bigcatbobcat

Yeah, 5 fps is pretty much standard. Much more and you dont have enough space, although, space is cheaper and cheaper these days. The pizza folks named their budget and I pared it down to what would work for them. 4 cameras, network H.264 DVR, IR's on the cameras...standard deal. I even used pre-made cable to save on labor, don't hate! You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes and they are a new store, family folks and I'll be there for them when they want to upgrade. Anyway, to your questions: usually, you set up each camera to record the way you want it to record individually. So your one tight shot of exit (I always get shots of people going out rather than coming in, if someone comes in with ill intent they're keeping their head down and probably a hat or hood, watching them go you'll see them looking out the door and much less guarded), so you set that one up at your highest resolution, higher frame rate if you want (everyone says 5fps is more than enough) and get a varifocal lens and good DSP/CCD whatever. This thing looks like a beast and probably overkill but it's along the lines of what I mean: http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=105037&catGroupId=14459&surfModel=WV-CW484S/15 Some of those plug in units with the pig-tail splitter deals work ok, you just have to look at the power to drive each camera and see if the power supply gives you enough amperage, or mili-amperage. I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about!

I found a place that sells that unit online, just did a google search of AVerDiGi EH5108H where to buy. Is this a really good unit? I like the way it sounds...but then again, inexpensive compared to the GE's and whatever but like 3x the price of an "import" that has "technically" the same features but I'm sure not the support is there and I know for a fact the software doesnt work well or as easily.

I just quoted what I consider a "good" (not great and not optimum but they'll see what they want to see) for a 750-1000 sq foot pizza place for $1001, exactly. You can buy "good" kits, from any of an assortment of websites and the big box stores. If he's wanting to see the difference between $ amounts on bills going to a register, you'd want a mega pixel IP, you can get a Hybrid DVR but that will double your budget ($500-$750) right off the bat, then just that one camera looking at the register will be $300ish? If you want regular cameras, general views, and regular recording and playback, you could go with a kit. The main drawback to a kit is, usually, all the cameras will be the same.

I'd open up the DVR and look to see if the "leads" (probably not the correct term) from the ports for the cameras to the mother board are properly connected or shorted out or whatnot. Luxor is what they sell at BJ's or Sams or somewhere like that, I think... See if you can get a little monitor to check the camera and the cable as well.

Hello, I'm new here and new to the industry. I'm in sales but I've been jumping in on the "IT" side of things more and more on installs as my guys seem to be umm, putting it nicely, cable pullers, camera hangers and dvr installers as opposed to configuring the system. Anyway, I'm using a GE Symsafe Pro 16+2 and another 4 or 8 depending on what we have in stock, going in a really high tech bowling alley. The customer was concerned about possible hard drive failure and wanted to know if it were possible to back up the system. My question is, other than archiving, how do we have redundancy? Would it be like having a server or an external hard drive backing up an entire network and the DVR would be included as an appliance on that network? If he's backing up his POS system, however that side of the server rack is doing it, how am I going to do it? Keep in mind, I'm sales so I say "of course whatever you want sir" most of the time. Thanks, I look forward to your replies as well as hopefully learning a lot from this forum.