steveko23

I'm in the process of building a new home and I'm not 100% sure I'm ready to get all my CCTV needs, but I'd like them to prewire the house so I'm ready to go in the future and just need to add the equipment (camera, dvr, anything else?) when I'm ready. I pretty much know the location I would put the cameras currently so I figured I could put in whatever I needed now. Does that seem reasonable? So basically my question is what wiring do I need? I was reading and it seems like if I had rg59-siamese wired to all the locations from a central hub location that would do the trick. Does that seem right? Or should/can I just wire cat-5e/cat-6 and use PoE cameras? When I buy my camera's do I need to look for something specific to verify that cable would work correctly with them? Here is what my home AV guy wants to install and charge, I'm skeptical of this guy in general so I was wary of this system from him: Camera System (Speco Brand) * UL Listed RG6 coax w/ 18/ 2 power wire.w/cat5e 85.00 85.00T * Speco--SPCD4WRS500---4 Ch Wall Mount H.264 DVR 500GB HDD 569.99 569.99 * Speco bullet camera--VL62---Color Extreme Weatherproof Camera w/Built-In IR LEDs and Sunshield 139.99 139.99 * Installation of Equipment 200.00 200.00T Thanks! Steve

What do you do with 5 RG6 lines? I am trying to add as much wire as I think I may need in the future, but I'm also trying to not break the bank is doing so. I wish I had the time to devote to wiring up the house myself, unfortunately I need the contractors to do that for me. But I do think I added a fair amount of cat5 drops both inside and outside. Not too many rg6 though...which has me wondering what I might be missing out on.

Thanks for all the reply! I like this forum. So it looks like I need to tell my home builder I need a PoE switch. I'm not sure if I was getting one be default for all my network lines, but I'll make sure the switch I get is capable of it. Come to think of it I have no idea where all the cable lines plug into in the basement. I have this listed on my quote "Enclosure to house all phone and cable runs located in the basement" and I assume that is that. Would I plug my PoE switch into that and all my PoE cameras into that switch? Whats a reasonable price I should expect to pay for a mega-pixel IP PoE camera? As for monitoring these IP camera's once they are hooked up to my network what the process involved for that? It seems like each camera get's an ip and then with some software I can find that ip on my network to see the video? I'm guessing there is something somewhere I can read about this, but it seems like most everyone has a dvr and that's not something I really need. Thanks again!!!

I'm still kinda confused by how the IP PoE camera's get their power? And are all IP camera's PoE? From what I read it seems like you just plug them into a cat5 cable I have prewired in my house and it just works. Is it really that simple? Thanks Steve

Yeah I realized after my post I was talking about 2 types of systems. My guy quoted analog and I had mainly been researching those then I started reading about IP camera's and those seemed more the way to go so I edited my post and added the bit about the cat5e. So, question about that...if I did just use the IP camera's all I need is a cat-5 line going to the location I want the camera and that's it? And I can just plug the camera in and it works? And if I went that route could I just install the camera to that line and add no other additional equipment and view the live feed from my pc or iphone? I was reading some other site and that seemed like the case, just wanted to check. As for budget...not really sure. I was thinking of 4 cameras and would like the high resolution kind. These are more for keeping an eye on my kids than for security reasons. I think I'd like 3 outside (I have a fairly large backyard which was 1 reason I thought a high resolution camera best), and probably just one other in the basement. What kind of budget do you think I need for that? Assuming I can just get the 4 cameras and don't need a dvr or any other equipment to get it working. Live viewing is all I care about. I am running cat-5 around the house...I have a jack in each bedroom and a couple around main tv areas. Not really sure what else I'd need for home automation I just started looking at that as well. Thanks!