Plans for expansion, all video over UTP?

[WTFool 0]

without divulging too much (confidentiality) my casino is planning on a "non gaming" expansion.

 

When speaking with an installer last month while he was on site for a maintenance contract i figured i would pick his brain a bit for how he would do such an expansion.

 

Essentially the expansion will be somewhere between 50 to 64 cameras. We will have what they are telling me is a "wire closet" with rack space and wall space for power if we need it.

 

What the other tech suggested was a 100 block between the closet and the DVR room. He suggested a cat-5 pushed to every camera from the wiring closet and a twisted pair for power (all cameras are analog Honeywell box cameras, HCCm474M, and a few Honeywell Acuix PTZ)

 

With no more than 64 cameras i can order my encoders with UTP inputs and jump them directly into our DVR and bypass our switch (non gaming, i see no reason needing 1:1 live viewing) The PTZ will have to go through a type of DA that splits the UTP input into at least 2 BNC out so we can still use the switch for PTZ control (we dont use digital PTZ at all)

 

I guess my biggest concern is the distance. I have not gotten complete specs on distance yet. How far can i expect to push video over UTP without a balun? This will be the longest runs that i've made. Most of my experience comes within our current property/parking lot. Haven't had to do anything special really yet!

 

Thanks!

[Soundy 1]

I wouldn't run video over UTP for more than about 20-30' without a balun... even then, there's no guarantee the signal won't be noisy.

 

If you have devices (encoders, DVRs, whatever) with UTP video inputs, chances are those inputs actually have baluns on them internally... which means you'd need to add a balun at the camera end.

 

Rather than splitting the UTP for the PTZ, I'd recommend running the UTP into a balun, then splitting the coax output to your two destinations, ideally using an active video splitter.

[WTFool 0]

Thanks,

 

This has taken a while to get off the ground but now the expansion is nearly here.

 

I will be pushing 1 cat 5 to each camera and 1 twisted pair. the cat 5 will act as my video lines and the twisted pair for power. I requested this for future expansion as we are always adding cameras somewhere. That gives me 3 pair that i can use or splice into at each camera location.

 

The twisted pair video will be going into an NVT hub that splits the video out over mini coax so it can go into our system easily. There are twisted pair encoders but oddly enough they require a different more expensive license (yay)