Setup advice for small condo complex

[Taktical1 0]

Greetings,

I am on the Board of Directors of my condo complex. I was hoping to get some guidance on setting up a video surveillance system. We have had issues with vandalism, trash dumping, complaints of late night pool parties, etc, etc. I've been doing some research, but I'm not exactly sure which way to go.

 

Heres the layout: We have a total of 32 units between 4 seperate buildings. 3 buildings are 2 story condos, and the fourth building is a 1 story clubhouse that we use for our Association office. I would prefer to have our main security hub in the clubhouse, however the issue lies in the labor and cost of having to run all the lines to the office. We are talking hundreds of feet of line. 2 of the buildings have meter rooms, and there has been some discussion of putting equipment (DVR) in them so that each building has a seperate system, but i dont see that as very convenient, and also the power company has access, so we dont want to comprimise system integrity. Would we have to also put seperate monitors for each DVR? We would probably need about 15-20 outdoor, day/night tamper/ bb gun proof cameras to effectively cover the grounds. A couple of them would need to be high resolution to capture license plates. A majority would probably be mounted high on the buildings for maximum coverage. Because the buildings have attic type crawl spaces we could utilize that space to run wires. What would be be best setup, IP network or DVR? What are the pros and cons of each?

So if anyone could offer some feedback it would be greatly appreciated. What equipment is best for our needs. How much would we be looking at in costs, and what does it cost monthly to be part of an IP system to have the capability of pulling up footage from the web from any computer? Thanks in advance

[Taktical1 0]

Anyone?

[agueric 0]

I would use ip cameras, you could use someone's internet connection at each building and then connect remotely using a VMS installed in a computer at your clubhouse, in case you don't want to spend money on the building-clubhouse wiring.

On the other hand, someone would have to share their internet bandwidth for security purposes, but it would be a problem if they decide to disconnect from the internet or they just don't pay the bill. Other way would be if its possible to create a wireless network, and placing anthenas.

[ChrisP 0]

Another way to do this is install wireless bridges between buildings.

 

But to do this, you need to do bandwidth calculation based on # of cameras, resolution and frames per second.