vanhoand 0 Posted April 28, 2015 Hello, Our church as asked me to provide options for a new security system for a building addition. I'm pretty green when it comes to this topic so I've been digging in to resarching our options over the past week or so. Just for some background: We're looking at 15 cameras (5 outdoor, 10 indoor). 5 of the 15 are longer distance runs (300-400ft). I had been given some advice to run siamese coax everywhere and use analog cameras but the more I researched, the more I'm becoming convinced that using catx might be a better solution (especially with prices for IP cameras coming down). I do have a few concerns though with some of the equipment I've spec'd out mainly in regards to durability, network congestion, and functionality. We have pretty good network coverage in the entire area (WiFi and wired) but the prospect of using wireless cameras in some of the further away locations is appealing (Foscam??). I'm wondering though in general if WiFi camera quality & durability are up to spec. We have gigabit network everywhere but I've been reading concerns about bandwidth hogging of IP cameras. Is this a real concern? If we went with a sowftware service (Blue Iris or similar) to manage the streams, will we run into a data logjam with our ISP or can it all be viewed internal to the network? I don't forsee us needing remote view capability from offsite locations. In fact, the only time it will be activity monitored is during services (usher/security with a tablet or something). That brings me to my last concern NVR HW vs. NVR SW. It seems like SW like Blue Iris gets pretty good reviews and the youtube overviews I've seen look promising. Compared to the system our daycare purchased 10 years ago (Linux DVR), it looks waaaay more user friendly. Are there any drawbacks to going with the SW solution as opposed to dedicated NVR hardware? I'm aware that a dedicated PC would require all the normal maintenance & updates but I think I can deal with that... One last question... our budget is somewhere between 3-4k. Is this reasonable for a "business" grade IP system? Seems like it is based on what I've read so far. Please be as specific as possible with any reccomendations/feedback. I'm trying to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
