Mrcarcrazy

Just giving a heads up. According to some of the reviews, only 8 of the 16 ethernet ports are powered (POE). The rest are just LAN ports. So if you want to add additional cameras, you also have to run power to them. That is incorrect, the lan ports on the NVR AND on the switch are poe... Boogie man, I do t have a dog in the fight. But based on the product descriptions alone, you are confusing the swann with the lorex system. The Swann quoted here doesn't have a switch included. The lorex you link to later in the thread does. I will warn any potential buyer. The swann claims 45days of continuous recording on 16cams at 1080p. I call bull****. You'd be damn lucky to get that out of d1. And we all know that 1080p files are exponentially larger than d1 files.

Found this at the other forum I visit. http://www.bahamassecurity.com/cctvforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=636 Hope it helps.

Might check out Bahamas security. Dude has all sorts of pss stuff. http://www.bahamassecurity.com/downloads/dahua-downloads.asp#pss

Lol.

Wow. Warping in the intense heat of New York. If sure hate to see it in Texas. It'd be a puddle of plastic on the ground.

Wow, so the lens, and all the small components are made in Canada? That's shocking...somewhat unbelievable. Only thing that would be better if it was from the good ol USA. But we can't hate you just for being Canadian.

Hey down under. I'm curious what brands you are referring to as higher quality/lower cost. Being new to the CCTV world. I only know the brands I've seen here and some a friend overseas has shown me. Sadly the best cams I've seen of his aren't sold anymore.

I has to set me send email and receive email as different email addys. I have my dvr it's own gmail acct. it was thankful and now sends me lovely pictures of people at my door. And squirrels at times.

+1 I have a cam with each chip. I'm not impressed with either. (Next chip). I just bought the next chip one as a dealer sample. It's pretty crappy IMO. But so is the same cam in effio-p. but IRcut over no IR cut.

OP Seems to be confused on difference between IP and Megapixel. Or he's a troll...

8 cams and a dvr/hdd will be difficult to get a decent quality for 1k. As a rule...avoid the box systems. (Costco has/had a dahua megapixel "IP" dvr and cams that Imho COULD be a decent setup. But cost..... Lighting. You don't want the camera to see the light source. It will make the camera work harder. Given the budget you don't want to stress the cams....they won't handle it well. I've paid between 20.00 and 230.00 for my cams...sadly they are all mediocre. If you have good lighting you can make most cams seem tolerable. If u have poor lighting most if not all will look horrid. (I'm working on lighting at my residence.). I find depending on IR LEDs only leads to frustration. Of course I live in the desert...we have lots of dust and lots of bugs...other areas may not have these issues...I don't know

PSS...works with dahua and some others (and the associated dahua rebrands) Can download it free...so for the price it's worth trying.

I'm going to be performing an experiment on this... I currently have high quality cat5e...I'm going to try same cams on rg59 (solid copper core) and BNC connectors. This will be a limited rest with no more than ~40ft of cable. I've been told that the loss of quality is due to the baluns. As much if not more than the distance (assuming reasonable residential distances). Ill post pic comparisons when I get this project going. I just got another camera to use for my little experiment.

It's state by state...at least Texas has their own rules....they consider CCTV systems "alarms"... Here's a starting point for Texas. https://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/psb/licenseRegistration/licenses.htm

I brought this up when I was trying to post info about a product I'd purchased and my words were changed as to mask the brand name that I'd bought. That experience alone chapped me on this forum. I check back now and again hoping to see a ray of light. But overall I've given up. I know that many forums have their alliances. Some are more obvious than others...I am just a home owner who has enough basic electronics knowledge to build his own system. My state won't allow me to open a small business doing this without first installing full time professionally for 2 consecutive years. I cant afford to take that pay cut just for the chance to start a small business. So I just do this is a hobby on my residence. Learning about these cameras and systems is a daunting experience as everyone here knows. It's frustrating for a newcomer to join a forum only to find out that he cannot trust the majority of what he sees. ( for a few reasons which are obvious and don't need to be pointed out). Anywho. Aussie. I concur with your assessment of the situation. Luckily I don't have much invested...perceived loss is limited. As to the cheap china stuff. It seems that the market is dominated by cheap crap. Not Long ago there were some cheaply priced cams that outperform new higher priced (in relation to old cams) cams. I believe this is the manufacturers pushing everyone towards megapixel cams by offering only crap in tvl cams. (Jaded? Maybe) The low end megapixel cams still aren't worth the money they charge. I can't comment on the higher end. But I do believe its moderately overpriced.

We can agree on that then. Good enough

Cat5 and baluns? I've seen 50.00 cams that beat your MP cams at night. (If u look on this very site, you will too...) ever tried a black and white camera? Here's a link with some decent night shots out of very inexpensive cams. http://www.bahamassecurity.com/cctvforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=39&title=cctv-camera-comparisons-images I'm not really into the special Olympics. So I won't try to convince you that your arrogance blinds you. Carry on.

Not to be an ass..but...not really apples to apples. Also I've noticed by looking at a bunch of older cams that they had better night image before they started adding IR to them. The older cams that would just go black when lighting was terrible had much better image quality. Now the cams try..but it looks like crap. So u don't know that your camera isn't getting enough light...instead you assume that the camera just isn't up to the task. And to clarity I'm assuming the OP is talking about megapixel cams when he says "IP". Look at rorys old images. Your comparing ONE megapixel cam to ONE vandal dome.... The question is kinda a tricky thing and cannot be answered as simply as any of us are trying to claim.

$ for $ analog is better. U can get much better night coverage for much less money. Now if u want to compare a $600 IP to a $80 analog...guess who will likely win.... But when comparing same price range (or close) the analog will be better overall. (Your goals have a serious impact on this answer. As IP make nice daytime images. But at night the low end ones seem to suffer.)

Wow...QSee straight out stole that from http://www.bahamassecurity.com/articles/dahua-rtsp-stream.asp notice the pics on QSee's page are Pics from Bahamas. They didn't even try to alter it to make it look less stolen.

A few things...since you live in an APT you are limited....drilling into the exterior of the building might make management unhappy w/ you. but this will generally give a better image than through a window. Night shots are the hardest to capture, and I assume this is what you are trying to achieve. I'd suggest an old B&W camera...they do better in low light for less money (other option is a "true day/night camera") since you are running a single camera you could run it off your computer instead of a stand alone DVR. Or just get a security system for the car w/ pager, and a gun.

do a google search for a company called 123 security products...I can't post a link, as that is apparently punishable by death, but maybe advising you to look there will help. They have TONS of cameras. I personally see NO reason for an OUTDOOR dome to be used indoors (especially when cost is an issue)....CNB makes some smaller indoor domes. IIRC one of them is under 60 bucks...it still has a good chip, and has pretty good images. There are tons of brands out there, and it's terribly difficult to know what you are buying (I'm new to this, but have been reading and reading and reading). But overall CNB's w/ the monalisa chip get good reviews.

first, quick observation - looks like a color IR camera. Is anything separating the lens over the LED's from the Lens over the camera optics? If not that's probably the cause. what camera is it? have a picture of the camera?

Peephole camera - The only thing I don't know is the wiring constraints w/ a peephole camera...but that would be the thing I'd look into if I were you.

This should give you a basic idea viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29494