How to choose the right video surveillance system?

Reservation:
This text in no way claims the status of “ultimate truth”, everything described below is my subjective opinion about the market for video surveillance systems, based on personal experience in this market. The text is primarily intended for ordinary citizens who have never encountered video surveillance systems, administrators on whose shoulders this difficult task has fallen, and for potential customers of this market.

Where to begin?

Before heading off to run and buy a ready-made solution, which was advised by a work colleague, great-grandmother's niece or a neighbor's dog, you need to clearly understand what you need.
What tasks will the system perform? What problem is it designed to solve?
In each case, the system is assigned certain tasks. This is either a security function, or control, supervision. What do you, as a customer, want to get at the output from the system? In this we are today and try to figure it out.

You are the customer. You have an applied task, for example, to cover the territory of a grocery store, with retail space, utility rooms, and parking. At the same time, your budget is not strictly limited, but, as is usual in the Russian Federation, “It would be desirable cheaper”. At this stage, the search begins for the most budgetary decisions. The market is replete with the proposals “installation of a system of 5 outdoor cameras for only 20,000 rubles” and the like. You can safely dismiss such proposals, trite guided by common sense. Even if the system is installed for this money, there will be no sense from it.

Why, you ask?
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When it comes to a grocery store, most often the task is to control personnel and theft of goods (both by customers and staff directly). Therefore, the system requires that the picture be clear, the faces and the goods themselves must be clearly visible. For the camera above the cash register requirements are even higher. It is desirable that the denominations of banknotes be distinguishable. Systems for 20-30 thousand rubles for 4 cameras (with installation and configuration) cannot possibly give such a quality picture. Consequently, at the exit, we get a grainy picture, the silhouette of the person who has robbed you, and no legal support in the face of law enforcement. And well, if this is a jar of cola, and not a plasma for 100k +.

So we get:

• Time and money spent
• No good
• Useless glands occupying space

From this it should not be concluded that the DVR from the budget line does not have its use.
This option is well suited for the supervision of parking (if the cameras allow at least to distinguish the license plates), supervision of the entrance. Roughly speaking in areas not related to financial risk. If we are talking about commercial space, whether it is a shop, salon, restaurant, etc. - need a slightly different option.

Systems with expensive recorder and HD picture quality

If you still have not completely abandoned the system with the DVR, then let's consider a slightly different option. Suppose a quick search on the Internet has brought you to the site of a store that sells recorders and HD-SDI standard cameras. Having estimated the geometry of the room, you decided that 8 cameras would be enough for you to cover the parking lot, the trading floor with the cash registers, and the utility room. This is a very real scenario for a small shop with an area of ​​150-200 sq. M. For example, you ordered a recorder for 8 channels with 8 cameras, for example, 2 street and 6 for premises. The budget, of course, has grown significantly. Only one recorder standard HD-SDI costs about 15.000 p. On the cameras you decide to save. At the time of the search, the most budgetary decisions were:

• 1.3mpx HD Dome Camera for 3400
• Outdoor camera 1.3 mpx HD for 4300
• The registrar itself for 14.600

Total, we received a budget of only hardware 43.600 rubles. Price without installation, without setting. For this, all usually take another 10-15 thousand from above. Okay, forked, gave 60.000 plus or minus. We got a good picture, motion detection, IR illumination. Everything is good, everything is beautiful. But we must somehow monitor it. Monitor is not included. Boldly add another 5000 to the budget. We start the system, everything is clearly visible. But there is one nuance. When choosing cameras, you did not look at the viewing angles. And for the cheapest models that I chose as an example, they are the next 25-60 degrees for the outdoor camera and 52 degrees for the dome camera. You want you do not want, and it will be small. And you can see not so much. Faced with such a problem after installation, it is already quite problematic to change anything. Like it or not, and thefts continue.
What can we do in this situation? Virtually nothing, because the system defies expansion fundamentally. Additional channels on the recorder do not add.

The most budgetary solution to this problem will be transferring outdoor cameras to another recorder, for example, and adding two more cameras with a large viewing angle to the room. And this is spending on installation and on new equipment. Thus, the system gradually approaches 100,000 rubles for 8 cameras with an HD picture.

Suddenly, the temperature drops to -30, and your outdoor cameras first begin to “artifact” and then simply turn off ... Ho-ho-ho, a stingy customer. And you didn’t look at the temperature conditions of the outdoor cameras ... And the declared temperature is up to -20 ... Again, replacement, installation again, money again.

Suppose that you have done all these terrible and frightening actions, for the second time you carried out a general cleaning of the store after installation. Sit quietly in the office and watch 2 screens. Drink tea, look at the clock, time is 9 pm. Time to go home. You came home, had dinner, went to bed. And at 3 o'clock in the morning a major of police Frolov calls you, for example, and very officially says that your store was robbed at night.

Everything. The final. Point. The tragedy is over. You were robbed, your precious registrar was taken away. Although it was enough just to break the hard drive, or take it with you. And the metal box - alas, not a panacea. In my practice there was a case when the payment terminal was pulled out along with the floor.

It was necessary to copy the data somewhere else, you say. Exactly. And almost all recorders out of the box support FTP technology. Just tell me honestly, have you ever seen someone on the DVR (they are usually with remotes and not with keyboards) set up a backup to some separately raised FTP server with a free terabyte of space, which should be somewhere in the date ideally, well, or at least in the apartment of the owner of this very store? I, for my practice, have never seen. Moreover, I have never seen that companies that sell and install systems offer this option. In theory, it is possible. In practice, usability is lame.

Depression.

Your shop is robbed. You are depressed. Your wife leaves you, you start to drink hard and it is possible to use soft and hard drugs. But at some point in the delirium of alcohol, you decide to try again. You shave smoothly, wear your best suit, and go to the bank. Take a huge loan, and start to restore your business, taking into account all previous mistakes. You rent a new room, buy equipment, and again there is a question of video surveillance. You are now a man of bitter experience. You know that not everything is as good as it seems at first glance, and how it looks in your head. And you understand that you need to secure yourself and your business in any case. You have requirements for the system:

1. The system must be thought out
2. The picture should be clear
3. The cameras in the room should be with a wide viewing angle (70+)
4. The camera at the checkout should be with a small viewing angle (25-40)
5. Outdoor camera should be backlit and work at temperatures below 30 degrees (Russia still)
6. The archive must be duplicated to external storage.
7. You need the possibility of continuous monitoring of the system (dada, you are now paranoid. Even after this ...)
8. The system should not be worth as new Lexus
9. System must scale

Enlightenment, the world of modern technology.

Taking into account all the above requirements, you start to compare prices in the market of video recorders and IP video surveillance. The experience of past mistakes has taught you that backup is very important. Based on this, you risk and set yourself an IP system. Pick up cameras, install, and go to heaven. The cameras are quite decent quality worth about 5 thousand . Server within 15 (with monitor, mouse, keyboard). The switch and the witch, well, let it be another 3,000 rubles. Installation of all this stuff - about 10 thousand (easier all the same, without fussing with power, usually PoE). Even if you buy another computer and put it home as a backup, the price tag above 100.000 rubles will not rise. But:

If I missed, and there was a blind spot, I bought a camera and stuck it in the switch - Scalability .
The archive can be duplicated to the cloud (for example, Ivideon can) or another server - Security .
The ability to replace any of the cameras on a more expensive and high-quality without loss of time and money - Flexibility .
View from any device connected to the network - Accessibility .
The entire system is completely cheaper than analog friends - Economic expediency .

Your business goes uphill, you thrive, you have time to practice yoga, you come to Buddhism, gradually improving, you reach Nirvana.

Post Scriptum

I hope that this post will help you to correctly navigate and focus your attention on non-obvious problem areas in video surveillance systems and avoid mistakes that can lead to serious consequences. For aggressive commentators: I do not think IP surveillance is a panacea for all illnesses. Somewhere it is more expedient to install an analog recorder, somewhere a connection to the Internet for legal. Persons will be more expensive than this registrar itself is worth. There are always applied tasks for which there are suitable solutions in their niche. All good.
PPS The first post, do not scold.