securitysys

If you only have a 2 story house and you all ready have ethernet ran to the outside locations, you should be okay. Your inside runs may be a little bit time consuming, but shouldn't be difficult. Then again, we had a 1,000 Sq. Ft. commercial job that when you first look at it you would think it would be simple until you notice that the walls are plaster with cement right behind it! Back on topic, as long as it's a newer house, it shouldn't be that hard. Plus if they can get to both ends of the cat5 then they can just use a ethernet balun and run power and video over ethernet. You should ask the dealer to show you previous locations that he has installaed, check at least 3. Ask for a online demo, if he shows you a demo of another location check with that person and see if they allowed him to give you a demo, then you'll know if they're honest or not. If the cameras are name brand, then you can easily pay $700 a camera and $3,000 for a DVR. That's $10,000 before installation, wiring, and your LCD (which shouldn't be more then $1,500). If it's not a name brand, then don't pay more then $300 a camera, and $2,000 for the DVR. The whole package with installation should run you under $7,500. Once that is done, make sure you check that the contractors they use are licensed, bonded, and insured. Make sure that they give you a contract, and that everything is spelled out. Don't give more then a 10% deposit. Get at least 3 bids. Then start to negotiate. If you see that someone is willing to go down more then 15% to 20% on their price it usually means that they're not that stable and that you may not be able to rely on them in the long run. Don't be fooled by big companies, or worried about one man shows, just look for companies with a good reputation, and solid experience behind them. When using a professional company to install your system rather then doing it your self your paying about 30% to 40% more, so you need to make sure that within that 30% to 40% they are providing you a true service that you need. Check on their warranties, see if they make you deal with the manufacture or if they change out the equipment them selves. See what type of support response times they have, and see if their support people are actually qualified! Read up on CCTV for a couple of hours, if you start teaching your sales rep terminology then that's probably not the company you want installing your system! I'm not trying to solicit my services to you, or to anyone else on this forum, we're located over 1,500 miles away from you. But I just want to let you know what I feel a dealer should do. What we do is take 0 down from the customer and in most cases (except the bigger jobs where we special order all the equipment), we offer a 14 day money-back guarantee. We give a lifetime warranty on Labor, and if they're local, we switch out the parts on warranty repair right then and there (if we don't have it in stock we give them a temporary comparable product), and for ones that aren't local we do a in-the-air exchange. We also extend the warranty of all the products we sell to 5 years (except certain IP products). We strive to have a technichian out within 4 hours (for local jobs) of recieving an RMA request. Tech Support is always free and unlimited. When ever we have a contractor in the area we have them do a walk through of the premise, they make sure all the BNC Crimps are tight, the cameras are focused, they check outdoor cameras for damage and make sure that their water tight seal is holding up, etc. That's how we justify our mark up to the customer, we provide a service that I believe is worth the 20% or 30% extra that they pay. Pay a little bit extra, make sure you get quality equipment, and that your dealing with a reputable company, but always remember that your money is good anywhere, while the dealers product is only good if someone buys it!

I looked through a huge supplier list couldn't find this one. Are you guys sure Arm Carrys it? If they do then I can check through their normal suppliers and one of them should have it.

Are you sure you have the spacer in there? If it's not that, then it's not focused properly. Just double check and make sure that the spacer is in there, because if your not able to focus it any better then that's what it most likely is.

PC Based can be a pain in the rear. Is anyone going to be accessing the footage directly from the unit? If not why not 2 standalones and just use the DVR's control center type software?

Thanks for the reply. If you could put a link or some samples I would appreciate it!! Thank You.

I'm not holding my breath. We have a long ways to go my friend. Too many exisiting clients with analog systems, to many dealers not trained on IP yet, not enough product variety, and not enough demand. I show megapixel cameras to alot of my clients side by side with analog cameras, and about 75% of them say the picture on that megapixel camera is excellent, but I don't really need it. When we can pick up a decent IP camera wholesale for $199 or even $249 and IP has come up with a solution for most applications that analog is currently used in, then you will see a lot more IP being sold. But even then, your still going to have millions of exisiting analog customers out there that are going to want to expand / work on their exisiting systems.

I agree with Rory on this one. I have installed both IP Cameras and traditional Analog Systems and both have their place. For the analog side of things there are many pluses: 1. Pricing 2. Matrix / Console Setups 3. Many more manufactures, equipment to choose from IP Cameras 1. Image Quality Now, don't get me wrong, I think there are many times when an IP System would be a better choice for a installation then an analog system (that's why we install them), but I still think the majority of customers out there today that are looking to purchase a video surveillance system does not need an IP System. Just for example, we recently set up a chain of Jewelry Stores. Instead of going with 9 IP Cameras, they decided to go with 25 Analog Cameras, they got the same coverage and almost the same quality they would of got with IP, and we saved them at the very minimum 65% over what they would of paid for our (or any one else’s) comparable IP Solution. We even ran Video & Power over Cat5E by using video baluns. The only advantage of going with an IP Camera systems here is they would of got more details on the actual Jewelry Piece it self when zoomed in after the fact, but, since they are able to see the piece it self, and they all ready know which piece is stolen, it didn’t make a difference to the client. Remember, just because a camera has 25X the resolution of an analog camera doesn't mean it can replace 25 cameras. How about when you have 5 ft. between the show cases and the wall and you have to cover a 40 ft. depth. Your going to need multiple cameras. We do utilize hybrid systems when clients need to capture License Plates, but most of our clients don't require it, as usually when they get broken into it's done with a stolen vehicle. Now, as for IP Systems, we recently did an IP Camera setup for a Parking Lot. Instead of going with 6 or more analog cameras, we where able to cover the entire parking lot with just 2. One Camera covered the entrance (which captured all the license plates), and the 2nd covered the entire lot. We added a GE CamPLUS Rugged IP Dome on the inside, coupled with a PC and Luxriot software and the job was done. For the outside, we used 1 Arecont 2100 and 1 Arecont 3130. Right now, our installations are about 85-15 Analog to IP, and I think that it will stay like that until there are more solutions out there, better pricing, and a true need arises for the average customer to switch from analog to IP.