SEANHAWG

Thats a good question. All of our equipment is used and we get a mass surplus of used housings from the place that we contract with. It would be a shame for me to buy new housings to re-sell when I have hundreds good used housings that I can sell for extremely less than a new one. And unfortunately I dont think that the grommets are available for purchase anymore as the particular brand of the housing is Ultrak and they discontinued making Ultrak equipment a few years ago when Honeywell bought them out. I'm not too concerned about water getting in the housings as I have had several mounted outside of my warehouse over a year now with a few of them having the holes wide open (with no grommet at all) and havent had a problem with rain entering into them nor have I had any customer reports of that sort either. I see what you mean about gravity making the water trickle down but I think the holes are pointed too far downward without that being an issue. But even then, I dont recommend that the holes are left wide open, I usually recommend that silicone be used to cover up the holes with a little gap for air or some sort of porous material that will allow air flow to completely prevent water from trickling into it. I was just wondering if you needed to allow air flow, I assume the obvious answer would be yes but just wanted to confirm.

Those Avigilon cameras are sweet! Out of curiosity, how much do those retail for?

I agree on the 2 seperate jackets. I havent seen any yet with one jacket but I dont really want to either. No sir, they did not advertise it as CCTV but did advertise it as RG59U. It has worked well for us so far but my only gripe was when the foil shielding touched the inner conductor it would screw up the video signal. Its a pain in the butt to have to peel back. Also, the inner conductor was copper clad steel which sucked too. It may be used for cable TV or Satellite TV applications as you said. I have since started ordering rolls from a large cable supplier in California who has great customer service and is knowledgeable in his products. I pay a little more for the cable but it is good piece of mind knowing I get better customer service and better quality cable which will make the end user happier. The cable I get now has a solid copper conductor and doesnt have the foil shielding. I can tell the difference already on our installs. With the other cable, we would have to re-crimp the connections all the time because that stupid foil shielding would touch the conductor. With this cable, we have not had to re-crimp once. I also asked him about using the bare cable outdoors. He basically said if you have it set up in mild climates, you shouldnt have to worry about putting it in conduit as long as you have it pinned against a wall and off of the ground. But on the other hand, if you have extreme climates such as bad icy winters or out in the desert where it is scorchingly hot, it may be a good idea to put it in conduit or he said you can get the direct burial type cable which would stand up to about anything, although I am sure the direct burial type is way more expensive.

will do. Thanks!

Hi Rory, Its RG59, here is a pic of what I have: Do you see what I mean about the foil shielding? But I bought some the other day that did not have that silver foil shielding around the inner white part. I do know that if the foil shielding touches the inner conductor, it will kill the video, but I usually peel it back. Should I just use the cable that doesnt have that shielding?

Another question on this: Do you guys prefer to use the cable that has the foil shielding around the white inner part of the coax cable or do you prefer to use the cable that does not have that foil shielding?

Okay thanks very much.

Fella's I have several used multiplexers and I even utilize one in my current 16 camera system that I have which is also hooked up to a Samsung Time Lapse VCR. I know just a few years back that this was the standard way of doing things before DVR's became prevalent and I am sure there are still quite a few people doing this. There are alot of advanced features on my multiplexer such as motion detection that will trigger my VCR on. Alot of these advanced features I have not even delve into yet but I am on a quest to educate myself more about my products. What I do now with my current setup is I record 24/7 set at 240 hour mode on my VCR. During the day, I just set the multiplexer to switching mode and it will record all 16 of my cameras which switch every 3 seconds. At night, I set my view at 4 camera view for my four most important cameras and just record that way. I could set my multi to 16 camera view but the boxes are so darn small that you can hardly make out anything, plus the frames per second is pretty low when I do that and then when you run it through a time lapse VCR it makes it even slower. My Multiplexer does have an option to digitally zoom in on a square during VCR playback but everyone knows how crappy digital zoom can look. I could set my multiplexer to motion detection mode but what if I have motion going on 8 or more cameras at the same time. I feel like I am losing the opportunity to record all 16 cameras. My question is, is there a major feature or function that I am possibly missing out on? Or how is the best possible way to get 16 cameras recorded with a 16 channel multiplexer and one VCR? Or is this just the major limitation of a VCR system? I am open to any and all suggestions and counter-questions. A little bit about me: I just happen to run across the opportunity to sell these products just about a year ago and I have become fascinated with this industry and thoroughly enjoy doing this. I have learned quite a bit about this stuff within the past year but I still want to learn more and become as educated as possible. I can usually help my customers with the basic hookups on my products but every now and then I get a question that stumps me about an advanced feature so that is why I am here. Quite often, my customers are installers and are way more educated than I am on my products but its the do-it-yourself homeowners who I really need to reach out to. We all start somewhere right?

It may be your camera. I bought a couple cheap cameras from China one time and when I plugged it directly into my monitor, it looked like a very fast time lapse recording, basically the view was not 30 frames per second, it was more like 10 fps, it sucked.

Okay fella's I want to get my multiplexer to trigger on my VCR for motion detection and Macro recording. There are inputs on both the multiplexer and VCR for Alarm in and Alarm Out. My questions is, do I just use a typical power wire to connect these 2 devices? Such as a snippet of wire off of my siamese cable? Please confirm.

Are there any good trade publications for CCTV related products that I can subscribe to to stay up with the latest technology in this industry?

I have been trying and testing DVR's for the past month to try to find one to re-sell to my customers. I sell used equipment to folks who are on a budget. Most of the recorders I sell are VCR's with a Multiplexer but I get several inquiries for DVR's all the time so I have been on the search for a low priced decent quality DVR to sell. So one of my customers turned me on to this DVR that he bought on eBay. He said he loved it. This was a no-name DVR which I was reluctant to purchase as I have purchased some no-name cameras before that were poor quality but since he said he had such good luck with it, I thought I would give it a shot. This was from a USA seller but when I asked a question about the product, the english was very poor so I assume it it a chinese seller with a location in the US. For $209.99, it sounded like a great deal so I went ahead and bought it. Its a 4 channel DVR with a 500GB hard-drive and one of the best things that I like about it is not only does it have 120 FPS display but also has 120 FPS recording which was pretty important to me. I was skeptical that this was not true but I verified that it was when I received the unit it. In the last month, I have tried a Vitek & Clover DVR which was more expensive than this one yet they are less featured. Both of those units only had a 250 GB and the recording was at 60 fps for 4 channels. I have received quotes from some commercial CCTV dealers for some other brand name DVR's but all of them are out of my customers price range and to be honest, their features were comparable to this no-name that I bought and quite often were less featured. I really want to stay with brand-name DVR's but it seems that I am paying for a brand rather than features (perceived value). When I received the DVR in, it did have a brand name on the front , never heard of it? But so far, I really like it and it seems like it would be a good product for my customers. My question is, why would I pay twice as much for a brand name DVR that is less featured than this DVR that just bought off of eBay? I just want to make sure I make the right decision for my customers. Here are the specs to the DVR that I bought:

I know the DVR is compressing video during recording but is the DVR compressing the video during live viewing too?

Whats wierd about this DVR is when I am even in live viewing mode, the picture quality seems to be lost a little bit as opposed to hooking the camera directly up into the TV, not a lot but I can tell it. But yes, I will sell it and let people know about the loss in quality, and continue my quest to find a decent low priced DVR that I am satisfied with that I can re-sell for good. This one wasnt too bad or anything but I just HATE that pixelized look at night. For example, the cameras I am using are not the best night vision cameras (LUX 1.25) but you can still see whats going on with an outdoor light, it just gets a little snowy. But during playback, it takes that fuzz and makes a disgusting pixelized mess out of the picture, I would be embarrassed to even show it. The daytime seems to be okay though but there is still just a little bit of video quality that is lost, the picture is not just as "crisp" as when the camera is hooked directly into the TV. I dont mind about losing a little frame rate but I hate losing "crispness". The crispness is what I need to identify license plates, faces, etc. If I lose that than whats the point?

I finally had time to mess around with this and got it set up to mux and demux. The demuxing was done through the multiplexer. Pretty amazing I thought. The only thing I didnt like about it was the fact that when I had the multiplexer set at 16 camera recording, you get the "lapsed" video effect, and then combine that with a time lapse recorder, the lapse gets multiplied depending on what time lapse mode you have it set at. But I figure I would set it up at a lot lower time lapse and configure the motion detection on the multiplexer to get some better video quality. Pretty sweet stuff though.

I am not sure about compression but I can change the recording quality if thats the same thing. I had it set at the highest it can go. Still looks like crap at night. The compression for the unit is H.264.

I somewhat take back what I said about this DVR. The daytime recordings look pretty good, but when I reviewed the playback at night, it looked like a pixelized nightmare. And no its not my cameras because when I view them live the cameras look great at night but when I view the playback recordings it looks like a very bad youtube video or something and I am just viewing it on a monitor, I dont even have the internet hooked up to it.

Also, if you use a tube TV, can you notice much difference when using the higher resolution recorders as opposed to the standard rez? I figure the difference would be pretty noticeable on a nice LCD, but what about the ol tubes?

Hi Jim, I sent you a PM with the link to the manual. Thanks, Sean

sweet thanks!

Yes when I first started in this business I fell victim to the infamous "Sony CCD" trick. The camera that I got in didnt even show in real time. It looked like a time lapse recording when the camera was hooked up directly to the monitor. What the heck? I thought that picture was hilarious. Unfortunately, that is the reputation that eBay has and has driven buyers away. But there are still some great sellers on there, just do some homework before you make the purchase like you would any other major investment and you should come out alright.

Thanks, I will check it out.

I am looking for a decent camera that has the ability to see in extremely low light scenarios, with very low LUX. Basically looking for some of those cameras that hardly need any illumination at all. What I need: It cant be an IR camera. I dont need anything with super high rez, 330 TV lines or higher is okay. I'll be using this for outside. The camera itself does not need to be weatherproof, I have housings to put them in. I dont need it to be an IP camera. It needs to have BNC connections. It needs to have the ability to run off 24 VAC. Dual Voltage or 24 VAC only cameras are fine. I cannot use 12V DC. Needs to be adjustable to the light with BLC and needs to see good during the day too. If its cheaper for me to buy just a camera body, then I am okay with that, I have lenses. need 1/3" CS mount I have several inquiries for these and I will be using these for re-selling purposes on a continuing basis. Need a good inexpensive camera but I would like to stay with "name branded". I sell used equipment to folks who are on a budget so that gives you an idea of my target selling market. I am open to any leads you all can give me. Thanks for your help.

On eBay you have to know what your buying and who you are buying from. There are tons of china-made "no brand name" cameras on there that you want to stay away from for the most part. Just try to stick with name branded equipment and check the seller for good feedback and good customer service comments. I sell alot of equipment on eBay but unlike alot of eBay sellers, I provide service after the sale. You will need to look for things of this nature. Just do a little homework and dont be afraid to ask questions. If the seller takes forever to respond, then walk away.

Has anyone else had problems running siamese cable outside. I have had mine installed for a little over a year with no problems yet but I understand thats not a real long time. I have several feet of it exposed outside running to several different cameras, none of it is laying on the ground, all of it is pinned against the wall. I see where some of the retailers will put some sort of heavy duty plastic or rubber jacket around their exposed cable. What do you guys think about outside RG59 Siamese cable. And how do you normally run it under ground, I havent had to do this yet but just wondering, do you put in some PVC?