buellwinkle

Just curious, is the audio in just a live audio feed on the TV?

That NVR has a single channel input for recording video. Get a CCTV amplified mic with a long cable, many on eBay or Amazon and plug it into the back for the NVR and attach a 12V power supply to it and run the mic where you want to record audio. How it merges that single audio pot to a single camera, I do not know because when I tested that specific NVR for a review, I didn't test audio. Of course, you can always get a Dahua camera that has 2-way audio, the larger dome or larger bullets.

Looks like an ordinary connector on ours. Probably get it at any electronics supply store. Be careful on pushing a few amps of 12V through Cat5. If it's a meter or so, maybe fine but you may lose half the 12V if it's a 50m cable. Cat6 or 7 may help but it may pay to run a thicker gauge wire just for the 12V at the same time you run the Cat5.

How's the service with Millenicom? Are they throttling you for too much usage? Are you getting a good and stable 4G connection. I can't believe their price, $79 for unlimited 4G.

The ACTi KCM-5611 can be powered by 12V and you can certainly cut the wires from a power adapter for the cradlepoint.

Indoors you can use a cheaper mic as it doesn't have to be weatherproof. Depending on the camera you get, you'll need an amplified mic or not. Most require an amplified mic and there's tons of them on ebay or amazon, just search for CCTV microphone. It will typically have a pigtail with a power connector for 12V and RCA style connector for audio. The camera will either have a terminal block you attach wires to or a pigtail. If it's a Dahua, it will have an RCA jack to connect, Hikvision will have just wires coming out or a terminal block depending on the model. Axis or ACTi have terminal blocks you wire into. Here's a picture of typical amplified mic

I heard they are decent.

They work pretty well in day mode in color with available light. Just don't use CFL's, use incandescent or LED bulb. I would not put motion detect lights as they make things worse. Put in some nice porch lights in front of your garage, put LED light bulbs in them and that will enhance the image and not use too much power and make your house look better at night.

Sure, but there's e-ptz. For example, I have a display with 9 cameras, clearly on my 1080P display, each camera takes 1/9th of that. But within each small window, I can zoom in to get more detail. The same on my tablet. When I view a 3MP camera, it shows me the full camera but I can pinch/zoom to leverage the full 3MP.

I got Cisco pro desktop managed switch, 9 ports (8 are full power PoE), a refurb for $100 on eBay (normally about $400ish). It's full gigabit on all ports in case I want to plug an extra non-PoE device requiring gigabit.

If you want to cover a large area indoors, the ACTi E96 is available for $260, is a 5MP dome and is a fisheye covering 360 degrees. Their NVR software splits that into 4 90 degree streams so looks like you have 4 cameras, each pointed in a different direction. So it has the 360 degree coverage a PTZ provides without any movement and no zoom.

We use a VZW USB stick in a Cradlepoint Mobile Broaband Router and it works great, been up for about 6 months, no problems.

China Post to the U.S usually takes about a month on average although I've gotten stuff in 2 weeks and 2 months. I always use FedEx or DHL, I just don't have the same patience you do, LOL.

Also, not everyone is lucky with their Dahua firmware updates. If you are unlucky, your camera may never work again. I've never bricked a camera before or since bricking a Dahua.

Ah, those are cool, they are called PTZ or speed domes. Indoor ones are slightly cheaper. You an get an inexpensive one like from Dahua for only $599 but only 3x zoom, so depends on how you will use it. The better Dahua's PTZ that are 20x zoom run about $1,000 to $1,500. ACTi runs more, about $1,600 for indoor, about $2K for outdoors. Hikvision I believe is in between. Axis has their low end indoor PTZ, the 214 for about $1,200 and their outdoors ones tend to be about $2,500 and up. Panasonic makes an indoor one for about a grand. What's your budget, knowing that $600 is the low end, and $4,000 is the high end. The good news is you won't spend $300/camera, LOL.

Can't speak for Canada, but in the US it's against federal wire tapping laws to record someone's voice without their knowledge. Then there's stricter state laws that vary. Indoors in the privacy of your home, it's your domain, you have more freedom. Our attorney recommends we disable microphones on our community cameras. This may explain Canada's law, but basically mimic's U.S. law - http://legaltree.ca/node/908 As for NVR or cameras, the low end is from China, Dahua, Hikvision, good brands from China, support goes with the low price. The next step up is cameras from Taiwan, better support, good cameras, good bang for the buck from ACTi, Geovision, Messoa, Vivotek. The next step up is cameras from Europe, Canada and USA that generally cost more, so depends on your budget but if you are looking for something the in the $1,000 range for 4 cameras, you may be limited to cameras from China like Dahua or Hikvision, the only exception is Messoa has a 4 camera kit for under $1,000.

Sorry, not familiar with what's available in the UK and many times, what's a bargain in the U.S. may cost a lot more in the UK due to VAT and import duties.

Bit rate does not anything to do with resolution, it's a compression setting. The more compression, less bandwidth used, but lower the quality, resolution remains the same. You do realize that it's analog cameras, not 1080P at all, cameras are 800TVL. The DVR is 1080P, not the cameras. You would get more help on the analog camera category of this forum. Yes, a microphone like that should work.

Thanks. Yes, zero IR light bleed, but it's a larger dome which allows better spacing of LEDs. I have not tested the equivalent bullet yet, but the difference won't be as dramatic as the 2032 to the 2732.

This is a setting, you can go lower bit rate and compromise some quality. I have multiple cameras, but only look at one at a time.

That's not too bad, noticeable but not bad. From my experience, Dahua domes are no better and in some cases worse.

What maybe good for you is a bundled system. The best I've seen is the Messoa bundle with 4 HD camera, PoE switch, hard drive, NVR and saw it on sale for $849. I'll PM you the link. If you bought these separately, it can cost you double as each camera can easily cost $300+ from a reputable store.

Just trying to find the best bang for the buck. For me I was looking at the ZyXel 100Mbps 8 port PoE plus a gigabit uplink but wanted to know if there's a better deal for a managed switch that's full power on all ports, maybe a full gigabit switch to be more future proof, as more cameras end up with gigabit ports and I would imagine as low end cameras reach 10MP and beyond this will be common.

The thread is what is on M12 board lenses. There's a good variety on M12lenses.com. If you want cheap and you don't mind waiting a month or more, dx.com has a good selection.

With that camera, duct tape a dictation machine and press record. You can buy cameras with microphones built in, usually cube style or you can get domes with audio-in or mic-in. Audio-in means you need an amplified mic, Mic-in mean you can use an un-amplified mic. An amplified mic typically needs a 12v power supply for the amp. The easiest thing for you is to use a cube camera that has mic/speaker already built-in, like the AVTech AVN812 (1MP WiFi), Axis M1054 (1MP, PoE) , Brickcom MB-300Ap (3MP, PoE & Day/Night). If you want a dome, the Hikvision DS-2CD2732F-IS has mic-in and audio-in. If you like Dahua, drop the "C" and get the IPC-HDB3200 which has line-in. If money is not an issue, the Axis P33 series domes and Mobotix D15 series domes have microphones built in but could cost more than the Dahua.