securitymonster

What DVR are you using?

If you goto the rackatier site, you can find the "distributor" link and then you can type in your zip code or city. This is your best bet. I picked them up at a local electrical contractors shop, they cost me about $65/each. A quick search on froogle.com shows a low price of $75...

We use these... http://www.rack-a-tiers.com/

You'll need the following: 1 Pre-Made cable for every camera installed 1 power supply for each camera installed 1 RCA cable for the monitor to connect to the DVR and might as well get about 6 bnc to rca connectors. Here are some pics: Pre-Made Cable BNC to RCA Connector Individual Camera Power Supply

The installation is going to be the hardest part. Pulling the cable and keeping it hidden is the tedious part but it just takes time and patience. Keep in mind that $1000 will basically give you "general views" using your cameras. With good placement you should be able to get facial identification at your front door but anywhere else will be just general views meaning you won't be able to make out a face. On the front page of the forum you can find some "Partners" and there is links where you can find equipment to purchase. I'd say your breakdown will be something like this: DVR - $350~$600 Cameras - $100~$125/each Individual Power Supply - $8/each 50ft Pre-Made Cables - $25/each There are a few downsides to your budget. Even though you won't be getting the identification, you will be getting less than what I would call "acceptable" quality. The low end DVR will basically be a continous digital recorder using low resolution and will be a hard drive hog. The higher end will be a bit more friendly in these areas and give you features like remote access, motion activated recording and higher recording resolutions. The cameras will be a digital day/night infrared camera. They will be decent daytime cameras and "ok" night cameras. Don't expect to see much in the dark past 15ft or so. The individual power supplies will last around 1 year and need to be replaced. If the budget allows, you might look into a multi-output fused camera power supply. You will have less overall issues. And for the cables, the downside to pre-made cables is that the hole you cut in the wall needs to be big enough for the cable and attached connectors to fit through while using standard siamese coaxial will allow a much smaller hole for the cable to pass through and then you will terminate the connection aftwords.

Isacc has it right on. Even some low end pro type dvr's that are pretty affordable will give you a much better picture.

I pay about $195 roll plus $12 shipping for 500ft.

sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. No harm intended. However it looks like you have some good explanations.

It might be tough to find something that allows remote access via handheld. You might be better off using something like the CenVid from Cenuco. This will hook up to any dvr. http://cenuco.com/?id=products_cv&page=cenvid If this is not an option, I think you might be best off with something that has H.264 compression for the remote access.

I'm not familiar with that unit so I can't help out that much but your CD/RW is only 700mb capable, that means its not ideal to "archive" onto a CD. Your most likely going to get no more than about 30 minutes worth of video onto your CD. If I looked up the model correctly, it looks like it has USB 2.0, this means you should be able to hook up a portable USB hard drive to the DVR and archive to that. You can buy USB hard drives for less than $100 nowadays. Let us know how it all works out.

It all depends on the application. If you cannot tell "your" client the difference between b/w & color, you probably should not be designing their surveillance system.

Please do a search, there was a very recent post about this topic.... http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=7378

Sounds like you've got it figured out. The install you described should work just fine.

The lease won't cost you a thing, they will work the interest into the paperwork and spit out a monthly number for your friend to pay. Its a very harmless process. Pickup the phone and see what you can find out, I think you'll be suprised.

lookup "lease" in the yellow pages of your phone book and tell them what your wanting to do. They should be able to take care of all the paperwork and liability. No sense in re-inventing the wheel........

Just make sure you have the cable run and if you can, have them run conduit so if you need to pull more down the road you can. If your going to view the camera on multiple TV's in the house, you may want to monulate the video feed, that way its "dedicated" to a particular channel on your cable. There are various methods for doing this and I would recommend hiring an qualified person to design and install this. If you would like to tackle it, do a search on the site. Once the cable is run, you can add the camera at anytime. One thing to think about is power for the camera. Is the camera going to be powered locally, within a few feet from the camera? If so, this is as simple as pluggin the camera into an outlet. If its going to be powered from somewhere else, it will most likely be from an outlet near the TV in the kitchen that you are wanting to view it on. Depending on the purpose of this camera, if its for recreational purposes, you can get away with a $100 camera. If your looking for good video with low light capabilities or infrared, your probably closer to the $200-$300 number. If you need a source for this equipment, feel free to PM me.

Your idea of using a PTZ for remote access is ideal, that is the only reason I would normally install a PTZ at a residence. Should you up the DVR to an 8 channel? Yes, I think you should, it sets you up down the road for expansion. Also, good design using fixed cameras will give you a better chance of catching somebody and giving you the evidence your looking for.

Sounds like you have it down. Keep in mind that a PTZ is ideal when you have a live operator most of the time. While the camera is looking left, it will not see whats on the right. PTZ's are not typically used in residential applications, especially when your looking to get some good video evidence. Often times you can install 3 fixed for less than the cost of 1 PTZ.

depends on the length of the runs, for bigger jobs of course you need to bid accordingly. For the smaller jobs, we just estimate 1 hour for indoor cameras and 1.5 hours for outdoor cameras. If its a big job, get a measure wheel and walk it out, you also have to take things like climbing on a ladder, lift, etc. into the equation.

I try to give a real accurate rough quote. I'm usually within 100 or so feet. When I quote them, I line item the cable with feet and the cost per foot. When I deliver the quote, I tell them the cable price will vary depending on actual cable used. Its .40 cents per foot and you will be charged for each foot used. This is perfectly okay, they can't expect to get "free" cable out of it. As for the cleaning up of the mess, just tell them yes, you can gladly clean up the cable mess at the standard hourly rate. If they say no, then you don't have to do it, if they say yes, then you just generated some more business.

Its really up to you. 90% of my clients use the motion detection feature unless its a retail environment and then they run continous during business hours and motion in the off hours. If 3 days is good enough for you, then leave it on continous. The max fps on motion feature sounds like its benefits for you so you'll just have to play with it. You should also be able to mess with the lenght of time it records when it detects motion, I normally don't set this less than 10 seconds. Whatever you do, always test it out. If you set it for motion, make sure you test it out, even more than just a simple walk around of the house. Leave it set for an hour and really play with it! Let us know what you decide to do...

The DVR is an ICRealtime ICR-PRO unit, it can be found here: http://www.icrealtime.com/solutions/dvrpro.html As for the camera, you'll have to find that out from kandcorp

I haven't had that issue but I've found IE7 to be kinda slow......

Its not that much more economical if you think about it, I guess it depends on what your charging. My retail price of premade 50' Cables: $25 Retail Price of non-premade is: 50' Cable @ $0.40/ft: $20 Twist On BNC $1.50/each: $3.00 2.1mm Pigtail: $3.00 Total: $26.00 The difference is only $1. But the ease of install is the biggest reason to use non-premade. If your running cable through holes, into outdoor housings, or through conduit, the pre-made stuff is hard to use!

I think it stays in your outbox until the recepient opens it. I could be wrong though...