Soundy

You can use the neat little screw connectors like in that video, if the camera is 12VDC... or you can use terminal strips, your favorite type of crimp connectors, or if you're really hardcore, twist, solder and heatshrink.

If the cameras are all looking slightly scrambled, it's possible the card is designed for a different video standard than your cameras. If you're using NTSC cameras, it could mean the card supports PAL... or vice-versa.

Hahahah, that's funny, just for the "distance" contradiction Wireless like this is functional to MAYBE 100' line-of-sight... less through walls, and with steadily dropping quality the further you go (at maximum range, you may have a picture, but it will be unwatchable).

I can't see anything in that camera's specs that indicate it's a true day/night camera with movable IR cut filter, so it's not surprising that it doesn't work with the illuminator. Because ambient IR light can adversely affect a color camera's exposure and color balance, almost all color cameras have an IR cut filter over the sensor. Cheaper day/night cameras simply remove it and then attempt to compensate electronically for the exposure and color issues; "true day/night" cameras can move the filter out of the way automatically when the camera switches to night mode. The presence of that filter is likely why your camera doesn't work with the illuminator.

VLC won't do it on its own either - you need the proper GV player and codec. Rory has a little package with all the necessary files for a "portable" GV player, maybe he'll chime in here.

I've actually only had to do this once, and we just used beanie crimps. Most of the time we try to align the power supply and DVR so we can simply split out enough of either the video OR power pairs and connect them directly. The exact method varies depending on the site. For the instance I noted above, we were actually replacing a couple dozen coax runs through four or five separate conduits, with the half-dozen Cat5e runs in one conduit... in that case, we terminated the Cat5 into the "remote" building's electrical room with RJ45s, and used some MuxLab four-channel BNC baluns (or it might have been GEMs... I don't remember now... same idea, either way), and just connected the existing camera runs to those. That was a trick, too, because we had to go to three different suppliers to get five baluns on short notice (would have been two+ weeks to order more in)... since we didn't have enough to add more at the back end, and were actually running most (though not all) of them into a MUX first anyway, we just used individual baluns at that end. Availability? Like I said, I had to go to three different suppliers just to find stock on the five quads I DID find, and one of those, I still had to wait two days to get two of them in... Same thing, I wouldn't be surprised if availability of multipair would be an issue here. Like... I would have no reason to STOCK any more than about 20' of 25-pair (and that would most likely be leftovers from removing something else), while it IS convenient for us to stock lots of Cat5e (my last shopping trip, I think I got my coworker and I four boxes EACH, since it's just so damn versatile). I like to make things as pretty as the next installer, but for something that's going to sit in a locked closet for 99.9% of its life and only ever be appreciated by another tech, I'm not going out of my way to spec, purchase, pick up and stock a bunch of multipair cable - it's just not cost effecting for something I MIGHT use once.

Those four- and eight-channel units are functionally just a bunch of single baluns in one box, so all you'd be doing is going camera->balun->cat5->balun->short coax->balun->cat5->balun->DVR: there's a whole extra balun->coax->balun stage there that's unnecessary complexity and cost. As rory says, a punchblock can make it easy, but it's not necessary - I've done it both ways, in fact. In one, we used five Cat5 runs to feed 14 cameras and three monitor returns between buildings. My standard setup is to use the blue pair for video (with simple screw-terminal or toolless baluns, rather than fancy RJ45-terminated, power-included baluns), and orange and green pairs for power, so in this case, I'd split out the power pairs and extend them (if necessary) with 18/2 to the power supply, then connect the blue pair from each run to one of the four pairs in the "interconnect", and terminate each of those in a balun at the other end (although one of the four-channel boxes could be more convenient at that point, too).

I'd have to check to be sure, but I think IP Video Design Tool will do it...

Unfortuantely, there is no documented "standard" that CCTV manufacturers have to adhere to for these specs. Most reputable manufacturers will use the same or similar commonly-accepted test procedures, but many of the cheaper types (particularly no-name "brands") do not.

And like Adam says, if you do need additional light, I second the recommendation for motion-activated floodlights - even some low-wattage types will work great with these cameras.

metricu_cctv_tester you have made your point. please NO MORE PMs. I got one too... if he's not been banned yet, he will be now. Way to make yourself look like a douche, pal.

Second the recommendation for the CNB Monalisa - great picture with very little ambient light. This is one we put on a restaurant patio... first with a few 60W bulbs: And here the only light is a little bit filtering through the blinds on the window to the right, and a street light about 100' away to the left:

Yes, you can do that... you can actually run four video signals over a single Cat5e cable (or Cat3, or Cat6, or whatever).

I've watched lots of Dog Whisperer, I know how to handle pitbulls

Three things to keep in mind: 1. "TV Lines" is a nebulous spec at best, even when manufacturers AREN'T making up numbers for it - don't get too hung up on it. 2. NTSC video itself is limited to 525 vertical lines (625 for PAL). There's no getting around this *standard* without moving into true high-def standards, or IP. 3. There isn't a direct correlation between sampling resolution and "TV Lines", so again, don't get too hung up on it. At most, think of it as weakest-link theory, and if your camera has higher resolution that the video standard supports, then the camera won't be your weakest link for image clarity.

You sure about that? I mean, you're constantly doing everything you can to convince us that the conditions where you are must be the more terrible in the world - if it's not the power, it's the heat, or the crime rate, or the import duties... seriously, is there ANYTHING you like about where you live?

Then you move to somewhere with more stable power, like Nigeria.

That's because the signal has to route via the nearest transformer bridging the two phases... something that's probably on a pole down the street somewhere. Which is still probably at least 20 times faster than his internet uplink

Sounds like quite the setup. I'll really have to arrange to pop up for a visit the next time I'm headed up that way! Fortunately, probably not much of an issue at 12V

802.11n is a wireless spec and applies only to the wireless connection. The wired LAN ports on the router are going to be either 100 megabit, or 1 gigabit. The port on your DVR is probably 100 megabit as well. All that aside, if you're mainly going to be watching this over the internet, there's no point in worrying about your Homeplug connection being any faster than your internet connection's uplink speed, since that's likely not going to be more than 1-2 megabit (and possibly as low as 128 kilobit).

Most routers should let you forward to any IP within their subnet, but I have seen a few that complain if you try to use an IP outside their DHCP pool. What I prefer to do, if the router supports it, is to give the DVR a "reserved" or static IP in the router's setup itself - then the router will always give it the same DHCP IP. If the router supports it, I also prefer to leave the DVR at its default port(s), and let the DVR do the redirecting - ie. leave the DVR on port 80 and tell the router to redirect incoming WAN requests on port 98 to port 80 on the LAN. It's also good practice, BTW, if you're using custom ports for things, to go into the four- or five-digit range.

Existing CATV cable may also be RG58... which will also work (probably), although it will be a lot harder to find BNC connectors for - you may have to use RG58 F-connectors and F-to-BNC adapters. BTW, your RCA video cables most likely are coaxial as well - coaxial just means it has a single center conductor and a surrounding outer conductor (co-axial = one shared axis)

It's not what *I* want, it's what *you* want - you're the one telling us repeatedly how a CRT is the ONLY proper way to focus a camera

You need to check the specs - most of them use the same port(s) for in and out, with a toggle switch somewhere to select which function it's using. But... but... it's not a CRT!