Advice on suitable set up to record factory operations

[JohnnyMPS]

At the factory where I work we are replacing a huge piece of machinery that will take 3 or 4 months to complete. Our operations director has decided he wants to record the entire process for posterity. Nothing fancy he says, just a single camera mounted to the rear wall of the factory to capture everything that goes on until the job's done. I've been tasked with organising this and while I know a fair bit about computers, networks and general electronics devices, I know very little about cameras and recording. With that in mind, I was wondering would a hi-res, wide angle CCTV camera do the job and does anyone have any recommendations for the equipment we should get?

If this is all a bit vague I apologise as it's all I've been told so far, but feel free to ask me for more details and I'll try my best to answer promptly.

Thanks in advance.

Johnny

 

[Phil]

Hi Johnny,
Most IP cameras will do this for you.
Typically you'd configure it to ftp a still image to some file space you determine, at a time interval you set, within your scheduled days and hours.
The Axis brand cameras tend to give you most flexibility of settings (little things like being able to set the filename to automatically be date/time).
Depending on your intended use for the finished time-lapse, you may not need more than a 2MP camera.
2MP = 1920 x 1080 pixels, if you upload it to YouTube then still most people's browsers and PC monitors are limited to this.
If you prefer, there is nothing stopping you capturing and uploading in 4K / 8MP resolution, as per this demo we uploaded (not time-lapse, just illustrating 4K capture & playback from YouTube - looks stunning on a big-screen 4K TV) -

The Axis range is here - Axis IP Cameras ¦ use-IP Ltd
A guide on time-lapse setup by Axis here - https://www.axis.com/files/faq/How_...Axis_Camera_or_Encoder_with_Firmware_5_XX.pdf (dated 2014, so screenshots will look different, but hopefully helpful)