Kawboy12R

The Mayflower had more RS232 and fewer USB ports...

Look for one that records at least D1 resolution on all channels. After that it's hard to tell quality from a spec sheet, you just have to go on price. That Empire cam with 12mm lens should give a good zoom at 50' for facial detail. You'll want more than one though. One or two for closeups hoping to catch a face plus another cam set to wide angle to give an overview of everything that's happening, not just a small part of what's near the lights.

I was initially thinking of maybe a combination of rare earth magnets to the camera mount through the glass and an epoxy recommended by the glassmaker because of the fancy surface. Doesn't solve the problem of punching the wires through the side of the building but that might be solved by going through a seam at an edge. Some kinds of glass (like tempered) don't react well to cutting or drilling holes in them. Can you see a maker's mark on a glass panel? Might help a glass company (preferably the manufacturer) make a recommendation on how to drill or if not to drill under any circumstances. I'm not an installer but if it were me I'd bid HIGH and only if I had insurance. If you've never drilled glass you don't want to practice on something as expensive to replace as the side of a fancy building. Maybe subcontract that out to a glass company with insurance and lots of experience.

Good plan. I was thinking about blind spots if someone approached from the corners. Hard to cover a building AND yard well with only 8 cameras.

What kind of glass is it? IR required or can you look through the glass from the inside?

Try plugging your numbers into this PoE calculator and see what it says. http://www.active-vision.com/CAT5-Voltage-Loss-Calculator-s/160.htm

328 feet max including jack to jack and patch cord length. Easy peasy for 150ft. Try this for a more scientific PoE calculation.

Anybody try adding a Dahua branded camera to the QSee NVR yet? I'd like to add some ir-sensitive cams without builtin IR for fewer false positives from bugs and fog at night. Dahua has some interesting cams like that labelled to be released soon on their website. QSee may not offer them quickly or at all.

Gotcha now. I've got no experience with mini AC units, etc for inside the enclosure, but if that box gets any direct sun then an insulated shell with holes for ventilation will make a big difference on sunny days. If it wouldn't be too ugly, then maybe a small window AC unit mounted on the shell would be even better.

Better ventilation or targeted AC if they don't want to cool the whole place. Maybe a heat pump to cool that area at the expense of another if it is away from an outside wall? Call an HVAC guy and see what he recommends. Get him to quote you while he's there.

I was thinking the same thing as Vince. If you can't figure it out through the web browser, you might try resetting it with the button on the cable sticking out the back of the camera. Push and hold for ten seconds to reset. I doubt they would have shipped it night-blind. The "click" you hear putting your finger over the sensor should be the IR cut filter moving to switch from day/night mode so it looks like it DOES work, just not apparently when you want it to. Some cams can have night mode turned on by a timed schedule instead of by photometer, but I bet that it's shipped by default to switch when the light level drops below, say, 5-10 lux or so. If that doesn't work then I'm stumped. Time to try to get it fixed under warranty.

Dielectric grease. I use it all the time on outdoor 12v connections.

Sounds like the mechanical IR filter is staying on if it doesn't see IR from another source. The IR LEDs should glow at least a bit red in the dark and you should hear a click when the filter moves. Test this easily inside or out by either smothering it with a blanket when it is light or shining a flashlight on it when it is dark. No clickee no workee.

Have you popped the top and looked for a reset button or jumper inside yet?

You're welcome. One other point that comes to mind though. Are you located in a snow zone? If so, you probably get sheets of ice and snow curling down your roof on two sides of that tin roof at certain times during the winter. Those sheets of ice will be nasty on cameras and mounts. The housings you bought to mount the Lorex cams in will have much sturdier mounting brackets but probably won't stand up to that kind of abuse if they stick out much past the eave. Tucking the smaller Lorex cam under the eave might work out better if it is protected. If not, then maybe vandal domes might survive better on those two sides?

You will be happier with the kit system if you mainly want it as a live extension of your vision while you're there looking at it. It'll relieve the claustrophobia of not knowing what's going on outside and give you a decent image. I'm much happier with the live view on mine than the recorded video or the occasionally unreliable multi-camera searching. That being said, not knowing what the view is from the building, a generic layout would be 8 cameras outside mounted close to each corner with the views crossing in front of the wall they're attached to, plus maybe a zoom cam of some kind pointed towards areas of particular interest. Lots of cheap cams can have 12-16mm lenses mounted in them if you know what their mount is. Deal Extreme has a kabillion (ok dozens of) options for not much money if you wanted to DIY. If not, you've probably got a local computer or electrical supply place that does CCTV and wouldn't mind installing a custom lens for not too much money.

What exactly are you trying to monitor with the cameras? If it were my shop and I was worried about what was inside the shop (no interior walls I'm guessing), I'd have a number of cams inside providing closeups of everybody who comes in the garage doors and man doors, as well as an overview cam to show me the big picture. Then have a nice zoom camera on the main driveway to show me plates of who is coming and going, plus some overview cams near the building corners to show what is happening in the yard. If the concern is monitoring items stored outside or what employees are doing in the yard, then I'd have a mix of wide angle cams and zoom cams on busy areas to catch faces and hopefully plates.

At least they answered you. I asked about additional IP camera support a few weeks ago with no response. It's not looking like they're forging ahead with all guns ablaze.

I like it. Night pix?

I'll second that. I've tried using IR through glass and it just doesn't work. You could remove the front plate from your housing but that would pretty much negate the heating and moisture protection that a housing is for. I have a Lorex 8ch Eco DVR. Saved video quality sucks. The live view of the included cameras isn't bad but has major weaknesses. IR night view has a central hotspot and doesn't adjust even when a subject steps right in front of the camera, pretty much rendering even closeups useless for ID. They don't like a mix of shade and bright sunlight either. IR filter remains retracted sometimes leaving everything in sun washed out. Lorex has better cameras with multiple rings of IR LEDs so if your kit has those they might be a bit better. If you're looking for something other than poor video to show your insurance company "Look! There it goes!" then I'd probably look elsewhere.

The best cheap night-time analog license plate cam I have experience with is a KT&C black and white cam (no IR) with the Sony ExView HAD .0003 lux chipset. Resolution isn't the best so proper zoom (lots) and aim is very important but it'll read plates in almost dark with ease. It helps to get a good lens with low F-stop rating though. I forget what I paid for the lens to go with mine but it was close to as much as the camera and might've been more. The lower the f-stop the faster the car can be traveling without blurring the digits. Still not so great reading plates against headlights though. Every cheap-ish IR cam I've owned turns plates to white at night under ANY condition. Hopefully someone else experienced with better LPR cams will chime in. Even Googling LPR cams and picking one that way would be better than trying a bunch of unspecialized cams in the hopes that they'll work where they don't claim to. I'd go for performance rather than one picked just because it's small. If a real LPR cam is definitely out of your budget though, I'd stick a B&W cam there and hope to catch their rear plates as they leave. This one came up in another low-light thread on here but looks like it has better specs than my KT&C. Not waterproof though, but it looks like it'd fit sideways inside the back of a mailbox to look through a glass plate at traffic. I'd like to see the expression on your mailman's face the first time he sees a camera in your mailbox!

A diagram of where exactly your box is would help, as would the light level and if you expect them to pull in your driveway or stay on the street. Plates at night from two different angles will be tricky, especially if they leave the car lights on. You'll have a camera on your house mounted pointing at the entrance of your driveway with enough zoom and good wide dynamic range to pick out a plate in addition to the mailbox cam? If you want a mailbox cam to pick up plates on cars that don't leave the road, you might want two cams (one pointing each way). Easier to pick up a plate against taillights than headlights, plus some cars don't have front plates and you probably don't know which direction they'll be coming from.

Burnt fuse? Pop a cap? (bulged instead of a flat end on a capacitor) Cracked solder joint on the board? Burnt trace?

But I am actually surprised at how well the IR lighting works. The cameras I have all have 48 LED's and maybe that makes a big difference? Happy with how a static scene looks or how a person who walks up to the camera looks? Most cheapos and even some not-so-cheap cams can look half decent until someone walks into the scene. Then, they're hard to identify at a distance and get badly overexposed as they walk closer.

You park your car in your driveway overnight? If so, one analog cam probably won't make you happy for ID purposes if you want a wide coverage cam there. I have a double driveway with three cams. One wide and two tight for the two cars. Make sure what you get gives clear properly exposed video at night. If not keep trying other cams.