Bryann

I'm just curious to know what methods some people are using to splice CAT5 cable. I've seen some nice stuff like heat-shrink and terminating caps, and some NASTY stuff, like prestik, clear adhesive tape, and even joins made by tying the two joining cables in a knot.....! Anything else out there? Good and bad.....

I can't really think of any cons related to CAT5E, except for the fact that you have to use baluns, which doesn't prove to be as cost effective on smaller installations. However, there are quite a few pros. 1. Far higher resistance to interferance. 2. Almost no loss in video quality or signal strength when joining. 3. Can carry up to 4 cameras on one cable. 4. Can be easily spliced and joined for splitting and teeing off (again, almost no loss)

You can consider wiring your cameras using CAT5E network cable, and video balun signal converters. We have done multiple installations using this method. It allows you to run up to 4 cameras on 1 cable - with less interferance than traditional RG59 coaxial cable. The cable can be spliced, joined, and teed-off in different directions with almost zero loss in signal strength. This would greatly reduce cabling around the ship.

Unfortunately, that is the case with digital CCTV right across the market. High resolutions chew away at bandwidth at an alarming rate. Our product does have a "bandwidth throttle" though, which allows you to alter the bit rate of the video being sent, so you still have a real-time video, at a reduced resolution, and at slightly lower bandwidth usage. This will let you adequately view one camera at a time , but 16 is a bit much 16-24 cameras over LAN is, however, a reality and we currently have existing installations on such an application.

What type of camera is it for? dome or box?

I work for a surveillance company in South Africa, and we have developed a surveillance program that is taking our market by storm! H.264 compression Unvarying 25 frames per second (PAL) on every channel at high resolution on preview and playback! Multi camera playback Remote view over LAN/WAN Audio capability for every channel POS overlay Our software does not sacrifice resolution for frame-speed, or vise-versa. Always real-time, always high resolution! If you would like more information, feel free to email me.