the toss

So much for your new fangled cable tester. Sometimes the old & tried ways are the best.

What tests does your cable tester perform? If there is a s/c between inner & outer you will still have continuity

Having said you believe it's fairly simple you then ask a question like that. Generally speaking most DVRs are remotely controllable via IR ( like your TV) s that will be your problem. There used to be a few brands that had a hardwired remote control panel but I suspect that wouldn't be suitable either. Many people make the mistake of mounting the DVR in one spot & the screen (for viewing purposes) in another spot. When the time comes to view particular footage you really need the DVR & screen co located

The main cause of ghosting is impedance mismatch in the transmission medium which also includes parallel paths (T connectors etc). The main cause of a grainy picture is too much noise. Either the gain is too high or the DNR is too low. Set the cameras parameters within their capability & you should have no problems.

I have the same problem on my TV. It is simply switching impulse noise exceeding some agc/alc threshold.

It's a budget system so you'll get budget results.PAL is limited to 600 lines and NTSC it limited to 525 lines. Anything more than that will not give better results. There is a reason that you can buy 600 line cameras for $50 or $500 & you have discovered it.

Murphy's Law of BNCs - If you have a faulty BNC it will never be the first one you cut off and replace.

I got an email from a mate with an attachment from a real estate agent in Detroit. The email was primarily about a house for $100. I had a look at other offerings from this agent and there were heaps of pretty good looking places for between $10000 & $50000. So what is the storey behind these. Are you also buying into the remaining balance of the mortgage or is this the total price ? Are you buying the land or is it only a lease? What's with "summer tax" and "winter tax" ? There is a 3 storey tudor style brick house that looks well maintained for $14000. If that house was next door to me it would probably be worth $500,000. So for anyone from Detroit, what's the sorey with these places ?

I don't think VGA will go that far so use composite (BNC). What is an infra red cable? Besides the remote monitor I would have a monitor local to the DVR for operator purposes (then you could use the VGA)

After power up it should go through an initialisation process (setup) during which it will detect the HDD. If the initialisation process fails an error message will usually appear in the screen. Is there a HDD installed?

Adding to what Sector said , it seems that every person who is thinking of wireless is forgetting that they still need power. Unless you have an AC outlet beside every camera position there will be some wire running. And a few tips - technically speaking you will receive a better quality picture with a B/W camera but of course you will miss out on colour information which can go a long way in IDing someone. B/W cameras also offer superior performance in low light conditions without the need for IR. Speaking of which it can be VERY difficult to get a useable picture when operating IR in an enclosed space. (small room . corridoor etc)

No . the thicker cable that encloses the white wire with a copper shield is the video signal

two reds are +12v two blacks are -12V

Thanks for the pointers When you speak of analog camera dvr, how would you differentiate between digital and analog? I have found a better DVR, Q-See QT5680-1, and I'm trying to understand if it is digital or analog? The dvr mentioned above has a "D1" recording resolution...and HDMI compared to others that offer VGA ports. I only use DVRs with multiple o/ps ( HDMI , VGA & composite ) HDMI & VGA have distance constraints which may or may not be a problem. DVRs are usually for analogue cameras while NVR (network video recorder) is for digital cameras. You can get HVRs (hybrid video recorders) which have I/Ps for a pre set combination of both digital & analogue cameras. I usually find that recorders without a full range of O/Ps (and usually only operable via an IR remote - no front panel controls) are built to a price and are generally rubbish.

As you point out , a reference to the sun would be handy but NOT ONLY for exterior cameras. The cameras by the front door are likely to be subject to large variances of light intensity over their FOV so BLC & WDR will be almost mandatory. but being NUMB NUTS you would have already KNOWN that and it just slipped your mind about mentioning it.

Your assumption on the wiring is correct

Is your camera dual voltage ( 24Vac/12Vdc )?

Maybe they were fleeing the big bad wolf after he blew down the house made of bricks

In a vrtually motionless environment you can drop the frame rate down quite low although I never go below 12 fps. At first I thought this was a PC capture card but later on you mention a dedicated DVR. If you are running on cat5/6 cable are you sure that you have baluns and not just cable adaptors. Your description of "pixilated" sounds like a compression problem. Is it H264? Your plan to connect the camerta directly to your TV is a good first step. The picture should be good and stable. The colour and sharpness may vary with the quality of the camera. good luck

What a wealth of information you are. I'm sure there will be many people visiting this forum to seek advice from someone who strings a couple of hundred feet of cat5 cable up in the trees and then seeks help when it doesn't work. Maybe the solution will come from someone who confesses to obtaining their vast wealth of knowledge from forums and youtube.

One other thing. The stated frame rate is global ( shared by all cameras) So a 4 ch DVR with a frame rate of 100 fps equates to 25 fps per camera. This is equivalent to real time & is good. However if you had a 16 ch system that had a global frame rate of 200 fps then that would equate to 12.5 fps. This is about the lowest frame rate before that familiar "jerky" motion becomes noticable. Bear in mind that the frame rate can also be affected by the resolution setting. So you may not be able to have the full 25 fps at D1 resolution

Not knowing what is available to you locally I will only talk generally about what to look for. To start with the most valuable part of an entry level DVR is going to be your warranty. As I mentioned , the lowest quality DVR I will use carries a 3 yr warranty. Make sure it records & PLAYS BACK in D1 resolution. Make sure the HDD is suitable for DVR applications. They have a higher duty cycle than most computer HDDs. Stay away from those that have no front panel controls (operates by IR remote only). Many of the entry level DVRs only output VGA (no composite), only USB retrieval (no DVD burner) That may or may not be an issue for you. All the ones you see nowdays are networkable. If it comes as a kit the cables that are likely to be supplied can be a source of problems. They are not coax but just screened audio cable. The supplied power supplies will barely be capable of delivering.The cameras will generally be low res (420line) non adjustable lens. The kits I get have the same cameras . I generally sell them to hobbyists at cost price & replace them with 600 line 3-12mm varifocal lens cameras. Other than that the main difference between the entry level ones is the user interface . Some are near impossible to work out how to download footage of interest

It was analogue

I put one in last week that the customer bought from who knows where. The DVR failed half way through the initialisation on first power up. I put in a "loan" DVR to get him going. When he tried to return it to Swann they wanted all the cameras & leads returned as well. As if I was going to pull everything down that I had just put up. So the customer is now in an arguement with Swann about replacing the DVR. I let the customer know that if he had been a bit smarter I could have provided a sinilar "entry level" kit for half the price he paid ($850) with a 3 yr warranty. I wish people would realise that high level marketing does not equate to high level quality

If you want to get rid of 900 quid then send it to me