Where to buy equipment - not Costco/Sams Club

[bob332 0]

Looking to change out a DVR/Standard Definition setup (4 cameras, 1 DVR) with a setup consisting of 4 2-4MP POE cameras along w/ a 4-8 capable NVR. Main display will be a 50" 1080p. I have run cable before and plan to for this - will be using Cat5E Belkin Plenum cable. Plan to basically make another LAN as I really do not want the cameras on my main network for security reasons. Location will allow all cameras to get their POE connection from the NVR. Again, planning on NVR on its own LAN, but personally have a background in different aspects of computer networking, custom computer assembly, programming in different languages, familiar with Win2000, WinXP, Win7 and some embedded design and programming, but unfortunately not to well versed with *nix builds. LAN/NVR will be on battery backup.

 

Being in Phx, AZ, heat will be an issue. There will be 1 camera that will get direct, unfiltered sunlight for a few hours a day. Today I went outside with an IR Temp gun and the wall directly adjacent to where the camera will be showed up @ 130F. I know many of the cameras are rated for 140F, this particular camera may get that warm or more than likely warmer. Are there any cameras that have a higher rating or should I just look for a different place to mount this particular camera?

 

Anybody know where in the Phx, AZ area where I can buy the equipment local so I know what I am getting and not be surprised by ordering online that has a good rep? From reading it appears that many people on this forum like HikVision equipment and I have priced their items. Seems reasonable for the cameras to be ~$80-$100 for what I want but do not know exactly what NVR I want. The more reasonably priced the better, but I will pay what needs to be paid.

 

Thank you in advance for your time,

Bob

 

Edit: I have extra computers - dual and quad core (do not really think that is an issue since I believe the camera does the encoding). Would there be any benefit to using Blue Iris on Win7 vs a dedicated NVR for what I am trying to accomplish?

 

Also, while my wife is tech savvy, she is not tech patient, so if a certain brand of anything takes less time learning, that would be good, but I would not like to exchange ease of use to quality/reliablity. I have no problem getting deep into the camera, NVR, OS/Software (if on a dedicated machine) so she will have a fully working setup when she gets to it, it is just the end user interface that needs to be as simple as possible. Say for instance if something happened and she needed to give the police video on a USB drive, I would like for ease of use to be that if she needed to, she could find the necessary video on the different cameras and be able to output that video to the USB drive for the Police.