Jock

Thanks for the info. As a rule-of-thumb, I reckon 1 metre to be 3 feet, (it's not quite, but good enough.)

Thanks for that - the maximum distance will be around 50 metres. As far as using local power, that's my intention - I can feed that into a RJ45 patch box local to the cameras quite easily. From the patch box to the camera is probably around 3 metres so the voltage drop over that isn't so much of an issue. I'd just like to use the existing cabling instead of having to run in new wiring with all the inherent problems!

Hi, I'm based in the UK and I've just bought a 4 camera system with PC DVR. It's all working perfectly well on the bench and now I'm ready to install it. Here's where I have some questions. The system is intended to be monitored from any one of three locations, all of which are connected via computer network. The network run on CAT5e cabling. I have a choice here - I can use the existing CAT5e cabling to run the video over, or I can install co-ax. My preference is to use the CAT5e - do I gain or lose anything from this? If I decide to use the CAT5e is there a standard for wiring? Do I have to use baluns or can I get away with just terminating two cores to a BNC plug? Thank you for your help.