Protecting your investment: Security Cameras for a Strata Plan

[nic_s]

Our Strata plan is considering installing some security cameras in the common areas of our building to enhance the security of our building.

Would be approximately 6 cameras, mainly located at the front door, garage area and lift area.

Ideal setup would be wired/wireless IP cameras that only record on motion and store the video in a central storage location such as a NAS or better yet, in the cloud.

In terms of reviewing the video; to limit "nosey parkers" on the committee viewing everyone's movements; access to view the videos should be protected by username and password. Ideally to, if someone logs in to review the video, they must enter a blurb as to why they are viewing the video. E.g. "Viewing 6/11/2011 to see who damaged front door". This should then make people more accountable for what they are vieiwing and it will also make it obvious by viewing logs if Mr "nosey parker" is logging in twice a day to view everyone's activities.

So can anyone suggest how we can implement this?
Should the building invest in some hardware such as a switch, NAS and the IP cameras?
Or can we just purchase the cameras and pay for an ADSL connection to store the video in the cloud?
Or can we just piggy back of some of the Committee members existing ADSL connections and there Wi-Fi links?

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[The Y-man]

How long do you need to keep the footage for? You probably don't even need a NAS to do it.....

The Y-man

 

[vaughan]

I'd not restrict access to the footage, allow ANYBODY to view it at any time, since to belongs to the residents themselves. Nosy committee members are already snooping.

 

[bpm]

Firstly, Nothing is really free when it comes to this stuff (no matter what, companies will try to bleed money out of you for the software..)
There are free bits of software out there that do the recording and management side..
The network side is easy.. go PoE so you don't need to mount power injectors for PoE devices or run electrical cabling to them, cat6 is so much easier.
Where possible, try to go for 1 hemispheric camera over multiple normal cameras.

 

[Doovalacky]

Personally I like the Exacq solution. Multiple support for different brands of camera, most IP platforms lock you into 1. Cost is reasonable compared to some of the other offerings. Many have a substantial license cost per camera. Exacq does as well but is much lower.
Exacq can be installed on your own server or you can buy their prebuilt machines.

NAS or server storage. In the cloud is not really practical due to the high bandwidth requirements. However remote monitoring and retrieval is practical.
http://www.centralsd.com.au/products/cctv/exacq

Basically you need to build a cat5e or cat6 network keeping within about 90m (100m max) between switch and camera. There is some tricks for extending the distance using special equipment. May need gigabit links between some points depending on the arrangement.

IP cameras can provide great images compared to analogue but they need either decent lighting or IR lighting assistance. They are not as good as analogue in low light but some do a lot better than others.
Arecont and Stardot cameras I have used and been happy. Acti was a mixed bag some good some poor.
The Arecont AV8365DN 360deg camera can be great for carpark style areas. One cameras covering 4 directions. The only blind spot is directly below it.
Being a day/night version it does do better when the lighting is low than a standard IP camera.

 

[Witzl]

Why are you restricting yourself to IP cameras?? You do know that many/most security DVRs (digital video recorders) have ethernet access with very advanced user interfaces that perform all of the user access logs, and have complete and full programmability with all the features you are looking for and more.

Most of these DVRs can be logged into via internet, so long as the DVR is hooked into a network and given a port through your router.....

Then the question comes - who's internet will the system be linked into?
That's a big question, and would create a legal issue in terms of access to the system, and privacy and all that stuff. Might be best to discuss with your solicitor.