Soundy

We did a job this past summer, mounting cameras on the sides of a warehouse. I was working inside running wires and pushing them through the walls; my coworker was outside on the lift. Between the direct sun, and the sun reflecting off the white walls, he was pretty well cooked by the end of the day. And I don't think the air temp was even above 30 (humidity was nasty though).

Exactly; for CCTV, it's pretty meaningless. 2.5-5mm, 4-8mm, 25-50mm, or 200-400mm are all "2x".

That unit doesn't support IP cameras. The irony is, newer versions of the GV software DO support IP cameras (that support is independent of the capture card). Not IP cameras. Standard analog, you could. Consumer-grade wireless is very limited in range and quality, either way. It is nice to get away from needing to run cables, but unless you're spending big money on commercial-grade wireless, it's probably a lot more efficient overall to just stick to running wires.

"2x" is the zoom range from 3.8-8mm (would technically be 2.1052631578947368421052631578947x, but who's counting?). 15-50mm would be a 3.333x zoom factor.

If all the input devices were the same manufacturer, that might be an option, but given that there are three different manufacturers, I've been told it's a bad idea to wire them in parallel. I know this is pretty simple stuff for the alarm folks. They wire up an RB7 or RBOC7 in their sleep, or in some cases, just make a diode matrix. I know I could manage with a simple wiring diagram, but I don't see anything similar on the Altronix website. Best, Christopher Simple dry contacts, there's no reason whatsoever that "mixing manufacturers" should have a problem. There's no high-level logic or serial communications or anything involved, just open/close. I think thewireguys is right and simply paralleling the connections will work, but if you're really concerned about potential load issues, any basic relay should do the trick - just use the PIR to trip the relay, and the relay contacts to trip the cameras and trigger a zone on the alarm. HOWEVER... if it were me, I'd use the alarm panel as much as possible. I'm not familiar with the Ademcos, but if it's like any of the DSC, Paradox, or Honeywell panels I've seen, it will have at least one PGM output that's designed specifically to drive or trigger another device when programmed conditions are met. I'd use the PIR, then, simply to trip an input zone on the alarm, and then program the PGM output to trigger the cameras when that zone is tripped. This gives you the added ability to trigger the cameras ONLY when the system is armed (if you want to go that way), and/or the ability to have other alarm conditions trigger the cameras - say, input from a smoke alarm or panic button.

It'll be fine. No, it's not ideal, but it will work just fine for you. Double-up the conductors to be safe. I've powered two 24VAC cameras over a single 22-gauge pair in a 250' run of station wire in a pinch. (Cole's notes: gas station wanted another camera added to their canopy; we used doubled-up station wire to power each camera; so I split off one pair on the closest camera to use for video with baluns, and used the other pair to power both; conduits are sealed before final inspection so pulling new wire was NOT an option).

Ummm... kind of? You can get a converter that will take the IP signal and generate an analog output, but that will run into the limitations of NTSC/PAL video. If you're using megapixel IP cameras, you've just completely negated the benefits of megapixel by doing that, as you lose all that extra resolution. There's a VERY slight chance your DVR may already support IP cameras - if you post the make and model someone here might have a better idea on that.

Would depend on the rest of the setup. Most of the DVRs I work with, you can assign several cameras to respond to a single alarm input. If there's an alarm panel involved, you might just have the PIR trigger a zone on that, and trip everything else from a PGM output. Really too many variables involved to give an answer to such a generic question.

Well first of all, you're comparing a 5-port switch to a 10-port one. If you've been keeping up with discussions here in other threads, you'll know that a cheap switch can easily choke under the load placed on it by multiple MP/IP cameras, and everyone will recommend a more expensive, more "robust" switch if you want network reliability. You're also comparing a cheap non-managed switch to a managed model - traffic management can potentially be advantageous with heavier network loads. PoE also means you don't have to run separate power wires to the cameras - this is one its primary advantages. If using existing cabling, you may not even have the option to add separate power. I've used the SFE1000P in a number of sites now, running up to five 1.3MP IP cameras at 5fps, with an NVR on one GbE port and RAID5 NAS on the other, and had not one single glitch, hiccup, or problem. Most of these sites also have 20-25 cameras in total, so anything that cuts down the number of wires coming into the comms rack is greatly appreciated.

For as much as CCD is claimed to have "better low light performance", it's worth noting that CMOS is a mainstay of Canon's DSLR lineup, and their top-end DSLRs (5Dmk.II, newer 1D/1Ds models) have among the best low-light image quality of anything in their class. There's a lot more to it than just the composition of the sensor.

Video card shouldn't affect the actual recording, only how it looks when viewed/played on that computer. Really "decent" vs. "generic" shouldn't affect it either, unless the "generic" card has really poor overlay support or lousy DirectX drivers (depending on which mechanism your DVR software uses). What WILL make a noticeable difference, especially if you're using LCD monitors, is whether your DVR is configured for the monitor's native resolution - on just about all 4:3 monitors 17" and up, that's 1280x1024; most widescreens up to 20", that'll be 1440x900; or 1680x1050 for most monitors 22" and up. If you set a 4:3 resolution on a widescreen monitor, that will REALLY adversely affect how the final display looks.

If you're looking at these for IP cameras, unless the price is very close, I'd stick with the 1000P - I have yet to see an IP camera that has a gigabit port.

No, he's saying they tore the BNC off the camera's output cable.

That SHOULD work. If not, get a piece of RCA cable (like from an A/V or stereo-audio cable), splice that to the end (solder if possible), and use BNC/RCA adapters as necessary to complete the connection. Be sure to properly insulate the center and shield conductors. Should be. Double-check with a multimeter if possible.

How "expensive" is your definition of expensive? The Panasonic CP/CW484 is right up there, generally lists in the $600+ range... there are dozens of samples from those all over the site.

Impressive pictures! Few years ago, I did subcontract IT work at our government-run auto insurance company. One of their departments had their own little private LAN in their office; all their systems were separate from the rest of the company. When we were moving them to new facilities, we took down all their workstations... then I asked them where their server was. Nobody knew, so I had to start tracing network cables. Finally found it: an old IBM Model 90 Server (486/66!), tucked in a dark corner under a bunch of boxes. We shut it town, pulled it out, opened it up... the thing was packed solid with dust. And I mean SOLID. It had been running back there for AT LEAST 5 years, untouched and unattended... it just did its job and nobody ever thought about it. Of course, this was a machine that was built for just that type of operation... and no, it wasn't running Windows. Classic!

Catching taggers could be tricky - mere video of someone walking toward the wall with a spray can won't do for evidence, and unless you mount the cameras at head-height, an angle that catches the wall enough to catch the tagging in action, probably won't get any faces. You almost need to stick a camera or two in a tree in the field to the top of that picture, looking back at the 2/3/4 area.

*shudder*

I nominate this for Worst Install Ever... Not just for the level of some of the dumb stuff (120VAC speaker wire taped to transformer prongs? yo!), but the sheer scope of the stupidity, as from the sound of it, this extends to all cameras on the site. Juxtaposition plays in too - multi-million dollar site, you say?? Damn....

Yeah, that's one of the problems in this kind of situation - people don't want to pay what it takes to do it right the first time, so they do it half-assed... then it doesn't give them the coverage they need, something crucial is missed, and they think they've wasted their money. Any attempt to sell them more cameras after that is often seen by them as you trying to get them to throw good money after bad.

the OP is talking about powering a 12VDC CCTV Camera using 2 pair 4 conductor solid core 24awg wire, POE has nothing to do with CCTV cameras. PoE is also 48VDC (nominal), which means 1/4 the current draw of 12VDC (for the same power requirements) and thus less loss over an equivalent distance. Nevertheless, the original question was whether one "COULD use telephone wire", and the answer is, simply, YES. Whether that's a GOOD idea is a whole other question.

Hahahah, I love it And that lens setup is epic! I know there's a webpage somewhere that describes mounting a board camera to a door peephole for a fisheye lens... been wanting to try that one too

Isn't there power on top of the car already?

There's that too, although that still requires adding the Cat6 to the traveler.

Ah, yeah, the "double-balun" chaining is probably most of your problem. The untwisted run up the traveler shouldn't be an issue - I've run power and video to cameras in gas station pump canopies over standard station wire without a problem, and that's running past all kinds of AC power and along inside a fluorescent-lighted sign board. I think your best bet may be to just leave the existing cameras, if they're good enough quality already, use the existing traveler run and baluns to the control room, then come straight out the balun there and into an encoder. You'll need network into the control room, but you'd need that anyway if you were putting IP cams in the elevators. Fortunately, you should be able to do just a single network drop there, and a small switch for the encoders to plug into. Or, use a multi-camera encoder - four cameras to a single network port (Axis has several four-channel models). Worst case, if this doesn't work, you can then add the Cat6 drops down the travelers, put a switch at the top, and just pipe all your IP cameras down the one drop.