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They are great illuminators, as are Bosch, but they are more expensive than a cocaine habit. The illuminator I have on my numberplate cam does the job nicely and cost $44.

Just pull two cables. In fact pull three. Cable is cheap. I don't even know if a switch would/could deal with two separate cameras and IP addresses coming down the same cable.

There are probably reliable used cars that can be bought for the price of the enclosures on that website.

First of all if you do not know what you are doing get a professional in to do it for you. That box has AC mains voltage going in to it. It will kill you if you stuff up. If you do know what you are doing get a multi meter and check you have power at each of the cameras. The fact you have two still up suggests the transformer is working. If your individual outputs are fused check each of the fuses. I can see that you have 2 LEDs lit in your photo of your power supply. I wouldn't mind betting that fuses are the issue. Isolate the power from the power supply before you check them.

Start with the basics. With anything electrical the first question to ask is do I have power to the circuit. Buy a multi meter and confirm that you are actually getting the advertised voltage and current from your power packs and that the power that is arriving at the camera is sufficient in both voltage and current. After confirming you have power I would get a test monitor and confirm that you have a video signal at the camera. If that checks out then move on to the DVR. At the DVR connect the suspect camera to an input that is known to be working. If you suddenly get video from that camera your input at the DVR is the issue. With all of those things eliminated then go looking at the signal path between the camera and the DVR.

How is it powered? Most box camera's are POE, 12VDC or 24VAC. It would probably make sense to have it powered by one of those standards. A number of enclosures already use 24VAC to run fans, heaters and wipers.

I would recommend not being cheap. You are probably spending a bomb building this townhouse, and you want to cheap out on only two cameras? As a minimum pull cable to all the locations you think you may ever want a camera. During construction before the Gyprock goes in is the easiest time to pull cable. Cable is cheap. You lose very little by pulling cables everywhere, even if they never have anything hooked up to them. I'm assuming you have front and back doors. What about a cameras that cover those areas? Fire escapes? Ground floor windows and other potential points of entry?

That camera is analogue and I would not trust the inbuilt LEDs to illuminate the plate at any distance. Your field of view with that cam is only going to be circa 2 metres (7') or so at enough pixels per metre to read a plate.

You have three major issues with your linked system. The first is that it is an analogue system. The second is that that it is an analogue system. The third is the cables are only 60'(20m) long, and you have 250'(75m) separation. If you go with an IP system you can set up a POE router on the far building to link/power the cameras and run a single cat 6 cable through the conduit back to the house where you can have a second POE router and NVR or POE NVR.

You are going to need to rethink your budget. For what you want to do I would be budgeting around $1000 minimum. At that range you will need a box camera with something like a 12.5mm - 50mm varifocal on it to make sure you have enough pixels per metre to read the plate at that distance. You are also going to need a big IR illuminator. 940nm IR is far less effective then 850nm. Most people report about half the distance vs 850NM. Remember that for clear captures your shutter speed will need to be up to which reduces the amount of light you get in again.

It doesn't sound like DHCP is causing you any issues but where static IP addresses are useful is for things like browser access and port forwarding. A static IP address guarantees that the camera is always in the same place when you go looking for it.

I would consider the Hikvision DS-2CD2342WD-I or the Dahua IPC-HDW4421C. 6mm or 4mm lens. Don't expect a single camera to give you anything in the way of useful evidence in the event of a break in, but if just seeing what is going on out the front is all you are after then one of those should fit the bill.

Change you Lan IP range to 10.7.7.200 to - 10.7.7.252, or change your DVR's to 10.8.7.xxx Make sure everything is on the same subnet mask

Have you considered using magnetic attachment?

Does setting to the day night switch to day mode only have any effect?

I hear Costco lets you take anything back no questions asked forever. It might be worth taking that one back and going for a different setup if you are after something with concealed cables, maybe look at a dome or eyeball type of camera instead of a bullet for something that is less conspicuous. If you are happy to void the warranty you can even paint to match. That system will be tough to make pretty.

If you have a multi-meter check the output voltage and current on your power supply. Another poster was having the same problem and it was caused by a bad power supply.

Definitely do not use greens. Years ago I foolishly did in the quest for the lowest power consumption NVR possible. They died. I've used WD Reds successfully for several years. WD also makes the purple which is supposedly optimised for CCTV but I don't know much about them other than a few reviews I've read. Regardless I run a Raid for redundancy.

Careful. CCTV as a hobby can be more expensive than drugs CCTV at night is actually black and white. If low light performance is your concern look carefully at low light performance figures for the cameras you are after. As a general rule more pixels reduces low light performance for a given sensor size. I say generally because the 2*42 series cameras from Hikvision have better low light performance than the 2*32 cameras despite being the same sensor size. How they claim low light performance is important too. For example they may claim 0.1 lux at F1.4. The next box will tell you that they fit the camera with an F2.0 lens which means your minimum light performance is now halved to 0.2 lux because the aperture on the lens is half that of the F1.4. They will usually also indicate if automatic gain correction is factored into that figure. Gain is like your ISO setting in photography. It increases sensitivity to light but increases noise in the image. If you reduce your gain to reduce noise in the image then your minimum illumination levels also go up. Depending on your budget there are plenty of very nice low light cameras out there. Bosch make the king with their 5mp Dinion 8000MP Starlight but you can expect to pay close to $2000 US dollars per camera, lens and enclosure. Hikvision make their dark fighter series which top out at 2mp but they are half the price per camera. They also make a dark fighter PTZ. Dahua makes a 2MP low light offering as well. There are plenty of camera manufacturers out there but you will keep hearing dahua and hikvision mentioned because they represent excellent value for money. After sales support is what you lose, but it sounds like you are tech savvy enough to muddle through any issues. If you are on the NBN then you may have the upload speeds to send video off to the cloud in real time but you need to consider how much bandwidth you will chew up doing that. IP cameras at settings that will give you quality playback will send back data at 4 - 8 megabits per second, per camera. Higher resolution cameras need even higher bit rates. Sure you can send the sub stream to the cloud to reduce bandwidth but a D1 substream will have a fraction of the quality of the main stream. There is no point backing up video to the cloud if it isnt of a high enough resolution to be useful. The camera or NVR can email you a snapshot of what it sees on motion detection as well. If you are worried about the NVR going missing there are several things you can do to reduce the chance of that happening, or reduce the impact if it does happen. First one is hide the NVR somewhere. Second one is bolt it into a locked rack mount that is bolted to the wall. Third is you can record to two separate and hidden locations on the same site so if they get one they may not get the other. Fourth is to use cameras with on board SD storage so unless they steal the camera they have not got all the footage. I recommend having an NVR with the ability to do Raid 1, 5, or 6. If your only hard drive dies all your footage dies with it plus your NVR is dead until you get a replacement. I've got a mix of Dahua and Hikvision cameras teamed up to a PC based NVR running Blue iris in raid. I have to say i am very impressed with the Hikvision 2CD2332 cameras I have if you are looking for something that is halfway between a dome and a bullet. The downside is they have no onboard SD card. Lenses from 2.8 to 12mm are available. If you go box cameras budget for good glass as well. The difference between a cheap lens and a good one is remarkable. Don't write off domes altogether. They have their issues but all cameras do. What a dome can give you is protection. If you have to hand a camera somewhere people can get at it then it is worth considering a vandal dome. Some people also find them more aesthetically pleasing. If you are using external white light you can get domes without IR on board which cures the bleed issue. IR bleed is only an issue when the camera is in black and white. If you intend to have enough light to record in colour your camera wont go into black and white. What works for me and others may not work for you. What is best for you will vary with your needs and budget. It seems like you will do the research to identify exactly what you need to achieve your desired outcome. An all in a box set from deal extreme may end up meeting your needs exactly. I doubt that because it sounds like one of your needs is to have toys to tinker with. Whatever you do build in some expansion room into your setup. For me cloud storage is something that should only be considered as a backup. An internet connection can be fickle. no worries at all.

What a coincidence. It just happens to be for sale on your site too. How fortunate is that!

You are asking a lot from a remote control transmitter that is powered by a button battery or two. First I would be talking to your customer about why they want to open the gate from so far away. The longer a gate is open the more opportunity for uninvited guests to enter. You could use a GSM opener that will let him open the gate from anywhere in the world. If he is insistent on a key fob push button remote you could consider improving the efficiency of the receiving antenna.

Does that 2 for I-frame interval mean every 2 frames or 2 seconds? Have a look in your motion detection settings. There will be a box in there than needs to be checked for record on motion.

Check your IP address settings. It sounds like Channel 2 has been given the same IP address as Camera 1 on Channel 1. Also check that both camera's have a unique IP address.

I've been using Cat6 simply because it is costing me the same, or in some cases less than, Cat5E.

Well what is long range? If you want ID quality shots beyond 15-20m (50-67 Feet) you will need to go for a box camera with a C/CS mount lens, or a PTZ, because 16mm is about as long as they go in M12 lenses fitted at the factory. Some posters on this forum have fitted a 25mm lens but that required a bit of fiddling and special screws. If you need a box camera you also need an enclosure and a separate lens. If the lighting isn't real great you also need external IR or white lighting. None of these things are "covert". Good glass isn't cheap, and it can be very easy to spend $1000+ per camera once the price of camera, enclosure, lens, IR and power supply is taken into account. That assumes you are doing everything yourself. If you want to protect your $1000 investment you will probably want a couple of other cameras to look after it at $100 -150 each DIY prices And you still don't have anything to record it on yet.