On 1/31/2014 15:06, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: > That's not going to happen. The budget won't allow that much for this > item. So find the person who chose that arbitrary number, and explain to them that in their ignorance, they chose a number that has no connection with reality. Ask them -- now that they know what professional equipment actually costs -- if they would like to choose a new number. We've been over this ground before, in your UPS battery thread, but I'll repeat that your salary costs are not fixed, sunk costs. The time you spend futzing with poor quality equipment is time you don't spend doing other things. If you don't include the portion of your salary with the budget, you're not doing the budget correctly. A solution that costs $1,000 in hardware but takes 1/10 your average yearly time to hand-hold is more expensive than a solution that costs $10,000 and only needs a specialist to come in and check on it once a year. If you think that's wrong, you aren't amortizing over the years the cameras are expected to last. Your time is a recurring expense; the hardware isn't. A pro-grade security camera should last many years.