Soundy

That should be fine. Baud rate shouldn't make a functional difference, as long as controller and camera both use the same rate.

In my experience, any camera that has a blinking LED on it is a fake. Do you want people to think your camera is a fake?

There are switches that do PoE... I've never seen a router that supported it though. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but I have looked before and not found them.

I wouldn't say it's "better" or "worse" to use one method or the other... but it should work just fine for your purposes. Each has its place.

Baluns won't fix it if it's a ground loop... in fact, they'll probably make it worse.

What sort of domes are you testing with? Sounds like possibly signal-strength issues, or even ground-loop problems. Covert cams like that are generally built on super-cheap board cameras, while the domes you're testing with may be more robust.

BNC and RCA are two common type of video connectors. BNC are a twist-on locking connector usually used for professional equipment: RCA is a friction-fit, push-on connector used for audio and video in consumer equipment: The two are wiring compatible - there are adapters to mate both ways:

Sounds to me like you're talking about compression artifacts, which are inherent to any form of lossy compression like MPEG, H.264, WMV, etc. The live view you're seeing at Best Buy doesn't have them because the video signal is going straight from the camera to the monitor, uncompressed and unprocessed.

I wanna know where you shop that Cat6 is the same price as Cat5e, because everywhere around here, Cat6 carries a pretty hefty premium. Example: one retailer has 1000' boxes of FT4 Cat5e at $96 while 1000' of FT4 Cat6 is $230.

Haven't played much with the Spectra, but we have a Pelco Esprit on one site that works great in night-mode.

I can't comment on the superlatives because I haven't used any of the other systems listed to compare it with, but we're used 3xLogic's VIGIL systems on a number of sites for years, and found the software to be excellent all-around. The central management utility works great for health monitoring and multiple sites/multiple systems can be integrated nicely. The great thing is, the software works the same for NVR and DVR so if you ever do need to add hybrid analog capability, it can all be done in the same interface and same systems - just add the supported analog capture hardware.

It is with cheap, low-quality cameras.

There may be a size limitation on the picture you can send, either filesize or picture dimensions. That would be a question for your wireless provider.

Don't see why that wouldn't work... just as Twilo123 notes, if there's TOO much traffic going through your account, it may appear that you're a spammer, and they'll shut you down. If alerts are infrequent though, it shouldn't be a problem.

Looks like it should do the trick!

Most wireless carriers support emailing to your phone's SMS... typically you'd use the format ##########@txt.carrier.com - substitute your number and the carrier's text-messaging domain. Check with your own provider's tech support for the exact address to use.

Practically no commercial (ISP, corporate, etc.) SMTP servers will allow you to relay unauthenticated mail from an outside address; that's an open invitation to spammers. What I've found works almost universally is to use the SMTP server for the ISP the connection is with. For example, with customers who use Shaw Cable out here, I set their camera/DVR/etc. SMTP server to smtp.shaw.ca - no encryption, no authentication necessary, because the mail is coming from within their network. For the corporate sites that have their own mail servers, it generally works to use that SMTP - again, it typically works without issue, because like any other mail client in the place, it's all coming from within their network.

Can you describe this "wave" effect a little better, or even provide a picture of it (photo of the screen with a cel-phone camera, etc.)? "Wave" noise is typically caused either by electrical interference, or by a ground loop. The former can be caused by wiring running too close to a high-current power feed or junction box; the latter can be caused by poor wiring and is common in cheap cameras. The fact that it's happening regularly between 5AM and 10PM would indicate that it's the former (electromagnetic interference) and that it's coming from something that turns on at 5AM and runs until 10PM - possibly lighting, a cooling unit, etc. With cheap, poorly-shielded systems, all it takes is one wire running too close to such a source, and the noise that's inserted into the system can appear on multiple cameras.

That is some SEXY $#!+ right there! Wow!

Well the beauty for you is, you can get single- and multi-channel video encoders that will let you attach any analog camera to an IP network, so even in the instances that an analog camera might provide better performance, you can still use your existing infrastructure, or deploy the network infrastructure for future camera upgrades. This gives you the additional benefit of not needing analog capture hardware at the head end. In instances where an all-analog chain IS necessary, you can wire with Cat5e or Cat6 and use video baluns to send the analog signal over that... when the time comes to upgrade, simply take off the baluns and re-terminate for network.

Sounds like you're running at the wrong resolution. A typical 19" 16:10 widescreen VGA monitor will have a native resolution of 1440x900, while a 4:3 "non-widescreen" 14" will usually run at 1280x1024. If your DVR or computer is not using that resolution, the monitor will have to up-scale the image, and it WILL look soft. Worse, if your device is using a 4:3 aspect ratio display resolution, the monitor will be "stretching" it to fit the 16:10 aspect, which will make it look even worse.

IN THEORY, if the DVR is on all the time, it should always have the same IP address. DHCP leases typically work like this: once the "half-life" of the lease is reached, the device (DVR, computer, etc.) asks for a renewal of the IP it has, and should usually get it immediately. If the end of the lease is reached and no renewal request has been made, the IP returns to the pool. I believe most LinkSys routers default to one day for the lease time (this can probably be changed), so as long as the DVR is off less than 12 hours, it should always get the same IP back. The problem I've found with a number of LinkSys routers, and a reason I never recommend them, is that they have a tendency to NOT renew leases properly, even if the machine is never offline. I've had a DVR's IP repeatedly change from .100 to .101 and back to .100 using a LinkSys router, changing on an 18-24 hour basis without even a reboot of the DVR. In those cases, yes, I've had to set the DVRs to use statically-assigned IPs. That all looks right! You've been an excellent student, gold star for you!

4CIF is only 704x480 resolution, so it's not going to be huge to begin with. Possible, if your display resolution is less than the native resolution of the LCD. What size/model of LCD is it? How do the interface graphics (on-screen text, controls, etc.) look? Fuzzy as well? The overall image MIGHT, depending on display settings; that won't affect the video from the cameras, however. You might check the compression settings on your DVR - the higher the compression, the more artifacts and the lower the video quality.

Glad you got it working! Yes. As I explained, any system (such as your DVR) that wants to communicate on a TCP/IP network needs certain information: a unique IP address, a network mask, a gateway, address(es) of DNS server(s), etc. There are two common ways for it to get that information: either from a DHCP server on the network, or to have it entered manually. If you set it to get that via DHCP, there's no need for you to enter it manually, so those options are blocked out. DHCP servers have a timeout, called a "lease", that if it isn't renewed periodically, an assigned IP will go back into the pool for it to give out to another system. If your DVR is off or disconnected for too long, the lease will expire. So, there are two ways around it: One, don't use DHCP, but set the DVR to STATIC and enter that information yourself. Two, see if the router has a "Static" or "Reserved" option under its DHCP Server setup, that lets you permanently assign a certain IP to a specific machine. If you go with the first option, use an address outside of the router's DHCP pool range. Most will default to a range of 50-100 available IPs, such as 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.150; if you hard-code the DVR with an IP of 192.168.1.103 (for example), it's likely that at some point, the router will also assign that IP to something else, and you'll have a conflict. To avoid this, use a number outside that range, such as your original 192.168.1.10. Then set your port forwarding to that address. IP addresses can use any number between 0 and 255 for each "octet" (between the dots). 0 and 255 are reserved; 1 or 254 are often used for the gateway; so you should be able to use any address between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.0.253.

because no dynamic-DNS service, free or not, is 100%effective. i've had ISPs that force IP changes every 1-2 hours... when DDNS updates can take up to an hour to propagate, DDNS becomes nearly useless. i have never had any issues with www.dyndns.com. their free service is great and the windows client program works perfect. It's not an issue with DynDNS or any other dynamic-DNS service *specifically*... it's a potential issue with the whole domain name system and the fact that changes can take time to propagate throughout the DNS directories around the 'net. A static IP is still the BEST idea for ANY type of server where you need ready remote access, be it a DVR, a webserver, mailserver, etc. Dynamic DNS *as a concept* is still just a workaround.