Soundy

You could try Scorpion's site, here: http://scorpiontheater.com/default.aspx SEANHAWG deals with a lot of used gear, he may have something too.

Welcome aboard!

Depends on the PTZ and its power requirements. You can use one pair for video, one for control, and two for power... IF the camera doesn't require too much power, and IF the run isn't too long... and it will help if the camera supports 24V (AC or DC doesn't matter, the voltage drop will be the same). Or you could power the camera locally over separate 18/2 and then run video and data over their own pairs in a Cat5. Just don't run the control signal through a balun (unless it's the pass-through type designed for that purpose).

That is correct. Passive baluns work the same on both ends of the wire.

Keep in mind that prices in Rory's area aren't really relevant in the rest of the developed world. Siamese goes for about the same retail price here in Canada... IF you buy in bulk. At a standard brick-and-mortar electronics retailer in North America, you're probably looking at 35c/ft., for Cat5, or around 10c/ft. in bulk <$100 for a 1000' box). A 500' box of Siamese at the same store is $160 (or $320 for 1000'). *Quality* baluns can be had for $5/pair. Do the math. Be sure to factor in your installation time and the fact that Siamese cable is a PITA to work with. Rory is correct on one point: you're WAY over-thinking things.

Is this budget supposed to include installation? Depending on your labor rates, you're probably looking at $750-$1000 worth of labor alone to install 10 cameras in a facility that size. If you assume an average 200' wire run per camera, and $1/ft. for the wire itself (including your markup, I would hope, and depending on what price you can source it at), that's $2000 for wiring alone. Even cutting corners, you've probably used up that budget without even buying the equipment.

You've nailed it! Baluns are "tranceivers", which means they can both transmit and receive: you can use four of those same units above at the DVR end - you just need short coax "jumpers" to connect the baluns to the DVR... or use something like this: http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=243&category_id=41&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

You can use just about any pair of wire with baluns to move analog video. You could use station wire to keep it less conspicuous than Cat5. Tuck it under flashings, edges of siding, etc. to route around the membrane.

Not inherently, although you may need to use at least one active balun at that distance. None. Induced noise would only come from AC power to start with, and using a balanced line over twisted pair allows the wiring to reject noise anyway. For any given power rating (wattage), you'll actually see half the current draw and half the voltage loss at 24V compared to 12V. Thus, it's MORE important to double up at 12V than at 24V. If your cameras support both, you should prefer 24V over 12. UTP with baluns are much less likely to have noise issues in this environment. No. He's either ignorant, or lying through his teeth. Distortion, no... sufficient current can cause interference, but cameras don't draw enough current at enough voltage to be an issue... and again, the combination of twisted pair and balanced line inherently rejects induced noise. I've run power and video together through about 800' of Cat5e still coiled in its box, in the process of testing an assortment of baluns... this did NOT cause an issue. UTP will reject noise with video in the same way it does for data: because of the twisted wires, any noise that's induced in one wire will be induced equally in the other, and the two noise signals will cancel each other out (that's a grossly oversimplified description, but it should give you the basic idea).

Try connecting the wires, firing up the computer and camera, then swapping the wires without restarting. It's weird, but I've seen this work...

http://www.google.ca/search?gcx=c&ix=c2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=active+video+distribution+amplifier

One pair of 24ga. Cat5e is approximately equivalent to one 21ga. wire. "Good for" depends on the draw and the distance, as well as the actual voltage the camera requires. For an example, let's take a CNB VCM-24VF, which is rated for 2.2W power consumption. Let's say we want to put it 300' away, using two pairs for power. Using this handy calculator: http://www.netkrom.com/voltage_loss_over_cat5_calculator.html 2.2W at 12V is about 200mA (rough estimate), so plugging that into the calculator, using two pair, you get a drop of 0.7V, so if your power supply puts out a solid 12VDC, at the camera you'd see 11.3V. At 24V, current draw would be 100mA; drop rates about .3V If you use only a single pair for power, the voltage loss is twice as much... so with 12V power, the camera would only see 10.6V; with 24V, it would get 23.4V. If memory serves, the VCM-24VF will actually work with anything from about 10 to 30V, so you're probably okay either way, but you get the idea... they're a pretty robust and low-power camera though; others with higher power consumption (particularly those with built-in IR) will see much greater losses, and probably be a lot less forgiving of under-voltages. Personally, I'd recommend using two pairs for the power if for no other reason than simplicity of installation.

If it's outdoor-rated, you don't need conduit to protect it from the elements... but you may still need it if physical tampering is a concern. Keep in mind that Cat6 itself is about three times the price of Cat5e... outdoor-rated is probably 4-5 times the price of that. Conduit and Cat5e will probably be a lot cheaper.

The cctvdirectbuy link there is the same unit as the easterncctv ones I bought, except they were cheaper than that. The other one, I don't see a substantial difference except that it's 24VDC rather than 12VDC power to the cameras (not a problem with the CNBs, will be an issue with some cheaper 12V-only cameras), and BNCs are on the opposite side from the RJ45s. The cheaper one doesn't state what the total power output is, it's probably less, but whether that's important depends on your cameras' power demands.

Around here, code states no more than four 90-degree bends without a pull box. The larger the bend radius, the easier it will be to pull wire through. Lots of wire lube is your friend - the clear stuff is a lot nicer to work with and will dry out in a while, so it doesn't leave a mess, but if you're pulling big bundles long distances, you'll want to use the waxy yellow stuff. Easy way to get a string through the pipe is with a vacuum: make a "mouse" by folding a little piece of plastic bag on itself into a bubble, then seal it by tying your pull string around the ends... insert that into one end of the conduit, then use a rag or something to seal a vacuum hose tip around the other end of the conduit. Only takes a minute or so per 100' of tubing PVC is a lot easier to get water-tight. If you're running across a flat roof or directly on the ground, you want to protect against water getting into the run, especially if you're somewhere that gets freezing temperatures.

Also... ENT (electrical non-mechanical tubing, not to be confused with the medical disciplines or giant Tolkienesque trees) can be handy as well - it looks like corrugated PVC; it's flexible, and the connectors just snap on. Costs about the same as PVC. Also, if you don't need to protect the wire from physical damage, you can use standard split loom, the type that's often used in cars - if it'll survive years or decades in a car's engine bay, it'll survive a little wind and rain under your eaves

my co-worker's roommate works in a body shop, they have a standalone sand blaster that he uses.

I do it all the time - split a camera out to a monitor and DVR, for example. Of course, cheap cameras with poor output drivers may have problems with this, and consumer gear may not load the line properly... but it works just fine, and for some very long runs, with "pro" gear. I suspect if the OP is having problems with this, it's because he's trying to run the camera directly into his TV's RF input... OP, unless you're using a modulator, you have to run the camera into an A/V input (usually a yellow RCA jack) on the machine.

What IS the budget? A 12mm lens may be too tight a shot to cover as much area as you need.

They "convert" the unbalanced coaxial line/output/input on the cameras to a balanced signal (thus the name, "BALanced/UNbalanced") for transmission over twisted pair cable. You need one on each end of the run, one to balance the signal from the camera, another to unbalance it to feed back into the DVR. Cat5e is used most commonly, because it's readily available and relatively inexpensive, but you can can use just about any pair of wire you want. Twisted pair (like Cat3, Cat5, Cat6, etc.) adds the benefit of additional noise rejection, but I've used baluns successfully with station wire (four conductors, such as is often used with alarms and intercoms), speaker wire... even lamp cord in a pinch. Depends on the design. Some use screw terminals, some have "tool-less" punchdown terminals, some have an RJ-45 jack so you can just plug in a network cable (this DOES NOT put the camera on the network, it just allows you to use those types of cables and connectors). Almost exclusively. Cat5e is cheaper than coax (and with coax, you still need to run separate power - with Cat5e, you can run video and power over the same cable, and/or run multiple cameras on a single cable), it's easier to work with (more flexible), and it's future-proof - upgrading to an IP camera later is easy. And it helps limit the number of boxes of different cable I have to carry around in my van.

There is no "best" camera or DVR. There is "best for this specific purpose", or varying degrees of "better for this specific purpose" but there is no 100% one-size-fits-all perfect solution. More importantly, there is "best for the price range for this specific purpose" as there is a WIDE range of prices. If you want high-def/high-resolution, be prepared to pay for it - megapixel cameras typically start around $200 and go up rapidly into the $10,000+ range. The first thing you need to do is define your needs: what do you want to watch? How large an area? What level of detail? Do you need to identify people, or just activities? Are you more worried about vandals, prowlers, burglars, or liability issues (someone falling on your sidewalk and then suing you for their own clumsiness)? After that, you need to determine what you're prepared to spend, since again, you can get complete package systems starting at $300-$400 that will give you crap results, right up to systems running into the tens of thousands that will let you count the nose hairs on a perp a half-mile away.

OK, I think I got it figure out: At the camera I would use this: http://www.easterncctv.com/accessories/ev01p-vp-t.htm Then I would run the Cat5e down to the main office area where the DVR would be located, I would connect the Cat5e cable to this: http://www.easterncctv.com/accessories/ev16p-vps.htm Then I would run a short RG cable from the VPS to the DVR. This would give me video and power to the cameras, all while using Cat5e as the main wire pull. Am I correct? That's the basic setup, yup! One cable direct to each camera. What these units also do, is combine each set of four channel runs, into one of the "4 in 1" jacks, so if, for example, you have four cameras a long way from the office, you can put the VPS in the remote location, plug all the cameras into it, then use a single run to get four cameras back to the office. But don't let that confuse you - what you've outlined above is exactly the basic setup you'd use. We use the VCM-24VF (no H - don't need heaters for most of our jobs) almost exclusively. They're a great all-around camera with excellent low-light capabilities, and the surface/flush mount options make them very versatile. Plus, they look good in different colors Here's one we painted black and flush mounted in a brick wall (we put a gang box on the back wall and the bricklayers worked around it): Here's one that we sandblasted down to the bare aluminum, then added a clear coat, and mounted in a "cemetitious" ceiling panel (the boarders cut the hole too big - we fixed it later with a trim plate): Here's one that we painted black, sitting on its back-box (we found that sandblasting the stock white powdercoat off first made the new paint a lot more durable): (edit: Oops, I guess on second look, that's just a shadow, not the back-box...)

We usually do the install on a per-hour labour basis (hourly labour rate, estimate the time it will take to install), plus estimated materials. Don't forget to factor in parts like connectors, power supplies, shop supplies (wire loom, zip-ties, etc.), conduit if necessary, etc. It would be the same labour rate, of course... main challenge with residential walls is insulation stuffed in walls, although that's usually only a factor on outside walls. In commercial situations, you more likely have insulation in some interior walls, firestops in walls, etc. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25486 viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24721 viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15462 viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10330 Depends somewhat on the specific installation - I usually like to get the worst part out of the way first, which usually means pulling in the wiring. Anything you feel particularly uncomfortable with. If you feel a LITTLE BIT uncomfortable, go for it - we learn best by pushing our boundaries Just be prepared, if you're working from a quoted price, to eat a little profit if things take longer than you expected Consider it cheaper than the cost of schooling Depends on the location. Some jurisdictions have strict licensing/certification requirements... others have none. Insurance is probably a good idea even if it's not required. If you're doing it as a business, you'll probably need the appropriate business license(s), especially if you're going to do any work that requires building permits.

I think you've got it a little backward . I'm on my phone right now, but when I'm home later, I'll try to do up a diagram. Let me go over this to make sure I am getting this right. From the beginning at the DVR location, I have my DVR which has the RJ45 cables which I would run to each floor. At each floor I would use the "4 in 1" port which then adds PoE. I then run a Cat5e line from the "4 in 1" port to each camera on that floor. At each camera location I would use the adapter which converts the Cat5e PoE into a separate power and video connection. Is that right? I am confused why I would have to use, "http://www.easterncctv.com/accessories/ev04p.htm - along with a set of short Cat5e patch cords to connect to the DVR." Why would I have to use that if the RJ45 cable is going from the back of the DVR to the "4 in 1" port box on the floors?

Only if you're building your own. If you're talking about turnkey systems, especially one where the DVR interface replaces the desktop shell, there's no reason at all there should be any difference in learning between that or a standalone.