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One tough thing with elevators is that the cable feeding your camera in the car is on a travel cable which would be multiple cables running the different systems including the emergency phone etc. So you have two pairs doubled up to the video of the camera? Are both pairs in a common shield or separately shielded. Have you tried both draining the shield at one end as well as keeping it free from grounding. Are you using cheap baluns?

I like Flukes. The 115 is a good a around model with true rms. I've had my 112 for a good ten years. You can also get coax and cat testers.

Yeah the idea here is to determine why your picture goes to heck at night. This is the question you are asking for help with. So that's the info we have to go on. So we know that at night, your ir lights will kick on and now the camera will draw more power than during the day (and assumably the picture is fine during the day). So the information needed in order to further help you is about the power feeding the camera. Is there a power supply for the camera that sits by the dvr? If so what is the specs of this power supply. Right on the power supply it should say something like input 120vac and possibly output 12 VDC and it should give a number followed by an A or it may even say amps. Also the gauge (thickness) of the wire going to the camera is helpful. I'm assuming someone must have mounted this camera and should know enough to get this info. Pictures would be a big help.

I'm not sure of all the specifics on that camera but pretty much, if its an IP camera, then the Cat 6 is all that's needed for it. You should be able to control ptz through the software without the need for a control panel. With IP ptz' I have even used usb game pads with analog sticks (kinda like a play station controller)

I can't really speak straight to the unit as I've never used it but keep I'm mind when purchasing cameras, that you will need to purchase 1080p HD-SDI models also. I'm sure I've seen remarks on this forum about Cantek in the past. Search it out if you haven't already and you should be able to find out more.

I can't dead on say because I'm typically using pricey servers but if I were looking to build a standard pc for this application, I would go with a quad core 64 bit system with at least 4 gigs of ram.

If the manufacturer has a Poe injector for that model, than you should be good. You can run either cat 5e or Cat 6

I would take the camera right to the dvr with known good cable and good power source. And then test

Many of the cheaper Chinese DVRs come without Hard Drives. If your new to this, you may want to stick to buying with the hard drive. You won't be able to use an external USB type hard drive.

Yes, but POE makes it cleaner and easier

Metering it while hooked up won't necessarily blow anything. Usually on higher voltages and what not, it's more likely to damage your meter. It just doesn't make sense to meter for ohms on the line while its hooked up to the dvr. When I do connections, I carefully do them to avoid mistakes and then hook it up. If it doesn't work, then I redo the connection if needed.

You should not use an ohm meter for resistance on any live circuit. I'm not sure why you check for this. Was video lost

Awesome, Glad to hear you worked it out. I guess that was kind of an odd one.

You're really not answering the questions I'm asking in order to help you. Does the camera have both a network cable and a power cable going to it? It may be a power issue when the ir goes on. It may be reflection back from the irs, by any chance is this camera viewing out through a window?

That Trendnet may work but its hardly covert. Also remember, when you buy a $70 camera compared to something more expensive, there's a reason it's cheaper.

There's the axis P1214 but it costs over $400

Sounds simple and straight forward enough. Hard wired network is always a better option than wifi as long as cabling is possible. Make sure to size your ups correctly and remember its a ups, not a generator so don't expect long back ups with it. If you're only going no more than 4 cameras, you may even consider one of the nvrs with built in Poe switch.

Is it one of the foscam ip cameras? Are you powering it over Poe

To be self contained would really call for an ip camera with onboard sd card recording.

It seems that just simply securing the dvr and its power in a locked secured cabinet of some sort is the best way. Also install a covert camera to watch the dvr. I mean if you've got problems with employees so bad that you have to worry about them stealing the dvr, it may be time to hire an armed guard or change careers. What is your store, the Taliban gift shop?

Hikvision OEMs cameras for a lot of other brands but I wasn't aware of them doing Lorex.

Hello, Welcome to the forum

It could be that he never set you up with ddns and just put your wan ip in the app. When changing services, your wan ip changed so the app is now looking at the wrong address. You can check your wan IP address online through whatsmyip

What brand of camera is it? Is it analog or IP? Does it have IR illumination? If so, I wonder if there is a power consumption issue when the IRs kick on. This would especially make sense if its an ip camera and you're powering it over POE

I can't tell you exactly what to get as there are many cameras and nvrs out there but for a commercial property such as a hotel, I would strongly urge against consumer grade combo systems that are sold at Costco or any big box store. If you want to save money you can save with cost effective cameras such as Dahuas, Hikvision or GeoVision.