Wayne02

I am in the market for a dvr type wired system for my property/residence and am considering a lorex system from costco. This system comes with 4 cameras and will go up to 8. It has the combo dvr/monitor, remote viewing, the latest compression H something, and some stuff I can't remember off the top of my head. Costco is our preferred vendor for electronic stuff because of their easy return policy. We have purchased a number of electronic products that have just not worked out for us and it was no problem to return them. I'm not married to costco for this purchase, but it sure would be nice to use them if feasible. I'm in the research phase here and am in the process of finishing the design/requirements of the system and had a couple of questions maybe folks could help with. - I anticipate being able to use the provided cameras in some applications but will need to purchase additional specific cameras for other applications in the design. As such I may find myself needing to make up my own cable runs from the camera to the dvr. What cable is usually used for this and can one purchase the dn connectors and tools to do so? I have the tools to install the regular cable tv screw-on connectors as I used them when running the cable for our tv's. The crimper had some interchangeable jaws of some sort. I've used them on RG58 and RG6 cable if I recall correctly. Can these tools be used to install the BN connectors or does it typically require a different set of tools? - We like the all-in-one lorex dvr/monitor as the UI is pretty easy and it looks like all members of my family could understand it and run it. The drawback it seems to me is that if the monitor goes out then you will need a new monitor and same type of deal if the dvr goes out. Of course when that happens it kind of defeats the purpose of the combined all-in-one. My question is, is it likely that if the monitor went out, the video could be ported to a stand alone monitor? Or if the dvr went out, could a new dvr be purchased and used with the existing still working monitor on the all-in-one? I fully realize this is not an ideal situation but I'm just wondering if when one component of the combo unit quits does the entire unit usually need to be scrapped? Thanks

Anybody?

Thanks very much for the replies and taking the time to post pictures, very helpful. I found the roll of coax and it is RG6/U type 75ohm quadshield IC 18 awg. Will that work for the video to the cameras? I also got out the crimpers and they are Ideal crimpmasters but it looks like I need to get the die set for BNC. Of the die sets on this page, I need #30-578 for BNC to RG6 quadshield? http://www.mytoolstore.com/ideal/ide08-11.html Also, as I pencil out the design I need to make a decision on routing of the RG6 from the dvr in the house to the 2-3 camera locations in my shop building. The shop building is next to the house and there is a conduit that I put in the ground when I ran the power to shop. The conduit currently has two cat5, two RG6, and one bell wire which I put in there for possible future use. Currently one cat5 and one RG6 is in use. There is room in this conduit for 4 RG6 and it would be an easy pull from house to shop, however, the drawback is the length of run from dvr to shop cameras would be about 125'. The other option requires trenching across a short width of gravel sidewalk, through some landscaping and running some conduit from the end of my house (where the room that will house the dvr is located) to the shop. This is more work than just pulling cable through existing conduit but the length of run from dvr to shop cameras goes down to about 50'. What are the limitations on the length of run between dvr and camera in terms of signal quality and such? Thanks

I will be routing 3-4 RG6 cables through my attic over about a 60 foot distance. This is a single story older rambler with the typical roof truss construction and loose blown in insulation between the joists. Said insulation covers the bottom of the truss joists for the most part. I'm guessing there is maybe 4' height from truss to peak, so not enough height to stand up but enough to crawl around. I'm wondering what the proper way is to route/secure these cables up there. I assume just leaving them lay on top of the joists willy nilly is not acceptable, but I'm hoping that clamping each cable individually to the upper part of the truss (angled part) is not required. Can the 3-4 cables be grouped in some sort of larger clamp that can be fastened to the truss every couple of feet? Or is there concern about signal bleed over between the cables if they are grouped together like that? The second question has to do with the transition of the cables from a wall cavity to the inside of the room and then to the dvr. I will have 8 RG6 cables routed to the wall cavity in the room where I want the dvr. This is your typical old style 2x4 construction 16" on center, wall covered with sheetrock. What is the proper way to transition these cables out of the wall such that they can then be routed to the dvr for hook up? Is there some sort of transition box that mounts in the wall or is there some sort of face plate that the cables get routed through when the exit the wall? Thanks

The 12V connector shown on the camera in the picture above is a BNC connector like the RG6 BNC except smaller?

Looking at the specs for this system http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11468686&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC| It says: Is that input for the standard or typical BNC connected camera?

Thanks. I think I have a partial roll of that station wire around here somewhere. Seems like I used it when I put the wired alarm system in the house and the shop years ago. Same thing with the cat5, partial roll left over from the network install. This type of wire would not be appropriate for the outdoor locations where the camera and wire would be exposed to rain? So this wire uses a barrel type connector to connect with the camera? Crimp-on type?

Thanks very much for the replies. I'll have to go back to costco and look closer, but it sounds like what you may be describing. Four video in BIN paired with four BNC loop outs, and Four video in BNC inputs with no corresponding loop outs. So... The BIN connected cameras don't use RG6 75 ohm cable like the BNC cameras as the BIN need additional wiring for the additional audio and power? But the BIN cameras only require running the single cable from camera to dvr. And the BNC cameras need the addtional 12V wire for every camera along with the RG6 cable for video? (leaving audio out of this). (Thinking out loud here) That means if I decide to go with a stand-alone (non-costco) 8 channel dvr that uses the typical BNC inputs I need to be prepared to run an additional 12v wire for each of the 8 cable runs. What type of wire is used for this 12v? Can it be secured to the RG6 cable with electrical tape or something when pulling the cable/wire? Do these 8 cameras get their 12v from the dvr? Thanks

Why would the back of the dvr have 8 BNC connectors and the 4 DIN connectors above the first four? Does this mean that 8 BNC cabled cameras could be use on this dvr? Do bnc cabled cameras usually have a bnc connector at the camera as well or are they hardwired into the camera? The add mentions that the 4 DIN cameras with sound are "powered by the monitor". I thought the typical BNC cabled cameras were also power by the dvr? Does this mean that a typical BNC connected camera does not carry sound and if sound is required a separate cable with mic needs to be run to an audio input on the dvr? Thanks

I think you are right. This is what it says:

Howdy, new guy here looking to purchase and install a video system. I have been frustrated trying to find the straight technical scoop on the various systems. I tried the usenet group and that was a giant waste of time with all the bs bickering, dick swinging contests etc. I'm not in the industry, but it sure seems like everybody and their brother is a "security" guy in my area. This board sure looks promising, glad I stumbled across it. Application: - Single story residential home AND detached shop building located right next door. - Want to observe/record trespassers/break-ins, license plates etc. - Both shop and house currently have separate non-monitored alarm systems - motion, door/window, rate of rise, internal and external alarms etc. - I will do the installation as, a) I want to save some money, b) I have the skills (working on getting the knowledge), c) I'm interested in the technology. - While we have lived here 22 years now and have never had a problem, I would feel better if there were a video system to compliment the alarm system. - If forced to choose between the two buildings I would give preference to the shop as it likely contains more value than what is in house. - Cameras will be placed as follows: 1) External view of shop man-door #1 (side/front of shop) 2) External view of shop man-door #2 (back of shop) 3) External view across the front of the three large shop rollup doors. 4) Internal view of shop, unsure how/where to point yet. 5) External view of single lane, dead-end, private road. There are only two houses downstream from us and the road gets very little traffic. I should be able to position a camera on the fence post closest to the road (probably hide it in a birdhouse or something) and get shots of the cars coming up the road. 6) External view of house front door and garage door, possibly extending down the side of the house to the two bedroom windows if sufficient range. 7) External view of house back sliding door, garage man-door, and possibly extending down back side of house to include bedroom window. 8. External view of sliding door on side of house (entrance to garage). Requirements: - 8 cameras/channels - Color cameras with ability to have some night vision (yes, I have pretty good motion lighting at most locations) - Longest single run between camera and recorder less than 120'. - Ability to view cameras in both quad and single view from any of the four pc's currently on our home LAN. - Ability to view cameras remotely through the internet. - Ability to easily review and manipulate the recorded footage - jog/shuttle etc. - Ability to burn a dvd of a portion of the recording for local leo if needed. - Ability to pick up car make/model/color/plate from driveway. - The more it is a "set it, and forget it" type system (understanding some maintenance is needed) the happier I'll be. Maybe this means a large HD for long record times? - Budget? I'm guessing under 2K here, closer to 1k is better of course, but is been hard for me to get a handle on a value price point for a run of the mill home system installed by the homeowner. - Would really like to have a complete system vs. piecing components together, although I recognize that with the proper knowledge a person may very well get more value for the dollar that way. While I'm interested in the technology, I don't really want to make a career out of it. So there you have it, my application and requirements as best I can detail them out. After being frustrated at trying to find good info for the diy'er I went to costco and purchased this system the other day for just under $1000 thinking I would buy 4 more cameras to add to the system:

Yeah, thats one thing about the sentinel/costco unit, it had lan out, ip address, removable hard drive, recorder, hardware functions buttons, 8 camera inputs, sound, cam control, playback options etc and 21" crt all in one unit. Quite handy. I don't recall if it had cable out to hook into the home tv's though. Does viewing cameras on a tv set work ok? I thought the resolution of the tv would not be enough for this task? Of course all five of our tv sets are older models and I don't see us doing the hd tv anytime soon. We probably spend far more time in front of our computers than in front of the tv. Wayne

Yup and with the greater processing power of modern PCs you can stream it over the internet much more effciently. Ok, thanks. I just wanted to make sure that each pc could access and control the cameras/recording directly through the lan and not have to go out through the internet. While the four pc's are networked behind a router, there is no main server so I assume the monitoring software would have to be installed on each pc. Hmm, now that I think about this, I don't understand how this would work with the lan. Is there any limitations to how many pc's one copy of the monitoring software can be installed on? Wayne

What cable and connectors are typically used on cctv systems? I wired the cable tv, network, speakers, phone etc in both my house and my shop myself. Purchased the wire and connectors in bulk, purchased the various hand-tools needed etc. Think I still have a couple hundred feet of Rg6U left over, or whatever that was that I used for the cable tv. That sentinel/costco system I had used pre-molded cable (6 din or something like that). I can see where pre-made lengths of cable would be a pia when making all these odd length cable runs. Thanks Wayne

I'm a bit confused as to how the pc based systems work. As I mentioned I do have a couple extra pc's around here that might work but can you get a dvr card that supports 8 cameras? How does it work, does it record 24/7 to the hard-drive? What software interface is used? How much does the software cost? I'm assuming I can set up a monitor on the pc that would show the quad view or cycle through the cameras just like the sentenal all-in-one system I had? One thing I liked about that 21" crt/dvr system is all the functions had hardware buttons (camera controls/dvr controls etc.) on the front of the unit and it was relatviely intuitive to use. I liked the idea of putting that monitoring unit in the kitchen where people could use it. I assume that with a pc based system all those controls are software use only?? With a pc based system I'm assuming I can set it up so that any of the 4 pc's on my home lan can view and control the cameras and recording? I also will need to monitor the systems remotely via the internet?

Thanks for the replies, I do appreciate it. I recognize my post was long and that would be a turn-off, but I know how frustrating it is to try and give advice to people who have not defined their application & requirements. I also don't mind paying more for a quality system, just did not know where the price points were and such. Running all this cable is do-able, but won't be a pleasant job and if I'm going to that much work I want the thing to work halfway well when I'm done. Some follow-on questions if you don't mind. With regards to the camera used to capture plates. If I put a camera on the fence post that closely borders the edge of the road I should be able to capture cars coming up the road (towards the camera) and cars going down the road (away from the camera). This seems like it would probably work ok during the daytime, but this road has zero lighting on it and I'm wondering if the camera would work at all to pick up plates at night? Seems like when the car is traveling towards the camera the headlights would wash out the picture? Might be able to pick the rear plate out when the vehicle is going away from the camera if the vehicle had a license plate light? My other option here is to use two cameras, one on the shop driveway, and one on the house driveway. These two driveways come off the narrow private road I mentioned above and are spaced about 40' apart. Both these driveways are very shallow in depth. I could put one camera on the shop to capture any cars turning into that driveway and one camera above the garage door on the house garage to capture any cars turning into there. The disadvantage to this route is it would use two cameras vs the one camera out on the road. The advantage to this route would be I have motion sensing flood lighting on both these driveways and this might help the camera pick up the plates????????????? Thanks Wayne