Home CCTV - Not Cloud Based

I am interested in setting up a home surveillance camera system at my house.  I have a couple non-negotiable items:

1.  It must be self contained or at least have the option to be.  No cloud or internet connection needed.

2.  Quality cameras for both day and night.  They don't have to be the best, but I need to be able to see stuff relatively clearly or else what is the point..

I've attempted a couple times to research this on my own and find I just get lost in a sea of advertisements and Amazon or Google garbage.  I'm thinking just a basic 2-4 camera setup. 

I'm open to getting a dedicated DVR for it or if possible, hooking it to my home theater PC as long as it isn't too resource hungry.

I basically just need some ideas on where to start and see if anyone has any experience with this type of hardware and have any suggestions on what to look for and just as important, what to avoid.

Thank you in advance for your help!

I think that you will need to do the research on this.  Finding a kit that works without an Internet requirement is fairly easy.  But adding infrared (IR) vision capabilities is a whole different ball game.  IR LEDs on the camera may have a very small reach, so the recorded image quickly becomes useless.

Perhaps you should consider a kit that does good enough at night, and complement it with long range IR flood lights.  It's not that expensive.

The night vision does not have to be perfect.  Just enough that large details can be made out clearly.  I was thinking what you suggested already about having supplemental lighting to save on camera cost.  That is a good idea.

Do you have any brands or models that you might recommend as a starting point for my research? 

No brand to recommend.  Not totally satisfied with what I got.  USB1 slow for footage transfer, and it seems that the internal disk format is proprietary.

USB 1 and proprietary formatting does sound awful.  What model is that so I can avoid it?