agenergy

Hi, everyone! I've been browsing through some of the posts here and I believe I've got enough information to start asking some intelligent questions: I'm the IT manager for an Ethanol manufacturer; we're in the process of building our plant and are to the point where I'm about a month away from needing to install my network as well as a security camera system. The network will be no sweat, however, I've never done a CCTV system, but would like to in order to cut down total cost. As far as our needs, I think we're only going to need to keep our recordings for less than a month. I would 'like' to have no more than 16 cameras with some outdoor, some indoor (in the plant itself) and possibly a few in our control rooms (PTZ?). I would also like to set this up such that I can view the cameras accross the network. I will be installing the network with Cat6 and will be using a gigabit switch so bandwidth is of little concern. I plan on building the DVR myself and am open to suggestions for that, also. We're an HP shop, so I plan on using some type of HP rackmount server either a DL320 or 380, but as everything else, that's up in the air, too. As everyone else, I would like to get the best product for the best price, but am at a loss for who's actually good and who isn't. In my field, you can generally look at specs and tell, but since i'm new to this, I was hoping someone might be able to make a recommendation for either a total system or at least some places to go to look. Thanks for any help!

Would it be possible for, off the top of your head, to tell me about what I should expect to pay for (not including labor or cabling... just the bare necessities) for 4 outdoor day/night cameras (midwest climate) 6 indoor normal industrial lighting and one PTZ camera? The POE sounds very attractive, so possibly something that would handle the switching of that calibre as well as a capture card that will support the system. I will probably put it in a used dual 3.06 xeon system I have with 5- 500GB HDs. It doesn't have to be super-accurate... but if you wanted a system that was 'middle-of-the-road' as far as quality, price, and features (I really liked the axis cameras and have noticed that they seem to be the 'industry-standard' so maybe based on using some of their gear) I understand if this is a lot of work and no one has time. But any ideas would be appreciated!

Thanks for such a quick reply! I have actually just ventured back to this site from looking at some Axis gear online. Another place I have checked out was video insight. I believe another poster had recommended these in someone else's thread. I may have overemphasized price a bit in my previous post, though. I'm certainly not opposed to spending money on this project because I would like it to have a bit of a 'wow factor' for the owners (which is why I liked the video insight web site). I had no idea tho that the system running this would be so small... I was actually checking out dual xeon systems and the like, so thanks for saving me a couple grand already! Any other ideas?