Building a house, best outdoor camera placement

[wallace 0]

We want to run cable for cameras in the house before drywall goes up. It is a one story house surrounded by woods in the middle of 5 acres. The green lines show possible camera views that would cover doors and paths leading into the woods. Any suggestions if these are okay and where else might be possible locations?

[the toss 0]

where are the cables running back to ?

[Boogieman 1]

If you are running new cable make sure its ethernet...not coax...this will give you lots of options in the future...make sure you use quality solid copper cable not copper clad aluminum (CCA) which is junk.

[wallace 0]

The camera cable will all end in the corner room on the other side of the kitchen. Wife wants to buy Lorex.

[Boogieman 1]

The camera cable will all end in the corner room on the other side of the kitchen. Wife wants to buy Lorex.

Lorex has a bunch of different systems...ip, hd over analog, standard analog..get an IP system and run proper quality ethernet so you have options down the road...it would be a shame to run coax in a new build then pull it out later..what system is she looking at?

[wallace 0]

HD 720p, 8 channel, 8 cameras but we don't need 8 cameras. Could keep one or two for back up.

[Boogieman 1]

HD 720p, 8 channel, 8 cameras but we don't need 8 cameras. Could keep one or two for back up.

which model..again, there is a 720p that is analog and one that is IP..

[wallace 0]

It's analog.

[Boogieman 1]

It's analog.

I believe you can still use ethernet cable with baluns at the end with the lorex hd over analog as its rebranded dahua cvi - check to confirm. I would NOT install coax on a new home..you are severely limiting your future options...if your wife is stubborn you can simply run an ethernet cable with the coax to use in the future...

[steve6690 0]

In your position I would run cat 5e cables to as many potential locations as you can, and run them back to a patch panel. It will make it easier if you want to add cameras in the future.

[wallace 0]

Why Ethernet instead of coax?

[steve6690 0]

That's assuming you can use ethernet cable and baluns for your system as was suggested by Boogieman . If you ever wanted to have ip cameras in the future then the ethernet cables are already run. Baluns are very cheap.

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=26116

[Boogieman 1]

As steve explained...you will want them for future use...coax is used for older analog systems and the hd over analog systems were basically designed as a stopgap technology to allow hd images over older analog lines for locations that had existing coax and it would be costly to replace the coax...installing coax from the get go in new construction is a bad idea (despite what your wife may think ).

[dalepres 0]

Building out a new analog system is very restrictive. When you see reports on the TV news where they show surveillance footage of robberies, do you want to be the story where the video is very clear and the bad guy is easily identified or do you want to be the story where the video is so poor that you think it is inspiring bad guys to ignore surveillance systems because they'll never identify him?

 

There are real limits to analog resolution but virtually no limit to digital resolution. Over time, it just gets better and less expensive.

 

I had hardly gotten started with my analog system before I ran into the technical limits and pulled it all out and replaced it with IP cameras. AT the bare minimum, as others suggested, run good quality Ethernet cable.

 

I recommend the highest rated cable you can afford - at least cat6, possibly cat7. Even if you don't do fully cat6 or cat7 certified installation and connectors, the cable will be in place when and if you want to upgrade connector installation for fully certified performance.

 

You might even consider running the cable to rooms or regions of the house and not directly to the cameras. That way you can put in localized Ethernet switches and share the in-the-wall run with other data and video services, using the switch or a patch panel to connect to cameras and other network devices.

 

But your question was about placement - another lesson I learned, though had I understood the threat I should have planned for it in the first place. I just had two cameras, side-by-side, one pointing to each of two visible doors. Burglars simply walked up the line between the two cameras, used the ladder that silly me had left along the side of the house, climbed up, and cut the cables.

 

So my suggestion is to make sure that every camera is in a place that is either covered by another camera or in a choke point that can't be crossed without getting in view of the camera. Add off-site or Internet storage. In my current system, no wires are exposed outside the house and every camera is in the path of at least one other camera.

 

Of course the real problem with being out in the country in the middle of 5 acres (I'm in the country in the middle of three wooded acres) is that no one would notice the criminals approaching with ski masks on and ski masks pretty much defeat video almost every time. Surveillance needs the backup of a good alarm system.