Birdman Adam

I too would be interested in a comparison. Dunno about there cameras, but when I asked about everfocus DVRs, many said they weren't any good. I remember reading the joke "Neverfocus". They look more expensive than the CNBs...

15FPS is perfect for almost all situations. You may want 30 if your recording a highway, or your driveway, somewhere where objects are moving 20+MPH. Otherwise its just a blatant waste of disk space!

How are you powering the cameras? At their location, or down the cat5 cable? Another possibility would be that the wiring to your baluns is not the same on both ends. For example, if you have blue-white on the left screw and blue on the right screw of the balun, you must do the same on the other end. Others can chime in with more info!

With red light cameras, (at least here in the US) you can very easily get in trouble without doing anything wrong! It becomes an almost constant worry for me when I'm driving in crazy high-tax areas like Washington, DC. Plus, its been proven that they can actually increase accidents/hyper-viligant driving because people are freaked out about getting tickets. Red-light runners are way down the list in terms of dangerous driving habits anyway! Bottom line: red light cams are simple moneymakers for the gov't. Any camera in a public place is fine by me. I enjoy spotting them, seeing what crap other people are using, and marveling at the good expensive stuff. Basically, wherever a person has a right to look around (public places...!), then a camera should be allowed to be there as well.

The difference between a real, pure sine wave and a 'fake' simulated sine wave is this: In the red you can see the real sine wave. All electronics designed for the voltage this is put out at will like it. In the blue, you can see a crudely simulated sine wave. Some UPS will do a better job than that (ie have more 'steps')... Bottom line is some electronics don't like this! It may make transformers as well as SMPS's buzz loudly, motors may run a bit hotter, etc, etc. Inductive loads (motors, fluorescent ballasts), can get mad. As an example, on my laptop, when I'm using my car inverter (same output of a UPS running off the battery), a horrible 60Hz tone is inducted into any audio lines I have. It sounds just like a square wave (harsh, not smooth). This shows that anything but a pure sine wave can be funny with electronics! Its no big problem, but can be annoying. Overall, the difference between a real and simulated sine wave is not usually a big deal. BUT, if you are running super-sensitive electronics, you should consider a real sine wave unit! UPS's with a large output (like 2000W), usually come with real sine wave. On the AVR: The difference depends... It could be the same, or not! It all depends on how serious the designer was who created the thing... AVR is usually not too big a deal when utility power is typically well controlled. But when you live in the Bahamas, power can be VERY unreliable (as Rory has stated).

I've always wondered this... It seems like more than 25% of the forum is comprised of members from Canada! How could it be?

Analog or IP? If you want a 6+ camera system for $1500, its probably gonna have to be analog. Others can recommend you a good DVR card... These are usually PCI-express (although PCI are surely available as well) cards with BNC inputs. Some have audio and alarm IO as well. These cards are coupled with VMS. (Your DVR software). There are options for all OS's. As far as specs for the PC, many rather basic computers are up to the task, but a couple musts include sufficiently fast hard drives and a processor that can chew through all the video in real-time. RAM is not a big deal, and neither is the video capabilities. With 6-8 cams, a single SATA drive could surely handle it with room to spare. Although you may consider some RAID configuration... I'm not sure a P4 would like this job, so forget the older PCs. Any dual core will be fine. As far as cameras, I can strongly recommend CNB's True Day/Night cameras with the Monalisa chip. I have used the VCM-24VFs, and they are great bang-for-the-buck. Sounds like you need good low-light viewing. Camera signal can travel down RG59 coaxial cable, or down a pair inside cat5 cable using baluns at each end (this is cheaper!).

Crimping rj45 connectors with your teeth... That's what I thought at first! Yea, one pair for +, one for - is a good way to go. Then one pair for video, and another for data (or as a backup pair). The weakness of the conductors is a little frightening to me, although they are copper, so they can be bent around a lot. Fingers is the way to go for me - buying a tool to do that seems silly!

The only time you have to worry about keeping wires twisted up to the point of termination is when your passing data - so you RS485 lines should be twisted most of the way. Its not that big of a deal though - you could have many meters untwisted and it would still work... Its a bit different when passing 100 or even 1000megabit ethernet. I use two pairs for power - to minimize voltage loss, although a lot of the cnb cams have low draw... I think my code was orange = positive, green = negative. Of course that's if your using DC, with AC the cameras don't care - because there is no +/-.

Well, you need to start by thinking about what you NEED from the system. Say someone has previously busted in a window - you'll want cameras on each corner to capture and help identify people messing with windows. Another common view would be all entrances/exits. So a camera for each door. Consider viewing these spots from the inside as well. On a typical house, I'd go for weatherproof domes under the soffits. Use varifocal lenses (standard on those cams) to get the views just right. BTW I can definitely recommend that camera, I used 6 on the outside of a cabin. Here's a day shot: And the same view with the sun below the trees after sunset (the landscape lighting on the tree is bright). When captured with a good DVR (not one that can introduce a lot of noise), these cameras are very effective! (And the price is wonderful if you know where to get em).

YES they can easily interfere with wifi. It depends on your transmitter, obviously. My cheap set was a receiver with an analog tuning knob, and composite audio/video outputs. The transmitter was a mini "spy" camera with a 1/2 wave (~2 inches) antenna. It draws ~50 milliamps at 9VDC. This is the key: In the back of the transmitter camera, there are two tiny (and I mean T-I-N-Y) switches. Use a needle to change them!!! They work together, allowing you to have four video 'channels'. So basically, you could have 4 cameras, and 4 receivers. If you did that, you would be guaranteed to kill all wifi within like 800ft. (This can be fun and useful ) Now I have found that with my personal wifi at channel 11 (2.462 GHz), 2 or 3 out of the 4 channels will work without disrupting internet. Even if it works, bandwidth reduction and lost packets can be a problem! Honestly, I'd stay away from these cheap systems. If you really want one, look for the 5.8GHZ systems. Then the next thing to ask is: Do you have a recent cordless phone?

I spoke to a Karen as well - they are very helpful on the phone! I was a little surprised coming from what some people on the forum have said about these guys. Will definitely buy from them again.

If you want to do a little soldering, you can probably connect with RS485 to your cams. When I got mine, they had traces and holes for some sort of header to be soldered in. All the control stuff looked like it was in there, they just needed to break out those connections with a screw-on header or something.

Just speculating on this... I would look at the rated distance (LOS), as well as the power output (wattage probably). Also look at what antennas those things use. So say the LOS rating is 300m, then I'd say your good to go. Usually the higher the freq. the less it works through things. Also, the big thing is antennas. Say the rating is 150m LOS. If you hook up a couple nice 2.4GHz Yagis pointed right at each other, it will work perfect. But if they are using those flat ones or dipoles with only some directional gain, or even plain old omnidirectional vertical, I would be worried.

4 gigs should be fine for windows 7 - DVR/NVR software doesn't need to much in terms of RAM. I tend to find Win 7 uses about 1.5-2GB for itself (that is if you don't optimize by disabling the pretty stuff). Do you guys think you really need an i7-2600 for 32 cams? Or would an i5 2500 do it fine. Seems to me the 2500 would do fine, it seems like a good sweet-spot in the 1155 socket 'clan'. I think the 2500k with unlocked multipliers (fun OC'ing!) is only like $20 more?

SRD-1670 by Samsung. I have used the 8-channel version (SRD-870), and it was awesome. Yup, its somewhat expensive, but a GREAT dvr! You can get the SRD-1670D if you want an optical drive. Both models have like 3 USB ports, everything is mouse-controlled. The SRD-1670 has 6 internal SATA ports & drive slots, so go ahead and load up 12TB (or more) if you want to!!

You mean a pole pig like this??? You should try visiting scrap yards, dumps, etc to see if they have any old ones. They are usually recycled for their metal windings inside. Also, call your local POCO (power company) to see if they have any busted old ones you could have or buy. Some people buy them and run them in reverse (240V across the secondary) so they can have many kilovolts at a couple amps to play with (fun arcs!). If you do find some, there will be many different sizes that vary by their current capacity. There is a cap on the top, and then the transformer inside. The whole thing is filled with mineral oil. Some weigh 400+ pounds. They are 100% waterproof (they must be!), so filling one with electronics shouldn't be a problem. Now if you are wanting to hide equipment in one of these, I'd recommend you get a below-ground connected transformer. (Those big green boxes you see in neighborhoods, or anywhere the power lines are buried). It will look better and blend in. They have locks on them as well.

A digital modulator is the way to go, but currently can be expensive and annoying. Maybe insert your analog cable channel downstream (after) the digital cable converter thing. Then they can surf their cable channels, as well as skip to the CCTV channel? IDK...The whole cable thing confuses me! I hate how all the cable companies are switching over to digital, and they call some of their channels 'HD'. Technically, they are HD in terms of pixels, but the whole image is very compressed to fit all the channel down the line. I get much better HD from over-the-air digital (free!). OTA is best quality, followed by satellite, THEN cable!

Soundy asked all the right questions. If you live near him have him set you up! With nightvision, you can use either IR (humans can't see it), or just white visible light. Normal white light provides a better image, but is not very covert! IR works, but it more 'washed-out', and a strong IR light will make things too bright (say when a person walks within 10 feet of the camera). #1 thing is getting a TDN camera, so you get the best picture day & night. Don't use cameras with built-in IR, use separate illuminators.

A good 16ch DVR for under $500 is going to be pretty much impossible... Check out CNB's DVRs: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=5 The HDS4824 is a bit above your price. That is without any hard drives. It will be a solid DVR, but you still need like 4TB+ (like $200+) of hard drives to record from 8 or 16 cameras and keep that data for more than like 10 days. Honestly, increase your budget to like $1500+, then you can get a very solid DVR with plenty of storage space. Start with a good DVR, and add hard drives over time? I would get the 16 channel version of Samsung's SRD-870DC (The SRD-1670DC). Load it up with like 10TB of disks, and your good to go. But its $4000... (Samsung is expensive - but good).

Yes, this is a problem with many (most all!) DVRs... They all use ActiveX plugins to get the remote stuff to work. HAven't found a way to get around it, as ActiveX is only available in IE.

Other than turning off Aero, I believe you can use a simple 'theme'. Like Windows 2k or XP! (Definitely won't use a lot of RAM...) I would only enable essential startup programs, and delete any bloatware, unnecessary stuff. The computer should be 100% dedicated to recording cameras. I would keep the system files and swap on the 80GB. Although unless you are recording like 24 cameras, the 1.5TB drive won't be working hard anyways. (BTW make sure you have a UPS in case of power flicker/outage). Also set PC to turn back on after AC loss.

DIYer here... I think part of the problem you guys have is that the average CCTV consumer (small business, etc), doesn't know quality from cheap. All they see is the picture on the screen. Not whether its angled correctly, the proper FPS and resolution, etc... Something I thought of that you could show to potential customers: Do a quick set-up with a DVR and one camera at an entrance or something. Show them the features they can get from a $800+ DVR, versus a $200 DVR. Show them the details they can get from a properly installed $100+ camera, and what they can get from a $50 camera. I think as long as you sell at firm prices with good equipment, and show your buyers the difference, they will understand! BTW I have bought from surveillance-video.com many monalisa CNB domes, and an SRD-870 with 3.5TB of storage. I wanted quality for a low price, and that's definitely what I got!

Probably restart IE, and if it says anything else about the codec, set it to always run, use, etc it. Basically, tell it to USE the codec. Internet Explorer is DUMB when it comes to these things!!

Yea, you really need to get a UPS (battery backup), with a built-in surge protector. AVR (voltage regulation) can be important if you live in an area with varying utility power (Like Rory! )