Soundy

Depends on the camera. I've seen cheap cameras fry when used with a cheap, unregulated 12V adapter that actually puts out close to 16VDC. Cameras with built-in regulators, including most dual-voltage types, will often take anything up to 30+V, DC or AC. Most fall somewhere in between. In general, most should withstand an unregulated supply just fine.

Says right there: "Power Consumption: 12 W (max. 1A at 12V DC)" PoE spec 802.3af states that a PoE port (whether on an injector or switch) should be capable of up to 15.4W. What you have to be careful of is that the switch can actually provide that to a single port. If the switch says it does 30W total, you're fine as as long as it will deliver a at least a full 12W to the one port you plug into. If you're only running a single camera, you can get a single PoE injector a lot cheaper from somewhere like eBay or DealExtreme.

"Configure failed" during power-up indicates the camera itself is failing - not an issue with the signal wiring (there's the very VERY slight possibility that extreme noise on the signal line could cause malfunctioning of the camera, which could be tested by disconnecting the signal leads from the camera, but that's maybe one chance in 10,000). In all likelihood, the camera is dying, possibly either because of water ingress, or just age and wear.

Those are all examples of wires wound around a core. That's not the case here. Think of it this way: you're making your own UTP (unshielded twisted pair), just like it Cat3, Cat5 and Cat6 network cables.

Yeah, no problems with doing that... we used to do the same to make wiring bundles for car alarm systems.

Do you have port 80 forwarded as well as port 7000? Usually if the DVR is using a web-based client, it will need to connect on port 80 first to load the client.

What model router is it?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=usb+video+capture

I have an 8-channel Dynaguard I could swap... if you're interested, I'll go look up the model number and specs. It's a nice unit, good web client, full PTZ support... upgraded it to a 500GB drive recently, too (original 80GB drive was dying).

Welcome!

Right, that's what I meant. Thanks for clarifying

First thing you'd have to do is find the source of the interference... then if possible, the best option would be to move the cable runs further away from it (like I say, it's also possible that the interference is getting directly into the DVR - try narrowing that possibility down as well). If that can't be done, you may be able to shield the wire more by putting in through conduit in that area.

It's VERY likely that the power supply itself is not on the roof - it would most commonly be in a phone room, electrical room, or server room, or some other type of utility space in the building. It may be just an open-frame transformer rather than a box or enclosure: Cycling power to the camera the first troubleshooting steps I'd try in most cases, and I'd suggest doing that next to confirm that the camera itself is working properly. Sometimes a camera will stop working and simply powering it off and on will get everything working properly again. I just recently had a Spectra III that stopped working properly - it ran its preset tour fine, and would go through its initialization properly after a power cycle, but I couldn't control it at all. I opened it up and discovered water was getting into it and had dripped on the interface board behind the camera and damaged it. We're just waiting for the customer to decide whether they want to replace that board.

That first photo looks like motor noise of some kind - not what you'd get from running too close to power lines, but what you'd get from running too near an electric motor or something of the sort. I've also seen similar interference from RFI caused by a car's ignition system, but since the noise follows the operation of some equipment, I doubt that's the case here. Actually, my uncle used to have a CB radio in his Jeep that would cause similar interference on a certain TV channel when transmitting on a certain CB channel... does any of this equipment use RF-based controls or telemetry? As a troubleshooting step, I'd see if it's possible to have them create a log (if there isn't already) of the operation of various different equipment, and then correlate that to the noise on the recorded video, and see if anything really jumps out - for example, if you look a the video and find a jump in noise level at 6:15pm, you could then check the logs and see what systems were turned on at 6:15. STP for the wiring wouldn't make a substantial difference, I don't think... again, a balanced line has inherent immunity to noise on its own. Nevertheless, it IS important that it be grounded properly... that means grounded at one end only, and make sure it goes to a good earth ground. The test monitor is a good idea... another good way to test is to take a camera near the DVR and plug it in directly, to rule out noise getting into the DVR itself.

The vendor lied through his teeth - there is no such thing as a "universal" DVR card that will work with any software.

Pretty familiar, yup... by "stuck in a position", do you mean you can't control it at all (including zoom and focus)? Do presets work? Is it supposed to run a pattern or tour and isn't? And just so we're not duplicating effort here, what troubleshooting steps have you already tried? First thing I would do is cycle power to the camera - on power-up, it should display the comm settings on-screen, and run through a short tour (zoom in/out and turn around once) - this would confirm whether the camera itself is functioning.

What app are you using? Since most people have to pay for their data, and most cellular data services tend to be relatively low bandwidth, I suspect the app is scaling back the resolution and using higher compression to minimize the bandwidth required.

I'm still not clear on the power here... the cameras are wired directly into the 120VAC without a transformer or power adapter or central power supply? The MuxLab document I linked to above has some recommendations on running UTP with regards to proximity to power and EMI sources; check it and compare to how things are set up. Running unshielded should not be the problem - the whole point of using baluns (short for BALanced/UNbalanced) is to create a balanced line that inherently rejects noise. Again, there are diagrams in the MuxLab document that explain this. At 700', you MAY need to use an active balun at one end of each run... wouldn't hurt to try one, anyway, and see if it helps things.

Ummm... wait, the cameras are all powered directly with 220VAC? Does that mean they have internal power supplies? Most cameras require 12VDC or 24VAC. I don't think 18/2 is legal for running 220VAC on, either. As far as screenshots, can't you just export some stills from the DVR? Some exported video clips would probably be even more useful.

I can't speak for homes, since we do commercial/industrial almost exclusively. Easily half of our systems aren't even connected to the internet. Like I say, the ratio of emails to actual events is very VERY high in most cases. Most people, if they want to watch the comings and goings in their business, will use a remote client; email alerts isn't effective for this purpose. If they DON'T want to watch regular activity, then they certainly don't want dozens of emails showing it to them. If something happens, they'll look it up the next morning... they have alarms that generate their alerts, and monitoring stations that call them if anything happens. Well, a Vigil would give you the search functionality you want (grab the manual from http://www.3xlogic.com and look up the "Smart Search" feature - it works really well). Just checked, and it WILL let you define separate motion zones and schedules for sending email alerts (so, for example, you could have it send an alert anytime anyone touches the tip jar anytime of day... as well as pop up a window, create audible alerts, and push alerts out to the remote client). Scheduling also works for standard recording modes - set it to record constantly during the day, on motion at night... or motion during the day, and only if there's an alarm state at night... or whatever.

Searching recorded events is easily done with many DVRs... again, your biggest issue is timing it to only send alerts during off hours. And again, my suggestion is to look into hooking it into the alarm system. This SHOULD be fairly straightforward: your DSC alarm should have a set of terminals labelled "PGM", for program output. This can typically be configured to toggle states when the alarm goes off, or when it's activated, or when some other trigger occurs (opening a certain zone, movement detected on a motion sensor, etc.) So that output would then be wired to an alarm input on the DVR, probably set to toggle when the alarm actually goes off, and the DVR set up so that it sends emails only when that input is tripped. This way, the email notifications would be completely independent of the DVR's motion settings or record mode, and would only be active when the store is closed and the alarm has been set. The notifications would be enabled when the last person out arms the system, and disabled when the first person comes in and disarms it, regardless of what time that is.

Are you recording, or just viewing? Are these standard TVs, or widescreen? Do they have HDMI, DVI or VGA inputs?

Would you mind sharing your solution so others might benefit from it in the future?

Not to brush you off or anything, but I'd think any local building supply store would be a good place to start; most should have a good assortment. Plenty of places should be able to customize something for you, as well, to match both your decor and mounting needs. Whereabouts are you located?

Some screenshots or even video of the interference might help diagnose whether it's EMI, RFI, or ground loops, as all tend to manifest a little differently. Is it possible to do some further troubleshooting by turning various equipment on and off in stages while seeing how various cameras are affected? It might be possible to narrow it down to some particular equipment or a particular area that's generating the interference. Does the interference happen the same on all cameras at the same time? That might help determine if it's coming from a point common to all of them (ie. somewhere that ALL the cables run past). MuxLab has a good document on baluns here, it includes some "best practices" suggestions for running cabling, including distances from power and equipment: http://www.muxlab.com/assets/files/application_guides/VE_CCTV_Balun.pdf