dustmop

The CM9505 keyboards use RS-422, while the KBD960 uses RS-485. You could try a converter of some sort. I have no idea if that will work.

In general, I'd avoid being on the same circuit as anything HVAC related (for ANYTHING, not just CCTV). I'd do the math on the amperage load to determine if you need to pull a new circuit for all your equipment. If it's relatively easy to do to pull a new one, just do it. If there is a difficulty or inexperience factor, just be SURE you won't overload whatever circuit you do use.

I like to use Panduit slotted duct for things like this. Comes in 6' lengths. Run it from the ceiling to wherever you need it on the wall.

At home, I use a CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD and love it. At work, I have a big Liebert Npower 100KVA UPS.

Strange, we've never met, yet we seem to use a lot of the same techniques...

Thanks for the input... what do you do about the power? Every balun I have come across limits the power to ~300 feet. I use a siamese cable that has a seperate 16/2 for power. For power purposes, almost nothing is more than ~300 feet from a closet/panel. The UTP gets routed through multi-pair trunks back to the head-end (which can be well over 1,000 feet)

I have a bunch of cameras that are over 1,000 feet away. UTP cable with a passive balun at the camera, and an active balun at the head end. Works great.

And them some high quality UV-resistant electrical tape, and a bit of a service loop "just in case".

In the machines with Areca controllers, there is a hotspare (LSI is a pain to set hotspares in their lousy GUI). That's how I got the double-failure. About halfway through the automatic rebuild, a second drive had an "unrecoverable error" in the array. Nice thing with Areca is that once a hotspare is used, after you pull the bad drive, the new one you put in is automatically made the hotspare. Now THAT is handy! LSI requires user interaction for almost all steps after a drive failure.

This assumes the CAT3 is 22awg: Wire gauge tables say that 22awg will drop 3.53 volts at 30 feet at 4A. 18awg will drop only 1.54 volts, which is within the 10% spec of the camera. Twisting the 2 pairs of 22awg will give you roughly 79% the cross section of 18awg (calculators and tables usually don't include 19awg, btw). So it MIGHTwork, depending on the camera and PSU. If you CAT3 is 24awg, then it's likely not going to work at all.

I always wondered if something like this existed... Man that would make cleaning the building exterior cameras easy! Time to order one!

Indeed. Just to get into my rooms in the state I'm in requires you to be a Gaming Commission licensed vendor. Vegas, on the other hand... I've been in several Vegas rooms. They're actually not as exciting looking as people/television would have you believe. Also, I do NOT miss staring at monitors and following people for 40 hours a week.

All RAID6 for me. All machines have 11 or 12 drives, using 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb (depending on how old the box is). Older machines have Areca controllers (which I LOVE), newer ones have LSI controllers (GUI is clunky, but they work well). After 4 years, I finally had my first double-failure in an array last month during a rebuild. So glad I was using RAID6 and not 5! Also, I use all Seagate ES.2 enterprise drives. My home box uses an LSI controller and 5x1tb consumer drives in RAID5. I'd hate to lose the data, but it's not the end of the world if I do. At work, however, loss of data is a fineable offense...

I actually had to stop myself from a very rude reply.

Yes, we currently have alot of the ST31000524AS in the field in smaller standalone DVR's, no issues. I have 5 of those exact drives in a RAID5 at home as my media server.

All 7200rpm SATA Seagate Constellation drives here (mostly ES.2). I have well over 300 of them in my environment, and the failure rate is rate is acceptable (RAID6 to get prevent data loss from any single or dual failure in each machine). 5 year warranties on enterprise drives from most manufacturers as well. I've heard good things about the WDC re3 and re4 drives as well. In my personal builds, I like the Barracudas. How many cameras are you looking to record? It really depends on how much you try to write to the disc. Based on the specs of the Pipeline drive, it looks like it is meant for TV DVRs, so it can likely take some serious read/write abuse, since modern TV DVRs are ALWAYS reading/writing so you can pause, rewind, etc. Might do just fine. Also, looks like a 3 year warranty on them.

I use the F-Conn compression connectors, and usually buy them in bulk from Communications Supply Corporation (CSC). Distributor list for ICM Corp/F-Conn parts here.

The large h.264 casino installations I've seen tend to use an I-frame every second, regardless of total IPS recording rate. I-frame (or key), is a complete image of the scene. The remaining P-frames (all other images in the interval before the next I-frame) are simply what has changed from the initial I-frame. That is why when using VBR, you see bandwidth go up with more movement, or if using CBR, you see image quality decrease with movement. Like has been said already, please consider what happens with lots of movement and also if the I-frame is garbled from a packet drop on any remote camera (like the one over someone else's fiber). Otherwise, play with the settings and find yourself a nice compromise between video playback quality, and storage utilization.

This. I work at a site with hundreds and hundreds of cameras (can't give you an exact number...), and all but about 20 are running on 24vac. The 20 or so that are running on 12vdc, I had ground loop issues with 6 of them. Not a single issue with ANY of the 24vac runs.

Every incident ever saved is on the array. It is backed up to tape for disaster recovery. We've been saving incidents for several years now, and we don't like to destroy old records. You never know when you'll need something that might mitigate an insanely large lawsuit from a few years ago. I work in a bit of niche market, however, and the way we do things is most commonly seen in city centers/government/casinos. Some of the incidents might contain dozens of hours of footage. Also, when you submit evidence to lawyers/LEOs, it has to be on a CD/DVD, along with the md5 hashes and watermarks, so they can show it wasn't tampered with. They would never accept something on a thumbdrive, as any good defense attorney would destroy the credibility of the evidence on said device based on that fact that it simple COULD have been tampered with.

How long are you keeping video? If it was turned into an "incident" where it was specifically clipped for whatever reason, we keep it forever. All of that video is stored on one large RAID6 array (~10TB), and then backed up to tape like I said above. At the current rate of use, that box will be full by this time next year.

I use tape, but that's for backup of incidents that are kept on a RAID-6 box. Full backup every few months, incremental backup every few days. Automated 24-tape LTO-3 library. Takes about 18 LTO-3 tapes for a full backup. Wish I could switch to LTO-5, but I can't justify the price. In reality, you could duplicate your entire storage system for what would ultimately be less than tape, if you consider labor costs. A monster SAN might be a bit pricey, but you could look into things like EMC or Pivot3. Both have experience in the surveillance world, too. (and no, I do not use either product) If security of said video data is of a super high priority, put it on it's own physically separate network. Do not let it touch any other network at all, whether in-house or the internet. If you must connect it out, do it through a nice ASA, and lock it down tight.

Is the fuse burning out as soon as you replace it, before you even get to put the camera back in? If so, I have that issue with Spectra IV's about 3 times a year (I have several hundred of them). I usually just replace the back-box, or if it's a pendant-mount, I swap out the board itself. If it is NOT burning out as soon as you change it, but burns when the camera is plugged in, try a different camera.

That balun should work. You can wait for more opinions to chime in here. As for the power, do it locally if you can; Cat5 isn't going to be enough for 12vdc over that distance. 18/2 or 16/2 would be fine at around 250 feet (you did say half way).

Powering them locally from the light pole itself is the way to go. As for interference, nothing will really prevent the noise from 220 (usual pole lamp voltage) carrying into the UTP, other than distance. Keep them separated from the line voltage as much as possible. Something else to consider: Mounting cameras on light poles can cause issues with lightning. I use active and passive UTP Transceiver hubs (imagine 32 baluns in once nice rackmount box) where I am. Many years ago, before we moved buildings, our parking lot light pole cameras were powered at the pole, but had UTP running back to the recording end. I lost 7 ports on the UTP hubs from lightning strikes (and it only burnt the fuses in the cameras). Thankfully, they did not make it any further. It did also make the pair used for video unusable. Just remember, lightning can cause a VERY bad day. Please look into lightning protection for the cables coming back from those cameras. I use fiber for exterior light poles now, so I don't have to worry about lightning.