I am new to this and tried researching and quickly found out i have no idea what most of the specs mean on these cameras and dvr cards. I just opened up a shipping store a few months ago business is doing good, so good now i am starting to worry about the money we have on hand at anyone time and sometimes packages spend a few days in the store over the weekend with no body there. We do more then shipping we also do bill pay so we can have a couple hundred in the drawer one minute and tens of thousands the next. We do have a safe bolted to the ground but u can never know what could happen in the time your handed the money and when it goes into the safe and sometimes employees are to lazy to put it away. So i was thinking about setting something up with 3 cameras 2 upfront and 1 in the back with all the packages. Thing is i don't know who is reliable and what cameras are anygood. I just need something so that i can identify someone if anything happens, and to keep an eye on employees we have about 5 computers in here so was just thinking about hooking up the system to one of them. I am very good with computers i put together the ones in the store so if i am pointed in the right direction i can put it together myself.

First thing you need to determine is how much you want to spend. Basic "commercial-grade" analog cameras are going to run you about each $250-$350 with lens; you can go cheaper, and you can go WAY more expensive, depending on your budget and your needs.

There are a number of DVR card-and-software bundles that you can use to build a system out of a PC - most decent ones will start in the $600-$1000 (minus the PC itself) range depending one how many channels you need, what sort of framerates you need, and of course, the overall quality of both hardware and software. We use Video Insight's packages, they work quite well - check them out at http://www.video-insight.com

You can go a lot cheaper by getting a standalone system - basically a unit that looks like a VCR/DVD unit and records to an internal hard drive - but PC-based systems tend to be more versatile, expandable, and easier to use.

Hope that helps to get you started. It's hard to suggest much else without knowing at least what sort of budget range you're interested in - I mean, you could put together a used PC and a couple webcams for a couple hundred dollars, or get an all-inclusive DVR-and-camera package like Costco sells for around $600... but as with everything else, you get what you pay for.