Outsourcing

Poor outsourcing creates a nightmare out of something that should be a turn key job.

Think before you act. Find someone with experience in precisely what you need. For example, very few electricians have installed a pan/tilt camera, while a security company may have a professional who does this every day. Even though the professional will charge you twice that of the electrician, when it is all said and done you will get away cheaper using the professional.

An example of this happened in my home church. An electrician put in a pan/tilt camera using a huge 15 element 16 gauge wire cable. The video ran down this same cable along with the power and controls. The video looked like we were tuning into a weak television station. He also didn't set the pan limiting stops, so about a year later a junior high kid motored the camera all the way around and it committed suicide by pulling the wires out of the $800 zoom lense. (I recommend multiple cameras with cheap lenses instead of an expensive zoom lense on one camera. Doing it this way is cheaper and easier to operate. The basic system requires 2 cameras, neither with a zoom lense.)

Just because someone is a professional does not mean they know everything. A camera installer at a security firm may be used to installing 'IP' cameras. These are great for security, pumping their digital signal directly into your router. But how do you get the signal into a video capture board where you need it? Everything must be thought through else you end up with a pile of high tech junk.

In conclusion, go with a real professional and supply him with the knowledge he needs to do his job.