CCTV for Small Business, Homemade Jobbie!

TheChizler

Hi all, just wondering if I can pick your brains on my situation. Tried looking over the forum but anything relevant to my situation (essentially a small business) was pretty old. I know this forum is aimed towards home setups, but I don't envisage that mine will be very different to a normal (albeit paranoid) home security system.

Basically I'm helping a group of teenagers set up an independent all-ages music/arts venue, needless to say minimum cost is everything! Budget is probably €500 to a grand, is that realistic? At the moment I'm looking at security/CCTV systems, and can't say I've much experience in this particular area. I'm however quite competent at setting up comprehensive home networks with a couple of security cameras, but in this particular case I'd like to get it right first time. So to start, what I want the setup to include is:

Outdoor camera outside watching over the entrance, preferably with sound.
Camera in lobby/cafe looking out over counter keeping an eye on customers and the register.
Camera covering bottom of stairwell where there's an emergency exit, looking from lobby area.
Camera at top of stairs monitoring toilet doors and access to office.
A number of cameras (2 min?) in an auditorium, which will have to adapt to quickly varying lighting levels and be of reasonable quality as they'd be covering a large area.

These would all have to have IR capabilities, motion isn't essential, sound only required for the outdoor one.

Ideally all the cameras would be IP based, since as I plan on cramming the place with Cat-5 anyway, in my mind this would lend itself towards maximum reconfigurability. POE would be the best in this situation but if that drives costs up it's no biggie to bring a regular power supply to these locations (I think most IP cameras are 5V low-power setups actually so unless there's something major I've overlooked, and I can't say I've looked too closely yet, being a competent Electrical Engineer (:D) I should be able to hack together some custom POE front/back end adapters). Can anyone recommend any IP cameras with ok quality (make out faces within a couple of metres) for cafe/stairs areas, and maybe something better for the auditorium? I suppose resolution isn't too important in the auditorium as long as people can be identified by clothing, as they will have to pass by much closer cameras before this area. I was looking at the VSTARCAM F6836W someone was recommending on another thread, would something like this be suitable for the smaller, couple of metres range areas? 480*640 max resolution.

Whatever option I go for, all cables would route back to a central location in the upstairs office, if ethernet then into a dedicated patch panel and router. Now here lies my biggest question, what do I use to process the video? An advantage of IP cameras to me is that most processing is done on board the camera itself, allowing me to go for a relatively cheap PC with a large HD running some recording/motion detection software. Argus DVR has worked grand for me in the past, and I'd be willing to pay a one off licence fee. An alternative is a pre-built IP-based DVR, I've seen a couple mentioned around here that looked good (can't remember the brand), but alas no price listed on the website. So if anyone can recommend anything (cheap)!

Or should I just give in and go with a prebuilt CCTV coaxial & DVR kit? To be honest it feels like cheating! From what I've seen I'd have to pay, for me, big bucks to allow for future proofing for 6+ cameras. And personally I'd get no joy from not making things difficult for myself! Part of me says it would be better to go with a professional installer, but that's no fun and we just don't have the budget. Maybe in the future. It would just be easier as they would know exactly what equipment to get, whereas I don't have a clue (and hence posting here!). Insurance don't care either way as long as the system exists.

So please, if anybody could suggest any front or back end solution that spring to mind that has worked for them it would be greatly appreciated!

An Ri rua

Hi,

I'm not an expert in this area but, after some dodgy goings-on at a house I was leasing, I researched and discovered yawcam. Hope its helpful to you. You can have emails emailed or sent to a server. I don't know if it can cope with more than one camera though.

After it being so successful for me, i decided to use a spare E585 mifi with a 1GB monthly transfer from Three to let me know asap when I'm away from home. I'm not a big fan of DVRs as if someone does break in, bye bye DVR or laptop. In my rented house scenario anyway.

I plan to run a second old laptop, a 2001 machine on XP, to monitor the back and oil tank, and also work wirelessly via the same E585.

Its cheap and cheerful but, I think, very effective.

Of course, I could also opt for the standalone IP camera from Aldi as my second option.

Also, have a read here. This may be helpful. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/motion-detection-surveillance-system-iphone-notification/

LoveCoke

An Ri rua wrote: »

Hi,

I'm not an expert in this area but, after some dodgy goings-on at a house I was leasing, I researched and discovered yawcam. Hope its helpful to you. You can have emails emailed or sent to a server. I don't know if it can cope with more than one camera though.

After it being so successful for me, i decided to use a spare E585 mifi with a 1GB monthly transfer from Three to let me know asap when I'm away from home. I'm not a big fan of DVRs as if someone does break in, bye bye DVR or laptop. In my rented house scenario anyway.

I plan to run a second old laptop, a 2001 machine on XP, to monitor the back and oil tank, and also work wirelessly via the same E585.

Its cheap and cheerful but, I think, very effective.

Of course, I could also opt for the standalone IP camera from Aldi as my second option.

Also, have a read here. This may be helpful. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/motion-detection-surveillance-system-iphone-notification/

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