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Moved from the member intros forum... http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=27735 I have a Q-See 485-5 8ch DVR costco bundle with 4 QSM5265C cams (I haven't gotten it yet) I currently have NO lighting on my driveway. For some reason the house didn't have any and it's pretty new (6 years). I think I need to add some motion lighting under the eaves of the driveway at least. Should I mount my cams below the light or above? (seems to be some back and forth on this?) Is it better for the cameras to have a motion light or should I be more stealth and get some kind of IR floodlight or just simple more decorative non-motion lights that stay on? Or Just a day/night light that stays on constantly? I recall issues in the past where motion lights 'blind' the camera temporarily until it can adjust it's brightness/white balance back, and that could be crucial time to catch the perp. I was thinking 2 motion lights(or day/night ones) under the eaves on each side of the garage, and then maybe a cam under/over each? I am a bit budget constrained at the moment but next year I'll have better funds for some nicer cams. I have gotten the installer code for my ademco vista20p. It seems to have rev4 roms on it. Curious to see what people have done out there with alarm inputs/outs on the dvr.

I got my front 2 motion lights installed this weekend. I found some pretty nice onces at local costco that are LED powered (3 leds per side) that are VERY bright. That's my step 1 to deterring the vandals. I found a 10 unit power supply box (that can use cat5/straight wire) I can wall mount with a locking cabinet on amazon, and I bunch of video and power baluns so I can wire my cams up with cat 5e. I got all the baluns (20 of them) plus 1000' cat5e solid, and the power box for a little over 100 bucks. So I'm definitely in budget territory here I'm thinking of getting 3 of the GS741E gadspot cams you got sockwave, they seemed pretty decent for the money. I still have yet to get an affordable PTZ cam for my baby's room monitor. The best I could find was 150 for an indoor one - and just wire a mic separately. http://www.securitycameraworld.com/Cameras/Pan-Tilt-Dome-SONY-420-TV-Lines-Infrared-Illuminator-Night-Vision-IR-Remote-Controller-PTD-208.asp anyone have opinions of that ptz cam? from lack of finding much it seems like the ip cams are the way to go for that.

Anyone using the android apps with these? I can only get supercam pro to work, and I can only see channel 1. Also if I use the Internet explorer mode or the supercam, the connections drops after about 30 seconds. Anyone else have theirs working on android? I tried meye a asee both say connection successful, then no video, then timeout error. I added ports 9000, 80, 100, and 16004 to my firewal port forwarding. But I have the same error with my phone on my local wifi lan same issue?

Wow great system, I hope I can set mine up as good. Did you have to move cameras around a lot as you built it? Also did you just use any of the included cables or power adapters for the cameras, or wire them with cat5e or anything like that? I don't want to over-think this I have lots of experience doing network cabling but none doing cctv stuff. I however have some sound mic wiring experience for remotes for live audo broadcasts from many local music venues. Thanks for the doing those videos, that gives me some ideas. I see the motion lights don't seem to mess with the cameras too much when they turn on - that was one concern of mine. I've done some stuff with low end vga webcams in the past, to catch someone stealing deliveries at another place I used to live. I had the problem where quick light flashes blinded the camera for several seconds. I never did catch them, mostly because they must have noticed the camera and nothing ever went missing again

I just ordered this today from costco.. starting to plan my system. Has anyone used the alarm input/outputs before with this? What kind of stuff can you do with it?

PoE is really great. We use it for our IP phone system at work. We always have issues with cheaper power adapters failing, and have been slowly putting in PoE switches into each workroom. The cost of the switches has gone down a lot in the last couple of years.

Hi, I've just purchased my first starter system yesterday, but I have yet to install. I got the Q-See QT428 (8 channel) dvr with 4 520tvl cameras bundle from costco. I got some good info on here about the bundled camera basically being junk, but the dvr box being a OK rebadged chinese model. I'm only in 300 buck so far. I fully expect to upgrade/replace the cameras as they die. If it's complete garbage I can use the costco return policy My applications: What I suspect neignborhood kids threw a large rock through the back window of my rental nissan versa the other day in my driveway (and I'm on the hook for cost of fixing it). I also have a baby coming in december, and wanted a system I can double with for that, by using the android app on my smartphone and tablet to monitor. I plan on getting an upgraded camera with decent indoor IR abilities with sound for the baby room. I'd like to see 2 car lengths down my driveway at night to ID these punks if they try anything again! Not sure if the QSM5265C camera is up to the task or if I'll need something beefier. I figured I would start with 2 cameras in front of my house (1 in front of garage the other hiding under a eve on the other side of the house, and 1 other on each side. I have pretty high wood fences in the back, so I'm not so worried about intruders back there right now (although I have a koi/turtle box I wouldn't mind checking up on remotely) I also have an Ademco Vista 20SE that I have no monitoring on right now, I'm curious how I can hook up my dvr system into for for anything useful. I have instructions somewhere on retrieving the installer password (I did this on my last house, a vista 10se) I'm attaching the drawings of my house (sorry a 5 min drawing in inkscape). I put the red numbers where I was going to place the camera. Does anyone have any opinions for the n00b here? Ryan

moving this to the system design forum.

Thanks for the response! I currently have NO lighting on my driveway. For some reason the house didn't have any and it's pretty new (6 years). I think I need to add some motion lighting under the eaves of the driveway at least. Should I mount my cams below the light or above? Is it better for the cameras to have a motion light or should I be more stealth and get some kind of IR floodlight or just simple more decorative non-motion lights? I was thinking 2 motion lights under the eaves on each side of the garage, and then maybe a cam under/over each? I am a bit budget constrained at the moment but next year I'll have better funds for some nicer cams.