Birdman Adam

I'm not sure I like where what CNB's doing with that LDM-24VF... Looks to me like it's a VCM-24VF with 20 IR LEDs built in. If used outside, it may attract bugs which obstructs view and requires more cleaning (darn spider webs...). Plus, 20 LEDS won't make much of a difference past 10-15 feet (in my experience at least). There "Intelligent IR" technology looks promising though... I guess I should wait until there are some videos comparing the VCM-24VF and the LDM-24VF.

If you switch the cameras around are the last 3 still not working? Or do the non-working ones follow the cheap cameras?

I can't think of anything off the top of my head... All I can think of is to take a female BNC and just solder yellow to the center, and some of the ground to the outer part. Still messy though! Why is it that these cameras have just bare wires on the end?? I would think that they would normally come new with a power jack and a female BNC connector.

I would definitely keep the VCM-24VF's! They are great true day-night cameras. I would first suggest you put up a floodlight or two. If that doesn't sound good to you, just stick up some IR illumination. The cameras you are using will take to it nicely.

Why is it that CCA (copper clad aluminum) is so popular?? Obviously it's cheaper... Is it used often because you can get away with it? Like the signal usually doesn't get degraded to the point where it's noticed? I've been looking around for good places to buy cable and almost everyone has that CCA stuff...

I dont know what the rules are in the UK, but in the US its illegal to record audio without their knowledge. So if it is a microphone, then he would have to put up a sign. Now I thought earlier in the thread we determined it was a motion detector??? I really think its gotta be a motion detector, and not a microphone.

This is typical with cheaper cameras with the pre-fabbed cable... The RED is your positive power, probably 12VDC. The YELLOW is the signal wire, you could think of it as the center conductor in coaxial cable. The BARE copper must be the GROUND, for both the power and signal. They do this commonly on cheaper cameras because its cheaper to use the same ground for power and signal, (at the cost of the possibility of grounding and signal problems). Only once you get into cameras that can accept 12VDC or 24VAC do you get ones that have separate signal and power grounds.

Might not be the same for all, but there are plenty of cables of all types that have lead in them. I think they use the lead because it makes the stuff easier to manufacture and form. If you've ever strung up holiday light strings, they have a lot of lead in them!!! One time after I strung about 500 feet of them, my hands were literally darker with the lead dust! Good thing is, pretty much everything with dangerous levels of lead has some sort of label on it telling you so. Please thoroughly wash hands after touching stuff like that!!!

Yea 330 is definitely not near enough to set up a good system. Now if you were to be able to work with a proper budget, the actual setup won't be too bad. Sounds like you can definitely handle it. If you choose good hardware then you'll have a great system. It's not too much different than hooking up a TV system (minus the cameras and lots of wires).

Some pictures might help

Haha Soundy! Welcome to the forum! I'm in NC BTW..

The way you connected to your TV is just fine. Now if the run is really long, then you might have some signal problems. The flicker could be caused by an inadequate power supply. At night when the IR comes on, more power is used.

Another Chrome user! W00T! Yea I couldn't connect either...

If these supposedly died after a storm, then I'm almost positive they aren't fixable. Think about the static charge from a nearby lightning strike, or even an actual strike going through the power lines or signal lines to the camera. The sensitive electronics in there would not take it very well... Now, you might want to test the power supply(s) to see if it's putting out power to the 'broken' cameras. If its not, then maybe you got lucky and just the power supply died. The way to prevent damage from lightning strikes and such is to have all components of the system connected to a good surge protector. This includes everything that needs juice, from the camera power supply(s), to the DVR or PC based recorder you are using.

Nope, he's doin' just fine... Actually he just posted a new video on his youtube channel: Apparently he had a dumpster delivered, and backed into it with his car the next morning! Of course he had both his house and car cctv system running, so he had video and audio of the crash from like 6 angles!

We kinda need some more details... Like what the voltage needed is? 12VDC? 24VAC? And how much current it needs to supply? How much does each camera use * the number of cameras?

I had a similar problem when I was using my WRT54G to update the IP for my zoneminder cctv server. I didn't get the badagent error, it just said 'update failed'. In one of the firmware versions for the WRT54G routers they changed how often the update feature did its thing, plus some other stuff. I suggest you update your firmware. This may take care of your problem.

So you are having the router update the IP address to DynDNS? I'm thinking its a problem with your router, as in how often it updates. DynDNS accounts will get blocked if they get updated too often. I'll bet that's what the 'badagent' means.

330 euros = 419.2650 US dollars as of today.

So it's been narrowed down to where the cable has been run! When you tested the spot with new cable, did you run it in a similar fashion as the old cable? What kind of cable is this; Siamese RG-59?, Cat5?, RG-59 with 18/2? What other wires of any type are within a foot of this cable as it makes it's way from the camera to the DVR? MUST be some type of interference which only the B/W signal is susceptible to!

VCM-24VF There's a link to a thread Soundy just made on how the VCM's flush-mount. It is nicer looking, and easier to work with in my opinion.

DBM-24VF VCM-24VF They are both exactly the same. The only difference is that the VCM-24VF has a wider shutter speed range, and has a manual shutter capability. Also, the VCM-24VF is a vandal-resistant, is waterproof (suitable for outdoors), and has a bigger back-end so it can be flush-mounted nicer.

Yes, I did that a second ago. For some reason I didn't know this kind of image enhancement was possible, just never looked into it I guess!

I tried out the image enhancements with GIMP and they help a lot when you need to enhance a picture in a low light environment! Especially the solarize made an almost black picture perfectly viewable, with face details recognizable. I will have to remember these if I ever need to enhance the images in a real situation!

Yea I think I'm just gonna use gimp, its really my favorite, and can do (pretty much) everything photo shop does.