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NEW TO CCTV AND VIDEO SURVEILANCEw

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I'm a total novice with regards to Video surveillance systems so please answer in a way that I can understand..

 

I would like to install a Video surveillance system for my private house.

 

The System should have:

- 6 External Cameras

- 3 or 4 Internal Cameras

- Be CAT 5 so that I don't have to run power cables (any other suggestions welcome)

- The DVR should be capable of storing 4 weeks of video. I don't know what this equates to hard drive size wise?

- I would like to be able to view any of the cameras remotely from either the Web such as Safari, Firefox IE as well as mobile apps on iPad and iphone or DROID devises.

- The system should be reasonably easy to setup.

- Will I need a static IP address? I have a cable modem at home.

- Secure.. we don't want someone hacking in and watching us eat our lunch in our home!

- Have reasonably easy search tools, and an ability to ave data to an external storage devise suck as a disk or memory card. Being able to send video to an standalone hardrive via USB would also be nice but not a must.

 

I don't want bells and whistles that I won't use. Cost is obviously important.

 

Can anyone recommend a DVR that fits this wish list?

 

Any suggestion on cameras?

 

Thanks!

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Could someone tell me if I'm asking the wrong questions?.. I've asked the same on two forums now and got no response!.. I'm beginning to think that the CCTV world is some sort of secret society!!

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We could help you but then we'd have to kill you.

 

Seriously, you basically have to get lucky and catch someone reading your questions when they have time to answer them. I read on my phone a lot this time of year (busy time for me) and am lucky to be able to do a short post quickly. If I read something that I'm interested in but don't have time then it disappears later because I just browse via the unread posts button.

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We could help you but then we'd have to kill you.

 

Seriously, you basically have to get lucky and catch someone reading your questions when they have time to answer them. I read on my phone a lot this time of year (busy time for me) and am lucky to be able to do a short post quickly. If I read something that I'm interested in but don't have time then it disappears later because I just browse via the unread posts button.

 

Thanks!! .. It's good to know that someone is reading LOL!!!.. Appreciate the response!

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What is your budget? What is your level of knowledge when it comes to networking? If your network illiterate, than I would suggest to stay away from an IP system. An analog system will be less expensive and generally easier to install. If power

cables is your concern, you can use cat5 with video baluns and power even for analog. The other choice is IP with a POE switch

that powers your cameras and receives the data. So, without alittle more info from you, I personally wouldn't recommend a

system.

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What is your budget? What is your level of knowledge when it comes to networking? If your network illiterate, than I would suggest to stay away from an IP system. An analog system will be less expensive and generally easier to install. If power

cables is your concern, you can use cat5 with video baluns and power even for analog. The other choice is IP with a POE switch

that powers your cameras and receives the data. So, without alittle more info from you, I personally wouldn't recommend a

system.

 

OK.. so can I ask some questions..

 

- What protocol is usually employed over the ethernet connection between the cameras and the DVR assuming that I DO want to use the ability to Power over Ethernet (POE)? However as an end user it isn't really important to me if I consider the camera and DVR as a black box. What is important to me is error correction and interference tolerance of each? CAn you give me the options from best to worst?

 

- What is important to me is the compatibility of those two black boxes protocol wise and would like some recommendations on these as far as manufacturer and model numbers go?

 

- What is a Video Balun?

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