ssnapier

Fair enough, and maybe I understated the level of overkill a bit...

I would be careful with putting a POE switch in the garage, better to keep that in a climate controlled area unless you are going to buy a small box with a fan and a heater to house it. This box might be a bit of overkill, but it would do the job: http://www.l-com.com/nema-enclosures-12x10x5-inch-120-vac-weatherproof-nema-enclosure-with-heater-and-cooling-fan What is your budget for this setup?

I think you are looking for a box camera with a zoom function. Most varifocal cameras are best described as set it and forget it. Here is are some examples of a box camera with zoom: http://www.aventuracctv.com/480-TVL-Sony-27x-Box-Camera-OSD-RS-485-output/ http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-Box-Camera-Super-HAD/dp/B0089DULAY# <--- my current personal favorite http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/855652-REG/ACTi_KCM_5211_18x_Zoom_4_MP.html

This is not something I have experienced, do you mean at the time you set them up? I would think maybe this type of thing would be a symptom of firmware with a memory leak, but perhaps I am not clear on what you mean.

If you are running a single camera at a medium to low resolution/ frame rate it can be done with 900Mhz, which does NOT require line of site. Also, if you run solar, please make sure you use enough battery to power it for at least 18 hours of zero sunlight. That takes care of most snowstorms, tree gunk, etc.

I would use a solar option for power. Putting in a code compliant trench for a power run like that would be very expensive. As for the camera itself, if line of sight is not very good you will almost certainly need to run fiber for this camera. Check the local code, you may need permits for this work. Call Miss utility to mark the area Rent a ditch witch, dig the trench Insert PVC conduit (glued properly!!!!) with pull string. Make sure neither end can catch rain water. Fill in trench, use marker tape for future work! Attach fiber to pull string, yank thru tube. Terminate fiber, attach to media converters (fiber to coax or fiber to Cat-5 depending on camera type) Plug in both ends You also need to account for any landscaping restoration involved.

Doing a single number for a 5 year time span is pretty brutal. Ours typically adjust annually, and that accounts for additional age, changes to the system, and any other issues or disasters that have occurred in the last year. I would add 2-3% to your base number for years 2 and 3, then add 7% to your year one costs for the last 2 years. If you don't escalate it, you run the risk of outpacing your resources rather quickly. This accounts for inflationary costs, and all sorts of other junk that shows pops up along the way. It also accounts for the increasing age of the equipment (higher likelihood of failure) and the increase service calls required. I would also document this in great detail so that when they ask you to justify it, that willbe as simply as showing them a chart or two.

No I meant crossed pairs at the terminal block... red on pin 1 (side A) and green on pin 1 (side B). That kind of crossed.

We have several maintenance contracts for systems that are 7-15 years old with the sizes you are talking about. Typically the maint. contract ends up being 15% of the original install cost. We also explicitly exclude hardware replacement from the contract. If we discover bad hardware, the customer has to fund that replacement cost and then we cover the install and config of the new stuff under the maint. contract. We will sometimes include optional fixed costs for a SMALL set of stocked hardware (typically one of each model in the system and a DVR/ NVR as needed). This allows them to pony up for emergency equipment that we stock for them. it reduces emergency replacement downtime and gives them a warm fuzzy feeling about our commitment to them. Another fixed cost we will include is annual license or extended support contract renewals from the manufacturers if they are offered. This can help us handle warranty replacement without telling the customer they need to buy another device. On top of that we also include annual training costs (to keep our techs up to speed for them). In one contract, it covers three separate campus areas so we had to include travel in the contract.... this took some flat out guess work, but we left language in there to allow for us to invoice any travel overages based on abnormally high maintenance needs. The best way I have seen to do this is to allow for it, but cap it at a little less than double what your "normal" travel cost would be. I have also seen companies that have a fair bit of existing maintenance data use those man hours to come up with a labor hours per device figure based on their data. This number typically rises as the system ages so you should add 3-5% more labor to each year (per device). Hopefully this helps.

Can you draw a silhouette of your house and property line so we know what we are dealing with? Heck, post a Google map aerial screen shot if you want!

One big thing that may not seem important, but it will add up fast is lifts to get to the outdoor cameras. Do you own a lift? If so, make sure you account for that as a service. As for the rest of it, I am a bit busy right now but I will reply in greater detail in a few hours.

How far away from your house do you want to have usable detail? If you are good with a very wide image that loses detail 15 or 20 feet away from your house, you can probably do 4 cameras on the corners and cover 90% of your place with ease. Give this a read and see if it helps: http://www.2mcctv.com/blog/2012_08_31-monofocal-vs-varifocal/

Has anyone here setup an Overland DX1 using the Dynamic Raid? I have a setup with a bunch of Mobotix stuff that has an Overland storage unit as my only real option. It is currently setup for single parity dynamic raid, is this going to cause issues?

Holy crap, that went in many other directions than just port forwarding! " title="Applause" /> " title="Applause" /> " title="Applause" />

That stuff is polarity sensitive, make sure the wires are not crossed.

Yeah I phrased it wrong with the MikroTik stuff. What I meant to say was that they were powered with a normal 48VDC power supply and BOOM... dead MikroTik device. Are you clear on the rest of it though?

POE power classes (this is per device): Class 0 - 13.0 W <--- typical default Class 1 - 3.84 W Class 2 - 6.49 W Class 3 - 13.0 W Class 4 - 25.5 W <--- this is 802.3at only! Most non-PTZ cameras powered by POE are class 1 or 2.

Holy cow that was painful to read! There are two published POE standards which are these: 802.3af = Supply of 48VDC and up to 350mA so that the power initiated per channel does not exceed 15.4W and the power per channel that is delivered does not exceed 12.95W. Can be used with CAT-3/5/5e/6/7 cable CAUTION, MOST SWITCH MAKERS USE TWO VERTICAL CONNECTIONS PAIRED TOGETHER TO FORM A CHANNEL!! 802.3at (commonly referred to as POE+) = Supply of 48VDC and up to 720mA so that the power initiated does not exceed 25.5W per device. It must cannot be used with CAT-3 (too much current). MikroTik uses a 24VDC input voltage and calls it POE, which is pretty dangerous in my opinion. I have seen people plug in 802.3af compliant switches to these devices and kill them instantly. I wish they would stop doing this stupid stuff and follow the standard!

Do these cameras have RS-485 connections or is it controlled via Ethernet? Do you know what protocol each camera is supposed to use? If they are RS-485 and you have no wires going to the RS-485 connector, that would be the first thing to get done. Most RS-485 cameras have little dip switches to set the address for each camera. If they are Ethernet, there is probably a software menu on the camera where you can change the address and protocol.

My apologies, I believe unshielded is actually more correct. I think the other meaning was adopted when several different types of cable started using a variety of different twisting methods.

You really only need to post about this one time. I replied to your first post in a fair amount of detail. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=42488&p=254851#p254851

If you have a smartphone it should have a wifi hotspot built in that will allow you to use your phone's internet connection on your laptop. If not, just go someplace with free wifi and try to connect to it from there. The key here is to get outside of your own network.

SightHound is pretty good, I prefer that to BlueIris actually.

I have had this issue before, but only from inside that network. Normally what I do to verify remote access is fire up the wi-fi hotspot on my phone and connect my laptop to that. This takes you outside of your network and allows you to truly prove if it works or not. I am not sure what causes this, I suppose it could be some funky security thing with the ISP but I honestly have no idea why this happens. I have also called a friend in a different town and asked them to try the address.

UTP = Universal Twisted Pair there are different twists for different frequencies and data speeds. That is a DEEP rabbit hole, so unless you want your head to explode just trust me on that and know that is what it means.