bigglebowski

Ok so ignoring the potential problems of conflicts with both signals on the same wire. The splitter/diplexer itself will be a problem as well. I bet that with short cables and just one splitter in the line will be enough to ruin your composite video signal. If you have a camera or a DVD that has composite video output try hooking it up to a TV splitter (will need BNC and RCA to F adapters) and I bet you will find it ruins your signal. Then keep in mind you will end up needing another splitter on that line and depending on how long your cable TV lines are your image will be terrible without even hooking TV to it. You may also find that 2 splitters in the line may reduce your UHF signal to the point where the weaker channels will drop out. This can be corrected with an amplifier though, but then you could over amplify the stronger signals. Another issue is if your lines are long distance TV coax just does not perform as well as video grade coax. Video grade coax will have an all copper center conductor and copper braiding. TV coax will usually have copper clad steel center conductors and steel braiding. Newer cable used by Dish/Directv installers will have copper center conductor because of the higher voltage and current needed by modern LNBs on dishes. Maybe another cheap solution may be to just use the coax for your cameras and try hooking up local antennas on the back of your TVs. What kind of cameras were you going to use? Do you have one already to at least try with your longest coax to see if the image is OK?

Lets assume you can just use a 2 way splitter and put the 1st camera on there well how do you get 2-5 on there? You have to convert each to a unique frequency to put them on the same cable. If you are using off air TV then you will have more options since at best there will be approx 15 broadcast channels within range and is on your MATV system.. You could use "cable" frequency modulators like ch14-60 and should avoid either VHF or UHF broadcasts in your area. However this would NOT work with any cable TV system that use the same channels as your modulators. You should be able to utilize simple splitters or even cable TV taps to achieve this. Then you would have a demodulator per modulator at the source location to convert the signals back to composite video. To pull it off well it would really help if you had a signal meter capable of reading the various frequencies that are on the cable so that you can balance the signal levels of your modulated channels vs. the over the air channels that are on the line. Plus the issue of balancing digital vs analog signals. Even with a high bandwidth cable TV system there are ways to keep a system like this sharing the same cable but would require very expensive and most likely custom trap filters. This is not uncommon but again these are parts that will put you into the budget of just going ahead and doing it IP.

Diplexers work when combining 2 different blocks of frequencies that already do not conflict with each other. For example "legacy" satellite signal was 950-1450 Mhz. 10+ years ago cable TV freqeuncies were basically 5-900 Mhz (today depending on the cable system it could go well into GHZ, and sat +2Ghz). So you could use a diplexer with a 950-1450 Mhz port and a 5-900 Mhz port and share the same cable, and even pass voltage over that cable only passing on the satellite side. Thats why I mentioned using a device that actively converts/unconverts at both ends of the coax. Composite video doesnt really have a set frequency so it will end up interfering with the TV channels and the TV channels will interfere with the camera video. Could also really interfere with signals that travel back to the cable system (T channels) like cable modem upload or set top box communication. That is what I meant by noise. One other thing I can think of that will enable you to share the cable would be to look into MOCA but it means you will need to go IP based cameras. These devices will give you Ethernet over your coax which should operate above the frequencies that the cable company uses. With MOCA you would have one moca device where your splitters for the cable feed are, so you will need an open splitter port to hook it up to your router. Then you would have a splitter at the end of each cable run (one port=TV, other=MOCA). You may find you need to use higher than typical frequency splitters which would be ones designed for satellite (like directv SWM splitters). I think the moca frequencies go up to 1500 Mhz, but most satellite splitters go up to 2500 Mhz. If needed you could use POE injectors after the MOCA to feed camera power. Edit: Noticed that some MOCA devices come with a loop through cable connection so splitters may not be needed.

You would end up with excessive noise on both feeds TV and the composite video. Besides even if one camera feed worked you couldnt do the next 4 cameras.

If you are in the US this can be done with "T-Channel" modulators and demodulators that can tune the sub band T channels. Since this equipment is atypical as opposed regular channel modulators like Ch2-135. To get this done properly would probably be more expensive than hiring somebody to pull the wire even if wire mold had to be used. It could be possible to do with regular channel modulators as long as those frequencies were not being used, but balancing this and filtering it could be messy.

If you do plan on building the system up over time its hard not recommend heavily doing your research on IP based systems because of how you can scale them. You can find some decent priced NVR software like Blueiris that you can use at first to get experienced with recording IP but wont have invested too much if you decide you need the system to do more. If you can stick to a single camera brand then in most cases will be able to use their NVR software for free. It will be a lot easier to demo other software when you have a couple of cameras on site to use for the trial period. What you do want to look at right now in terms of NVR/VMS/CMS is look at the various vendors out there and see what cameras they support. The brands you see listed over and over may be the ones you want to consider for purchase. The brands you dont see over and over well... A reverse take on the hybrid system is to take a well designed analog camera and put it on a video encoder so that your NVR can use it. A scenario for this might be where you find a really good low light, low priced analog camera that has a great zoom lens on it hooked to a server will cost much less than a similar low light IP camera.

#4 A camera meant to be put outside should have built in cable protection. #5 POE at 110 feet should not be an issue. $1500 does seem a little light for an IP system for just 8 cameras and nothing else, considering some need to be outdoor. It might even be too low for an entry level brand name analog system with all parts accounted for and a diy installation.

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Look into mocap tape, which like windex or romex its a brand name so others make it too, just not sure what another trade name is. The mocap stuff is so good you could actually do a plumbing leak repair and will contain the water.

The KCM-5611 has amazing low light capability but I believe the range of the built in IR illumination has a range of 20m. So 100' would probably be pushing but the lens will certainly push that far. Also be aware the LEDS put off a pretty decent glow if you are really worried about being stealthy.

This sounds great, but how do I go about finding these? I've spent a couple weeks on this and my boss is wondering when he's going to get some info. I'm really stuck. To find Dahua look at the top thread of this subforum: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31620 Why dont you submit some of your intermediate findings to your boss and get him to help you drill down the choices.

One mistake I think a lot of people make is worrying too much about the image the camera produces when there are many other things that need to be considered. $150-300 pricing is probably entry level decent when referring to an indoor MP-IP cams with minimal features. When you start talking about poor lighting AND outdoors the price can climb dramatically. So yes there are great IP cams that can perform well in the dark whether its from their own IR lighting or from an IR illuminator depending on how much area needs to be lit. If cost really is the main factor then analog is probably your best choice, $300 will get you a lot more per camera than with IP.

I was looking at the pricing on the newer ACTI stuff on ADI's website last night and the pricing seemed like it was going to be decent on their new stuff. The bullet cams look to be well priced and have IR and WDR. They have 1, 3 and 5MP versions, as well as a fixed (E3x) or varifocal lens (E4x) for each of those but are a little more expensive. The indoor domes have really nice pricing too.

Those brands are what you might consider for residential applications, not saying they wont work for you, but they are less of a commercial solution. What do you plan on using to record and manage your cameras an NVR (hw or sw) or a VMS system. Look into Aviglon, Exacq, Milestone and see what cameras they support and the brands you see supported among all solutions are the ones you want to look into. Then again brands like Axis, Acti etc have software solutions that will do all you asked for and more for no additional costs. The only flaw with that is you will be stuck with that brands cameras. If most of your cams are indoor and there will be good lighting available then your will have unlimited options to choose from. Some people on here really like the Q-See brand, particularly the ones made by a company called Dahua because of their good picture on an inexpensive camera. This brand may be less likely to be fully supported by the better software solutions.

Wait until you buy a bunch of stuff and try to put the system together and make everything work correctly with good results. Not saying you cant do it but you may have A LOT more research ahead of you before you get a firm grasp of how to do this. Why not have someone provide you with an estimate that meets your needs and see if you think you can replicate the quote.

Do you have a pc or your laptop with a graphics card that is capable to display at 1280 x 1024 so that you can verify if the TV really can work off of that resolution. Sometimes with TVs features like VGA input just dont play well with certain setups. At least with the PC depending on the graphics card drivers you may be able to try different resolutions and refresh rates to find out what the TV really will support. Another option is you could purchase a VGA to Component, or VGA to HDMI. These can be cheap to very expensive (get what you pay for) but in the end you will have signal on your TV. Use Scaler when searching for these devices.

With the way it was presented I thought they made it pretty clear what the view from the actual camera looked like. They probably could have given just a few more seconds of each actual shot though considering the length of time the broadcast camera shots took up. The most important aspect of the video I thought was the animations showing the cameras being installed. For the price its pretty reasonable considering Axis quality. Wonder what the ratio of creep vs actual surveillance installations of this camera will be.

I have seen line powered cameras over the years but your selection will be greatly limited. Why not just do an outdoor rated outlet extender to match whatever is under the light. Then you could attach a short conduit to another box that houses an outlet or even simpler a 24vac transformer. I assume you have worked out that you will have to either keep the switch for the light always on or bypass it.

Didnt want to hijack this thread but I guess its kind of obvious this is one of those no name Chinese DVRs. Wanted to share an experience I had with a hotel that my contractor friend does work for. He told me someone came in and sold him a small CCTV system in a box and he wanted to add it to the hotel since current DVR was maxed out. I told him without even seeing it that it would be junk but insisted that the owner was easy to work with and would understand if I gave an unflattering opinion of what he bought. I later got a text message with a picture of the box: Hey look, there is even a website so I look up the specs right there on the box: http://guardiansmartvision.com/ Well there is not much info there but Lothian seems to love it so it must be good. When we actually went to the site to look around we started with the existing DVR and he mentioned that he wanted to upgrade to a larger drive for it. While discussing that I asked hey what is the DVR you bought in the box have, he quickly said 1TB. So we finally go and look at it and he pulls the DVR out of the box and it may be the cheesiest thing I have ever seen and he says the device is really lightweight. Without even touching it I told him that thing doesn't have a HDD in it, sure enough there wasnt. I borrowed a screwdriver on the desk just to see what the inside looked like and of course no HDD, and you could see one of the memory chips on the board had clearly been soldered. I told him there was no reason to even power it up and my guess was much like those USB thumb drive scams somebody reflashed the memory IC to "trickk" it into appearing to be a 1TB. So my point is its real easy to make a nice pretty box and slap a cool sounding name on it like Guardian Smart Vision and all the while its a POS, not to be confused with Point Of Sale. Save yourself the effort and buy something that actually has a real brand name.

Anybody have some recommendations on how to view live camera from the Internet on the KCM-5611? The iphone app by acti called camerago! is great, but only works locally. The app Mobilego works great but that would require a PC running the NVR software. I understand the camerago! app was meant for aiming the camera when first hanging it but why in the hell could they not have made the app work remotely too??? Acti has a KB for this and tells you to set some low FPS, quality and MJPEG and gives the URL: http://ip:port/cgi-bin/cmd/encoder?GET_STREAM This does work but I noticed that it does not seem to load fast enough on wifi even with 1FPS, 640x480, quality < 20. I have an OSD timer on the stream and you never see it change unless you stop and reload the page, all the while the downloading icon is spinning on the iphone. On firefox, on a PC it does work a little better, but then you could just use IE and get the full experience. When testing locally the camerago! app seems to stream the frames just fine and you see the clock tick away. Is there a better app for this or a better method to access a stream outside of IE or via the NVR software.

Max, thanks for the recommendation. I did not see a lite version on the app store but for $4 you cant really go wrong with the pro one. It even has zoom feature built in, very nice.

Why not, sounds like a classic case of loose connection regardless of what kind of electronics they all have them. Maybe as simple as the RJ45 connection has a cold solder joint. Any device that has a plugin is prone to that kind of failure, power jack, RF connector, input/outputs etc. Or could be as simple as a loose wire harness.

There does not seem to be an IPCamViewer, but there was one called iCamViewer that does seem to work ok with this Acti. Thanks Again using their NVR app accessing a camera works great on iphone and you can do playback. Just wanted an app that could access the camera if it was without an NVR running. Have a situation in mind where live view would be the primary feature. Obviously using the PC is the way to go, but people today want their phone to do it all.

Are you sure the cable you are using is a "straight" cable, in other words the individual strands on each end match each other? You do have 2 of the baluns you linked to can you try with a temporary short piece of known good cat5 cable and take a test monitor out to the garage with you to make sure there is nothing wrong with the baluns or the coax cables you are using on both ends with this setup.

If the device in the garage is like a regular network device then it should only be using 2 of the 4 pairs available in cat5. If its not network but it uses 4 of the 8 wires or less you are good to go. Should be able to strip out the blue and brown pairs from the jacket and leave green/orange alone. In theory you could reconnect the blue and brown pairs into a cat5 jack (blue into green, brown into orange) and use a network device as needed too. Since your length of cat5 is short you should be able to use simple cheap baluns like these: http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=232&category_id=40&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1 This means you would have to power the cameras from the garage side because you will have no extra pairs left like in the case of POE or using baluns and unused pairs for power.