Seeking design, layout, equipment advice for small company

[Guv 0]

Hi everyone I hope this is the correct place to post this. As you can see I'm new here, so please forgive me if it isn't.

 

Often times with things that I am very experienced with and knowledgeable about, whether it be in a professional capacity or just a hobby, I enjoy helping others with their needs. It's my hope that I will run across similar friendly people here that could provide some sound advice. I have significant experience with and knowledge of building PCs, residential and commercial networking, both equipment and wiring, electrical work, home theater components, wiring, layout, things of that nature. However I only have limited experience with CCTV systems and I'm humbly requesting help building a new CCTV system for our family business.

 

My goal is to layout, design, and install a system that meets our CCTV needs and provides a good balance of features, upgrade-ability, and affordability. I would love to get suggestions on system design, scale, popular equipment brands, etc. I would hate to make all these decisions on my own, only to find myself a few months down the road saying, "Man I wish I would have used these other type of cameras.", or "If I knew that existed I would have much rather gotten those!" haha.

 

Here's what we have:

 

We have a medium sized family retail business in central Arkansas with our showroom floor and warehouse under one roof. We also have a couple of offices, shop space to work on our products, and a delivery/truck dock and dumpster area on the side of our building. Right now we have 2 simple Lorex color cameras (about 2-3 years old). Each runs to a normal 19-20" television in our front office. One gives us a very very narrow viewing angle of our parking lot (we can only see 2.5 of our 10 parking spaces) and a decent view of our loading dock on the side of the building.

 

Here's what I want:

 

A) Our current parking lot camera has a fairly narrow FOV. The camera is just inside our building, in plain sight, looking through our large front glass windows aimed at our parking lot. We can only see 2.5 of our 10 parking spaces. We would like something that we could get a much larger FOV, so we can actually see what's in front of our building. I've thought about mounting something outside the building, on one of the front corners, to help get a better angle, but we still need a camera with a better FOV.

 

B) Right now we have 2 cameras. I could possibly see us expanding up to 4 total in the future but never more than that.

 

C) This is what I'm thinking will be tricky: I want to be able to view these 2 (or 3, or 4) cameras in 2 places. I want to have a monitor in our front office and I want another monitor in my personal office which is about 50-75ft away from the front office. Ideally I would like to use a 26" LED HDTV or the like to view the cameras, but I don't know equipment exists that would allow me to see a split screen or quad screen view of the cameras on the monitor. And I would really like to be able to view either of the cameras full screen if I wanted.

 

Additional info:

 

At some point I would like to be able to integrate a DVR that would record up to a few days or a week of video. I'm hoping to stay under $1000 initial investment w/o a DVR but our hard limit is $2000 for the start up. Providing power, data cables, coax, etc to each camera is easy and we can do the work ourselves. We have a sever room with a rack that can hold any equipment if needed.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated and you would have my gratitude. Also, is there a widely accepted and trusted CCTV vendor that consistently has low prices, good service, and are dependable?

[Dontheo 0]

Here's my best guess as I am always a better visual learner. You have IP skills so lets step into the real world and network these cameras. It will also allow you to grow with future needs.

 

I would take the two Lorex cameras and put them up front in the showroom. Use on of the displays and let customers see it and them selves as they enter. No messing around in here!

 

Now the IP cameras and what you want to view. Go to a decent website like Vivotek or even apexcctv and you can use one of their field of view calculators for free. You have to decide if you want to view activity like motion, recognizing it is a person or a dog, or recognizing who the person is or if the dog has a bone in it's mouth. The more you focus in on he object the narrower the field of view.

 

But here is the good news, so far you have not spent a dime and you now have a deterrent in place and an extra monitor. So lets say we buy two new IP mega pixel cameras that are outdoor rated, 2megapixel, 3-8mm lens with 20ft IR capabilities. I am sure many have ther own software but I use a lot of Vivotek for medium priced jobs and they come free with a Central Management Software. That goes right on to a PC and the cameras go into the PC via a input card. PC's are cheap and even cheaper if you can build them.

 

The important part here is the video card. Look in the gaming section. lol The vivotek and all will cost about 1500 but if you go apexcctv and geovision you cam stay under a 1000. The networking will be self intuitive for you and the applications that come with it (for free) will let you view from any internet connected device including Ipads and smartphones.

 

Just make sure your bandwidth "up" is good. And I also dont see why you could not throw a 2TB drive in there right now for about 130 bucks and start recording too.

[shockwave199 0]

If you want to make it simple and get to recording and monitoring your property, consider just jumping in the game with a simple, effective high def system such as this one-

 

http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-HD-Digital-NVR-with-1TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-HD-720p-IP-Cameras.product.100003211.html

 

You can upgrade the hard drive to a bigger one. The cameras will give you good resolution. Simple and easy. Costco has a Swann nvr system that everyone raves about here, but it's out of stock at the moment. This q-see package would probably do very well for you. Often times it's just best to keep it simple and get going. Good luck to you.

[joseph.chen0312 0]

I think crucial key si not only narrow FOV but also need through the glass window particularly in Sun up and down the sun light toward to inside.

 

Basically, I recommend carry out some good OSD camera equipped auto Iris vari-focal lens( 2.8~12 or 5-55 because how is size there so I only can suggest popular type). The camera should be programmed WDR, HLC, slow shutter and etc. Hence, its not only monitoring scene but able to catch vehicle license.

 

As for two decentralized room to view, its small issue, you could installing one DVR which built-in multi-output i.e. HDMI, VGA and BNC and better supported spot function.

 

I hope my thread is help to you.

[rwx 0]

shockwave199:

 

What is the Swann system that everyone likes? I am looking for a system with similar requirements..

[shockwave199 0]

I believe it's an 8 channel nvr system. Keep your eyes open, it'll show up again sometime. But you seem to be looking for 4 channels, max.