IP cameras for machine monitoring

[Dr Zoidberg]

I am looking for some IP cameras for monitoring machine operation and have been looking at Axis cameras, amongst others,

I have seen mentioned in a post on here about Milestone software for running the cameras,

I have no previous knowledge about setting up a camera system and any thing that any one can offer would be great,

Looking at between 10 and 20 cameras, from what i have been looking at controllers go upto 16, so probably looking at 1 controller to start with and an extra later if needed.

What does the milestone software offer over the Axis software?

I have been told we need to hold around 6 months data from each camera
I was thinking of attaching a NAS of some sort to the system to hold all this data.

Will upto 20 cameras added to our existing network grind it to a halt? im thinking possibly will?

Has any one got or seen a system of cameras used for machine monitoring?

Thanks
Keith

 

[Skidilliplop]

I doublt you'll need NAS. Couple of 1TB internal drives should be plenty, You could always fit a tape drive for archiving. chances are you dont' need "live" playback for more than 3 weeks. The rest can usually be archived. I'd recommend VLANing the cameras off from the data network and giving them their own dedicated uplinks. Usually you can set the quality and bandwidth limits per camera.
Another useful feature is most support motion detection, so they don't actually record until something moves into their FOV. This saves a hell of a lot of wasted footage. However it depends on the application.

I can't really clarify too much as i don't have much insall experience, here they sort of had the system installed and then informed IT and we sort of had to absorb responsibility for running it. I'm sure if i were involved in the original project i'd be of more use

 

[dave-lew99]

I'd highly recommend the Axis cameras, we've used their video encoding boxes (analog video to network) for a few clients at work and they are very reliable. You can use their software or 3rd party (we have it integrated into our marine surveillance system), as the cameras come with DirectShow filters.

 

[Dr Zoidberg]

Thanks, some more usefull info to look at,

VLAN off the data network - could be a good option, and solve a few other issues,

will certainly be trying to push the motion detection option rather than 24/7 recording,