Samir

All you need to know is the size of the connector and the output voltage and ampage. Then you can go to radio shack and get one of their power supplies. They cost more, but are very good and solidly built. I've had several operate for over a decade.

Never upgrade firmware on anything unless you HAVE to. If you can't log in, I'm afraid you may have ruined your DVR.

It should. That is correct. Power + data to camera, data to router.

If it's cheap, I would do it. Even a distant lightning strike can come in from the ground and fry your camera and dvr in a second. Just be sure the filter is also grounded properly.

No, the increase pixels seem to increase the field of view in your case, not the resolution unfortunately.

I have seen problems like this when router firmwares are upgraded too. Bottom line, don't upgrade firmware unless you HAVE to. You almost certainly will break something that wasn't a problem before. (It's all because of bad programming.) What I would do is see if you can contact the dvr maker for the old firmware. That would be a shot.

There are companies that make digital modulators now. That would be your best bet.

If they buy the house, does it matter? If it still does, or you don't care if they buy, definitely show this to your real estate agent. They should be watching for this kind of thing since their commission is a couple of thousands dollars for essentially nothing.

First of all, I applaude you for learning so much about this. My father would have a lot to learn from you. Secondly, I only see a link to the dvr, not the camera. If you can post the link to the camera I should be able to help.

A POE camera is simply powered using a POE injector or the POE injector built-into a POE switch. An injector is usually used when you already have a non-POE switch. For a new construction, you can just buy a POE switch, although I like keeping them separate so if the switch fails, it doesn't take out the POE and vice versa. If it's a single camera, the camera may be able to do the email notification and recording if it has built-in memory or sd card slot. You could use a NAS (network attached storage) to have the camera recordings save to the NAS. You would need some way to access the NAS though to see them. An NVR (network video recorder) can record the video in a similar way as the NAS, but will also allow you to view the recordings via built-in remote access. Cat5 or cat6 cabling will be fine. If there's not much of a price difference, go with cat6. If you want more than one camera and remote access, you will need the NVR.

If you're building the house, you can run your own cables. Just run your own cat6 AND coax for just the cost of the wire. Then you can do whatever you want after the sheetrock is up. Running cables before the sheetrock is up will save you A LOT.

I like the lasers idea. Just kill the cameras with one laser shot. Then he can replace the cameras. Just be sure it is done while completely naked so the video can't be shown as evidence for damaging the cameras without also exposing the cameras recording in a way that invades privacy.

This sounds like the wifi in the BT isn't as good as what you had. My guess would be if you ran a cable to the laptop, everything would be fine again.

If you want to move to IP without rewiring, there are devices from netsys-direct.com that can run ethernet over coax. There's also the moca networking devices that can do the same. However, the expense may not be worth it and it may be easier to re-wire.

What will work perfect for your situation is a hunting camera. They are typically battery operated, have night vision, are motion based, and do have time and date stamping as well as still and video clips. Just be sure to retrieve the data every once in a while (probably after the garage was messed with. If he's not intelligent, he won't find it and you'll have all the evidence you need. Otherwise, get some skunks and put them in the garage. Sure, it will possibly mess up your stuff, but would mess him up pretty good. A raccoon or two could probably be just as effective.

I think you need to do some bandwidth testing between your remote sites and your LAN. I was running across similar slowness issues and found out that my remote end isp was having 5% packet loss every few months, for a few months. Once I switched to another isp, everything was fine. Iperf is very good for diagnosing things like this. Just set up a computer running iperf in server mode and whenever it is slow, just do a quick bandwidth test to see if it is a bandwidth issue or what.

Ubiquiti is some good stuff, although no Cisco catalyst. You can always pick up some used catalyst switches cheap if you only need fast ethernet though.

How is the other camera getting a 192.168.x.x address? Post a wiring diagram. I don't think it will work the way it is set up right now without some configuration.

Glad you found a solution to this. Interesting to see the different refresh rates--sounds like leftovers from PAL/NTSC.

Just get a standalone nvr and connect it to the cameras. Most of these also have remote viewing capabilities, so it should cover everything you need.

This sounds like an issue in the compression being done by the dvr on the image. See if there's a way to change the compression/quality settings.

I hate to tell you this, but it looks pretty impossible. The bright license plate bulbs actually hurt because they cause overexposure on the plate numbers and the data is lost. The only possible way would be to somehow export the data raw from the video, and then have an expert manipulate the resulting images in order to correct the exposure on just the plate. Maybe between different frames parts of letters might show up, but it's still a super long shot. I've had a car of mine hit and run, so it sucks. And cops are worthless. That's why it might be easier to find the person yourself.

You have a picture of the circuit/board connectors? The pdf doesn't really help.

A simple solution with be to just remove the pc and replace it with an IP nvr. Then you can add cameras once everything is stable and all the existing cameras are working. (Or in the case of the one possible bad one, replaced.)

And another reason not to go wireless is because devices like this exist for cheap: http://www.jammer-store.com/monstro-10-all-frequencies-portable-jammer.html