Do you guys use an NVR's PoE switch or a separate PoE switch?. I understand that if I use the NVR's switch that I cannot access the cameras directly which may be bad. Some say that NVRs generally use very low quality PoE switches. What other considerations are there?

Thanks in advance.

Why couldn't you access the camera directly? I know I can using uniview

I think he means logging in to the camera direct from outside the network when you are going through the NVR's poe.

I primarily use NVR's with the poe built in for simplicity and cost reasons.
It hasn't been an issue for me, never had a failure or problem due to the poe being built in. (Used to use G4, now use LTS)

I know on the few I have run into, I could not change the settings for the POE switch....meaning, it would be nice if I could specify the address range and subnet it dishes out to the cameras, because then I could get the cameras on the same network as the control system and access them through that UI as well as the NVR. I do not know if this is something that could be done using VLANS. It seems unlikely. But I could be wrong.

On another job, I just took the 4 cameras off the NVR supplied by the security contractor who also installed the cameras, and put them on my POE switch, then configured the NVR to connect to them through my network. It was pretty painless, but kind of a waste to get the NVR with POE if you are not going to use it.

The cons are the following:

1) I do not trust Chinese PoE switches for anything more than 8 ports. 8 cameras is the maximum we would do but still I do not beileve the switch power supply will last as long as small Cisco switch

2) Camera access as above but it is minor since you can still configure the cameras from the NVR

3) Integration with control systems is harder but I think dome drivers do work? Have not tested this since when we will integrate cctv with the control system we just use a "normal" nvr and separate poe switch.

Thanks for all the replies.

@ charris - I agree with points 1 & 3 completely. I think we are just going to standardize on using a separate PoE in most cases, unless it is a basic install. We deal with some SMB customers and it gets even more muddy, with VLANs, remote cameras, i.e. they cannot directly get to the NVR, etc.... Seems like going with a dedicated PoE switch (probably managed) make for the most robust singular solution.

I do like the ability, with remote access, to port power the camera in the event it locks up. It does not happen often, but when it does it is nice to not have to roll a truck! I am unaware if NVRs with PoE can do this, but don't think so.

"2) Camera access as above but it is minor since you can still configure the cameras from the NVR"

I can tell you with certainty this is only half true. Using ICR - while you can access most functions of the cams and push from the NVR, there are some, perhaps more esoteric features, you cannot configure that way. You must log into the camera directly to configure them. Some of the more advanced WDR settings are one example. I can't say this is true for every vendor but for the handful we do, including Axis, it is true. Either way, it was an unnecessary trip - costly and frustrating. And it happened more than once for various reasons. VPN would not hit the cameras either.

Thanks again for all the replies!

Some follow up with the admission that I am a wrong ... again. Kinda of.

If the NVR supports "virtual host mode" and you enable that you can get to the camera's webui directly. It seems that most Hikvision made NVRs with recent firmware have this option. It creates a link you can use to connect.

I am not sure if this is on all models or what firmware it begins with... so maybe this information is not very helpful. But on newer models it seems to be there.

Again - thanks for the replies. Hope this helps.

Most of our system get a POE switch. It's not uncommon for us to see noboard POE failure on the NVRs. If it needs repair, then the whole system is down. If there is a separate switch, we can just replace the switch or use a new port. The POE switch also allows us to perform a remote power cycle of the camera to help resolve an issue if it drops off line.