Henry-f

Oh, and I meant to add: When you mention fairly wide field of view do bear in mind that as you go wider with your field of view you reduce the level of detail captured, especially further away form the camera. Henry

Hi there. When you say powered over ethernet and web based viewing be careful. IP type cameras tend to be very expensive for what they re and are really best suited to offices which have an extensive Cat5 network and the IT department are entrusted with the task of sorting out CCTV. It's their language, budget isn't too big an issue and so IP is the route to go. The downside, especially when looking at outdoor cameras is that IP equals loads of money. As an example we sell very good quality zoom lens outdoor CCTV cameras for under £150. An IP version might cost well over £400 !! The other issue with powering your outdoor cameras over the ethernet is that you are limited in terms of power consumption. This means lower grade electronics and more importantly less powerful Infra-red illumination. Don't worry though. Conventional CCTV cameras plugged into a DVR recorder can still be viewed over the internet providing the DVR recorder has an ethernet connection which can be plugged into your internet router. This allows your CCTV system to be viewed both over your local network and, with port forwarding on your router, the internet. To connect the camera to the DVR recorder you can still potentially use Cat5 cable for ease of cable runs. You use a thing called a balun at each end of the pair of wires transmitting the video signal and then combine the remaining 3 pairs of wires to transfer 12 volt power to the camera from the transformer located next to your DVR recorder. Failing that we sell pre-made cables as well as what's known as shotgun cable. This is RG59 coaxial cable with a 2 core cable stuck on the side for the 12volt supply. [edit by mod-please see rules regarding advertising] All the best. Henry

Firstly congratulations on living on the right side of the line. We may be thousands of miles apart but a dodge Ram pickup nestles quietly in the corner of my car collection so I'd fit right in It just seems a lot of hassle and added expense. We fit a good quality Western Digital AV grade hard drive in all our DVR's so quite possibly the same. No saving there then. With the DVR everything is already there for you. With the cost of DVR's these days you'd wonder if it's worth bothering to fix them beyond simple DIY stuff. As with everything in life though, each to their own. Keep smiling Henry

Totally agree with the CCTV in a box not being a good way of acquiring CCTV. Also agree with wireless being generally unsuitable as well unless you are spending big money. It's interesting that the one thing you rarely see in promotional videos of cheap wireless CCTV products is screen footage. Not a huge fan of PC based CCTV DVR's either. If you build a stand alone computer then it will more than likely end up costing more than a bespoke stand alone plug and play DVR recorder. If you combine it with your normal PC then not only will a good capture card have an associated cost, not a million pounds away from a stand alone DVR but also your PC needs to be left on all the time, risks a performance reduction handling the CCTV footage, has the hell knocked out it's (probably non AV grade) hard drives and worst of all is the first thing taken in a break-in. Yes, technically you should make a little back up to your computer and use that to determine frame size. I suspect for the original poster merely knowing that different frame sizes exist and to aim for D1 in what ever guise is sufficient to ensure a useful CCTV system on a budget. Let's not scare folk off by splitting hairs or going down too technical a road lest they give up and buy the CCTV in a box solution because it was easier !! Henry

Just come across the forum and logged on. I have come into the industry in a rather arse about face way. Disillusioned punter wasted money on poor quality CCTV equipment, struggled to make sense of many of the people selling CCTV so ended up getting on a plane to Asia and burying myself in CCTV manufacturers for 18 months or so then setting up a business to run along side our Porsche business. Hey - it's a stinky job but someone's got to do it Very passionate about people making an informed decision when looking into buying a CCTV system and have made lots of videos and written loads about the subject. Have bookmarked the site so will pop in to offer my 2 penny worth (or should that be 2 cents worth !!). Keep smiling. Henry

A lot of DVR recorders that say they record in 720 x 576 pixels in the spec sheets actually only record in 704 x 576. The way to test is to quickly remote access your CCTV system. Take a screen snapshot then go to resize it in your computer's graphics programme. Select "pixel size" and hey presto - it displays the pixel size of each frame. Either way whether it's 704 pixels x 576 or 720 pixels by 576 it's a lot better than the CIF format of 360 pixels x 288 that so many systems use. Certainly if you're looking to set up a small system in a shop on a budget and get everything else right by zooming in your cameras to fill the frame, position them properly and so on you'll have one of the best systems in the street. I still think that 6 frames a second is more than enough for all but the most specialist of applications, certainly if it means the difference between an extra camera or 2. CCTV is always a trade off between perfection and someone's budget. We aren't talking Vagas here Keep smiling Henry

As has already been said, avoid wireless cameras and systems. Especially if you are trying to set up a CCTV system on a budget. The quality will be very poor. you are also introducing a chance for image deterioration even before it reaches the DVR recorder. The first thing you need is a CCTV DVR recorder. Make sure you buy one that records in what's called D1 resolution. That's 704 x 576 pixels. The lower options are field (half D1) or CIF (1/4 D1). By recording in D1 you are capturing the maximum detail possible. Don't worry too much about recording in "real time" which is around 25 frames per second. 3-6 frames per second is fine if they are good quality images. The trick with cameras is don't try to film everything at once. Choose exactly where you want to film and then fill the whole of the screen with that subject. For this reason we are big fans of zoom, or vari-focal cameras. This allows you to zoom in or out once you've installed the camera to best fill your frame. [admin edit: out of fairness to others; link removed. ] Cost-wise you can get a great 4 channel recorder at £150 (a little over $200) and good quality varifocal cameras range from around £80-140 (a little over $100 to a little over $200). Cable costs are much cheaper than wireless links, allow around £15 ($20) per camera. There are lots of places selling CCTV these days, obviously some are knocking out cheap rubbish but most areas have a retailer who can give good advice and sells quality products. Finally if you want some helpful advice on things like positioning your CCTV cameras and so on there are some video tutorials on our site.