camera advise for small retail store

[hobie]

good day all - wondering if someone can help me out, i have a small retail store (1000 sq ft) which, until now has been run by family/friends.....with new employees coming to work the shop, i want to keep an eye on things from home......at this point i'm not looking for recording capabilities, but would like the ability to add it in the future......from what i can find from looking through this forum, i'm thinking of one PTZ camera - i'd like a reasonably priced camera, no need for night vision or wireless.....also how important is H-264 compression vs the MPEG-4 compression.....is there anything else i should look at or consider?......any info would be helpful and appreciated - thanks.....

[buellwinkle]

A half way decent PTZ camera will run you about $680, like the Panasonic BB-HCM580A. It's PoE, will do what you expect. If that's too much money, then you'll need to forego PTZ, maybe have someone walk around with the camera and do the PTZ manually

A good PTZ camera, reffered to as a speed dome will run you over $2,000 so the Panny is really a good deal for what it does.

H264 is a standard that PC's and such use. I have it on my Axis cameras but never use it. Most camera that do not have H264 use motion jpeg and that a format that works with just about anything. I have no issues with camera that do or do not have H264 as high end cameras that do not have it have their own compression that's equally effective.