Kawboy12R

That sucks. $3000 worth of lousy in fact. Probably more than just a leaky toilet...

Forget better wide angle cams if you already have some cheap ones to tell you what is going on. You need to identify choke points where they'll have to cross to get to the dogs. Just one good closeup pic to get a mugshot to go with your cheap wide angle ones that came with the DVR. It's hard to give exact recommendations for lens length without knowing your layout but I consider 6mm a minimum for driveway coverage. 10-12mm is usually better for half decent facial shots and possible plates at the end of a 40-50 foot driveway. Samsung's SCO-2080R is a good varifocal bullet but a bit more than you're wanting to spend. Gadspot.com has decent bullets and you'll probably be quite happy with one in the $100 range. Spend til it hurts. If you only need one to cover say the front of your home, if you have a reasonably recent desktop computer then something like this (or maybe the 12mm or 4mm version depending on distance or location) hooked up to it using NVR software will give you WAY more detail in the day than even a MUCH more expensive analog camera. I wouldn't go lower than 6mm if you want really good detail beyond 20-30 feet. The 12mm version can snag a plate from a moving vehicle under ideal conditions in the day at over 70 feet. I personally find it hard to recommend analog stuff unless quite a few extra cameras are needed and there's absolutely no budget to spend a bit more for megapixel gear. One or two megapixel cameras recording to a desktop running free or cheap software will yield much more detail (especially recorded detail) than analog gear. Analog can do the job, but once you compare to megapixel stuff you'll probably never want another analog cam again. The Hikvision stuff is really quite good for the money, especially for daytime work. One cam (under $170), a cat5 cable ($10-$25 depending on length), and a 48v 802.3af PoE injector ($20 range) will connect into the router you probably already have and you're good to go. Milestone's XProtect Go is excellent free software, so for just about $200 you can dip your toes in the megapixel world if you've already got a computer you can leave turned on.

The reason they're appearing out of nowhere is that you're recording only when they trigger your motion detection for the first time. If it's set to be fairly insensitive then they'll appear as if out of nowhere right up close. You might want to only record those events but know what happens before then as well. That's when you want to increase the pre-event recording amount. If you want to detect them farther away then make your motion detection more sensitive, but that can increase false positives quite a bit as well. Also, make sure that you have a significant amount of post-event recording time as well. You don't want to record someone approaching but then have recording stop because they've stopped walking to do something that you'll want recorded as well. If you have the storage, record EVERYTHING but set motion event flags so you can jump to real events but miss nothing before or after the event. That burns through HD space quickly but gives you the best coverage, especially of things at a distance that might not trigger an event at all but might be of interest anyway.

Maybe increase your motion detection sensitivity but definitely set it to record more pre - trigger frames. Sometimes it'll want pre - event time in seconds. The terminology used isn't consistent between brands or makers.

You can't really tell from those specs. Looks to me like a cheap cam with a modern sensor though. It'll probably have significant to serious trouble in complex lighting and you may or may not be happy with it at night. Daytime performance in even lighting will depend on lens quality. There is no way to tell from a spec sheet how crisp a lens really is.

I know your link says baluns but they look more like adapters than baluns to me. The small cheap adapters don't have the circuitry inside that a real BALanceUNbalancer has. Adapters are garbage; baluns work well. Try using something that looks like this.

You should move here. So much snow sometimes there's no place to put it and some folks almost give up. Here's a pic of a city sidewalk plow taken a day or so ago after the weekend's big storm that worked its way up the east coast to Canada. And yes, even my 4x4 has studs in the winter tires.

I was thinking you wanted a no-brainer extremely convenient way for the cams to be on when you wanted them on and off when you didn't. Nobody would want to have to go to another room and physically unplug or turn on/off something every time they entered or left the house. Easy peasy with a switch or key fob by the front door. Just don't label it "Security camera off switch". Personally I'd try the key fob idea first. Low effort and easy to stash out of the way.

You can film through a window at night, but you CANNOT have IR LEDs on the camera. Reflection off the glass will blind the camera. The trouble is that most inexpensive IR cameras that can see IR almost always have IR but you can't turn it off. Offhand, I can't think of an inexpensive network camera that allows you to turn off the built-in IR without disassembling it. You might use a true Hikvision or Swann/Lorex (rebranded Hik mini-bullet readily available at Costco) and leave it in day mode (disables the IR LEDs but also leaves it blind to external IR illuminators) if you've got lots of white light outdoors. That'd let you use a laptop or desktop for an NVR, saving you from buying a DVR to record an analog camera like a CNB VCM-24VF, which is a very versatile low-light analog camera that sees IR just fine but doesn't have onboard IR. They're great for use with external illuminators like this one with 940nm LEDs (little to zero red glow). I've got the more powerful brother to that one and I can see zero glow in near-dark conditions, making them perfect for covert illumination. That being said though, visible cameras that prevent problems are better than hidden ones that may or may not show someone doing damage.

Easily turned on/off should be simple even if whatever you're using for an NVR doesn't autoboot when the power is turned on. Just run the cams through a switch that's turned on/off with a light switch. If you don't want to run wires etc for a wired lightswitch, use something like this remote power outlet to turn the switch (or possibly NVR) on and off.

Yes, the Swanns have the same interface and are basically the same camera. The Hiks and Swanns will store to NAS. Do some reading on here and on networkcameracritic for specifics and some limitations. I'm not sure that the DS-2CD2032 would be my first choice for mounting INSIDE my home though (not sure how identical your situation is to the OP). Too in-my-face for my liking. I'd go with an Axis P12 series cam if discrete is important and you'll always be dealing with a lighted situation. "Regular" unwanted visitors will probably turn your lights on, thieves probably won't. For indoors, you can find cube cameras (much less obtrusive sitting tucked away on a shelf than hanging a bullet cam somewhere) with infrared and PIR detection to virtually eliminate false positives- really handy for email notification when you KNOW someone isn't supposed to be there. Most of the Axis M10 series cubes will record to NAS (some will do edge storage to SD card as well), some do sound, plus some have PIR detection with LED lighting assist. The M1054 is probably the Cadillac you'd be looking for. If you're looking for outdoor cams though, it's hard to beat the bang for the buck of the little Hik-based bullets or domes.

There's no "morning after" pill or "mistress button" for NVRs. It's all or nothing so start looking for the format option. Unplugging it before she pops over next time might be easier. If it was at work, be prepared for YouTube. Just razzing you Baz. It's just the usual assumption when someone wants to delete something from their video record.

Look into the port forwarding parts of your DVR and router manuals. Portforward.com is a good resource as well. Whatismyip.com is helpful, as is www.canyouseeme.org.

Random act of WTH??? https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=659162680815340 Sorry for the Facebook link but I couldn't find the original post on LiveLeak.

X-ray camera...

Try checking the folks listed on this thread- viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31620&hilit=where+to+buy+dahua

That online retailer got into a bit of an argument with the management on here. Now all posts referring to them or their equipment automatically get censored or get the name changed to something different.

I think many cams are different so most folks rely on standard dirt cheap electrical boxes. I'd like to see something a bit better and reasonably priced as well. And I agree, the one I linked to doesn't have a ton of extra space for connectors in the cavity. Getting baluns to fit is either hard or maybe impossible for some.

I'd probably look for a pvc electrical junction box if the maker of the dome camera didn't offer a model with a proper base for mounting the way you want it mounted. Google "round electrical pvc box" or something close for some ideas. Try looking at home hardware stores or electrical supply places for ideas as well. Check out the technical diagram on this camera- http://www.cnbtec.com/en/html/product/product.php?inc=dra&seqx_prod=1143#p_v1 It comes with the base extension with knockouts on the side and top for mounting your conduit to, or don't use the base extension and run the cords up into the ceiling or soffit with the much lower profile mounting option.

How far from the house do you want to mount the camera? How far will the deer be from the place you think you'd like the camera? How handy or geeky are you for running wires? Got an outbuilding with power near the deer?

Axis won't tell you this but you can attach a usb HD to a router and use it as a standalone "NAS" if you don't want to keep a computer running with a shared drive all the time or buy a NAS box plus drive. I put NAS in quotes because it is technically storage attached to a network but isn't really a true NAS. You'd be better off getting a real NAS, especially if you wanted to hide it somewhere sneaky (you can hide those little suckers anywhere within a 100m cable run of your router or switch), but it CAN be done. Most geeks I know have a few usb hds floating around that could be repurposed for free. I used up a Walmart gift card that I hadn't used for ages to get one for my ACC network share. Just plugged it into my Asus RT-N66U. The only issue was that I had to set the root as the network share because it wouldn't let me specify a subdirectory.

Umm, h.264 "analog" cameras?? I CAN see a crappy old DVR being the source of multicoloured snow though, especially on the analog side. Oh well, as long as it got sorted out...

The resolution is crap but there's little to no blurring and the lighting is good for a night shot. The subject isn't washed out. He's also nice and close so it's a decent enough shot that if you knew him you should be able to ID him. Nothing to write home about but it can get the job done. A better face shot would've been much better at removing doubt, as would better details on his clothing. I've been able to read nametags and small jacket logos from people visiting my place if I sacrifice FOV with my front door camera and go for a closeup. As for Menards, if they have a full-time security guard manning the cameras and someone else at the front door preventing known shoplifters from leaving, 2fps @ CIF is probably all that's needed if they watch them stealing and the buggers are caught at the door with their pockets full. They use the much better live video quality to determine what's going on and the CIF footage is just icing on the cake to present at court along with the thieves they caught red-handed. I bet a lot of the actual footage is just good enough to show suspicious activity but not what they took. Hopefully they also have at least D1 closeup footage of everybody entering the store and they just use the CIF for "what happened" info and not depend on CIF for every ID. On the other end of the scale, Walmart isn't exactly known for spending money when it doesn't have to but our local small-time Walmart has a very expensive Axis megapixel IP system in place. I doubt they'd spend the bucks if there wasn't payback in loss prevention over a 2 fps CIF system. Local banks are all over the place. Some still haven't updated their oooold technology and publish photos of bank robbers that they should be ashamed of and, quite frankly, don't show anything that'd help someone to identify the robber if they were picking them out of a lineup of even remotely similar faces. Others have modern megapixel systems in them that can count zits and calculate the last time they shaved.

Good idea for running double conduit but it's probably unnecessary unless your plan is to disguise the wire conduit as, say, a drain pipe. Anybody with tools and some undisturbed time to use them can get through anything. The best way to prevent wire tampering is to make sure they don't know the wires are there. They won't cut what they don't know is there. Either that or make sure there's at least a camera pointing at the wire conduit (preferably steel) to protect them that way.

I do. They're quite popular on here. Very reliable. Full 15.4w PoE power on all of the 4 PoE ports as well, unlike many other budget 8 port switches. Many don't have the power budget to max out all 4 ports simultaneously.