Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Analog CCTV over CAT5?

This is topic Analog CCTV over CAT5? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 09-04-2014, 12:11 PM:

Trying to figure something out here. At my drive-in, our ticket booth / box office building is about 400 feet from the main building. Only buried cable between here and there is the electrical lines supplying power to the building. We have a "wireless bridge" ethernet connection from the main building to the box office, and it basically works like a 400 foot CAT5 cable. It's a very secure and reliable signal.

What I want to do is add a security camera or two down at the boxoffice and transmit the signal back to the building via our wireless bridge, then output that signal into our 16 channel DVR. Our DVR is analog, with BNC connections on the rear.

Is this even possible?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-04-2014, 12:35 PM:

The wireless bridge doesn't work like a Cat5 cable unfortunately. The wireless bridge is an Ethernet device, so you feed it Ethernet frames, it transmits it over the air via WiFi and at the other side it will churn out those same Ethernet frames. Ethernet is a digital protocol. Everything analog you transmit over it, first has to be converted.

What you need is something that converts your analog signal into something over IP and then converts it back to analog. While the first part is rather easy, the later one is a bit more challenging, especially if you want to do this on a budget.

Do you use all 16 channels? Maybe it would be cheaper to invest into a new DVR that also allows IP cameras and still supports your existing analog cameras?

Also, there are analog wireless CCTV solutions too.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-04-2014, 12:46 PM:

At least there is no cheap solution. As Marcel says - it is easy to buy a 50US$ WiFi/LAN cam and transmit that signal over the existing wifi bridge. But there is no simple solution to output that signal in analog form (NTSC, composite) for the DVR.

Indeed, if keeping the DVR is your main goal, setting up an analog CCTV camera with an analog wireless signal link is your best option, yet will cost somewhat more than a LAN/WIFI camera. 400m free line of sight shouldn't cost too much money.

Some, even inexpensive, IP-Cams have their own built-in recorder (to SD-Cards). If you're okay with a separate recording solution (probably more time limited than the DVR) for this single camera plus a real-time viewer running on a computer through a browser (or smartphone/tablet), that may be another option.

- Carsten

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-04-2014, 01:43 PM:

It might be more reliable and future-proof to rent a Ditch Witch for an afternoon to dig a trench between those locations and run a piece of conduit between the buildings. Then you can pull anything you want through the conduit.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 09-05-2014, 09:33 AM:

The DVR we've got is brand new, replacing the older 8 channel model that died earlier this summer. I may look into either a separate wireless camera, or a regular wired camera with a separate transmitter & receiver.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 09-06-2014, 11:23 PM:

IP cameras are inexpensive. They are also sometimes called netcams. Get a cheap or obsolete PC for the other end and put the monitoring software on it. You can just leave it sitting in quad split mode to view several cams at once on your monitor. Typically the software can be set to record (continuously or motion sensing). And if you like you can set your firewall to the outside world so that you can look in on what's going on from anywhere when you are out.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 09-07-2014, 11:18 AM:

When burying ANYTHING run 2 1" pvc tubes. I did so to the garage (120 ft) and from the house to the power pole at the same time I installed the underground feed. I now have to call U-verse to officially move the line. You can easily "blow" the line using CO2 from the concession. I use #12 solid wire to replace the string used to blow the line.

This is easier before paving, etc.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-10-2014, 06:54 PM:

Like Steve already mentioned, IP cams are really cheap nowadays, even those that have decent resolutions, framerates and even IR that works.

If you have some time, some Linux knowledge or know somebody that can help you, check out ZoneMinder. Make sure your IP cams somehow work with it though. ZoneMinder actually beats many crappy commercial products I worked with for small-scale installs.