Camera system needed for small business

NetWorker

BIT Beta Team
Dec 30, 2014
88
8
Netsville
Hi All, looking for some experienced recommendations on this one.

A small business has asked me install a camera system for them. They sell pet supplies and groom animals and the owner wants at least 4 cameras to start out with. There are 3 rooms they want to cover.

* The main room is approximately 35 feet long by 20 feet wide and plan to use 2 cameras in this room. One to watch for customers stealing and the other to watch employee theft from the cash register.
* The office is another place where money is handled and that is approximately 14 feet long and 10 feet wide and I'm thinking 1 camera should be enough to cover what they want to see in this room.
* The final room is where the animals are groomed and the dimensions of the room are approximately 14 feet long and 10 feet wide just like office.

The goal is to record what happens in the store during business hours from 9am - 6pm. They only want and need a week or two worth of footage.

Can you make some equipment along with lens millimeter recommendations? Is wireless an option since it's a small space to cover? The drop ceiling is completely packed with insulation.

The customer is also interested in a bundle from Sams Club but not sure if that is really the way to go. One thing I know for sure is that they want IOS app capability to use with the system.

Since they want 4 cameras, I'm looking at something like this :

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/qsee-4x4-secrty-sys/prod11570578.ip

Obviously lots of pros and cons and the main one I tried to stress is that if you go with a NVR system you are limited to certain models and quantities to use with that system.

Looking forward to some input!

Thanks
 
I would avoid using wireless, particularly for multiple cams since they can interfere with each other's transmissions and just kill the performance of the WiFi. If you can't run network cable all the way then at least try powerline networking first.

An NVR is probably the best bet if they don't want to spend a lot of time tinkering. It'll be cheaper and more power efficient than a Blue Iris build. Plan for expansion if that is a possibility (e.g. don't get a 4 cam NVR if 5+ cams in the near future is possible). The sams club set is only 720p cameras, and I know you can do better for a little more money by building a custom setup from aliexpress, or from milkisbad or nellys. If they want constant recording to last 2 weeks then I'd go with at least a 3 TB drive, Western Digital Purple. That would handle 4 streams at 4 Mbps each for 14 days, maybe with a little room to spare. For higher bit rates (useful with 1080p cameras), a larger drive would be better. If doing motion detection instead, the requirements for disk space go down but it could be really clip-spammy and there is always a risk that something would be missed because motion detection is not perfect.
 
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I would avoid using wireless, particularly for multiple cams since they can interfere with each other's transmissions and just kill the performance of the WiFi. If you can't run network cable all the way then at least try powerline networking first.

An NVR is probably the best bet if they don't want to spend a lot of time tinkering. It'll be cheaper and more power efficient than a Blue Iris build. Plan for expansion if that is a possibility (e.g. don't get a 4 cam NVR if 5+ cams in the near future is possible). The sams club set is only 720p cameras, and I know you can do better for a little more money by building a custom setup from aliexpress, or from milkisbad or nellys. If they want constant recording to last 2 weeks then I'd go with at least a 3 TB drive, Western Digital Purple. That would handle 4 streams at 4 Mbps each for 14 days, maybe with a little room to spare. For higher bit rates (useful with 1080p cameras), a larger drive would be better. If doing motion detection instead, the requirements for disk space go down but it could be really clip-spammy and there is always a risk that something would be missed because motion detection is not perfect.

Thanks for the powerline suggestion, I had not considered that. I agree that wireless is not the way to go if I wish to avoid interference and performance issues.

I don't think motion detection is going to be used with this setup. They think employees are stealing and treating the animals harshly so it would record for 8 hours a day and then review the footage as needed. I will probably go the NVR route for a speedy setup and installation and hopefully hassle free maintenance for them.

Thanks for the seller recommendations. I've worked with Milk before, he's legit. Might have to check out Nelly as well, I see they are quite active on the forum and hopefully have good support!

Nelly if you're reading this, chime in with some recommendations please so I can bring your products to the table for discussion.