How much to build a pc for 80 cams?

[Superior Security Experts]

Hi guys, I have a customer that is looking for a pc to handle 80 cams at a "club". They are watching and controlling the system constantly. Anyone have a ballpark what this will cost to have someone build it? He wants better than the 128 channel NVR I recommended.

 

[mat200]

Hi guys, I have a customer that is looking for a pc to handle 80 cams at a "club". They are watching and controlling the system constantly. Anyone have a ballpark what this will cost to have someone build it? He wants better than the 128 channel NVR I recommended.

Hi @Superior Security Experts

Would probably need to know more before anyone can give you a solid answer ..

There's a lot more to the equation .. what software? what bitrates? resolutions? fps? AI processing? H.264? H.265?

 

[Superior Security Experts]

Hi @Superior Security Experts

Would probably need to know more before anyone can give you a solid answer ..

There's a lot more to the equation .. what software? what bitrates? resolutions? fps? AI processing? H.264? H.265?

 

[Flintstone61]

80 cams wow. Be interesting to see the back room where a Casino operates their Cameras from. I always wonder how many of the black domes are real in the ceiling. At Mystic Lake, where I was a subcontracted Bus driver, they returned my wallet to me after I left it by the Lobby Fireplace. During a 2 hour sit I decided it was making my butt sore and put it next to my leg. " Oh look at the Time", I jumped up and scurried to the Start the Bus and bring it around front. Security had seen it laying there when I got up and left. they dispatched a Security member to recover it, by the time I got back inside, they had it waiting at the Security desk......

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

80 cams on a computer, i don't think so the computer can run.
Use a 128 NVR608-128-4KS2 with 2HDMI and connect to a big monitor is a crazy cool thing!
80 Cams show up on the small computer screen, you know the security guy is too hard to watch out what is happening.

 

[user8963]

Hi guys, I have a customer that is looking for a pc to handle 80 cams at a "club". They are watching and controlling the system constantly. Anyone have a ballpark what this will cost to have someone build it? He wants better than the 128 channel NVR I recommended.

Can you say what you have planned ? Some installers fail with that many cameras on one system.
Its not only that your system must be capable to encode all streams at the same time, ...

you have also think about recording. dahua has the ability in their 128channel device to put several harddrives in. but i am not sure if you can decide which camera record to which harddrive or if it only possible when they are in a raid.
raid should be avoided at anytime. if ONE drive fails and you exchange one drive, the system start to rebuild and slow down anything.

seagate skyhawk are rated for a maximum of 64 hd stream recording. And in my opinion (i never found a statement about that) they are talking about 1080p streams.
if you are dealing with 4mp(2k) @ min. 8mbit stream cameras, then you will be not able to have that many cameras on one harddrive. even 4 harddrives with 80cameras can be worse if you want to playback while recording.
its not only recording. the next problem start if you want to playback while recording. read/write at same time is the hardest part for any harddrive.

start reading here:

Seagate Blog | Seagate US

Read the latest stories and news about hyperscale storage technology, cloud infrastructure, and beyond.

blog.seagate.com

what is the result? lost frames. either on playback OR worser on recording.

So if you want to record that many streams on ONE device and also be able to use AI / playback / ... you should go with nvme drives. they can handle the massive load. even normal "ssds" struggle with random read/write activity.
i am not sure if blue iris can handle it...maybe it will struggle... but it depends what you want.
i am not sure if blue iris gpu version can use more than 1 gpu and use them all. then it should be no prob at all.


Then it comes to networking... you need 2-3 poe switches with 48ports which can handle the power load of all cameras... they are not cheap at all and you should not try to save there because some of these "budget" poe switches fail when there is load at limit.

 

[The Automation Guy]

You don't have to run everything on a single computer.

For example, you can split the system into two 40 camera systems. This could actually be better in this scenario anyway for several reasons. First, 80 cameras is a lot for a single person to be monitoring. If they plan on having several people monitoring the system, having two independent systems will allow two people to use they systems and not "get in each other's way." Also, if one system has an issue and goes down, at least the other system is still up and running.

I'd probably split the systems by camera locations. So half the building on one machine and half on the other.

 

[NightLife]

I love the sound of that @The Automation Guy but I struggle trying to decide whether it would be better to split the club in two halves literally, or whether to interlace the views so if one system does go down you don't end up with a huge blind spot, the size of half the building. Neither system would be left with an entirely whole view, but you'd at least have something no matter what system dies.

 

[wittaj]

I would opt for interlacing them.

Many of us do that if we have multiple HDD. One idea is put all the front cams on one drive and the back on the other, but then if one poops out, you lose that whole side.

I would favor splitting them so if one goes down, you still have some coverage of the whole area.

 

[Flintstone61]

80 Jesus H. I have trouble watching 17 cameras. maybe 4- 20 camera systems.

 

[The Automation Guy]

The only problem with interlacing them is that playback will be a bitch. Whatever camera you need, you can be assured it will be on the other system. That's just the nature of the beast!

 

[NightLife]

You just have to be extra diligent, and ensure you're never on the system that doesn't have the footage...ha