koolmer

BTW at those kind of distances, its a better idea to just run a big multipair and then branch of from that with coax or cat5. Then you have extra cables left over incase they want to add more cameras later. I would amplify any cable over 750' anyway, and keep all cables away from high voltage. Yeah, I didn't really have that choice of keeping it away from the other cables in that Warehouse. It went well though and there was no loss in picture quality. What do you use to amplify the camera signal?

Thats not bad at all. How about interference from other cables? Sometimes there is no choice and I have to pull cable close to 230VAC cables for several meters. In an old Warehouse, I have several cat5 cables in a conduit together with all kinds of other cable for at least 150 m - I don't even know what these other cables are, but I am sure some also run high voltage. I wonder what system is protected better against this type of interference.

1200-1500 feet (color-bw). I this actually realistic or theoretical? I never used RG-59 for such distances.

1. There is NO quality difference between cat5 with baluns and RG59 in regards to image quality. Everybody saying otherwise must have done something wrong on the installation or is not using real baluns. I have an install where cameras close to the DVR use RG59 and others (up to 250m away) use baluns. The greatest distance that I managed with a passive balun is about 220 meters. There is NO quality difference visible between the ones that are close (RG59) and the ones that are far away (cat5). 2. Baluns are cheaper as the distance of the camera increases. This is simply for the reason that cat5 is cheaper than RG59 (at least in Europe). Additionally when distances are great, it doesn't make sense to transmit power along the video signal and I in several occasions I actually used all 4 pairs of the cat5 for cameras over larger distance. 3. Active baluns can extent the distance further than possible with RG59. Actually I only used an active receiver once. The camera is about 250 m away from the DVR. Passive balun signal was poor with lines and a washed out picture. The cat5 runs along some 230VAC cable for 10m (no other way). Maybe without that high voltage cable the picture would be better. Anyhow, the active receiver improved the picture, but it is not perfect. Baluns definately have uses and I use them frequently. On small installs they don't always make sense. On large scale installs I would always recommend them. The additional benefit of cat5 is of course the possibility to upgrade to IP cameras. One downside of baluns is the ground loop problem. This happens on many poorly planned installs that use baluns. The simplest way to avoid that is to use separate power supplies for each camera.

Honestly, I have just read through the entire thread and to me it looks like Fiona is picking on rory and not the other way around. This is getting quite childish though. I wonder what happened to the guy with the heat and motion problem...

that another problem ..... the BNC is tv out and spot Are we looking at the same unit? "Inputs 8 UTP Line(CH1-CH8), BNC 2 ports(CH1, CH2)" I think he is trying to say that the BNC on the unit are the monitor outputs. Camera inputs are RJ45, but as I said before: If you can figure out the pin-out, you can connect any analogue camera. You'll need a balun of course.

Actually the DVR is 4CIF, look at the specs. That's why I asked for a picture.

Is this what you have? http://www.samsungsv.com/Model/Detail/10/Samsung-SDE-4001N-8-Channel-DVR-Security-System What is the problem with the cameras? Blurry? Grainy? Generally low resolution? Bad picture at night? It would be good if you could post a picture to see what is wrong. Theoretically you could connect any type of analogue camera if you can figure out the pin-out of the RJ45. But it's easier to get Samsung cams that are made for the unit. You can find them under "Accessories" in the Link that I posted.

Have you used any with White or Silver housings yet? Just curious if that might help in your case. He mentioned that they were under an eave. Do you think it would make a difference when there is no direct sunlight?

Sounds like a DVR problem to me. What DVR do you use? Edit: Do all cameras have the same problem?

I can't see any interference here, the images are quite small though. If I remember correctly, you already mentioned that the detection sensibility is as low as possible. Is there anything else that you can configure on the motion detection?

Many PTZ cameras have small fans inside of them. This should not create any interference. It would be good to see your recording or at least a picture of a camera when there is noise. This could help identifying the problem.

I get your point and I honestly can't compete with your math, but in my experiance most cameras produce heat. Many camera housings feel warm when touched and therefore I cannot imagine that it would be cooler inside the camera. I would even go so far and say that it would probably extend the live of the camera if it had a metal housing and a tiny fan that blows onto the PCB to make sure the heat is quickly carried elsewhere.

Your analogy is incorrect. The heat source is the ambient air and the sun, not the camera. This is convection and radiation heat transfer that is entering the camera housing, not exiting. Plastic is actually a better insulator to help prevent heat transfer. As Rory mentioned, the IR is only on at night when outside temperatures are lower. I highly doubt that the LEDs generate a significant amount of heat to do any damage. However, this is quantifiable. Simply determine the wattage difference of the camera when the IR is on and when it is off. The difference of wattage is the amount the IRs use. Watts is a measurement of heat. Are you suggesting that it is cooler inside the camera housing? There is working electronic in there and I would not know why it should be cooler than outside...

Looks cheap imho. I don't think it is the right solution to look for cheap cameras that you can replace every year. I would look into high quality cameras that will just work in the heat or try to figure out a way to cool the cameras. Internal IR might also create additional heat and thereby kill the cameras even faster. I really cannot name a camera that will work at this heat, but this is just because I never look at the maximum operating temperature. I always have to look at the minimum operating temperature. Why don't you ask a local Security company? They should know what to use... Edit: You might want to look for a dome in a metal housing - to get the heat out faster...

I have a strange problem with a new DVR card that I bought. It is a low cost card from NetvisionDVR that has impressive specs, but I am having some trouble with it. Link: http://www.netvisiondvr.com/ProductInfo.asp?id=101 The DVR that I build with the card replaced an old GE DVMRe that has worked with no problems for many years. Now I have two cameras that become red and blurry regularly. It is really random - sometimes the cameras are fine for 1 week before becoming red and sometimes only for a few hours. Restarting the DVR ALWAYS handles the problem. Red cameras: http://imageshack.us/g/8/red3g.jpg/ When I move or shake the camera cables between the DVR and the balun (I am using baluns on all cameras) sometimes the picture becomes normal and sometimes makes other cameras become red as well. Replacing the cable between the balun and the DVR did not change anything! It seems to have something to do with bad connection, but then why does restaring always handle the problem? And then, the GE DVMRe didn't give any such problems. What else can I try? Edit: I contacted the Netvision Tech Support and they were not helpful at all. Even after explaining everything and sending pictures, the guy suggested that my cameras are broken...

Do it, it will make your computer much faster & it is shock resistant. The only reason not to do it would be the price. You need to decide for yourself if the investment is worth it - it depends very much on how big the SSD would have to be. The more space you need, the less attractive is an SSD.

And less heat, which makes a huge difference in the middle of summer. Not where I am

You are right that there is no real benefit on DVRs except for more reliability. I actually bought the SSD, because it was cheaper than the cheapest HDD. It was only supposed to contain the OS and the DVR Software, so I bought a cheap 30 GB SSD. Actual recording was supposed to be on another 2TB drive.

Just a few days ago I build a DVR and the OS was supposed to run on an SSD (OCZ Vertex Plus). My only worry was that the DVR Software that I use (NetvisionDVR) features an instant playback and I am not sure where these files are actually saved. If the files for the instant playback (8 minutes multiplied by 16 cameras) are saved in the programs folder of Netvision this might shorthen the lifetime of the SSD considerably. Anyhow, I was not able to finish the installation. It broke off every time. Somehow XP didn't like the SSD and the RAID controler that I used. I ended off using an HDD instead.

Hardware compression is is only better, because the card does the work of encoding the video. Software encoding means that your CPU is doing the encoding. You cannot say that one has superior picture quality over the other. This depends on the quality of the card and the Software. Software encoding has the advantage that you can choose the codec that you want to use. Only the Software limits what you are able to do with the stream from the card. Therefore you might have a look at Software compression cards (never named as such, but Hardware encoding is ALWAYS advertised). You have to find a Software that will let you choose what codec to use and then check what card is compatible to that software. Luxriot is a software I would have a look at if I was you. I think they support Comart cards and at least the old comart cards had all Software encoding.

What he actually wants are image files like .jpg or .png. I don't know any capture card that will do that, but it might exist.

If you want actual JPEGs in the end, I am not even sure if MJPEG is the right thing to look for. It is a video codec and it would still require some kind of conversion to get image files. MJPEG generally has higher quality than H.264, but consumes much more storage. Geovision can record some kind of MJPEG or even JPEG, but I never used it.

I put the card into an old P4 computer that I still had in a storage. It works perfectly now. The computer that created the red pictures had a MSI GF615M-P33 motherboard and a AMD Sempron 145 CPU. I will avoid also the chipset (nForce 430) for future DVRs.

Okay - so I did all that you asked. Switching the PCI slot did not help. I also switched the cameras and the problem stayed with the camera! The cameras work perfectly however. I connected the camera to a different device and picture was perfect. I don't understand why this card is having trouble with the camera. Restarting the computer still handles the problem though. I will try using a different computer next, but this will take some time. Edit: I am using version 6.62.