JPSav

I have a campus environment, and we have about 15 DVRs serving roughly 200 cameras (Each DVR has 16 camera inputs). We are finally planning to migrate to an IP system. I believe the most cost effective way to do this is to replace the DVRs with Hybrid units. Are there hybrid systems out there that are just as good as pure NVR systems? I read online that the Hybrid systems have limited functionality. Would it be better to add encoders and stream all the camera feeds to a massive NVR centrally located on campus? (provided I have the bandwidth to support the encoders streaming back to the NVR). By my calculation, it would be about 15.44Mbps per 16 camera encoder... (H.264, 15fps D1 resolution) How about just adding encoders and NVRs locally in each building? What are the pro's and con's of each solution? What would we typically find in the industry for a campus environment? thanks!

From what I read, the SAS drives are 10x more reliable (when looking at bit error rates), they have a longer MTBF and also perform better (up to 3x as fast). SATA drives are obviously more economical, but is the cost difference worthwhile going from SATA to SAS? The application is for video recording (IP camera NVR archiving) on an college campus network I noticed many security and VMS manufacturers using SATA drives on their quotes, Is this just to remain competitive in the market? or are SATA drives perfectly acceptable? thoughts?

I have a feeling that hybrid units are not a popular migration path to IP cameras...

How would I go about "making it myself"? I must have missed where I've "been told already". Are there any vendors that offer an out-of-the-box solution with Hybrid recorders? I basically want to be able to remove the DVRs & replace them with the hybrid unit and call it a day.

The goal is to present the customer with options. The hybrid devices need to be where the DVRs are currently. What hybrid devices are recommended (and compatible with the above mentioned platforms)

Milestone Avigilon Genetec...

thanks, I appreciate your input! I'd like to still price out a distributed solution (replacing the DVRs with Hybrid units). What are some of the best Hybrid DVR/NVRs out there? Something that is open platform (ONVIF).

I was never a fan of putting all my eggs in the same basket... and am somewhat uncomfortable with a centralized solution. NVRs in each building would be more expensive, but it would still allow for local recording during a network outage... which I think is essential. Outage would not be as catastrophic in a distributed architecture (vs. centralized). I was hoping to get some insight from experienced integrators/designers as to what the "best practice" are for this type of scenario (college campus). Does anyone have any direct experience with this?

that seems like the most economical way of doing it... The encoders are extremely inexpensive and the software is "free", the only real cost is the camera license (which is about $335) My client is likely going to be concerned with the traffic increase on the network. (We do have fiber backbone between the buildings though). Another concern Is that the CCTV operations would be completely dependent on the campus network and in the unlikely event that the network goes down, live video feeds will be unavailable, and even worse, video-data won't be recorded... Even with a robust network, I'm not convinced that this is acceptable.