Recommended CCTV for commercial premises

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Hi

I'm thinking of a DIY solution to put up 8-10 PoE CCTV camera for a dental practice, a few of the cameras will be outside. I had a quote but I dont want to be paying £4k+ that several companies are looking to charge (mainly labour).

I know Hik Vision are good but what about Reolink as Costco were selling them and Amazon has a lot of good feedback reviews? Any other suggestions for makes and what things should I be considering (perhaps a 2TB or 4TB hard drive and 5MP cameras?). What is the difference between bullet and dome cameras?

When fitting these cables, is it a requirement to install trunking or can I just run the PoW cables along the ceiling and walls etc rather than spend a small fortune on trunking?

Thanks.
 
You could do it cheaper by doing it yourself but unless you know how and what to do it could be a problem further down the line when things go wrong. If you can assemble everything you need and then try and rope in a CCTV engineer or alarm specialist that will do some extra work outside of his/her 9 to 5 job then you may get a better deal but you are going to get what you pay for in the end. I have a Hik Vision system at work with 16 cameras, 3 of them PTZ with 25 X zoom and an 8TB hard drive and i comfortable get 3 weeks recording 24/7 from them. It was a £10,000 system but it has cut problems down massively as we have quite a large site and had problems with kids, drug dealing, fly tipping etc, etc....paid for itself and the picture quality is so good that when the police watch footage on it they say it is the best they have seen and better than Tesco's etc...
 
If you have access to NHS data in the practice then you can’t connect certain Chinese based manufacturers like Hikvision to the same network.
You can install a second network /internet connection, but your not allowed to view the cameras on the NHS system.

Unfortunately this restriction can bump the price up considerably.

You should work to DORI in terms of getting the appropriate camera for your needs for each camera placement.

I recently went to a property with 6 ptzs for example, which were inappropriate fixed views and installed on the wrong place creating some crazy blind spots.

The cameras weren’t optimised to their capabilities let alone being the right cameras for the job.

8TB doesn’t sound a lot for 16 cameras but frame rates resolution or compression rates or which part of DORI is being worked to I don’t know so can’t comment if that’s good or bad optimisation. Sounds like it’s the right solution for your site though.

When it comes to prosecutions evidence has to be of a certain standard.

We are currently awaiting a court case due to a criminal activity on a premises.

The first visit got a facial image and footage of them committing the crime.
The upgrade to how the system worked within a few days of the first event got the person arrested on the second event. They have been charged with both events.

The customer is now considering upgrades to other sites.

But this is all about getting the right camera for the job
 
Your original question seems like you want to save money and get professional advice for a business.

You might not need 5MP cameras and off the top of my head 5MP hikvision cameras are usually not on IP cameras but analougue ones. hikvision turbo.

Get the right camera for the job and it works out cheap get the wrong camera it can be grossly over specified or useless.

We can look at system design remotely using various tools but would need to know what you want to achieve from the system in each location.

We can also get you tools so you can terminate cables and test them.

Basic tester cost very little, proper testing tools can cost new £1200 plus for CCTV.
 
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