Recomendations for retail store CCTV

[bob278]

We will be opening a retail store shortly, and I'm looking at options for CCTV. It's a low budget store, and ideally what we want is:

• Obviously high resolution cameras, in colour
• Upload direct to the cloud, not to a DVR or other local hardware
• Wireless not wired
• Ability to monitor remotely, in realtime
• Supports multiple cameras
• Installable by a competent IT person (ie me)

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Also, is there a calculation for how much bandwidth a typical camera takes (at say 15fps)? Just so we know how fast our internet connection needs to be...

 

[fenderman]

We will be opening a retail store shortly, and I'm looking at options for CCTV. It's a low budget store, and ideally what we want is:

• Obviously high resolution cameras, in colour
• Upload direct to the cloud, not to a DVR or other local hardware
• Wireless not wired
• Ability to monitor remotely, in realtime
• Supports multiple cameras
• Installable by a competent IT person (ie me)

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Also, is there a calculation for how much bandwidth a typical camera takes (at say 15fps)? Just so we know how fast our internet connection needs to be...

Those specifications are terrible and will never be low budget if you want to upload to the cloud. Start by reading the Cliff Notes.

 

[shalem2014]

Yes, I have a few recommendations...

• Budget, high resolution cameras. Go with the Amcrest IP5M-T1179EW series; 5mp, decent low light performance, and only $60. Wide lens and normal lens available.
• Upload direct to the cloud... Multiple high resolution cameras? Insane bandwidth, not going to happen, forget it. FWIW, the Amcrest cameras come with a cloud function. Maybe play with it. Can't guarantee anything though.
• Wireless... Don't be an idiot. You're gonna have to run wires to power the cameras. Might as well run PoE (power over ethernet) cables that both power and connect the camera. WiFi will give you nothing but headaches (sometimes literally) and dropped frames.
• Remote monitoring, multiple cameras, easy to install... Blue Iris on a PC. Locally. On premises.
• How much bandwidth per camera... Forget about framerate. Lowering the framerate only gets moderate improvements in bitrate as each frame now contains more information to cover the bigger jumps in motion between frames. It depends largely on the image quality you ask for/bitrate you set on the camera. 2K high quality H.264 is around 10Mb/s per camera. Using H.265 drops it to around 5Mb/s. You can lower quality, dropping the bitrates to 1/4-1/2 those figures, but you will start to see compression artifacts (especially on keyframes). Basically, the camera will do what you ask it to do, and you can decide whether the resulting quality is satisfactory.

 

[looney2ns]

Study the attachment and the cliff notes.

 

[TonyR]

Just so we know how fast our internet connection needs to be...

You've received advice regarding hardware, NVR or VMS, setup, etc. so let me offer my 2 cents regarding the Internet, since you asked:

I suggest at least 4 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload speed; ADSL, DSL or cable (no cellular or satellite ), insure that the WAN IP is public; static WAN IP great but not mandatory as DDNS can be used with dynamic WAN IP if static is too pricey but it MUST be public to allow you remote access conventionally.