Security Cameras For Outside

[cb1000rider]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. There is a single Ethernet cable for each camera that serves as both the power cable and the signal cable. the video signal is then sent over the house power wiring to the router.

That makes sense.. So you're powering them with ethernet, but that ethernet isn't actually on your router's network?

[jimlongley]

The simplest wireless cams that are cheap/inexpensive are Foscam. If you want HD quality I recommend you look at HIKVISION (awful name, incredible image quality).

I disagree that wireless is to be avoided. I have numerous WiFi cams and gizmos and they all play fine together. If course, if you live in a tight neighborhood, which I do not, you want to make sure your WiFi is securely set-up.

You will also want to have one computer that runs 24/7 to accept alarms/recordings from your cams.

I'll stand by my statement. I set up a security cam system for a young lady friend of mine and when we turned it up, half the cams only worked about half the time. Within her own house she had so many wireless devices that there were contention issues before the system was set up.hen there was the location of her computer room within the house, which made the two longest distance cameras the spotty ones, and then the power issues. As long as she wasn't going to be changing batteries and was going to wire them up anyway, might as well go wired and avoid the issues. Since I installed the wired system there have been no problems.

I engineered a wireless security cam system for an apartment complex a while back, they insisted on wireless, and eventually they accused us (the company I worked for) of being less than competent because they had all kinds of reliability issues. I wrote the specs for the best state of the art at the time, but they used less than that when they installed the system (they only hired us to engineer it) and that contributed to issues, along with EVERYONE in the apartment complex using an unbelievable number of wireless devices. We went out there with an RF spectrum analyzer and were able to show that RF congestion was causing their issues as well as the sub-spec cameras they bought to save money.

[cb1000rider]

A few good points there.. The WiFi cams work great for me, but it wasn't without some troubleshooting. I've got 3 large antennas installed in the attic to provide wifi pretty far out.
When installing the cameras, I did the whole wifi survey against the neighbors and moved the camera frequency up away from their wifi.. (you can do this for free with any smart phone)
When I shifted it - and I didn't catch this at the time, the cameras interfered with the gate and garage door openers, so we lost about 80% of the remote range.. It took me a while to figure that out.
With the right antennas, decent wifi coverage, and limited wifi congestion, I've had no issues with the reliability of the system...
I've bough several antennas - a total of 4 to help with this setup.
On my battery / solar powered one, I had to find a charge controller that would disconnect if the battery voltage got too low. (~3 days of clouds)

[knotquiteawake]

I purchased this system:
http://www.amazon.com/Zmodo-Surveillanc ... ir+cameras" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With a generic 500Gb HD installed in it.

Ran ethernet cables through my attic and terminated them with these to convert the ethernet to power and Video: http://www.amazon.com/LTS-LTA1010-Passi ... ity+camera" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The system is very generic. Kind of low quality. But apart from my labor the whole setup was only about $250-$300.

Here is a night time video of the front driveway. As you can see its grainy, but I think you could get a general description of a suspect. Or at least a time frame of when something happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQocVmtIyZA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I also was able to set it up to be visible from my phone whether I'm at home or not.

I can post more detailed installation pictures. Because this system is such a cheap Chinese system it took a lot of fine tuning, and ductape/gun/McGuyver-ism to make it work the way I wanted it to. But if you are good with computers you can figure out of baffling DVR software and if you are good with handyman work (unlike who did a crap crap job drilling holes and running cables) you will be able to make it all work.

[TomsTXCHL]

The simplest wireless cams that are cheap/inexpensive are Foscam. If you want HD quality I recommend you look at HIKVISION (awful name, incredible image quality).

I disagree that wireless is to be avoided. I have numerous WiFi cams and gizmos and they all play fine together. If course, if you live in a tight neighborhood, which I do not, you want to make sure your WiFi is securely set-up.

You will also want to have one computer that runs 24/7 to accept alarms/recordings from your cams.

I'll stand by my statement. I set up a security cam system for a young lady friend of mine and when we turned it up, half the cams only worked about half the time. Within her own house she had so many wireless devices that there were contention issues before the system was set up.hen there was the location of her computer room within the house, which made the two longest distance cameras the spotty ones, and then the power issues. As long as she wasn't going to be changing batteries and was going to wire them up anyway, might as well go wired and avoid the issues. Since I installed the wired system there have been no problems.

I engineered a wireless security cam system for an apartment complex a while back, they insisted on wireless, and eventually they accused us (the company I worked for) of being less than competent because they had all kinds of reliability issues. I wrote the specs for the best state of the art at the time, but they used less than that when they installed the system (they only hired us to engineer it) and that contributed to issues, along with EVERYONE in the apartment complex using an unbelievable number of wireless devices. We went out there with an RF spectrum analyzer and were able to show that RF congestion was causing their issues as well as the sub-spec cameras they bought to save money.

Well as you said "sub-spec cameras".

If possible you always want to go wired, for reliability and maximum possible frame rates, but quality WiFi cams [can] work also. When in doubt buy from a supplier that accepts returns.

[CoolBreeze]

I have been thinking about changing the cameras on my house and appreciate this thread!

[jimlongley]

A few good points there.. The WiFi cams work great for me, but it wasn't without some troubleshooting. I've got 3 large antennas installed in the attic to provide wifi pretty far out.
When installing the cameras, I did the whole wifi survey against the neighbors and moved the camera frequency up away from their wifi.. (you can do this for free with any smart phone)
When I shifted it - and I didn't catch this at the time, the cameras interfered with the gate and garage door openers, so we lost about 80% of the remote range.. It took me a while to figure that out.
With the right antennas, decent wifi coverage, and limited wifi congestion, I've had no issues with the reliability of the system...
I've bough several antennas - a total of 4 to help with this setup.
On my battery / solar powered one, I had to find a charge controller that would disconnect if the battery voltage got too low. (~3 days of clouds)

And I could as easily have done that for my friend, but the added expense wouldn't justify the difference. I was able to home run all of her cams (work I was doing mostly because I enjoy that kind of stuff) for less money than all of the fine tuning (and I wasn't really willing to sit there and do it, either) and a lot of that stuff is far above the heads of the average consumer. Thus, my general rule - Go Wired.

And she didn't want to have to change batteries, solar wasn't really an option (with added expense) so we were running wires anyway, and no outlets in the attic.

[jimlongley]

The simplest wireless cams that are cheap/inexpensive are Foscam. If you want HD quality I recommend you look at HIKVISION (awful name, incredible image quality).

I disagree that wireless is to be avoided. I have numerous WiFi cams and gizmos and they all play fine together. If course, if you live in a tight neighborhood, which I do not, you want to make sure your WiFi is securely set-up.

You will also want to have one computer that runs 24/7 to accept alarms/recordings from your cams.

I'll stand by my statement. I set up a security cam system for a young lady friend of mine and when we turned it up, half the cams only worked about half the time. Within her own house she had so many wireless devices that there were contention issues before the system was set up.hen there was the location of her computer room within the house, which made the two longest distance cameras the spotty ones, and then the power issues. As long as she wasn't going to be changing batteries and was going to wire them up anyway, might as well go wired and avoid the issues. Since I installed the wired system there have been no problems.

I engineered a wireless security cam system for an apartment complex a while back, they insisted on wireless, and eventually they accused us (the company I worked for) of being less than competent because they had all kinds of reliability issues. I wrote the specs for the best state of the art at the time, but they used less than that when they installed the system (they only hired us to engineer it) and that contributed to issues, along with EVERYONE in the apartment complex using an unbelievable number of wireless devices. We went out there with an RF spectrum analyzer and were able to show that RF congestion was causing their issues as well as the sub-spec cameras they bought to save money.

Well as you said "sub-spec cameras".

If possible you always want to go wired, for reliability and maximum possible frame rates, but quality WiFi cams [can] work also. When in doubt buy from a supplier that accepts returns.

Well, that's what you get when you are dealing with a quasi-governmental outfit that breaks their contracts up into little chunks, engineer, supply, install, and my company didn't win them all.

[aaangel]

Check out the Samsung at Sam's club. Tried to install it myself....Anybody know a professional installer..

[TomsTXCHL]

Well, that's what you get when you are dealing with a quasi-governmental outfit that breaks their contracts up into little chunks, engineer, supply, install, and my company didn't win them all.

I understand and my 2nd comment was actually to all here. I have some (very!) cheap Foscam wireless around our property and they work fine although the frame rates aren't great.

We have the usual other wifi gizmos (quite a lot actually) and everything works until we start the microwave oven! ;)

[The Annoyed Man]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. There is a single Ethernet cable for each camera that serves as both the power cable and the signal cable. the video signal is then sent over the house power wiring to the router.

I am someone who is quite clueless about electricity. How does a video signal carry over the house's power wiring? To someone of my limited understanding, that's like saying that your water supply travels over the wiring. To be more specific, how does the router take power from the wall and convert it to signal information, and how are information packets differentiated from simple power? (Am I even asking the the right questions???)

Power via ethernet cable I understand. A lot of the music equipment I work with works like that. Aviom boxes are powered by the same ethernet cable that receives signal from the amplification system. Direct boxes (for guitars, microphones, and other instruments) get "ghost power" from the XLR cables which connect them to the system and carry the signal from the instrument.

But in each of those cases, the cable was designed to carry signal and power, and they are being used to connect two devices directly for the purposes of carrying signal. But in the case of my home router, it has a separate port, or ports, for receiving signal, and a little power adapter which plugs into the wall. So logically, at least to me, the power circuits and the information circuits aren't designed to perform the same function. Now, if your cameras received power and sent video signal along the same ethernet cable all the way back to the router, THAT I would understand because it is consistent with my own experience with sound equipment.

But sending the video signal into the house's power grid, then taking the power out of the wall and into the router, and then converting some of that juice back into a video signal.........that's where I get lost.

Can you help a brother out? (This is why my screen name isn't The Annoyed Engineer......)

[CowboyEngineer]

TAM,

What you are missing is the 2 adapters in the system. The Ethernet cable from the camera plugs into an adapter that in turn plugs into a outlet. This adapter provided the power to the Ethernet that you are familiar with. It also converts the signal from the camera into a high frequency signal and imposes that high frequency signal on top of the AC power frequency. I no longer remember the frequency range - getting old sucks -but it is high enough that the 60 hz of the power signal and the typical noise frequencies on home power do not degrade it. There is a second adapter that plugs into a wall outlet near the router that has an Ethernet cable that plugs into the router. This second adapter takes the high frequency signal and converts it back into something the router can recognize. It is actually very old technology. My understanding is that it was developed in the 1920's by the electric generating companies for remote monitoring and control of their power distribution networks. I have heard than in Europe, some electric utilities uses this type of system to sell broad band services over their power lines.

I have 4 cameras on my surveillance system, each sending their signals over the house wiring. I haven't noticed any degradation of video by having multiple frequencies on the power wiring. You can also buy the adapters for use on other equipment. My brother's home office is quite far from his router and the wireless signal was not reliable. He bought a couple of the adapters and plugs the desk top Ethernet connection into one and the router in to the other. D-Link and maybe Beldin make them.

[Pawpaw]

It would seem the easiest for me would be to find POE capable cameras (preferably with both IR and pan & tilt). I could run the Ethernet cables back to my "wiring closet" and feed them through an Ethernet switch to put them on my home network.

What hardware would work well for that scenario? I would want a minimum of 5 cameras.

[tomtexan]

While at First Monday last month we stumbled across a booth in the 4500 building ( i hope this doesn't violate any rules here!!) that had amazing security cameras and gear....all kinds of it....it appeared to be great quality and was fairly reasonably priced. The guy has a security and investigation business so this is what he does daily.
We didn't have the funds at the time so I picked up his card. We plan on heading back there this Friday (7-4-14) to scope out a system that will work for us. I really don't want to violate any rules here so won't post his info unless I get permission.

I just returned from Canton and went thru the entire length of the 4500 building and did not find this guy.

Did you go back Friday and find the person selling this gear?

Can you PM me his info from that business card?

[mtnthundr2]

While at First Monday last month we stumbled across a booth in the 4500 building ( i hope this doesn't violate any rules here!!) that had amazing security cameras and gear....all kinds of it....it appeared to be great quality and was fairly reasonably priced. The guy has a security and investigation business so this is what he does daily.
We didn't have the funds at the time so I picked up his card. We plan on heading back there this Friday (7-4-14) to scope out a system that will work for us. I really don't want to violate any rules here so won't post his info unless I get permission.

I just returned from Canton and went thru the entire length of the 4500 building and did not find this guy.

Did you go back Friday and find the person selling this gear?

Can you PM me his info from that business card?

I was there Friday looking for him too and he wasn't there There were a lot of empty spaces there this month, I'm guessing many vendors took the holiday weekend off. I'll pm you the info off his card.