Newbie at CCTV and need advice

[RabidDawg 0]

I've been asked to quote to upgrade a current system at a daycare. What they have now is a pc with a Geovision 800v3 card, with 4 cameras. 3ghz cpu with 512mb of ram. The cameras are Toshiba (not sure of model will be finding that out soon, they have 10 bit dsp on the side of them). They want to upgrade to 17 cameras total, I'll probably have them come down to 16 cameras so they won't have to buy another pc setup just for one camera. They are looking to have outdoor cameras with night vision and indoor cameras covering the rooms inside. The most distance the indoor camera would have to cover is around 25' and the outdoor ones can be set to view as far as 150' or so even at night. I would like to have suggestions on cameras, what is the best bang for buck and gets good quality. So far my plans are to upgrade the GeoVision card to the 1000 (they don't need audio), upgrade the ram to 1gb and also upgrade their storage space. They want to continue to use the remote viewing feature so the family can look at the kids while they are there during the day. The owner also wants the system for surveillance during the night.

 

Any help in advice on what to get and where to buy would be most appreciated. If I get the job, it would be my first install, I work in the computer world, however with the research I've done it doesn't look that hard.

 

Also, they got a quote from somebody, for 20k for the system (leased equipment) and 5k a month for maintenance, am I missing something or were they just trying to make a killing off of the daycare? The general setup of the system upgrade prices I've seen could easily be purchased for less than 5k. What would be the 5k per month for maintenance, unless they were hosting the webservers to host the remote viewer on?

 

Thanks,

 

Brian

[scottj 0]

Brian,

 

The GV-1000 board will be eliminated over the next couple of months, the replacement is the GV-1480 Combo board with composite video output onboard and includes the 16 channels of audio. The price difference is minimal between the two.

 

Having sold many systems specifically to daycares over the years, I would be more than happy to make some recommendations on cameras etc. The 20K "lease" and 5K a month service "maintenance" plan seems nuts to be honest. Even if they were hosting the webservers, providing the bandwidth, and visiting once a month to maintain equipment it would be steep. Believe it or not though, we see many of these places that are still under contracts (leases) that are paying these crazy fees. I think it is more of a case of someone wishing to take advantage of a vulnerable situation. After all, your kids typically are the most important thing to most people and it is easy to justify a high price when playing on people emotions.

 

scottj

[RabidDawg 0]

I had eyeballed the 1480, didn't need the audio so thought I'd go with the 1000, however since the 1000 will be phased out, I'll look at the 1480 more closely.

 

Feel free to make recommendations for cameras etc. If you can't post the suggestions, i.e. if there are forum rules against that (I haven't read all of the rules yet and just found this site) then please pm to me.

 

Thanks!

[rory 0]

$5k a month maintenance, they must be replacing the whole system every month

 

Yes we can post suggestions for cameras, there are many options.

 

Rory

[cctv_down_under 0]

I would not bother with the GV1000 I am yet to see one run at its fully rated speed even at 320x240 Resolution, if the hardware compression board is almost as cheap I certainly know what I would choose.

 

I do not agree with anyone robbing anybody, but keep in mind that, we really do not make much money anymore and expenses are expenses, on some jobs you nearly need to sell your soul just to make a few bucks to survive and somehow through the year you are going to have to get that money back.

 

I am not condoning expensive prices but not every company does this kind of work full time and they can afford to be very cheap because they are used to working on I.T. margins so they get excited about undercuting an existing market.

 

I am no fool I.T. will take over this industry but lets keep the price up so that we can all make a living.

 

I know this will draw some flak, but sometimes you go in with a figure because you do not want the job and occasionally you get the job.