I have been reading about IP cameras for days now and still am no closer to narrowing down what I want to buy. There are just too many choices and I don't know what would work best for us - Just a really bad case of analysis paralysis.
I have a Synology NAS and will be using Surveillance Station for my NVR. I have a 5,000 sqft shop space with employees, and a front door/gate I'd like to monitor (During the day and at night, to catch anyone entering the property. My primary goal indoors is to catch theft of small parts, because the parts are easily pocketable and very expensive. So I need to be able to not only identify a face, but also identify that someone has taken something from a drawer and put it into their pocket. My shop space is approximately 50'x100'.
Outdoors, I'd like a camera over the front door, facing our entry gate. For this camera, we have a large street lamp over the gate, so it's illuminated pretty well already. It would be great to be able to read a license plate at night from this camera. The distance from the door to the gate is about 30'.
I was thinking on the inside of the building, 6 cameras. One in each corner and one in the middle of each long wall. This is as much a deterrent as anything, so just having the cameras recording will probably stop most employee theft. For the exterior, I was thinking the 1 camera over the door, and possibly another camera to give a broad overview of our parking lot.
So all in all, I think I'm looking at 6-8 indoor cameras, the gate camera, and the parking lot camera. I'd like to spend less than $2,000 on the cameras. It's important that the footage be usable when we need it, but I also don't want to break the bank - I've already spent a ton on the NAS and hard drives.
I appreciate any advice you have for me. I've just become overwhelmed with the options here and I'm not sure what path is best any more.
I have a Synology NAS and will be using Surveillance Station for my NVR. I have a 5,000 sqft shop space with employees, and a front door/gate I'd like to monitor (During the day and at night, to catch anyone entering the property. My primary goal indoors is to catch theft of small parts, because the parts are easily pocketable and very expensive. So I need to be able to not only identify a face, but also identify that someone has taken something from a drawer and put it into their pocket. My shop space is approximately 50'x100'.
Outdoors, I'd like a camera over the front door, facing our entry gate. For this camera, we have a large street lamp over the gate, so it's illuminated pretty well already. It would be great to be able to read a license plate at night from this camera. The distance from the door to the gate is about 30'.
I was thinking on the inside of the building, 6 cameras. One in each corner and one in the middle of each long wall. This is as much a deterrent as anything, so just having the cameras recording will probably stop most employee theft. For the exterior, I was thinking the 1 camera over the door, and possibly another camera to give a broad overview of our parking lot.
So all in all, I think I'm looking at 6-8 indoor cameras, the gate camera, and the parking lot camera. I'd like to spend less than $2,000 on the cameras. It's important that the footage be usable when we need it, but I also don't want to break the bank - I've already spent a ton on the NAS and hard drives.
I appreciate any advice you have for me. I've just become overwhelmed with the options here and I'm not sure what path is best any more.
