Which is the best CCTV system?

[terry_scott]

I'm looking to open up offices for a new business, which includes a small car park area that I'd like to keep covered with surveillance cameras, if nothing else to help customers and potential customers feel better protected and safe parking there.

However, what are my actual options when it comes to CCTV systems, and which are the best?

I need to ask because I don't know much about what decisions I should be making with a CCTV security system so any pointers and help would be very much appreciated.

[vicki2]

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-61925&als[theme]=Video%20Surveillance&headline=CCTV%20Frequently%2 0Asked%20Questions
this is a good website for answering some basic questions ...you probably also need to find a site which deals with comparisons of various cameras too.

[brian]

Contact these guys:
http://www.pakatak.co.uk/cactushop5/contact.asp

and they should be able to give you some direct advice on different product options.

[prijikn]

The best CCTV systems would be custom made with components from many different manufacturers.

[CinCCTV]

For an all in solution, I would recommend Geovision.

[Eidolon]

Difficult question - and the comment regarding geovision is a valid one. A good system but quite sophisticated software and pretty expensive in comparison to others.

I would suggest a pc based system and you will need a couple of different cameras. Outside cameras would need to be fixed lens IR pipe cameras or varifocal lens on ccd box cameras in waterproof housings. Inside could be done with the same pipe cameras or dome cameras.

Make sure the dvr card which goes into your pc records at better than 12 frames per second on every channel, has a date and time stamp on each channel and backs images up in a windows video format - avi - for example.

[thecctvguru]

+1 for Geovision

[jaysy]

Hi, i am looking for a new CCTV system with at least 16 channels/camera's maily indoor and 3 outdoor with the ability to remotely monitor from home or a mobile. i also want to have several monitoring stations and recording capacity for 60 days.

Any advice?

[pakatak]

Hello Jaysy, there are many options but you will obviously need a 16CH DVR that is networkable (you will struggle to find one which isn't networkable anyway to be honest).

The you need to think about the types of cameras you are after, the lighting conditions you need them to return good video footage in and the areas you are looking for each camera to cover.

This will get you started, once you have that information ready it will be easier for you to select the right system.

[Henry]

Can I make a few suggestions ?

60 days sounds a hell of a long time to store your footage. You are going to be storing really low resolution images if you hope to achieve 60 days on 16 cameras so much so that I'm not sure what use they would be.

I recommend you aim for D1 resolution recording (704 x 576 pixels give or take). That way you stand half a chance of making any sense out of the footage.

Choose where you want to film carefully and try to pick areas where you aren't having to cover wide angles and in so doing spreading those valuable pixels thin on the ground.

Go for cameras with a zoom or vari-focal lens so that when you are installing the cameras you can zoom in or out to best fill the screen with your chosen subject rather than having them only filling part of the screen.

In order to extend your storage times consider DVR recorders with a split hard drive. They record 24/7 but if an alarm sensor is triggered or the DVR detects movement in the picture (you can choose areas of the screen to monitor) then that footage is stored on the alarm triggered part of the hard drive. The "event" section of the hard drive will take much longer to fill up because you're not wasting capacity on non action footage.

Consider fitting a pair of 8 or 9 channel DVRs rather than a single 16channel DVR. By doing this you increase hard drive capacity, improve remote access performance because you aren't trying to shove 16 feeds up you internet pipe - don't forget that whilst you enjoy 4-10 meg download speeds your upload is only likely to be 2-300 k. You also introduce a failsafe element into your system should a DVR fail. You stil have the other one working.

You can still access both of the DVR recorders using the same control panel (our DVR recorders allow you to access up to 4 units on the same control panel so in theory you could have up to 36 cameras).

I think you need to speak to a few people to get professional advice before rushing out and spending your money in case you get it wrong.

There's advice here on cctv systems here, DVR recorders and here, and also advice on CCTV Cameras to be going on with for the meantime.

Hope that helps you.

Henry