UMDRanger

Mr. Thao, a 1000' box of CAT5E costs 1/2 the cost of a 1000' box of RG-59 Siamese. So in my opinion it is a cost saver. It is also easier to terminate for those not experienced with wiring CCTV.

The Baluns have a BNC connector that will hook up to any CCTV camera. The CAT5E connects to the balun by punchdowns or screws, really simple.

Being in the house, I doubt you will have problems pushing 12VDC from the power supply to the cameras over CAT5E.

I'd buy the baluns off Ebay.

Geovision - there are many sellers here on this site. I am sure one of them could give you a fair price, and tech support.

CAT5E - I got some off ebay, but a seller here may have a good price as well.

You'll also need a power supply to power the IR cameras.

To address the blockiness, you may want to see what resolution the card/software is set to. A lower resolution setting will get pixelized and blocky when enlarged. Set it to the highest setting, but this will also reduce retention time.

I have a Geovision 800-4 and I have it on the highest resolution setting and I still get some blockiness. Not a whole lot, and it depends on the image you want to see.

Scorpion - I looked into the power line transmission a few months ago. What I read was that only one camera could be on per a circuit, and that the camera and receiver had to be on the same circuit.

I looked into it because my wife's aunt has a garage near their driveway, some distance from the house. They wanted to put two cameras on the garage, one zoomed in at the driveway with IR illumination to get a plate, and the other to watch all the goodies in the garage. I thought the power line tranmission would be cheaper and easier for them than to buy and trench direct burial cat5e.

Please correct me if I read a bad source. Frankly, I didn't look into it a whole lot.

Mr. Thao - I recommend a Geovision card for your PC. But there are many different brands to choose from. I like Geovision because it is loaded with all the nifty features. You can run CAT5E and push 12 volts DC over two pairs, and use another pair for video. Get cheap Baluns from ebay (They work just fine) to be able to use cat5e for cctv purposes. Or you can get 18-2 with RG-59 Coax called "Siamese" cable. Be aware that the distance of the IR as claimed by many sellers/manufacturers is about half. So when it says "see 60 feet in complete darkness!" for all actual purposes it's about 30 feet.

Does it tilt during it's bootup rotations?

If not, check the tilt motor.

If so, I'm outta guesses.

Thank you Sir. I am on RS-422 with a Sensor Vision system. Can you send me a PM with a quote for RA-486 Speed Dome sliprings if you carry them? Long shot, but I'd like to see if the company would buy replacement parts. Thanks.

Edit: Corrected Speed Dome model number.

I'm gonna hijack the thread with a few questions for you CCTV Supplies...

You seem to be very knowledgable and I am hoping you can provide some ideas.

On two of my RS485 speed domes I intermittantly get flickering, like the power is being shorted on the camera itself. I'll still be able to move the camera during these flickering outages, but the video zaps to a black screen then comes back. Seems to be worse now that its getting colder and windier. Problem was bad on one camera last winter, was fine all summer, and is now reappearing.

I have a few domes where the video cuts out when I move the camera, like there is a short in the video line from the camera to the PC board. In certain places/positions the video is fine, but when moved is bad and cuts out. Is there an easy fix for this like rewiring the line, or is this an indication of a greater problem.

Lastly, I have some domes without the PC board, is there a way to hotwire power to the camera assembly and tap into the ribbon cable and get video out? I'd love to be able to make stationary cameras with the 10x lenses out of these rather than keep them in my storage room collecting dust.

Yes, I know the preferred answer is: buy new. But alas, my store is the red headed step child of the Company, I'm lucky to get black and white 10 year old still cameras sent to me. haha.

Have you unplugged the dome from the J-box and rebooted it?

Reboot the controller/matrix?

Did the problem just start, or is it a new install with a problem?

Might want to try checking the American Dynamics support page, look for the manuals. I know the RS485 series had a very detailed packet for taking the entire dome apart and troubleshooting it. I can't imagine that the 2000 is much different from the RS485 dome.

The "head-in / head-end" is what is commonly refered to as the brains of a system. It is where the controller is for the cameras, monitors, dvr, etc is.

It wasn't dealer jargon, it is installer jargon. But the point is that he was inquiring into what type of system you currently have. Do you have a Pelco based camera controller, or a American Dynamics / Sensormatic brand camera controller. No point getting a AD camera if all your other cameras and the controller are Pelco.

At the store I was at we had Loronix with tape drives. The POS integration worked with that.

Then we got an upgrade to "Target Digital Video", but I remember "Intellex" being the wording on the DVRs. Again, the POS integration worked.

Am I mistaken?

I would imagine it would only be a matter of finding the right pinouts.

CCTV Supplies - thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware Intellex could do the item motion.

Pmartin - since it is retail, another function you could use to sell Intellex is the POS integration. I had this at Target and it was a godsend. It tied in the POS reports to the video, so on the client PC I could search for all the "voids", "no-sales", etc to look into "internal theft", and could quickly search for a item if I saw an out on the floor, say 20min ago I saw the X-box on the shelf, and now it's not there at close, I can search for "x-box" and see if it got sold in the last 20min, or see if I have to start reviewing video through the store to see where it went. Makes investigating for Loss Prevention so much easier. It only has a 1-3 minute lag time from the sale to database. Then, it automatically links the video and text on screen. So when something is scanned, it is synched to be scanned by the register scanner, and highlighted on the text bar.

My current company is upgrading to Intellex (I'm the last store without it), but not the POS integration

Good luck with your choice.

I know Geovision will.

Intellex has the grid motion ability, not sure about item detection.

Ryan,

Welcome to the site. We have a lot of professional installers and everyday average joes here with experience. You'll find a lot of help, but beware you might get a "you're not spending enough / you're buying crap now" type answers.

One thing I would do in your situation is look into using CAT5E instead of 500' spools. CAT5E is cheaper, and you can run power on it as well as video. There are numerous threads about how to do this.

You'll want some heated outdoor housings for your outdoor cameras.

I'd suggest trying to get more along the lines of a week-2 weeks retention more than 3-4 days, simply because people may not notice a problem/theft/report a crime immediately.

As an apartment renter, the fact that you have security cameras is an extra bonus. Some people might find it as concerning, fearing high crime. But I think cameras are an excellent way to keep the riff-raff out of my normally nice apartment building.

I'll second the Ganz line. Dual voltage, internal balun capable, and easy to install and adjust.

But, I've also seen some of the Panasonic images shown here, and they are nice as well.

You'll have to post some pictures to show us how it went. Sounds like a great project. Good luck.

My recommendation for that price range is a PC-DVR.

Most shops and smaller stores have opted for stand-alone DVRs, and the company I used to work for usually put Dedicated Micros DVRs in those smaller applications. I like DM, but I'd guess the price would be outside the budget you have alloted.

So, I would go with a Geo-Vision DVR card. It snaps into a PCI slot on a PC (I am sure you can build one for under $500, and the card is probably around $500).

I am privy to Geovision since I have one, but there are other brands mentioned here on the forum. I'd suggest you research the functions, layout, capabilities, and system requirements for each and make an informed decision on what will work best for you.

I'd spend $300 on CAT5e, baluns, and a power supply. With a spool of 1,000' of CAT5e I am sure you could easily do your entire store. I recommend CAT5e because you can send power and video over the wire, or 4 video signals, and it is cheaper than RG-59+18-2.

That leaves $700 for cameras. Many to choose from, depends on what you want to see.

I ended up buying those 60 fps cards from Collin, but when I went to install them I kept getting an error. (No bad gripes against you Collin, you said you were unsure of condition). And the problem could be drivers, software, incompatable computer hardware, etc. I simply don't know.

I ended up putting in my old GV-800-4. But, now that we have a real life person here from Alnet, I'll have to see what the error was. (However I'm going out of town later this week for a few weeks, so it'll be a while before I can provide details for you). But I'll be asking in a few weeks...thanks.

I don't understand why they need to be experienced in schools. Experience in CCTV is good enough, be it a school, bar, store, home; the goals and camera views are usually the same.

Face shots at choke points and critical points (entrances and registers, sensative areas) and wide views of rooms.

I'd look to see if someone from this forum is in your area. They may be able to give you a better deal on the camera side.

I work in retail loss prevention, and used to install with a very sucsessful alarm/cctv/access contol company.

We used Gantz cameras which were able to accept either 12 or 24 volts. In 99% of the installs we went with 24 AC.

In my loss prevention job I have four 12 volt chip cameras. One has failed in the last year. I have purchased a few 12 volt cameras, and have had two fail. And I bought a lot of used cameras on ebay a year ago. All the 24 AC worked, the 12 volt did not. I just have had bad luck with 12 volt cameras. I would seriously consider spending the extra money up front and buying a camera that has the specs you need, and is less likely to need to be replaced. 24 AC power supplies (with the mutiple channels) are also fused.

Likewise my Geovision system with 1.8 Ghz and some 584 mb of RAM needs to be rebooted every few days or else it tends to lag and lock up. Definately back Rory's advice of getting a higher preforming PC for the DVR.

I can't say I'd vote for any of them.

1. Having used both 12 volt DC and 24 volt AC cameras, I am more impressed by the 24 VAC. In my opinion, they tend to be better. I've had more 12 volt cameras crap out on me than 24. Everyone has their own opinions however.

2. A Geovision system is great. I have one. But, I also have a 250GB HD in an old 1.8 Ghz tower. I have it set on motion only, and I get about a week's retention (with motion events occuring during 8am-10pm), and thats with four cameras. You will need a lot more space than 160GB, and for 9 cameras, you'll want more along the lines that Rory mentioned, 2.4+Ghz.

3. I am not sure you need someone (company) to log in and be sure it works daily. Sounds to me like someone is playing on ignorance. If you can run your business, you can run a DVR. It's not a nuclear bomb, you're not going to break it by pushing the wrong button. You might reformat it, but it'll ask you first if you really want to do to that. In the setup menus you can setup remote monitoring, passwords, etc. You can create different user levels on Geovision. So you could give all the parents a generic user/pass, and you can decide what they can do (cameras to monitor, cameras to look up video, etc).

What about running cat5e from the dvr to the client's office? Providing of course that there is a easy path and relatively short distance.

Have the cat5e from the dvr run into a wired only router located in the client's office. He can then plug his laptop into the router.

That way IT will be very unlikely to find it, unless they search his office for the router.

The company I used to work for used Millenium brand for access control.

Basic computer and networking knowledge made the system seem pretty simple to me.

Each site had a site controller which had all the data (codes, doors, etc)programmed into it. And as you know already, each door had a door control device (DCD) which linked the card reader / prox reader and strike, and or handicap button, etc.

...Wow

You don't need a photo ID to get your e-tickets from the machine. But you will need a photo ID that matches the e-ticket in order to pass the security checkpoints.

I stand corrected Servtech. I thought someone had said they were 3.

Scorpion - I twist the bunch of the shields together. One giant mass of twisted shield, then solder to keep it tight. Thats how I do each strand haha.

For Cat5E I've used punchdown blocks, and I've used those small white "dolphin" beans to clamp the two wires together (then use electical tape to wrap it all up nicely). I've had more problems with the punchdown block as the wires kept coming out, but that was likely due to me having the defective punchdown tool.

For a recent coax run, I used an idea I got from here, infact I think it was Rory who posted it. I soldered the center and braid to the other center and braid. Works like a charm, and there isn't a 3db loss from a connector, nor two more BNC connectors to waste.