CraigVM62

Since it seems your computer is working. Are you going to respond to emails ???

I think he is asking about understanding CCTV specificaly Many distributors will offer what they call "training" programs which include CCTV Installations. I have attended several put on by the sales reps for Speco ProVideo and Silent Witness... The problem is they are more oriented towards teaching you how to promote their products vs. how to install them. Still I learned, with alot of trial and error, enough to do more basic residential CCTV systems integrated via Structured Wiring Panels / Modulators. You may want to contact your local ADI Distributor as they put on many around the nation. Forums like these also can take you where the basic training leaves off, if you don't mind getting "typers cramp"

My work has had me become very familar with the different grades of RG-6 Cable "60%, 90%, Quad Shield" and their properties and applications. To date I have only used standard RG-59 Copper Clad for the small CCTV installations I have been involved with. Do they make different grades of the stuff? At my distributors, they carry standard RG-59 along with mini sized cable. When ultimate shielding is required, do you just step up to RG-6 designed for CCTV "do they make a version designed for CCTV" ??? I have thought of asking this at the distributors, but they are often like Radio Shack "You Have Questions, We Have Blank Stares"

When RF is transmited over a coaxal cable, the cable is working more as an enclosed guide or wave path for that RF signal. That is why a sharp bend in coax will cause "reflection" and hinder the signal. The ohm rateing being crucial to accomodate different frequencies of RF signal with those of CATV working best with 75 ohm CCTV is a very low "line level" signal and is actually using the conductors of the cable as any voltage current will and with copper being one of the better conductors... Coax providing the best protection from voltage inductance and infultration of RF signals. Hence many of your high end Video Interconnect cables will promote the inner conductors being Silver and even Gold coated along with the end connections themselves. Granted my training in such matters was many many years ago so I may be getting things backwards or downright upside down ...

In my nightly stroll around Flea-bay, I decided to try out one of the cheap wireless cameras / receivers being sold there. I think I paid paid 40 bucks with shipping. I didn't expect much and figured it would be another purchase from there that would have me laughing at myself for buying "some people have gambling or drug habits, I have ebay" For what little I have invested, I was pretty surprised that the thing works, Crappy Dark Image and Limited Range but not as bad as it could be. I found that the tuneing knob on the receiver does take some fine adjustment to get the image and I am afraid it will drift if left unattended. Has anyone come across one of these with slightly better performance and that locks onto the channel and stays. From my distributor catalogs, I see systems running thousands of dollars but I just want something cheap to play around with, not install for a customer who is depending on it. Maybe strap it on the dog and make a "Fido Cam" haha

I have seen the term "Wide Dynamic Range" mentioned serveral times regarding higher end cameras. What does this feature refer to ??? I am guessing it's concerns the ability to produce image from very bright to dark areas ???

or better yet, your like the "Ask Jeeves" of the CCTV world, How do you find the time to do so much research in finding products to help people here with their questions and needs ???

"COOL" Even with this 18 camera project, that will be a great aid. With systems useing even more cameras, that would be as good as gold. After doing weeks of internet surfing looking at misc PC based DVR systems, the i-View is by far looking to be the most "Bang for the Buck" found to date.

You informed me that the e-map allowed one to create an basic drawing of the floorplan / buildings with indicators as to where cameras are located via CAD type software. Does it go beyond that in any way? as far as the icons which represent the cameras and their locations "flashing" if their is motion? That would change it from a "kinda neat" feature, to a darn right "COOL" feature

I have your 32 channel system on order "thanks Hermin" and do have a quick question regarding the e-Map feature. Is this just a graphic that is drawn up showing the floorplan or building locations with indicators of the camera locations. I would like to know more so to determine if a second PC Monitor would be in order to utilize this feature. Thanks Craig Adcom Inc.

My install expierence is pretty much limited to residential applications and small businesses. Still I have been pulled into court 3 times because of footage captured on video from systems my company installed. One for a store burglary where the suspect was seen reaching behind a counter grabbing items while his buddy had the store attendant in the back of the store asking for assistance getting an item down off a top shelf. His Lawyer claimed the video must have been created on a computer to frame his client. I had to testify that (1) I had installed a system in the store prior to the crime. (2) that the camera angle would coinside with where I had installed a camera. Then lastly, if the video would appear to be from a system such as I had installed. The judge almost laughed at the loose straws the defendants attorney was grabbing for. One other was for a worker who claimed an injury and stated his Dr. requested he should be on "Light Duty" for several months. Video caught him playing basketball in the company wearhouse after hours with a few co-workers / friends. Something he could not possibly do if his injuries were anything like he claimed to be suffereing from. He was fired but tried to sue the employer. He claimed in court that the footage was from months prior to his injury and the images time / date stamp was changed. I had to testify that I was called to come in and help the business owner view the recorded material as he was afraid he would mess it up and accidently erase it and could varify the date and time was correct. All nickle and dime stuff. I can only imagine the fun that those of you whom install huge commercial systems get to hear about and deal with.

About a year ago, I did some security alarm installations at a Safeway "big grocery store chain" distribution facility. At this facility they also made their instore brand of ice cream. Part of the process of makeing it required it be placed in a super deep freezer after it was mixed and placed in the cartons. This giant Deep Freezer was a 1000 sq ft walk in where the temp was kept around 50 degrees below zero if I remember correctly. Workers had to wear special gear inside and were not allowed to stay within the room for over 20 min at a time. They had several PTZ dome cameras within so the security dept could monitor, not so much for any kind of theft, but incase something should happen to any worker within. I will see if I can find out what they have installed. I remember that if you walked in with a hot cup of coffee, it was cold in 2 minutes, and frozen over in 5.

With the installation I am now envolved in, my customer is looking to record audio within a small office area that will also be covered by a camera. In the past, my distributor catalogs used to have several cameras that had built in mic's for audio but in recent years, can find almost none. In this application, it might be better to have the mic that would be recording audio at a different location from the camera location anyway. I have thought of utilizing an omnidirectional conference microphone to feed the audio input of the DVR. Any suggestions as to what would work best ?? I also understand there are reasons that many manufacturers have stopped building cameras with built in mics for audio. Are there legalities that I should be concerned with ? Thanks

At this point I will have my fingers crossed that all works out. Customer is a good friend and I hope to keep it that way. To work down in tropical weather ... I don't think I could call it work "Island Envy" I am up in the pacific northwest, land of the never ending umbrella

Hi, I am new to this forum and rather new to CCTV for the most part. As an residential electrician who specializes in low voltage, I have mainly dealt with a few cameras via modulators as are common in newer / nicer homes. A good friend is opening a large public storage facility and talked me into doing the CCTV for it. It started out as perhaps 7 outdoor cameras and an 8 channel stand alone DVR, but he has now decided to jump to 10 interior and 8 exterior cameras. With 18 channels, it seemed a 32 CH PC based DVR would be in order and am looking at purchaseing from this distributor: http://www.sharpvisioncctv.com/ I was hopeing to get first impressions from those of you who deal with this stuff for a living. Their basic 32 ch unit seems to have all the features that meet our needs and for around $4000 it fit in the budget. All camera will be standard color mounted in outdoor housings or armor domes for the interior so no PTZ features will be utilized. From the DVR / Office location I have Cat5e ran to each of 5 remote buildings with the farthest run near 300 feet. At a central location of each building I was going to utilize these "EZ005" 4x BNC female to 1xRJ45 female+ 8 pin terminal blocks found here. http://www.sonerik.com/cat5cable.asp with a matching unit back at the DVR office location. At $40 each, should I not expect any kind of decent performance? The budget will not allow for high end components. I hope I am not labeling myself as some "wanna-be" trying to put together a system off Flea-bay" haha Your thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated

I do appreciate the fact that you lean towards and no doubt have worked with a great deal with higher end products in the industry. I had ordered one of these "OEM" cameras just to test it out. I have also recently purchased a couple other cameras "Toshiba IK-6400A and Honeywell "ultrak"474M" and did a low light "dare to compare" test. Even though the Toshiba and Honeywell cost 2 and 3 times as much and both utiiize the Day/Night feature, I found the OEM to maintain a usable image in a darker setting than the other two. I must say that I did like the On Screen Menu and customability of the Honeywell. Is that common with higher end cameras? All cableing was ran in dedicated conduits only shared with the alarm system cabling. I have been trying to read up on different problems people have with ground loop issues so I will be better educated if it becomes a problem. Wish you lived on this side of the pond... I am hoping to find a contractor that installs higher end CCTV stuff in this area to be taken in as a free apprentice. Would be more than happy to donate labor just so in return I could learn. I will do my best to do so by reading here aswell. Thanks

I am afraid to ask what that i-view unit must run. I can imagine it would be near what I am chargeing for the entire project which is in the $14,000 range. In a nut shell this is what the configuration I am looking at: As I had mentioned, there are 5 remote buildings. The cameras at each building "some exterior and some interior" will run via RG-59 to the central location where I plan on having the baluns / hub located. From that location I have UTP ran to the office where the DVR will be. Each building will have it's own power supply. The exterior cameras are 24V Higher Resolution Color models with 3-8 auto iris lenses from here http://vsequipment.com/sonyfullcamera.html They will be sitting in basic Pelco type housings with heater / fan. The power supplies for buildings with more than one of the outdoor cameras will be Altronix 4 amp / 4 output model. One building has just one outdoor camera so I was going to use a basic plugin 24V 50VA transformer. For the indoor cameras I was useing these armored color dome cameras http://www.intellicamusa.com/adhc200.htm These will be powered via 12volt transformers. These cameras will be viewing hallways that are very well illuminated day and night. I am not so lucky for the outdoor cameras. They will be looking between buildings and have several large outdoor lights within their image frame at night. I no doubt will be doing alot of individual adjustments on each of these cameras trying to avoid total backlit problems, without subjects being washed out if near the lights. For the prior mentioned 4 BNC input hubs. I have ordered one pair of them and will see how they work on the far building which will have a total run of near 350 feet between the UTP and RG-59 from camera to DVR. If they don't work, I will see how they do on the nearest building which is perhaps 165' from camera to DVR. From another post I have read where people have had luck with Vigitron products. I can get their version of this same hub for around $200 which I could swing. I looked through my distributor catalogs "ADI and Tried" and see the NVT active units are well out of the budget. I don't think I could talk him into stepping down to only 16 cameras as he realy wants the ability to expand a few cameras in the future beyond the 18 that are now planned. The budget would allow for (2) 16 channel Stand Alone DVR's if that would provide a better, more reliable system. Remote access via LAN / Internet is something he has his heart set on though. All channels to be triggered via the DVR's video motion feature. I was going to get the Sharpvision PC Based DVR at dealer price of $4000 where it is normaly $5,500. to general public... I had spoken with several owners of simular public storage facilities whom have much more basic CCTV Systems installed "generaly just one overlooking the access gate and a few hit and miss round the facility. They all state they rarely have problems where the CCTV system is utilize to resolve the problem. Also, this facility uses a very high end Security / Access system where each of the 350 different is like it's own zone. When a person enters the facility and punches in the code at the gate, it dissarms their particular unit and is then rearmed when the enter the code to exit the facility. So I would say that the CCTV system will be 85% as just a deterrent, 13% to determine who are leaving gargabe in the hallways and the remaining 2% for recording criminal activity.