Hi!
Just registered on the forum! It seems to me you guys really know what you're talking about here and thus I come requesting your assistance
I run IT and backoffice for a small trucking company, and we share our office with several other companies in a largeish building. We rent this place because it has a huge outdoor parking area that can fit all our trucks and trailers.
On the premises is also (1) a mechanical shop that does repairs on cars, trucks, trailers, etc., (2) a touring buss company with 3 huge brand new busses (as in, 2024 model busses essentially). And finally, there's (3) two other trucking companies that don't have any office space but just 2 + 4 parking spaces for trucks+trailers combined.
There's no physical security preventing anyone from entering the premises from any direction on foot (there's a fence that covers some of it but you can just walk around it), though there's only one entry/exit for vehicles.
Recently we've been plagued by a few petty thefts, and one hilariously bad attempt at siphoning diesel from 3 of the trucks at random, who were parked at the back of the property away from the vehicle entry/exit.
Now, this property is already scheduled for complete demolition and obviously the entire lot will be replaced by condos. But it has been for 15+ years. This is a large industrial area, and they just now started the gentrification at the opposite end of the area. Which means we're here for a few years yet because the rent is obviously extremely favorable.
And so we've banded together with the other companies and we want to get some cameras up that can show us license plates.
The budget we've set is essentially max $4500 or so, though obviously in NOK.
We're a small country so the available selection of cameras is also quite small, and we don't have Amazon. This link will take you to a list of available cameras with a few filters applied; (1) min price $100, (2) max price $800, (3) ethernet port, (4) rated for outdoor use, (5) IR-vision, (6) PoE. I can adjust these filters however you like and respond with a link, or you can run the site through google translate of course. Also the site recently "upgraded" their UI so of course it's horrendous now - but you can click the button with 3 vertical lines to the right to get an actual list instead of this modern shit. Also it's paged, so there should be 4 pages at the bottom and roughly 150 results at this time.
I've built hundreds of computers in my time, and my dad has built 2 houses, 2 cabins, and at least 4 cars from scratch, including wiring. So we will install the cameras, we will buy whatever PoE switch is required, and we'll build the computer that it all records to.
Installation is not part of the budget (there's also a man lift at site), but the computer is. I guess I'll get a platinum or better PSU but other than that I don't expect the computer itself to eat up more than $600, though I've not actually specced that out yet (I could've done, but it's already 16 minutes past bedtime here so $600 is a good estimate). We don't expect to store footage for more than 2 weeks so your storage calculator here tells me I need 4TB for 3x 4K cameras at 20 FPS or whatever so I'm not worried.
So I think the budget is:
Let's say $1500, because I probably forgot something.
That leaves $3000 for the cameras. We don't need to spend that much. We don't want to spend that much. Although there's many companies, we are obviously not rich because we're renting cheap in a building that's scheduled for demolition "any day now".
I also understand that we might need an IR light, or whatever it's called, which I've got no experience with at all, and not researched.
Here's what we want:
Mounting the license plate camera such that it has a 30 degree angle with free view towards the entrance/exit is no problem at all. Or whatever angle you want.
There's quite a lot of light in the area from street lamps, but obviously we're up north a bit so it gets quite dark. Our outdoor area is covered on two sides by main streets, so there's lots of traffic and lots of street lights. The vehicle entrance/exit is essentially in the corner of these two streets.
I hope that was enlightening and that I've made it easy to respond to my query. Please ask any followup questions you want, though it's bedtime here and I have a busy weekend so don't expect a prompt response.
Thank you!
P.S.: There's a few cameras available on local stores that are not indexed by the site I provided a link for above; for example:
P.P.S.: I can provide a sketch of the area with dimensions if requested, though I don't have it here at home. I'm driving in to work tomorrow anyway so I can upload it from there.
Just registered on the forum! It seems to me you guys really know what you're talking about here and thus I come requesting your assistance
I run IT and backoffice for a small trucking company, and we share our office with several other companies in a largeish building. We rent this place because it has a huge outdoor parking area that can fit all our trucks and trailers.
On the premises is also (1) a mechanical shop that does repairs on cars, trucks, trailers, etc., (2) a touring buss company with 3 huge brand new busses (as in, 2024 model busses essentially). And finally, there's (3) two other trucking companies that don't have any office space but just 2 + 4 parking spaces for trucks+trailers combined.
There's no physical security preventing anyone from entering the premises from any direction on foot (there's a fence that covers some of it but you can just walk around it), though there's only one entry/exit for vehicles.
Recently we've been plagued by a few petty thefts, and one hilariously bad attempt at siphoning diesel from 3 of the trucks at random, who were parked at the back of the property away from the vehicle entry/exit.
Now, this property is already scheduled for complete demolition and obviously the entire lot will be replaced by condos. But it has been for 15+ years. This is a large industrial area, and they just now started the gentrification at the opposite end of the area. Which means we're here for a few years yet because the rent is obviously extremely favorable.
And so we've banded together with the other companies and we want to get some cameras up that can show us license plates.
The budget we've set is essentially max $4500 or so, though obviously in NOK.
We're a small country so the available selection of cameras is also quite small, and we don't have Amazon. This link will take you to a list of available cameras with a few filters applied; (1) min price $100, (2) max price $800, (3) ethernet port, (4) rated for outdoor use, (5) IR-vision, (6) PoE. I can adjust these filters however you like and respond with a link, or you can run the site through google translate of course. Also the site recently "upgraded" their UI so of course it's horrendous now - but you can click the button with 3 vertical lines to the right to get an actual list instead of this modern shit. Also it's paged, so there should be 4 pages at the bottom and roughly 150 results at this time.
I've built hundreds of computers in my time, and my dad has built 2 houses, 2 cabins, and at least 4 cars from scratch, including wiring. So we will install the cameras, we will buy whatever PoE switch is required, and we'll build the computer that it all records to.
Installation is not part of the budget (there's also a man lift at site), but the computer is. I guess I'll get a platinum or better PSU but other than that I don't expect the computer itself to eat up more than $600, though I've not actually specced that out yet (I could've done, but it's already 16 minutes past bedtime here so $600 is a good estimate). We don't expect to store footage for more than 2 weeks so your storage calculator here tells me I need 4TB for 3x 4K cameras at 20 FPS or whatever so I'm not worried.
So I think the budget is:
- Cat5/6 cable; $100 for 200 meters
- $15 for RJ45 plugs etc
- $100 for various fasteners and things to "mount" the cable on the wall/etc
- $150-300 for a PoE switch
- $600 for a computer and storage
- Was it $65 for the blue iris tools package?
Let's say $1500, because I probably forgot something.
That leaves $3000 for the cameras. We don't need to spend that much. We don't want to spend that much. Although there's many companies, we are obviously not rich because we're renting cheap in a building that's scheduled for demolition "any day now".
I also understand that we might need an IR light, or whatever it's called, which I've got no experience with at all, and not researched.
Here's what we want:
- 1x camera that will be able to cover the entrance/exit at 30 meters (100ft), and be able to read license plates going in and out even at night. Though the vehicles will be driving directly towards the camera from 30-15m. All vehicles here have plates in front and behind, except motorcycles, which we're not worried about.
- 2x cameras that cover a wider field of view to mount on other corners/areas of the building. They also essentially need to cover 30 meters, but we don't need to be able to read plates, we just want to see roughly what's going on
- Software that can operate the cameras that allow us to view them from iphone and android phones as well (I presume Blue Iris Tools covers this?) We can network all the devices on a LAN through tailscale/etc so that's no problem really, but if you have a better solution then please let me know.
- Ideally the possibility of phone notifications for detected movement
- We don't require LPR or a database as such, as long as it's readable from watching the video
- You probably know what goodies we can get here, or what features we SHOULD want, because you've probably been running systems like this for ages, so please inform me!
Mounting the license plate camera such that it has a 30 degree angle with free view towards the entrance/exit is no problem at all. Or whatever angle you want.
There's quite a lot of light in the area from street lamps, but obviously we're up north a bit so it gets quite dark. Our outdoor area is covered on two sides by main streets, so there's lots of traffic and lots of street lights. The vehicle entrance/exit is essentially in the corner of these two streets.
I hope that was enlightening and that I've made it easy to respond to my query. Please ask any followup questions you want, though it's bedtime here and I have a busy weekend so don't expect a prompt response.
Thank you!
P.S.: There's a few cameras available on local stores that are not indexed by the site I provided a link for above; for example:
- Hikvision 4 K ColorVu Bullet Kamera. DS-2CD2087G2-LU
- 4K, 8MP, IR: Hikvision DS- 2CD2086G2-I
- Hikvision 12MP dome IP-cam DS-2CD55C5G0-IZS
- 8MP (4K), Darkfighter og AcuSense: Hikvision DS-2CD2186G2-ISU
- Hikvision iDS-2CD7A46G0/P-IZHSY (though it seems pricey)
- Vivotek IB8369, unsure about pricing
- Vivotek FD8169, unsure about pricing
P.P.S.: I can provide a sketch of the area with dimensions if requested, though I don't have it here at home. I'm driving in to work tomorrow anyway so I can upload it from there.
