Soundy

Those CNB domes sit out a fair bit from the wall and can angle back to look right along the wall... other domes are capable of the same (although I wouldn't count the Pelcos among them). I'm not familiar with the Speco bullets, so I can't offer a direct comparison.

Kinda depends. If you only need a single camera per site and don't need to record things, but only view live action, it's extreme overkill and adds unneeded cost and complexity.

No, you don't need to put power AT the cameras - like I said before, just remove the current centralized power supply, mount power bars there instead, and connect the existing power runs that now terminate in the box, each to its own adapter. I'm not familiar with that brand, but from looking at the various different listings for them, those particular cameras seem to be fairly mid-low-end. Most listings I found had them selling for $110-$140 (although a couple places were selling them for well over $200). Guess you don't always get what you pay for Unfortunately, the common-ground design is pretty standard even with better 12VDC cameras - only the ones with built-in power regulators really get away from that problem, because the power ground is then separated from the video ground. 24VAC cameras avoid it because they necessarily need a transformer/rectifier/regulator to step the voltage down (since the internals in most cases still run at 12V).

Not necessarily "easier". If you're running multiple cameras on a site, then a DVR provides a single point of login for all of them, but if it's just one or maybe two cameras, and you don't need to record them (ie. strictly for viewing), then the DVR just adds an extra level of cost and complexity.

I've seen similar symptoms sometimes, particularly with Capture PTZs. It looks to be interference from the control signal itself - it happens even with just menu commands, or if I switch use a non-existent camera number so it's not actually moving that camera. As to how to fix it, I don't really know, as I haven't had to fix it - I've only really seen it when connecting my laptop to the camera in close proximity for testing and setup.

Do you have any specific cameras or types of cameras (dome, box, etc.) in mind yet? Is this an "even" stone surface (like brick) or will it be rough and uneven? If it's a fairly even surface, any decent weatherproof dome can just be mounted to it - just drill through the stone with a masonry bit and use long deck screws to anchor it to the wood behind. If the stone isn't installed yet, you could perhaps mark out where the camera's back-box would go, and have the stonesetters leave an "opening" for it, so the camera is effectively countersunk in the stone. If you have the cameras in advance of the stonework going up, you could even pre-mount the backbox and just tell them to work around it. This method works especially well if the stone surface is very uneven. They're not my favorite cameras to work with, but the Pelco IS-110/ICS-111 outdoor domes have good deep backboxes are are fairly suited for this sort of install. Or, take a look at some of CNB's outdoor domes - I've installed tons of these, they're excellent cameras at a really good price, and again, for outdoor mountings they have a separate back-box that can be mounted first for the stone guys to build around.

It might help us to know the EXACT make and model of DVR, and what make and model of internet modem/router you're using, if any, plus what other steps you've taken so far - for example, have you tried connecting to the DVR via your LAN?

Probably something similar to what I've already described. It's a little more extreme than your needs, perhaps, but take a look at Video Insight's demo page at http://www.demovi.com - that's a PC-based DVR with a web-browser-based client. It records video internally, and depending on the security settings, can allow internet users to connect and view the cameras and the recorded footage. If this person's daycare facility has a surveillance system with an appropriate recorder (which is likely), chances are they've set it up in a similar fashion to allow clients to check in remotely.

Tearing out the cable could be a lot more work than you're ready for. If it's just straight runs across open ceiling or something, that's one thing, but if it's running in and over HVAC, around corners, or if they've got it strapped up or hooked in T-bar hangers... you're potentially looking at a LOT of labor to re-run all the wiring. I'm guessing this was a new construction when the system was put in, and now it's an operating business? If so, add to your rewiring labor, the fact that you either have to do it over and around their daily operations, or do it after hours... Really, there's nothing wrong with baluns and Cat5 - it's inherently a slick setup that gives great results and offers a certain degree of "future-proofing". All you need to do is get around a power issue that stems back to the cheap cameras. Easiest "fix" by far is just to replace the single power supply with a series of wall-warts. All the involved work takes place in a single location: the terminus of the Cat5 runs. Remove wall box, mount power bars as necessary, and splice existing camera power connections into transformers, one for each camera. The specs I found for the cameras calls for 310mA each, so if you can find a bulk-buy on 12VDC, 400-500mA adapters, you're laughing. If possible, look for slim-profile types so you can cram more of them onto a power bar - like this one:

So let me guess, do the cameras all have wavy/shifting diagonal lines through the picture? I've run into this many times with baluns on 12VDC cameras - it's a ground-loop problem caused by the fact that most cheap 12V cameras have a common ground internally between the power and video, and adding a balun to the equation just creates one ground path that's substantially longer than the other. It's not the fault of using baluns, or of Cat5 over RG59... it's the fault of cheap camera design. There are a couple solutions... cleanest one is, if the cameras support 24VAC, to switch to a 24VAC power supply. That's probably not the case though. I've had varied success playing with grounding the power supply and/or some (but not all) of the BNC sides of the DVR-end baluns, to the chassis of the DVR... either might help, or they might not, or they might make it worse, or they may just clear up some cameras and move the noise to others. The only thing I've found that eliminates the problem, short of switching to 24VAC cameras, is to give each camera its own "wall-wart" transformer... or AT MOST, have two cameras per adapter. Naturally, that's not as "pretty", since it also generally requires two or three power bars (depending on the physical size of the wall-warts, the number of cameras, and the spacing of the outlets on the power bars). But I can pretty much guarantee it will clear up your video.

Yes, it's cumulative. If each user needs 256kbit (for example) for the stream he's watching, two users will need 512k, three will need 768k, and so on. There's not a way around that requirement, but using an off-site streaming server at least shifts the bandwidth hit to a larger pipe - then instead of the camera needing to feed each user an individual stream, all it has to do is feed a single stream to the server, and the server then feeds the needs of the multiple users. Framerate required will really depend on how much "action" he wants to see. If he wants to watch cashiers counting change out to the customers, he'll need 10-15fps or better. If he just wants to see if people are actually AT work, where in the store they are, and/or whether they're doing work or just sitting around, then 1-2fps should be fine. There are a number of different ways to do it. Again, using a single offsite streaming server is probably the easiest - then you just provide the desired users with a single website and login, and they'd connect there and select which camera they want to view - in practice, from the user's perspective, similar to looking at videos on YouTube. Sorry, I can't suggest one specifically, because I don't use one myself, but I know of others who do. As to WHICH cameras, well, all I'm familiar with for IP cameras are megapixel models - getting something like that is extreme overkill if you're only going to run 320x240 video. The 1.3MP IQEye cameras I use most are 1280x1024 resolution. What might be more practical is to look at some of the PTZ IP cameras from the likes of D-Link - those are generally VGA resolution (640x480), but will allow you to control the pan, tilt and zoom remotely, so if you've got some mangers all watching the action, the owner can move the camera around to pinpoint what he wants them to see.

I'm with survtech, I generally just select based on experience and having a good general idea what lens will provide what views. Using varifocals helps too, because you can fine-tune to the view you need... and carrying a few extra lenses of different zoom ranges helps too, just in case Really, the minimal amount of fiddling required far outweighs the time you'd spend plugging all the relevant info into any software (room sizes and layouts, in particular).

I've NVT, GEM, and.... some other brand I can't recall offhand. All have worked fine for me, including mixing-and-matching (GEM on one end, NVT on the other, etc.). I like the GEMs for their price point and snap-down toolless connections.

2fps should be fine over DSL, especially if the cameras have H.264 streaming. If the bandwidth is really limited (I know some providers limit the upstream to 128kbit), you could always push the video to a video streaming/hosting site, and the users can view it from that link instead of going direct to the cameras.

Keep in mind that all you need is a single pair for baluns to work - doesn't need to be twisted or shielded or anything. An unused pair in the emergency-phone run will usually do nicely. Most elevators will have power outlets on the roof to plug in a camera's adapter - if not, an electrician should be able to add one. The other thing you could look at is powerline transceivers, either video or network (and use an IP camera), and modulate your signal over the car's power feed.

Well, Cat5 is generally more flexible/pliable and fits through smaller holes, so it can be less effort to install... plus you have the future option of adding more cameras (you can run up to four on a single piece of Cat5, power not included, or simply add another if you're using one pair for video and two for power), or you can install a PTZ in the future because you have a spare pair for control... and of course, there's always the future option of simply dropping in an IP camera if so desired (you can do it over coax using Highwires, but a pair of those will almost cost as much as the camera). As to why it looks so bad... are these all 12VDC cameras?

Kinda depends on the software. Adding an external drive to a PC is easy.... getting the DVR software to use it may be another matter. I know versions of VideoInsight pre-v3.0 only supported a single target drive for all video... as of 3.0 they let you assign a separate destination for each camera. Others (like Vigil) allow you to designate a number of destinations and it will rotate through the pool as necessary.

Even if they were PoE, they're already in place and obviously already powered, so there wouldn't really be an advantage to using a PoE switch... just extra expense.

^Why would you pay a premium for PoE switches in this case?

Well over here in British Columbia, we still get tomorrow off (in observation of Queen Victoria's birthday)... so a hangover for tomorrow is fine

Um just a thought, slightly aside, but I think I would be forcing the contractor to correct his mistake and pull in the proper cable here... especially if it's leading to extra expense for YOU (ie. the video servers). Either that, or slap him with the bill for any additional time and materials required for you to work around HIS mistake (something we did recently, where the electricians only ran 1" and 3/4" EMT for us to pull *9* camera runs through - we had to use Cat5 with baluns instead of coax, so we billed the cost of the baluns back to them). It won't necessarily solve your network problems, you'll still need a better switch (or switches) to handle the traffic...

If you search the drives, does the missing file show up anywhere? If so, where? It could be that something is depositing it in the wrong path. If this is older software, and the installer is poorly coded, it may be trying to install the file into a non-existent location... for example, properly-coded Windows software, if it wants a file in the 'system32' folder (as is common for DLL files), should use the path "%WINDIR%\system32" - that way, no matter what the actual name of the Windows folder is, it will find it. Now if, say, the program was originally written with Windows NT or 2000 in mind, the default Windows folder name is C:\WINNT, so a poorly-coded installer might want to put the file in "C:\WINNT\system32"... except on XP, they went back to using "C:\Windows" as the default system folder. In that case (not saying that is the case, just postulating out loud as to a possible cause of the file going missing), the file may not get put on the system... or the installer might CREATE the "C:\WINNT\system32" path and put the file in there, but Windows won't know where to find it because that won't be in the system-environment path, which is a list of places Windows can look for application files. Anyway... search the drive for that file and see if it actually exists somewhere, and if so, where. Make sure to set the search options to include hidden and system files and folders.

What make and model of switch are you using? That could be a f*kuvalot of traffic, you probably want a good enterprise-grade switch to handle it, not some cheap $150 Belkin or something. And yes, it should be gigabit.

Video Insight uses this for their support. I know, that's where I first discovered it. It was such a pain having to put VNC on customers' machines and set up their routers for it, or worse, having to walk them through setting it up so I could do remote support. So the first time I used this with VI, I had to find out how they'd done it!

Wait'll you start getting into Foveon sensors