Campbell

I highly recommend Vivotek for indoors. I've found in general they give the most bang for your buck here in Aus. Areconts for outdoors.

I threw one of these in a club for a poker machine room last week. Works brilliantly. Zoom is good. Customer was super happy with it.

Nvm, you're selling it as a bundle.

What city are you in mate and what's wrong with the thing?

Not Milestone. If you use Geovision cameras, then GeoVision is a nice solution as it doesn't require you to pay for licenses for all Geovision hardware.

This

I've been using NUUO. There latest release fixes the latency issue between transaction and reviewed footage. Works well.

I wouldn't say an i7 is needed. I've used i5's with 4 gig of DDR3 and 20-30 x MPs without too much fuss as long as you only use it as an NVR. I've also used AMD X4's to the same effect. Wouldn't go below those to be fair though as it starts to get a mite laggy. FWIW in order to fit into budgetary constraints I do have a Core 2 Duo running 25 x 1.3MPs. It required a LOT of tweaking of the cameras to get that to run efficiently... but it works. Dependent on how long you want to record for and if you're ROM or always recording. 2TB minimum. I'd go with 4 though since the drives are pretty cheap these days. Finally in terms of hardware, onboard video will do fine. ---- In terms of software, I prefer NUUO over the Geovision software. Never used Exacq. Licensing wise, I think GV is a more cost effective solution (at least is Aus) because if you use their cameras, you don't even need a license where as NUUO charge the same amount per channel irrespective of whether you have 1 or 100. Milestone is ridiculously expensive to expand. That's my take from Aus anyways.

Well there you go. ( I really should have done some research prior... my bad)

I don't think they make cameras which are FTP capable My suggestion to you here is that you get some cameras which will auto snapshot at a given time (or software which does it for you) which then saves it to a certain location. You would then need to write a script or set up your PC to do the uploads yourself. Cameras are good these days but I don't think you'll find an FTP server in one of them.

I have 2 suggestions. Dependent on your IT know how. You could run with some IP megapixel cameras (this is my preferred option). You'll need less of them to cover the same area that you would compared with standard analogs and it will require less cabling. The resolution is much better for the megapixels. This would require you to invest in some software (Geovision, NUUO etc) but in my opinion is far better than using a bunch of crap analogs. You would also need to know some basic networking. Additionally, its more futureproof than a 16 camera dvr coax system. Let's face it, why shouldnt you get the same detail out of your surveillance cameras that you can get out of your mobile phone? Alternatively, you can stick with the analog system. This may end up being a cheaper solution, again you'd still need to invest in some software but also a DVR card as well. As someone said before me. You can have a much more effective surveillance set up with the cameras positioned in the right places. Things to look for are light sources (flood lights, sun etc) main passages of traffic. Remember that you don't need to see every inch of floor from every direction. One thing I would make sure of in a retail environment is to have a camera directly above your register and in your store rooms. This will help deter some dishonest employees from helping themselves to your takings and stock. If you need any further advice, feel free to PM mate.

Completely agree. Here here and all that. I've noticed a lot of the more modern systems (especially scales) seem to have no ability to output to RS232 (which seems to be the standardised form of POS box) I've got one system here I can't do POS integration for as I'd need to set up a separate PC for each scale/register.

This issue *may* have been fixed in the latest update of 3.4.XXXX n which I got in beta yesterday. I'd been having problems with their POS boxes and there being a delay in the transaction record and the recorded feed. Supposedly this has been fixed. I'm getting a new POS box and POS register in for testing in the next few days. I'll let you know

It shouldn't matter what brand you use as the NAS is simply a network sotrage device and if set up correctly will just act like another drive.

Paradox EVO. http://www.paradox.com/Products/default.asp?CATID=7 It does everything. **EDIT** I just realised... this thread is like 8 mths old. I'm going to guess the guy found a solution

I don't believe there's any industry standard although I'm happy to be proved wrong. From my experience most installers do their own maintenance so they charge their own rates. 10% is reasonable per year. I've operated at 5-15% dependent on scale of site.

Let's face it, you're running a simple system. You have no need of running RAID5 to speed things up. Dependent on how far back you want to go with your recordings. I'd run with a single 1TB or 2TB drive. They're pretty cheap these days. Western Digital have released a range of surveillance specific drives. I believe they're the EVDS series. Worth a look as they're quite cheap too.

At what distance are you looking to focus? I've never had any issues focusing any Arecont camera especially if its a manual focus.

You can get away with selecting a similar model that's not necessarily the latest. I had this problem with some Vivotek FD7160's before 8.3.4 was released. Just select the nearest model to it. It should work regardless.

That all depends on what you're recording. Are you recording 24/7? Or are you only recording on movement? Are you only recording movement in a certain area? During a certain time of day. There are a lot of factors which determine how much space you need. That said... 1TB is pretty cheap these days. I'd start with a 1Tb drive and if you find you need more, just buy another one. Should only set you back about 50 bucks. FWIW, I just installed a system at a bar/bistro environment. 5 x 2MP cameras. I get 11 days with 1 TB. Only recording when movement is detected and the recycle limit set to 10%.

Hey guys, I'm a CCTV tech based in Sydney dealing primarily in retail with POS overlays and IP cameras. Thought I might drop by to say hi and see if I might learn me a thing or 4.