (or DVI, or HDMI, etc) port on it, you can simply duplicate the view your computer monitor gets, and send it to that TV.  You'd need to run a Cat5/6 cable, and use a video extender (google for "cat5 video extender" or "UTP video extender") to send the signal to that TV.

If you want to inject that view into your cable stream (so you can view it on every TV in the house by tuning to a certain channel), that's doable also.  Plenty of security companies offer that feature, and with analog cable it used to be easy to do.  However, you need to talk to the techs at your local cable system, ESPECIALLY if you're on digital cable (as many people are now).  It's a lot more difficult on digital cable, and every cable system will be different.  You'll probably have to speak to the head geek at the cable company, since the regular techs aren't going to know how to do it (assuming it's even possible).

If it's possible to inject that video stream into your cable, you'll also have to send your video stream to the main distribution line for your home cable (hopefully that distribution block/splitter is in a closet somewhere, and not in a grey box on the side of your house ).  Then you need the appropriate channel/video injector.

If this all sounds like a lot of trouble, that's because it is... I'd say you're better off running a video extender over cat5/6, and utilizing one of the extra VGA/DVI ports on the back of your TV.  That way, all you have to do is hit the "source" button on your remote, and you'll get the entire tiled view from your DVR/NVR/PC.

If you're tying this in to an actual commercial fire detection/suppression system, you need to hire a professional.  

And almost any standard PoE switch will do.  However, for a system that size, make sure it's a gigabit PoE switch.  Regular 10/100 gear may not support that many megapixel cameras.

That's the short version.  

That computer would probably make a reasonable DVR... just get the biggest drive you can get.  1TB is a bit small by modern standrads.

Sure.  Let me fire up the console and I'll try to get some numbers for you.

OK.  Here are some numbers off my current Luxriot DVR.  It's a 2U micro-ATX setup.  Core2Quad processor (older generation, before the i7s), with 2GB of RAM.   It has a 128GB SSD as the boot drive, and three 2TB Seagate drives for video storage.  The network card is a PCI-E Intel Pro-1000 server NIC.

The NIC is important... because the Luxriot license is tied to the MAC address of the server's network interface.  If I want to rebuild that server, I have to use the same NIC, so I made it a good one.  

It still looks like this inside, but one of those full-size drives was swapped out for the SSD:








Here is the whole rack:




Whole rack pulls just over 200W of power on the UPS.  The DVR pulls the bulk of that, and the rest is taken up by the much-lower-power SuperMicro firewall, and the SRW2024P PoE network switch:









Some numbers I pulled off tonight:

Three data drives, 2TB each, lettered D, E, and F:






CPU usage just recording (this machine does nothing else).  It usually stays just under 50% just recording the streams.





Network usage roughly 8-10% of a gigE connection, and that is JUST RECORDING.  Running a remote client on the network (to view the streams on my second desktop monitor, for instance) roughly doubles that network usage.   This is an installation where regular 100-Megabit ethernet would NOT be sufficient, even for just recording.  





Accessing the broadcast server (so you can access the streams with a regular web browser and not the client software) increases the CPU usage significantly, and increases the network usage as well.  When nobody is accessing it, the CPU usage drops right back down, even though the broadcast server is still running.  I virtually never use the broadcast server.  I prefer to get the streams straight off the cameras themselves to my iPad or iPhone, using IP Cam Viewer.  





Running a local client on the server machine almost doubles the CPU usage.





Did I answer most of your questions?


ETA:  and the camera count on that server is as follows:

Acti 1.3MP dome (1)
Acti 3MP domes (3)
Acti 1.3MP PTZ cams (3) (currently disabled)
Axis 241Q video server with covert analog cams (3)
Mobotix D12 3MP domes (2)
Mobotix M12 3MP camera (1)
Mobotix D24 3MP dome with cam I/O (1)
Vivotek 8172V panoramic cam (1)

Do the 2U chassis... it's slightly more coin, but a much better setup than the Thinkcentre.  It gives you more drive-bays, a non-proprietary ATX power supply, choice of MBs, better cooling, etc.  

I'm not sure the order that Luxriot uses to write to the drives.  I'd assume it would be sequentially, but only because that would make logical sense, not because I actually watched it.  

As far as length-of-recording, I use motion-control recording on many of those cameras.  It records at 2-3 FPS most of the time, and it speeds up the frame-rate when it detects something.  Using that method, I'm getting about 2-3 weeks of recording.  

I had thought about RAIDing it, but it didn't seem to be worth the trouble, or the sacrifice in disk space for the parity data.

ETA:  and if you look at the dates on those pics, I've been running that setup for 4-5 years now.  I think I had to rebuild the machine once in that span of time (boot drive was also a data drive, and died under the constant-write load... that's what prompted the switch to a dedicated boot SSD, and three data drives that can simply be swapped out)

Security DVRs are only dealing in 2D video, so big-gun graphics cards aren't necessary.   CPU power is likely to be your limiting factor.

That will support quite a few cameras.  You should be able to put a VERY good home system on that without difficulty (depending on software, of course)

You're only running one camera on that setup, correct?  That machine should handle a single cam.  Are you using integrated graphics, and the integrated LAN port?

Get a separate graphics card, and a decent Intel Pro 1000 network card (PCI-E only).  The latter can be found on Ebay for ten bucks.  

All that MB-integrated stuff sucks up a lot of processor power.  Off-load those functions, and it should speed up.

It's only using video horsepower when it's displaying video.... Not when recording it.  The bottom line is that you're trying to offload your CPU as much as you can.  A higher-clock or more-cores CPU might not need the help,

PCI doesn't have enough bandwidth to really support gigabit.  You want PCI-E

Video extenders (which is what that is) are a good option.  

That should work.

The cpu nay simply be too underpowered for that software.

Gadstone:



You're on the right track.  

PoE hard-wired cameras will be your best bet, and will give you the best resolution (with the simplest cabling).  A serious multi-megapixel camera doesn't stream very well over wifi, so I'd ignore the "wireless" cameras.   (some cameras are very light on network resources, like Mobotix cameras, which are an exception to the streaming-over-wifi-sucks rule, but they're VERY expensive).  That switch you picked will power four cameras without any problem.  

The PC you've spec'ed out will be more than adequate.  The video card you picked is overkill... integrated video is adequate for the 2D display that a DVR/NVR will need.  Just ensure you have enough processor power that the on-board video demand doesn't bog down the entire system (see up-thread for an example).  

WD drives are about as good as any other... no problems with them.

As far as economical cameras, the best bet right now is the Hikvision stuff.  They're VERY reasonable, especially for the performance you get.  I get mine from Nelly's Security (no affiliation with them beyond simply being a satisfied customer).  Most of their models are weatherproof (look for the IP-rating:  IP65 or IP66 are pretty much weatherproof)

As far as software, you're probably going to need something for Windows.  I don't know why your dad wants Linux (I'm a geek...  I like and run Linux), but you're going to find that the selection of camera management software for Linux is VERY limited.  You basically have Exacqvision, and Zoneminder.  The former costs $$$, and the latter is free.

With Windoze you've got Luxriot, Exacqvision (they have a windows version), Milestone, OnSSI, Axis, Pelco, Honeywell, Video Insight, Geovision, and a host of lesser-known software options.

I like Luxriot because it works, and is very economical for what you get.  I can get a 16-channel server license (complete with up to five simultaneous clients, and endless options to change/add/delete cameras) for about $550.  That includes free updates/upgrades to the latest version, pretty much forever.  Most commercial package run you $800->$1500 or more for the same number of camera licenses (anywhere from 50-200 PER CHANNEL/CAMERA... not including software updates that you have to pay for, and upgrade plans).  Some of the upgrade plans (that only last for a couple of years) can almost double the price of the software from some vendors.  Luxriot doesn't do that.

Here is a site that purports to review camera software

The Hikvision stuff is a good value.  You can't beat their performance-for-$$ ratio in the current camera market.