Birdman Adam

+1 for this!!

Well, that depends. What kind of electric service - like a 200 amp main for a house? Or really big feeders for a whole building? Typically, as long as you cross the electric cable at a 90 degree angle, then you are totally fine. Please be careful if you will be digging near those cables - that is one thing you definitely do NOT want to cut...

So you will be running 40 to 50 separate RG59 cables through PVC conduit? Just make sure you use a giant size of conduit! There should be no interference problems whatsoever.

Wow, yea just go out and focus it in low-light, preferably when it is in B&W. Then you'll be good to go!

Just a suggestion, but it looks like you could benefit from focusing at night. That way it will be in-focud all the time better.

Yea, it will be totally fine for powering any basic camera. If you need to power IR - I would forget about using 22/2. Step up to like 18/2 if your running much more than like 800mA.

Yup, you guessed it. I may be putting in another system, for another friend. I already know what DVR and general-coverage cameras I will use (VCM-24VF outdoors, DBM-24VF indoors). BUT - I am clueless on what to do at the front door. He's already got cat5e prewired to all the spots, so I will be going w/baluns of course. What do you guys have up your sleeves for front-door cameras? Basically, I want Monalisa quality, or better. So good colors during the day, nice B&W picture at night, with decent light shining out from inside the home. IR would be fine, if needed. I want to get the camera at about face-level, and be able to capture a good shot of their face, as well as most of the body of the person. So this leaves me with: - Some sort of camera mounted in the door. Model #'s anyone? Experiences? This would be ideal, but how does it look from the inside? A nice-looking finish is essential. - Camera of some sort mounted to the wall to the left of the door, or just above the door. Not as pretty, but that is probably where the cat5e is... Ideas? CNB may have some options: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=1&midx=7 - Just stick a CNB vandal-dome above face-level, looking down. I wouldn't place it so high as to not be able to get their faces, however. And finally, anything other positions I didn't think of. Below this area is unfinished, so I can sneak the cat5e in where-ever really...

That is so cool! Do you have any pictures/videos of your generator setup? How do you store your power when the stream output slows? Battery array of some sort? Also, when you are choosing your LED bulbs, the main things you need to compare is the lumen rating (light output), as well as the beam spread of the light. There are other things like color temperature. Warm colors like 2700K look better typically (because people are used to the warm color of incandescents). I bet plugging in a 100W incandescent flood would be a big no-no in your house!

You know, you should really write a book. Or two. I have had that feeling too, the "oh $#!@" feeling - the moment you may have realized that something bad is going to happen. Or after the fact and you realize you have captured them in the act. It is so true - once you get into this stuff, you will never stop! I too can agree - it is best to save until you can hit the quality-point you want. You really do get what you pay for! (Not including over-paying. ) Also, I would be willing to bet that EVERY camera you ever put up will catch something odd - I know mine have! - This reminds me, check Scruit's youtube channel, he has some neat videos! So yea, have fun everyone! " title="Applause" />

Power-line networking works great. I have a couple of D-Link modules from a couple years ago. They worked fine. They did run rather hot though. Also, depending on how the wiring is in your home (I dunno how its done in UK) you will have a reduced signal on the other phase of the split-phase transformer that feeds your house. This basically only applies to homes in the US I believe, where the output from the transformer is 120v - neutral - 120v. If you connect to both 120v's you get 240v. If one device is on the left phase, and another on the right, the signal will be weaker, and therefore your speed will be slower. The signal and maximum speed also varies with line load and noise. When my dryer is running (240v device), the signal is reduced some. Same thing happens when the A/C is on... Even the distance between the devices matters. So if I plug one module in one side of my home, and another in the opposite side, the signal only allows like 40Mbps.

Do you need to be placed outdoors, indoors, or both? My currently-preferred choice: -4x CNB VCM-24VF -1x SRD-470D w/500GB HDD -cat5 cable w/baluns for power+video wiring -4-channel 12VDC PSU, 1A or higher If you only need 7.5FPS per channel at 4CIF res., then go with the SRD-450 for ~$300 w/500GB HDD. DVR should be ~$550, cameras should be ~$540 total, cat5 and 8 baluns should be ~$150, PSU should be ~$40. Total, ~$1300.

Don't be afraid to show of what ya got! What kind of PTZ do you have? Maybe you could affix a MIR3000 to it, so the IR follows wherever the camera goes!

They look OK, fairly cheap to me. Looks like most/all of the models only have digital day/night. They won't be nearly as good as a true D/N camera. Also, the prices on those go really high - but the features seem similar to that of their $50 ones. Bullets like those can be annoying to mount on anything but a flat surface below the camera. Cheaper ones can't swivel or rotate well to maintain a level picture while being mounted on a wall, or from above in a soffit. Typically I would mount cameras right to the wall. Drill a hole behind them to accept the wiring into the wall. Since this is a new home, you have a great opportunity to run wires everywhere! Once wires are into the wall, run up to an attic or basement to your equipment room - that is where the DVR, UPS, and probably all of your structured wiring should go. For soffits, I'd fix wood to the inside of the soffit such that it is screwed into the framing of the house, and is flush with the soffit. That way, you can screw the camera right onto the soffit, with the screws going through and holding firmly into the wood. Drill a hole to pass your wiring up into the attic. One thing is for sure - don't miss your opportunity to run wires. It is a lot harder to do afterwards...!

Yes there most certainly is. It all depends on the inputs your monitor takes. If your monitor has VGA and/or HDMI inputs, you can use it to connect to most all DVRs. (Most DVRs have VGA outputs, and newer ones have HDMI). VGA supports rather high resolutions, so you can view all your cameras at once and not be forced to make them tiny! You can do almost as well with a composite input - that way you could use it as a spot monitor for an individual camera.

For a typical home situation, no you don't need more than 13FPS each. But typically, I wouldn't go below 8FPS at all. The reason it is a little concerning is that if you need a channel to run at 20 or 30FPS (for example at the end of a driveway or something), and you already have all the other channels maxed out, you can't do it. Plus, I don't know how fine the FPS choices are. You are correct, 2TB would be fine for 9 channels, at 13FPS each, if you want months of recording. Depending on your setup, HDMI could be useful - but in home situations, probably not.

Is this it? http://www.advancedsecurityalarmprotection.com/advancedsecurityAnti-Vandal-Cameras.html About the only site I could find with that model number...

1. Why can't you use the CMS software? The software included with my 8-ch SRD-870DC from Samsung allows me to connect to any number of their devices all at once, and view them all at once, together. That would be a good way to go - just have one or two giant monitors to watch the software displaying the cams. 2. Don't think you can 'connect' them together like that. 3. Personally, I would go for one 32ch system. Seems to me it would be a lot easier to manage. Plus, you don't have to worry about your first two questions! Since standalones don't seem to typically be sold as 32ch units - I'd go for a network video recorder: Like this: http://www.samsung-security.com/products/video-recording-and-management/Network%20Video%20Recorders/Network-Video-Recorders/SRN-3250.aspx With 2 of these: http://www.samsung-security.com/products/video-recording-and-management/network-video-encoders/SPE-1600R.aspx With 4 of these in each of the extension racks: http://www.samsung-security.com/products/video-recording-and-management/network-video-encoders/SPE-1600R.aspx And maybe add in this for extra recording space: http://www.samsung-security.com/products/video-recording-and-management/dvr/hdd-extension-Unit.aspx

A google search of the model number will show the website which sells this DVR... Judging by the specs at the basic $779, its only so-so for a 9-ch DVR with no hard drive installed. If you could save up and buy a $1000-$1300 DVR you would be way better off! Why I don't like it: -Only takes 2 internal SATA drives, and that is if you don't install an optical drive, then its just one! -Max FPS at D1 is only 13FPS per channel (120FPS/9CH) - you could get away with this but I wouldn't -No HDMI Out -Its not a major brand - just a rebrand from a website -probably more Also, you are getting ripped off for the hard drives - they are adding on at least 50% of the price of the hard drive, compared to what you would pay for a similar one from say, Newegg. $300 for a 2TB HD?

$270 for the color version?? Just take your old camcorder, rip out the eyepiece. Attach a battery (9v) and connect a BNC cable to the composite-in wire. Now you have the same thing! This will help you: http://www.lucidscience.com/pro-night%20vision%20viewer-2.aspx Enjoy

Congratulations man!!

32-bit, 2GB is fine. Unless you render stuff or do a ton of movie editing, etc. 64-bit 4GB minimum. Ditto above...

Sure, that seems fine. BTW for any camera that gets drops of rain on the outside that obscure the view - apply rain-x to the surface (dome, etc) - it helps a lot!

For the price, sure, they are great. But when your spending $300 - you cant expect much. I would much rather spend 2-4 thousand and have a truly awesome 8-cam system.

1-4 deep-cycle car/marine batteries will work great. Typically at least 100 amp hours at 12VDC. Thats a lot of power! Put some sort of controller between all of your loads and the battery, to protect it from being discharged too far. Once you know how much power you need on a daily basis in watts, you can figure out what size batteries you will need - as well as how big of a power source (solar, wind, etc) you will need to keep the battery sufficiently charged. Say you need to recharge 20A per day. You get 6 hours of solar power. You need to put in 3.33A per hour to reach your daily charge. So get a ~50W solar panel and the proper charge controller.

Too bad I'm not even in college yet... I am experienced in basic networking, building/configuring PCs, all types of low-volt wiring, camera setup, etc.