atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Security, Alarms and Paging Security Camera Questions

I have expanded business to include security cameras this year. I have a background in corporate video conferencing, but not security cameras. I have a tech who is currently guiding me, but I have questions about some of his practices.
- He always uses cat 5 cable with Baluns instead of coax
- uses F to BNC connectors when using coax, as he "doesn't like"using BNC connectors.
-says 15 frames per second is normally used for security cams and that one needs 15 FPS to get good enough resolution to recognize bad guys recorded events.
Are these good and practical practices for security cameras? I know they work, but it seems like coax is cheaper and 15 FPS requires a lot of bandwidth.

We have our first potential customer who wants 8 cameras with enough DVR memory to play back events for up to a month and the abilty to access cameras remotely over the net. Suggestions?

If you are using only motion detection and not continuous recording, it is conceivable that you could get a month out of a 250GB drive on an 8-camera DVR. I like the Everfocus, Digimerge, and Digital Watchdog DVRs. If remote access is important, I would get a quality DVR with good software. Here are a couple of the many DVR recording time calculators out there - https://www.sdchq.com/dvr.htm
https://www.icrealtime.com/support/simple.asp The Seagate "ESV" series of drives are optimized for AV and are 7200 RPM SATA.

Also, some DVRs are "triplex", "quadplex", or "pentaflex" which refers to all the different things they can be doing at the same time - e.g. record, playback, view, etc. 15 frames per second is a good frame rate for recording, (multiplied by 8 would be 120 fps max for the DVR), and also the resolution you are recording at is significant. (360X240 or 720X480)

I also use CAT 5E. You can get power, PTZ, and video from one CAT5E cable. Coax may be preferred in certain environments.

I don't think using "F" connectors is such a good idea, when all of your fittings will probably be BNC but I understand your tech's frustration in trying to get consistently reliable BNC terminations.

As far as BNC..Wih the proper stripper and compression tool you can not go wrong with compression connectors. I use a mix of cat5 and coax it just depends on the situation. As far as DVR's for low to mid grade I use Nuvico and Speco for higher end I use Honeywell.

Thanks for the responses, that's good info. Does anyone know what California law requires to install and resell security cameras? I have a C-7 low voltage license and a resellers license, and want to be sure I'm good.

One more thing. The tech uses OKI cameras. Has anyone heard of these? Are they cheap, middle level, o top-f-the line?

I am also a California C-7 and have been installing security cameras and DVRs for two or three years now with no problems or issues.

Thanks for your response. I guess I'm ok, then. I tried to verify with the contractors.gov-forget it! No humans available to phone, no answers on web page, email "unavailable"- same as last year...