Basic CCTV System Design - Help!

[jayrt 0]

hi,

 

i currently don't have any knowledge at all about CCTVs but have the following requirements, hope someone can help me.

 

Requirements description:

I want to monitor 4 work areas for approx 8 hours / day. 2 of the rooms would need audio/video feed, while 2 rooms only video. am not really after top quality video. i would want to view these 4 areas on demand, through live internet streaming as well as full video recording for database storage in a server or external hard drive(good for 1 week?). I would like to also have the capability to "burn" the video to DVD-R so as to free up hard-drive space regularly.

 

My questions:

1) do I even warrant a CCTV system at all or will this work with commercial video cameras (i.e. mini-DV, Video systems which i just need to connect to a PC with broadband connection.? how to do this? complexity and approx how much is this?

2) if this is a CCTV system, what are the basic requirments that i need? 4 cameras? 1 PC? 1 DVR? graphics card? how much approx?

 

I know this is a very basic question, please lead me to a thread if this has been done before, or hopefully please help me to also help future inquiries which are on the same level.

 

thanks!

jay

pardon my english as well, am not a native english-speaker

[securitymonster 0]

I'm not sure if you can use a consumer grade video camera or not, you might google that one!

 

As far as the cctv side of things, you can get a 4 channel standalone dvr. Be sure that it is networkable and that it records audio as well. The audio is going to eat your hard drive up fast, so make sure you get a dvr that will allow multiple drives. I would also recommend seperate mics for the audio and not getting a camera with built in audio, for quality reasons. Then you will 4 cameras of course. Depending on the area you are wanting to record really depends on what type of cameras you need.

 

rough estimated prices:

 

4 Channel Networkable DVR w/Audio - $1500

Hard Drive - Figure $1/Per GB at most

4 Cameras - $100-$300/ea

Misc Cable/Power/Connectors - $100-$150

 

Then you just need to have high speed internet at the location of the DVR so you can access via the internet.

 

Setting all this up is like hooking up a VCR to the TV. The hardest part will be running the cable, and thats just a matter of it looking pretty!

 

Hope this helps.