Porch

Hello to the forum, Old time CCTV installer here. i used to install CCTV systems in restaurants as one of my many professions over the years. My main camera of choice was the Panasonic wv-cp244 with a good Computar 3.5-8mm lens. Out of the hundreds I installed, only 2 failed. But then 5 years ago, I moved professions and got mostly out of the CCTV biz. Fast forward to today, a friend who owns an auto service shop calls me up and ask if I can work on their CCTV system. What I discover is a 8 cam Qsee system from Costco. Some of the cams are near dead and some need a wider angle lens to get the coverage they need. So I call up my old CCTV supplier and discover they are out of business. My beloved wv-cp244 is no longer made, and the market is flooded with cheap Chinese junk sold from fly-by-night websites. I don't know what is good anymore. So I am looking for suggestions for a good box fixed cam with CS lens like the cp244. Money is tight for them, but I recall the Panasonic being ok in price. So something in the $150 range? What's good out there now? Thanks for any help.

Thanks for the offers on the cp244. I already ordered a VCM-24VF. I will give it a shot and see how it looks. From the snapshots posted here, the quality looks great.

I am not sure what you are referring too. I put in a boat load of Everfocus indoor dome cams because they are easy to mount to the T-bar, and looked good. I had a 50% failure rate after 2 years. I had some ProVideo outdoor dome anti-pry-off-the-wall cameras for $400, but they died too (or got stolen). Any camera with a small black box inside with a lens hanging off it, I had die on me. When I pulled the dome off, the camera part was often very hot.

Thanks for the tips. How is the reliability of the dome cameras? I had quite a few installed of different manufacture and they never lasted long for me. I had a stock of them in the truck and would replace several a week. They tended to burn out and get lines in the picture before just going black. I gave up on them and just went with box cams unless I didn't have a choice do to location. Has the life span improved? Can I expect 5 years?