cat 5

[ayalas 0]

Hello. I would like to know whats the farest distance you can have a color cam to a dvr using cat 5 cable?I heard it was like 600ft for color and 1000ft for b/w i just wanted to make sure.Thank you.

[sodagar 0]

you can go up to 2.4 km using smart device (for color camera)

[kensplace 0]

If using passive (non amplified) baluns, then NVT recommends (for their products) that the max cable length be reduced if using a digital recorder.

 

There example for one of their baluns was to drop the max length from 1000 foot to 750 ft.

 

Check with your balun supplier, as its really down to the baluns you use.

[rory 0]

passive is pushing it at 1000' ... some claim 2000+' but thats an "if you're lucky" scenerio and with clients it has to be 100% correct not maybe it will work .. active can do up to 1.5 miles (more linking multiple tranceivers) using NVT gear but depends on the hardware and cable used.

[kensplace 0]

Funny thing with baluns, you dont always get what you pay for...

 

I have few NVT baluns, which work fine, and are not that expensive really (even at full retail cost). I also have a very expensive(think retail is about 1 to 1.5 thousand dollars) ademco video 16 port balun hub that I picked up second hand (but brand new) for 3 uk pounds.

 

Out of curiousity I opened up the box, thinking there must be some major electronics in it to justify the retail price.

 

Errr. Nope it was almost empty, just one small board taking up a few inches of the large rackmount case, with a tiny (about less than half a inch) but long strip that contained the baluns (which were obviously hidden inside the epoxy or whatever they coat them in so you cant see the fact the circuit probably only costs a dollar or so to make)

 

The rest of the small board was just tracks leading from the bnc into the baluns and back to the terminal blocks.

 

Space wise, there is more likely hood of a cheaper nvt having more components in it per balun than the huge rackmount kit had.

 

Same goes for a lot of stuff in cctv, I have opened many cameras only to find they are 90 percent fresh air inside, and the impressive size of them is just marketing.

[rory 0]

With most cameras though, you get what you pay for, at least with Sanyo and GE ones ive used, they were packed with components .. same goes with Dome cameras ... like whether they have seperate power boards etc .. cheaper ones normally have them all in one board ...

 

As for baluns .. just worked on some today .. man i hate them with a passion .. and there are 2 diff brands ... not NVT ofcourse .. these are the little BNC baluns .. they are just not secure peices of hardware .. very flimsy .. coax is much stronger, can even hang from the coax with BNCs .. cant do that with Baluns and Cat5 .. also difficult to put on the Standalone DVR when you have 16 cameras ..

 

image quality sucks even at only 150' .. at least i like it to be better .. im talking the client into some NVT gear .. probably have to be passive for now, but at least it will be easier to work with and easier for maintenance. 1 Multi channel RX and 1 Multichannel TX/TRX ... and replace the cat5 from the cameras with coax to the TX/TRX.

[kensplace 0]

Never used those types of baluns, I was lucky some one was selling a load of nvt baluns cheap and I picked up a few for a few quid each

 

Now Im going to replace most of the coax in the house with cat5 as the my other half is sick of all that 'camera junk'....

 

Never tried a long run on a balun yet, just going by nvt specs, which must be reasonably accurate as they are so widely used..

 

would be interesting to see what models of cameras are empty inside, if anyone has some spare time and fancies lifting the lid and reporting back, it would be a good indicator of who makes good stuff.

 

I opened a vista camera (big name in the uk) and it was empty inside, apart from the front ccd board and the rear board with the connectors - oh and a cable connecting the two....

 

Opened another vista, and it was less empty, but still a lot of fresh air.

 

The only cams I have opened so far that were jam packed were a sony, jvc and a plettac (very packed, nice cam, shame about the lousy company behind it...)

 

The dvr (honeywell) is mostly fresh air also, a small board, and a hard drive, the rest is just empty - If I ever needed a mobile dvr I would just stick the two bits in a case and make my own (apart from the fact the picture quality is so bad I would be ashamed to sell it)

[rory 0]

The thing is, even with the brand, it depends on the model ... some of their cheaper models wont have much inside ... i can only imagine though as never bought the cheaper models from the name brands i mentioned ..

 

DVRs .. yep the GE's are like that, well the DVMRe-CT anyway .. lots of space .. though most of the extra space is for the models with extra HDDs i guess ..

[ayalas 0]

ok so its all in the tipe of baluns i use to get the distance i need?Im looking for about a little under 1000ft witch would be a good balun to use here?

[CollinR 0]

I know I have gone over 700', past 2 hugh roof AC units and countless lighting ballists with decent picture quality.

 

I can't really confirm much though as the client wanted 380 line cameras. So I mean whats decent picture quality from a 380l chinese cam anyway. It basically looked as it did local to the cam with my monitor.

 

These were cheap (~$15-20 retail) yoko tech passive baluns too.