dca2 0 Posted January 5, 2012 I am in the process of research and design. I am a DIY'er and am looking to start out with being able to see my property remotely while I am at work or on vacation and to see the bumps in the night. We have an alarm system and I am well armed At some point in the future, I would like inside camera(s) to check in on the cats and add a camera with vox at the front door. I live in suburban, 80+ year old house that is ~1980 sq.ft. The house is pier and beam, relatively rectangular with high pitched gable roof. Kind of a cross between a double shotgun house and an old cross shaped church -- gables on left and right with attic windows about 20+ feet from ground, long run from front to back with sloped roof at rear. My soffets are pretty high-I have 9ft ceilings and the house is 1 ft on piers in from to 3ft in the back. Roof is 10-12 pitch. I have motion lights on corners-constant low, motion triggers bright. I have about $500 to start with and have no problem taking time to piece it together. My thoughts are to start out with front door, side porch/driveway (boat parked there) side alley with door and backyard with shed. Thanks for reading through this. Equipment I am pretty set on getting: 1. QVis Zeus 8 channel from one of this sites contributors 2. Cat5 with baluns but where/who is a reasonable supplier-looking for inexpensive, not cheap. Equipment I would like opinions on: 1. 9 ch power supply from apexcctv (http://www.apexcctv.com/p-383-9-ch-12v-dc-power-supply-5-amp.aspx) If "no" please give suggestions in the $50-75 range. 2. Western Digital Caviar Blue HD either 500GB or 1TB 3. For alley and/or boat: 650 TVL Outdoor Night Vision Security Camera 3.6mm 4. For alley and/or boat: 650 TVL Outdoor Night Vision Eyeball Dome Security Camera 3.6mm 5. Front door? 5. For back yard (~40 ft to shed from corner of house, yard ~ 50 ft wide) I just don't know. My questions: 1. Is 1TB worth $30 to me (vs 500GB) or am I better spending that on other equipment like baluns? 2. I am in no hurry and am thinking of piecing it together as I get the funds. i.e. DVR, HD, PSU and 1-2 cameras first, add cameras as time and budget allow. Which area should I camera first? 3. I am thinking I need IP6 rated cameras so are the bullets listed below going to give me a fairly good picture? 4. Can the ethernet cable from DVR to router be standard run (<90m)? 5. I plan on mounting DVR and PSU in a closet and running CAT5e to router in another room and VGA to TV ~20ft away. Is this OK? Thanks again-Budget and my techno-geek side prevent me from hiring a professional! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shockwave199 0 Posted January 6, 2012 My questions:1. Is 1TB worth $30 to me (vs 500GB) or am I better spending that on other equipment like baluns? 2. I am in no hurry and am thinking of piecing it together as I get the funds. i.e. DVR, HD, PSU and 1-2 cameras first, add cameras as time and budget allow. Which area should I camera first? 3. I am thinking I need IP6 rated cameras so are the bullets listed below going to give me a fairly good picture? 4. Can the ethernet cable from DVR to router be standard run (<90m)? 5. I plan on mounting DVR and PSU in a closet and running CAT5e to router in another room and VGA to TV ~20ft away. Is this OK? 1- Get as big an HD as you can afford, especially if you are going to record 27/7. I do not- I only record 12am to 5am Mon-Fri & weekends, as I work & monitor remotely overnight. I manually set other hours to record as needed. I do very little recording during the day when I'm home- only when I leave the house. I have motion and masking settings set very well to avoid eating up HD space over false triggers. I even manually turn off recording if it's raining, to avoid oodles of rain drop files. I use a 500gb drive and started recording in august using this profile. I still have 425gb free. Needless to say, I'll have a TON of recording time and 500gb is fine for me. But 24/7- get as big an HD as the dvr will support. 2- Front door, driveway, side door for starters. Note- you can hook up a mic on the dvr even without a camera. I do this to monitor inside the home all night during the wee hours. If I should miss something on the cameras, I hear everything inside from the mic. I LOVE having a mic in line. I like my camera views, but it's the AUDIO that really puts me in real time connection to the interior. I don't have interior cameras. No pets and I don't want to encroach too much on the family privacy indoors. If I had a fortune in jewlery/cash/equipment I might have indoor cams, but minus that I run without them. Besides, eight cameras are needed to cover the exterior properly, imo. If you're doing interior too, I'd look for a sixteen channel system. 3- Get cameras with varifocal lenses- you'll be glad you did. Smart IR is a plus. I favor IR cams regardless. WDR and TDN is so worth it. I like bullets and eyeballs. In my signature vids I mention the cameras I use. I highly recommend checking the website out for even better, very reasonably priced cams. I have ton of pics from them in the camera forums. 4 & 5- someone else to answer. The best thing I can suggest is getting 1/3" varifocal cams to REALLY get the best shots for ID'ing, and place those suckers very well. I have a number of wide shot FOV's and I like them, but you need close shots too for better ID capture. Do it all right once and you may save yourself double backing- of course advice I didn't follow! Truth be told, I'm a camera nut. I'm on my second round of switching out my cams and I plan on a full switch out this spring again. When I have the funds, I upgrade the cameras. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SectorSecurity 0 Posted January 6, 2012 Limitation of cat5 is 300ft or 100m so at 90m you will be fine. As for the VGA, 20ft will be no problem at all Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shockwave199 0 Posted January 6, 2012 Since I'm a nut with pics, here's some new ones I grabbed when I returned home tonight, about dusk. Nothing says it better than pics, imo. And my exposed cameras need a glass cleaning- been a while and it shows. My front door cam- my best cam and why I say TDN is a must My back door cam Second back door cam, I'm getting a varifocal cam soon That pic is ok, but who am I really for ID right? Tighter FOV needed. Here's really where a varifocal is needed and a good demonstration why, in these two pics. If I want to ID people at my cars, I need a tighter shot. I'll be getting the new cams soon, featuring a 2.8-12mm varifocal. Me at the car, but for ID not good Close to the camera, better It's a give and take but that's why I believe varifocals are a must. Hope some of this helps you a bit when considering your camera needs and placement. Good luck. Dan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tomcctv 190 Posted January 8, 2012 Limitation of cat5 is 300ft or 100m so at 90m you will be fine. As for the VGA, 20ft will be no problem at all cat5 is good for 1000s of meters when used with baluns Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted January 8, 2012 cat5 is good for 1000s of meters when used with baluns LOL quite the over statement. Should be more like "when used with active UTP transmission". And even then you are putting the end result of the output video, in the hands of the UTP devices. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tomcctv 190 Posted January 8, 2012 LOL quite the over statement. but a good statement. Oh great, more new-guy questions, Please be patient... like the op says NEW-guy questions. so just letting him know 100m is not the limit for cat5 with his baluns Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted January 8, 2012 Limitation of cat5 is 300ft or 100m Limitation of *ethernet* on Cat5e is 100m. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
