Soundy

http://www.google.ca/search?q=door%20peephole%20camera&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=513

All customers are different in what they want in a camera... or what they think they want/need. The job of an integrator is to determine what their SECURITY needs are, and then recommend the proper cameras and equipment to address those needs. You mean is it important to have that setting available? Not to me... I don't think I've ever used it, in 8+ years in this business and thousands of cameras installed. On cameras that DO have the option, I find the "auto white balance" setting works just fine. In what price range? (Cameras with built-in IR, BTW, most often tend to be cheap junk cameras with poor low-light performance that use the IR to compensate for that shortcoming... so "top brands" in that category is largely irrelevant). Besides a DVR, what else WOULD one bundle a camera with? Buy a camera, get a free puppy? Given that there is no one-size-fits-all camera and cameras should be chosen depending on specific needs for *each view*, camera/DVR bundles really aren't a good way to start. "url:cctvforum.com" What sort of research is this?

Not so! There are cameras that have an option for progressive output (Pelco IS90 domes come immediately to mind as ones that I've used before). I would say you're right up there, yup

^I have that same set (actually, I have three - two of the one-foot rods, one of the three-foot rods). My dad picked them up at Grizzly Tools in WA... I think the one-foot packs cost about $2-$3 each They're very handy but I've found the threads can be a little sloppy and I've taken to putting a quick wrap of PVC tape around them to keep them from unscrewing while in an inaccessible place

I'm not familiar with ZoneMinder specifically, but at a guess... * It simply doesn't support higher resolutions with analog capture cards * You're not looking at the right capture cards * The cards you're looking at aren't using good drivers * The people you're asking don't know any better (offhand I'd give this the best chance) Highest NTSC resolution I've seen for any DVR is 740x480; 704x480 or 640x480 are more common, depending on the specific card and software. Seems to me I've heard of some that go a little higher, but of dozens of cards on the market, most are probably based on one of about three or four chips, so there's not going to be a lot of variation in real capabilities in the mass market. Since NTSC video maxes out at 525 vertical lines, it's really pointless to go much higher anyway.

My dvr has 8 i/o alarm inputs and i/o output alarm, as stated in my manual. I never understood what the heck to do with this block, only that it's the alarm and ptz stuff. You mean to say that I could manually trigger a siren hooking up to one of those spots? That's the idea! Check our aviary member's suggestions above. Note that you'll need to find out what voltage the alarm outputs provide, if any (some outputs are just switched contacts) and what current it's capable of, as not all are the same. The vast majority of alarm sirens you'll find will take 12VDC at probably well under 1A. As for how to trigger it manually, that too will depend on the DVR.

Here you go... this, AFAIK, is as it came from the factory. Note that it has a second SATA data and power cable already: (The ribbon cable is the front-panel connector)

Yes. No.

You would normally only connect the TX pair on the DVR to the RX pair on the camera, although some cameras will also work with it connected to its TX pair instead (depends on the specific design, I suppose).

I have a VMAX16 sitting on my workbench, I can get a picture of its innards tomorrow, if nobody comes up with anything sooner....

As with so many other industries where you get what you pay for, it's generally a matter of prioritizing. Do you spend the money on a good DVR and cheap cameras first, or start with good cameras and a crappy DVR, then upgrade the DVR later as budget permits? There's no single answer for that - it all depends on the individual needs. In the case of CCTV, a good camera will generally serve you well for many years, and while analog camera technology IS still seeing breakthroughs here and there, for the most part, it's peaked, so if you put some extra bucks into a couple of quality cameras, you'll have something you can build around. DVR technology, on the other hand, is accelerating and getting cheaper quickly, so it might be preferable to start off with a cheaper recorder to go with those cameras, and plan to get something better a little ways down the road. Of course, if you're just a tinkerer, you're probably going to be on a constant upgrade cycle of one thing at a time as you find good deals, used treasures, etc.

Most DVRs have relay outputs of some sort... one of those could easily be used to trigger a basic 12VDC siren.

The focal length is what relates directly to field of view, and with it the distance you can see. Check out some of the examples here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24549 The diameter of the opening is called the aperture, and affects the amount of light it allows and the depth of field.

I think your problem here is that you're approaching the whole thing with a misunderstanding of what "IR" actually does in this context. There's nothing special or magical about it; these aren't thermal-imaging cameras or anything high-tech like that. In your case, you're looking at very cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel cameras that have very poor ability to "see" in low light... and so to compensate, they add a bunch of two-cent LEDs that emit light at the fringe of the visible spectrum. Imagine shining an LED flashlight to illuminate your subject... except it's near-IR instead of white light: invisible to the human eye, but visible to your average camera sensor. Now there's an inherent drawback to this: there's lots of ambient IR and near-IR light in nature, and because the camera sees it while we don't, it can throw off a camera's exposure and color balance. To avoid this, color cameras normally use an IR-cut filter over top of the sensor, to block the IR. Naturally, that would also block the illumination from the LEDs... so cheap cameras simply do away with the filter, and compensate for the exposure and color balance electronically (and usually poorly). Because IR light focuses "shorter" than visible light, that also means they don't always have very sharp focus. "True day/night" cameras use a removable cut filter that the camera flips out of the way when it switches to "night" mode (which also typically includes switching from color to B&W). These tend to cost substantially more than your cheapie cameras, though, and there aren't a lot of models have have the LEDs built-in, relying instead on external illuminators that can be better selected and installed to optimize coverage. As for video showing "IR surveillance" - there's tons of it. The vast majority of "stupid criminal" clips on YouTube come from cheap systems with cheap IR cameras. You can recognize it from the pasty greenish-white skin and glowing eyes of the perps. It's not that IR technology isn't "sophisticated" enough, you see... it's that it's most often used with cameras that simply aren't of high enough quality. A good low-light, true-day/night camera (such as the CNB Mona Lisa models) will often do better with very little ambient light, than a cheap camera with built-in IR. As far as 950nm vs 840nm, keep in mind that you won't see the 840 illuminating anything... all you see is a faint red glow when you look at the LEDs themselves.

Can they cope with 3TB drives yet? I'd use a NAS. Then the issue becomes finding a standalone that can use network storage. It's easy with PC-based systems (Windows or *nix)... dunno about standalones though. Something USB-attached, like a DROBO, may work if the DVR supports external hard drives...

Of course, you can get away with a lot less space by dropping to CIF, 1fps and highly-tweaked motion detection... although you'll still need a fair chunk of space.

As Tom suggests, it SHOULD be compatible, but there are a number of factors you have to have right for it to work: you have to get the wiring polarity correct, and you have to match communication protocols (RS-485/422/232), control protocols (Pelco D or P or some other than both support), baud rate (2400 or 9600 are most common), comm parameters (usually 8N1 for 8 data bits, no parity, one stop bit), and camera ID number.

Nobody's mentioned it yet, but you're going to run into a conflict between two of your requirements: you want something standalone, but you want six months' retention with 16 cameras (and probably high framerates). The problem is, recording 16 cameras for six months is going to require a LOT of space, which means either something with room for numerous internal drives, or the ability to add external (USB or network attached) storage... and there aren't a lot of standalone DVRs that give you that extra space (and sufficient cooling) or will fully support external storage, especially if you need to go to a multi-disk (ie. RAID) solution, most of which are network-attached.

Switches are transparent to IP networks and domains - just connect them together. If you're using switches with DHCP services, then you'll have to turn off the DHCP on two of them - there should normally be only one DHCP server on any network. From the scope of this design, though, it sounds like you'd be better served to hire a proper network engineer - 60 cameras is going to be a very heavily-trafficked network and you could run into issues without proper design.

Construction and enclosure design/type is a cost factor as well. The VCM-24VF has been mentioned - it's a dual-mount IP66-rated vandal-resistant cast aluminum dome. The DBM-24VF model is the same camera in an indoor-only plastic housing for substantially less.

That may prove to be the key... not just how it operates in low light, but in varying conditions in general. As Rory indicates, consistency from one unit the next may be an issue. After-sale support is another big thing you pay extra for (well, most of us do... Rory doesn't) - if that cheap camera dies, good luck getting warranty coverage for it.

Looks to me link some kind of filter, but would be hard to say exactly what it does from a photograph... cut filter of some sort? Polarizer, maybe, to kill reflections?

Yes, but you'll probably find it easier and more cost-effective to just use some ethernet extenders - there are models that will do it over single pair, UTP, and coax. There are three example here, but there are numerous other similar options available. Are you talking about two switches, or two routers? Two switches, you can just connect together with another ethernet cable. Or just get one big switch for all the cameras, and be done with it. Are you using PoE to power the cameras? If you're using two routers, you'll need to disable the DHCP server in one of them. Personally, I recommend hard-coding the IP addresses into the cameras - if you leave it to DHCP, there's always a chance, however slight, that one or more cameras could lose its address, or simply have its address change, and that would mess up proper recording.

You can either SUBSTANTIALLY reduce framerate, image size and compression quality... or switch to a real DVR (probably something PC-based) that will let you use external drives. 18 months is a LOT of video, possibly several terabytes' worth - best way to achieve that is a multi-drive RAID array that can be attached to via network, iSCSI, SAS or eSATA. And since you probably want some level of protection against data loss, you'll likely want something that will do RAID5, or better, RAID6.