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Security Cameras in tasting room?


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Is anyone on here using security cameras in their tasting rooms?  If so,  did you purchase them yourself or did you hire a service to come in and install/maintain them?  We are considering using security cameras just for liability reasons, appreciate any feedback.

 

Adam

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We have two HD cameras covering the tasting room, one on the bar and one on the display. We also have them outside and in the distilling area. All told, I think we have seven of them. Cost $2k, no additional fees or costs. Records to hard drive and loops over time. Accessible through the internet or direct.

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We have about a dozen in our tasting room / prep area and about 6 in our distillery  / bonded space.  Ubiquiti. All self installed.  High def cameras are about $150. We use their edge router and wifi equipment as well. Really good stuff. We rolled our own NVR using an existing PC with external drive. The software is free.   

 

 

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I actually do commercial video systems and access control for a living. I am chock full of technical info and will happily answer any questions I can (no charge and not looking for work). I do NOT know every system out there. I am however very experienced in both wired (coax) and network cameras. 

In some areas you must be licensed to install cameras in a commercial space (new jersey for sure) and this can also include access control and alarm systems. So you need to be careful and check with your local building department to make sure. You dont want to have anything ever happen and some one comes back to you and gives you grief for installing without a license or permit.

That said - there are tons of self installable systems out there now - and alot of people install them by themselves.

I can tell you in the last few years I have been LOVING some of the newer hemispheric (Fisheye) cameras. They can really cut down the amount of cameras needed while providing much better coverage and when used correctly give outstanding video quality (as do most of the newer IP cameras do).

-S

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Adam,

33 minutes ago, Scott.S said:

In some areas you must be licensed to install cameras in a commercial space (new jersey for sure) and this can also include access control and alarm systems. So you need to be careful and check with your local building department to make sure. You dont want to have anything ever happen and some one comes back to you and gives you grief for installing without a license or permit.

 

Scott,

  My IT guy did all of my security cameras from a kit that I purchased on line.  There is no local building department here.  If you want to build your own house or commercial building you can without having to buy any type of permit and without having any type of building, electrical or plumbing inspection.  Things work very well here without any of that and it sure makes life easier.  However I can see why those inspections are necessary in certain places for the sake of safety, even though we do no seem to have any more house fires here than anywhere else.

What would be the reasoning for having to have a license to install security cameras other than the municipality using it to make money?

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Paul,

I WISH it was like that here! You have no idea what a .................. never mind!

The reasoning they gave me back when the first enacted the law was to make sure the alarm and security vendors out here werent criminals and to make sure they had the knowledge and training to install anything that has to do with lifesafety and insurance to back it up. It also gave customers the ability to open complaints and help police the security companies. The law is so complete here it includes fire and burglar alarm systems, video security, access control. locksmithing, and even intercom systems.  Are they making money - yup! some. The fines when they give them out are hefty too!

Here if your a plumber, and electrician, etc.. you have to have a license and insurance.  By the way - New York has something similar on the books.. not sure about PA or anywhere else.

I can also tell you to this day I come across jobs installed by other companies (licensed ones at that) that are borderline dangerous. Not cameras - Mostly access control (readers, maglocks. etc).

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3 hours ago, Scott.S said:

 

 

I can also tell you to this day I come across jobs installed by other companies (licensed ones at that) that are borderline dangerous. Not cameras - Mostly access control (readers, maglocks. etc).

I can see how many of the peripheral electrical devices could be dangerous if incorrectly installed and in that situation licensing and inspection is probably necessary for safetys sake.  MO has no state requirements concerning building inspections etc, even for commercial.  Of course all municipalities and many counties in MO do have requirements.  I live and have my business in a very rural southern MO county and like many counties in rural areas of the south there are few requirements but of course that is slowly changing.  Living and having a business here has it's advantages and disadvantages.  There is no cell phone reception or broad band in this part of the county which sucks, but I can turn 360 degrees and not see a neighbor, which I love.  But still, I have lots of security cameras all over and we are at the point where we need to move on to a more robust security system and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to hire a pro to do it this time.  Also,the amount of maintenance required over 5 or 6 years was more than I thought that it would be, but mainly that is because we have so many outdoor cameras.  The dang mice or squirrels or something keep chewing the wires outside and we have had a couple of the outside cameras fail because of moisture even though they were supposed to be fore use outdoors.

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9 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

.  Also,the amount of maintenance required over 5 or 6 years was more than I thought that it would be, but mainly that is because we have so many outdoor cameras.  The dang mice or squirrels or something keep chewing the wires outside and we have had a couple of the outside cameras fail because of moisture even though they were supposed to be fore use outdoors.

Other than lightning strikes, which are def an issue, you should have very little issue with your outside cameras. Lightning doesnt even have to hit the camera if your camera's cable transients the ground for instance a ground strike can kill cameras. There are lightning protectors for this now for both coax cameras and for IP ones. As far as mice - try the teflon cable (also called plenum cable). It might not be impervious to the critters but i see alot less chew issues over the years so perhaps it tastes bad? Or try the filled outdoor (burial cable) which has a silicon or similar gel inside it. That I bet isnt tasty.

I would look into the sealed cameras. Anything with an IP66 rating or better should give more then adequate protection over time. IP67 I believe is submersion. The old school outdoor camera cases just arent as good. There are alot of companies out there that deliver a robust commercial product with a back end that delivers what I expect from a company catering to the commercial market. It is like the difference from getting a still from China, or one from Missouri.......

As far as the dangerous stuff - cameras are not life safety devices in my opinion. They however are an important thing when it comes time to go to court. Make sure the products you use are designed for commercial use and have things like watermarking to be able to prove the video or pictures are irrefutable.

Life safety devices are things like Fire Alarms - here in NJ you have to have your fire system capable of shutting off the power to a performance and triggering lights (if you have a stage and a band lets say) so the sound stops and the light comes up. You have to have doors of a certain size and exits within a specific distance of guests in your facility in case of an emergency. If you have access control such as mag locks you have to make sure that egress is NEVER impared. So no chained or locked doors, maglocks have to unlock if a fire alarm goes off, if someone approaches the door from the inside, and if all else fails there must be a button or breakglass device to allow you to shut the power off to the door within 6feet and clearly visible and clearly labelled. These are the types of things that i see that are often done wrong. Some of them so bad that people are actually put in danger. I see this weekly - this week in fact. but thats another story.

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On 4/4/2018 at 5:24 PM, indyspirits said:

We have about a dozen in our tasting room / prep area and about 6 in our distillery  / bonded space.  Ubiquiti. All self installed.  High def cameras are about $150. We use their edge router and wifi equipment as well. Really good stuff. We rolled our own NVR using an existing PC with external drive. The software is free.   

 

 

So since there is an external drive, do the Ubiquitis draw on your wifi?  The cameras I have been looking into all draw too much wifi from the 24/7 streaming and are sending monthly wifi costs through the roof.

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On 4/5/2018 at 2:56 PM, Scott.S said:

I actually do commercial video systems and access control for a living. I am chock full of technical info and will happily answer any questions I can (no charge and not looking for work). I do NOT know every system out there. I am however very experienced in both wired (coax) and network cameras. 

In some areas you must be licensed to install cameras in a commercial space (new jersey for sure) and this can also include access control and alarm systems. So you need to be careful and check with your local building department to make sure. You dont want to have anything ever happen and some one comes back to you and gives you grief for installing without a license or permit.

That said - there are tons of self installable systems out there now - and alot of people install them by themselves.

I can tell you in the last few years I have been LOVING some of the newer hemispheric (Fisheye) cameras. They can really cut down the amount of cameras needed while providing much better coverage and when used correctly give outstanding video quality (as do most of the newer IP cameras do).

-S

Do you have a recommendation on a brand that would have a hard drive that copies over itself after a certain amount of time?  I am looking at the Arlo Pro 2 but further research suggests it would triple my monthly wifi bill from the 24/7 streaming to the cloud.  The best buy rep said six cameras would take 100 mpbs to operate..

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If anyone is considering building their own, I highly recommend you spend the extra on surveillance rated hard drives.

During normal operation of your home computer it's hard drive is operating only occasionally, as most everything you do loads and works within RAM. In a security camera system the hard drive is reading/writing 100% of the time which will usually lead to a premature failure of a regular hard drive.

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6 hours ago, AK2 said:

Do you have a recommendation on a brand that would have a hard drive that copies over itself after a certain amount of time?  I am looking at the Arlo Pro 2 but further research suggests it would triple my monthly wifi bill from the 24/7 streaming to the cloud.  The best buy rep said six cameras would take 100 mpbs to operate..

Almost ever commercial level product has a hard drive or hard drives and records over the video.... when properly programmed. There are a number of things that you want to be able to set,,, one is motion recording. This will only record and use drive space  ( or potentially bandwidth) when the camera sees motion. The frame rate... which can be set as high as 30 frames per second.  Should be down around 7 unless your looking at alot of fast moving activity. Etc etc. There are alot of tweaks that can be done in order to save both drive space and bandwidth. On top of that you set this system to recycle say anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on the amount of drive space you use. With motion detection on that varies with how much activity your camera sees and whether you have set them up correctly.

A number of companies  make decent systems with good or better remote access and expandable drive space.  The cheapest ive used is HIK Vision. There stuff is good.. not my favorite and their support is ok. For you that want to build out your own pc id use Geovision. Software is free with them. Their support is just ok.... i no longer will build out a pc for this. PCs run into issues over time. Id stick with a more hardware based solution such as the HIK or one of the better brands. I love 3xlogic.  Not expensive, made in usa, excellent tech support, great online access options, hardened recorder... lots of options.  You cant go wrong with 3x. They also have the Infinias line of access control that integrates with your video so card access also gives you a recording tied to it making looking up stuff super easy.  And god forbid your not their and the cops show up and need a video to go... you can do that remotely for them and all someone has to do is stick in a blank dvd for you.

We spend ridiculous amounts on a still and barely blink.... step up a little and get a good surveillance system.  Perhaps you will never need it. But the day you do you will feel it was the best money you ever spent. 

Scott

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19 hours ago, AK2 said:

Do you have a recommendation on a brand that would have a hard drive that copies over itself after a certain amount of time?  I am looking at the Arlo Pro 2 but further research suggests it would triple my monthly wifi bill from the 24/7 streaming to the cloud.  The best buy rep said six cameras would take 100 mpbs to operate..

How tech proficient are you?  If you go the ubiquiti route you can host entirely inside your own network and monitor it externally.  I call bullshit on  100 meg for six cameras unless they are 60 FPS and UHD. 

 

 

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19 hours ago, AK2 said:

So since there is an external drive, do the Ubiquitis draw on your wifi?  The cameras I have been looking into all draw too much wifi from the 24/7 streaming and are sending monthly wifi costs through the roof.

The NVR (network video recorder) is a linux box with a hard drive.  All of the cameras are hardwired and use POE.  Really good stuff. PM me if you want to pick up a call to discuss.

 

 

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Assuming you are still in the building stage - run cat5 from your camera points to the base station. Dead easy and you can probably do it under your electrical permit. We ran ours after hours with the electricians full support. They didn't want to do it. That will save much of the installation fee and you can focus on the hardware. You get a much better signal with less failure factors if you are hardwired.

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5 hours ago, Glenlyon said:

You get a much better signal with less failure factors if you are hardwired.

Couldnt be better said. This goes for POS or any peripherals (or laptops / desktops) from which you want top tier network performance.

 

 

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On 4/9/2018 at 9:07 PM, Scott.S said:

Almost ever commercial level product has a hard drive or hard drives and records over the video.... when properly programmed. There are a number of things that you want to be able to set,,, one is motion recording. This will only record and use drive space  ( or potentially bandwidth) when the camera sees motion. The frame rate... which can be set as high as 30 frames per second.  Should be down around 7 unless your looking at alot of fast moving activity. Etc etc. There are alot of tweaks that can be done in order to save both drive space and bandwidth. On top of that you set this system to recycle say anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on the amount of drive space you use. With motion detection on that varies with how much activity your camera sees and whether you have set them up correctly.

A number of companies  make decent systems with good or better remote access and expandable drive space.  The cheapest ive used is HIK Vision. There stuff is good.. not my favorite and their support is ok. For you that want to build out your own pc id use Geovision. Software is free with them. Their support is just ok.... i no longer will build out a pc for this. PCs run into issues over time. Id stick with a more hardware based solution such as the HIK or one of the better brands. I love 3xlogic.  Not expensive, made in usa, excellent tech support, great online access options, hardened recorder... lots of options.  You cant go wrong with 3x. They also have the Infinias line of access control that integrates with your video so card access also gives you a recording tied to it making looking up stuff super easy.  And god forbid your not their and the cops show up and need a video to go... you can do that remotely for them and all someone has to do is stick in a blank dvd for you.

We spend ridiculous amounts on a still and barely blink.... step up a little and get a good surveillance system.  Perhaps you will never need it. But the day you do you will feel it was the best money you ever spent. 

Scott

Scott,

Thank you for all the information, we are still weighing out all of our options.

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On 4/10/2018 at 9:10 AM, indyspirits said:

How tech proficient are you?  If you go the ubiquiti route you can host entirely inside your own network and monitor it externally.  I call bullshit on  100 meg for six cameras unless they are 60 FPS and UHD. 

 

 

 

On 4/10/2018 at 9:12 AM, indyspirits said:

The NVR (network video recorder) is a linux box with a hard drive.  All of the cameras are hardwired and use POE.  Really good stuff. PM me if you want to pick up a call to discuss.

 

 

Indy,

Yes, the 100 meg seemed too high to us as well.  We concurred with other sources that that was false information.  As far as the ubiquities, we will consider that option.  If we go that route I will call you.

 

Thank you for the insight!

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On 4/10/2018 at 11:58 AM, Glenlyon said:

Assuming you are still in the building stage - run cat5 from your camera points to the base station. Dead easy and you can probably do it under your electrical permit. We ran ours after hours with the electricians full support. They didn't want to do it. That will save much of the installation fee and you can focus on the hardware. You get a much better signal with less failure factors if you are hardwired.

We are indeed still in the building stage, we will present this at our next job meeting.

Thank you! 

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