the toss

It sounds like you have no idea WHY you use the baluns on an analogue job or what the difference in signal transmission protocols of analogue & IP are. You need to do some reading

I have never used HD-CVI but I was under the impression that it would not run on UTP

You said previously that it was a grey screen & now your saying it is a black screen. They can mean two different things

More information on the "good quality shielded cable" please

The iris in the lens is faulty - not worth any further action on those cameras , landfill.

An earth loop isolator MIGHT remove it IF it is caused by an earth loop which I doubt. Baluns DO NOT remove noise/interference that is already in the signal they help remove noise through common mode rejection techniques that get onto the transmission line from an external source. Identify the cause of the problem & the solution will become obvious

Unless he can show an invoice itemising 500m of cable then of course it's theft. If you bring 10 cameras but only require 4 for the job does he expect you to give him the other 6 when he is only paying for 4. I am suitably vague when it comes to cable & connectors and itemise them as " cable & connectors as required" on the invoice. I used to list it as so many metres of cable until I had one numbnut ( sorry numbnuts) start arguing about the offcuts.

Compression will not help you very much & you have now discovered one of the main drawbacks of PTZ cameras on tour. When your camera is moving from pre-set to pre-set EVERY pixel in the picture is changing constantly @ 30 fps & this is the cause of your large HDD usage. Normally only a small portion of your picture changes at any given time & it is only this info that is recorded. ( a simplistic explaination ) If you could get it to blank out the video signal between pre-sets you could save heaps of space. I don't know if any ptz cameras have that function or why not.

Honestly if someone can access your DVR (no matter where it is ) then you have other security issues that should be addressed.

Probably nothing , it is quite common that you cannot focus at the extremities of the zoom adjustment. Just bring the adjustment back in a bit & then focus.

Domes are really designed to be mounted on a horizontal surface not vertical. They can be mounted vertically but with limitations as you've discovered. Same goes for eyeball cams

It truely amazes me that " we install cctv systems" but we don't have a working knowledge of ohms law.

Drain to where ?

They shouldn't both be on at the same time. Turn them on & use them individually.

Your DVR should have a file format option when you save footage to an external device.

Sympomatic of a camera struggling to cope with the low light. Could be from the AGC introducing noise or from an under-rated power supply failing to cope with the IR power requirements.

Nice workmanship but I wonder about performance

Don't forget that CCTV HDDs are designed to run 24/7. Some computer HDD are not up to that.

If you want something that you KNOW will do the job & will CONTINUE to do the job then use copper

Considering that it is generally accepted that HD-SDI is limited to about 100m on top quality RG59 I would put this in the "Pigs might fly" category

Terminating in F then converting to BNC will cause some signal loss but shouldn't be an issue. The shifting colour on the leaves is called the "Moir Effect" & is symtomatic of poor image sensor resolution. You acknowledge this as an "el cheapo" system & I think the results you have are quite reasonable for a Swann analogue system.

That would depend on what you want from the recorder. If you have the settings set for highest resolution , highest frame rate but only have a 250Gb HDD and want 8 weeks of storage then you are clearly it wont happen. You will need to either drop the resolution , drop the frame rate , increase your HDD size , go to motion activated recording or any combination of these. So it is a trade off between all these things & only you can decide how to go. I like to have full time recording so you know that if something happened then you have it recorded. The important thing is to retrieve the footage before it is overwritten. Motion detection will result in lots of false activation and there is always the chance the very thing you want is missed.

It seems to have gone down the same road as audio power ratings. Everything used to be rated in watts rms. It was a standard rating that everyone understood. Then the smart-arses came along and started using peak power , peak to peak power , instantaneous peak power and peak music power. All of which looked fantastic on the spec sheet. This is how we come to have 4" speakers pumping out 250W where-as it would require a bank of 4 x15" speakers to do the ame job in RMS power.

Well all I can say is that if you are going to use RG6 then make sure it is copper centre with 95% copper braid shield (NOT FOIL). Then again such a cable would simply be a heavy duty low loss RG59 to me.

I guess it must be working ok or you would have mentioned the terrible picture your getting , but as Tom has said you should only use one twisted pair for a camera. Are you using one twisted pair for one leg of the video & another twisted pair for the other leg of the video. OR have you split the pairs and used the colour leg of two pairs for one leg of the video and the colour trace of two pairs for the other leg of the video. Regardless you will have lost the CMR properties of the cable and I'm surprised you are not experiencing severe phasing problems.