Soundy

Yes. It may be iffy at that distance with cheap baluns; you want to make sure to use quality brands. Depending on whether it picks up noise along the way, you may find you need an active unit at one end, but in theory, passive should be fine. You won't lose quality, but you will see substantial voltage drop over that distance, even using all three pairs... at 500mA draw, you'd get about 3V loss, so for a 12V camera, you'd need about 15V at the source. No. PoE - Power over Ethernet - is for powering network cameras. Standard ethernet, though, has a maximum length of 100m. If possible, use cameras that can run on 24VAC - you'll have less problem from losses. Better yet, use cameras that support dual-voltage (12VDC/24VAC) and then use a 24VAC power supply. There's a handy calculator here for determining voltage loss over Cat5. Remember when filling in the boxes, standard Cat5e wires are 24AWG, and you want to use all three pairs for power.

Give the customer the next best DVR that will work with a Mac browser, and let the salesdroid eat the cost out of his own commission.

What type of coax cable are you using? RG-58, RG-59, RG-6?

Interesting. This, to me, suggests some sort of issue or incompatibility with the BNC/VGA adapters. Are these active (powered) units? Baluns do nothing to boost signal; they're intended for running video signals over twisted-pair wire. Is this 1.5K unit another amplifier, or a BNC/VGA adapter? If the problem is a signal incompatibility, simply boosting the signal won't help. Hmmm.... there may be a clue here. Where are you located? VCDs are uncommon in North America - are you somewhere with a PAL video system? Are the DVRs perhaps using NTSC output and the BNC/VGA converters are PAL, or vice-versa? That could certainly explain the double image (although that's not the usual symptom, but I have seen the mix create some odd results) No, but possibly on the BNC/VGA adapter...

With you, nothing surprises me. Really, Rory, you asked a question, I asked for a simple clarification, and you took the opportunity to be a jerk. This is how you expect to get assistance?

I'm quite familiar with both, thanks. I also see the breakout cables regularly called "dongles", which is why I asked. They also go by "octopus cables" in addition to "breakouts", "pigtails" and "dongles", and I'm sure several other names.. What you call "dongles" I also commonly see called "USB license keys", and I've known them to go by various other names as well. A little more specificity and a little less condescension will get you a long way.

By "dongle" are you talking about the breakout cable that connects to the card, or a license/activation dongle?

If the system uses XP Pro, you can adjust NTFS permissions on those files/folders to prevent deletion. On the folder you want to protect: Right-click, select Properties Go to Security tab Under the "Group or User name" box, select Everyone (if there is no Everyone entry, click Add, then type "Everyone" in the "Enter the object name" box, then click OK. Click the Advanced button (bottom-right) In the Permissions box, select Everyone, then click the Edit button Click the checkbox for "Delete" under the "Deny" column and click OK. Click the checkbox for "Replace permission entries on all child objects..." Click OK to complete. "Deny" settings override "Allow", so this will now deny *ALL USERS* (including administrators) ability to delete those objects. Note that administrators can go back in and change the permissions later to remove the Deny setting; you can lock it down even further by playing around with the advanced permissions, but this will prevent any sort of accidental deletion, even in safe mode, even from a boot CD (since the permissions are set in the NTFS file system). Again, this will work with XP Pro, but not Home, and it will only work if the drive is formatted NTFS. I don't know which versions of Vista or W7 this applies to.

this will be your problem. max run for cctv 100m. you will need to add a booster to get to 200m you would not see a problem when using a dvd player as he has said as a dvd player has a much stronger signal. you will not get a cctv output to run 200m without a amplifier. Have another coffee, tom, I don't think you're quite awake yet He also said in the original post that he's tried an amplifier. He also said the LCD is about 150m from the DVR, and that there are six runs already in place... I get the impression that this was a separate 200m length he used just as a test, probably dragging across the floor.

this will be your problem. max run for cctv 100m. you will need to add a booster to get to 200m He just said there's no problem with that setup...

I don't understand how you're running through the LAN - you're running via video/IP encoders, and then decoders at the monitor end? That would certainly induce a time delay, although 2 seconds seems a little excessive. Bit of an expensive work-around too, no? What monitors are these? Do they have BNC inputs? If you already have coax in place, that would be your best bet, to just plug in directly - DVR1 out to MON1 in, DVR2 out to MON2 in. I don't know why it would work with a DVD player but not with the DVR, unless theres something else incorrect about how you have it connected.

What is the reason for this move? Perhaps there's another way around it...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sony+camera+adapter+CMA-10CE It's the power adapter for the camera. Whether it's usable for other cameras... hard to say.

So I've just been asked to look into this... Potential client with a monster home of some sort, wants up to 12 cameras around the place... from what I've been told so far, it sounds like most if not all will need to be wireless, and most if not all will be indoors (I get the impression that this may be an old house where adding wiring will be difficult if not impossible... I also get the idea that cost is little to no object). Based on other threads, I'm thinking the Ubiquiti products look pretty good for IP and suggested we could go that way with all IP cameras, or cams with encoders where necessary. The VideoComm indoor analog stuff someone linked to in nickCR's thread looks potentially usable as well. What are the thoughts on these products, or others, for an all-or-mostly wireless, all-or-mostly indoor setup? Remember we're talking about a big place, so some fair range will be needed. Boss wants me to recommend some specific equipment... I'm trying to tell him it's impossible to do that without seeing the place and where the cameras will be going to determine what sort of structure will be required for the system... *sigh*

Hey, U-Matic was the mainstay of the broadcast industry until barely 10 years ago.

35mm, pfft, our little rural school could only afford 8mm. Then we got our table-sized, top-loading VHS player...

What output are you using on the DVR, VGA or BNC? Either way, there should be no lag - going wireless certainly wouldn't speed things up any, in fact it would probably ADD lag. When you say you get "double images" using the coax, do you mean you get two of the same view side-by-side, or that you get "ghosting" in the image? The former would indicate an incorrect setting in the monitor; the latter would probably be a physical problem with the cabling. What exactly does the client consider "laggy" here? It's hard to troubleshoot the problem, let alone prescribe a solution, without knowing exactly what the problem looks like.

Not exactly. A 6.8mm focal length, at 7' away, you'll see an area about 5' wide. Move the camera farther away, you get a wider view. Whether it's detailed enough to read the money clearly will depend on the resolution of the camera - ie. how many pixels that area is divided across.

Wow, for someone named "hardwired" you seem to have a lot of wireless experience Thanks!

Thanks, I was in AV Club

Classic.

Most of them out here use something like this: ...combined with one of these to measure the pull: Put them all together and you get: (These pictures come from www.taymer.com)

For me at least, there is no universal preference here - it's whatever works best in a given situation.

Neither is affected by "interference" as such. Where the problem arises is with cheap DC-powered cameras that use the same ground connection for video and power: with baluns, the video ground connection then passes through two transformers (one at each end), which makes it substantially longer wire path. You then get two separate ground paths between the camera and the DVR, one of them much longer than the other... and that leads to ground loops, especially as you add more cameras. Better cameras with regulated supplies, including dual-voltage and AC cameras, avoid this because the video and power don't share their grounds. Again, the GND is there to meet UL spec. It will almost never be used in common practice. Probably the result of using cheap baluns.

Your wiring is correct; ground connection is not needed. It's on there to meet a certain spec, but I've never once used it.