If you want to design your own home CCTV system rather than purchase one of our DIY CCTV Systems, the process of choosing your equipment can be broken down into a few simple steps.
- Choose your CCTV cameras
- Choose your power supply (1 per camera)
- Choose your cable and lengths (1 cable per camera)
- Choose your DVR (DVR’s come with power supplies)
- Choose Your Monitor (If you already have a VGA monitor/TV you wish to use skip this step)
Everything we sell is compatible. e.g all CCTV cameras are compatible with all cable, all DVR’s are compatible with all Cameras. If you want to mix cameras you can.
To help you further, we have put together a little bit more information on each component of a CCTV system.
CCTV Cameras
There are many different types of CCTV camera on the market today. All the cameras we sell use either Sony or Sharp CCD chips and are colour day/night cameras (some are true day/night cameras) and come with IR LEDs built in to help the camera see at night. Once light levels start to drop, the cameras switch to monochrome mode and the LEDs come on. The number of LEDs in a camera dramatically improves the performance in totally dark areas. Some of the cameras we sell are known as “True Day & Night” CCTV cameras. These cameras either have a special motor inside which actually removes an IR cut filter at night which normally sits in front of the CCD chip, or Dual CCD Chips, one for daytime viewing and the other for night viewing. The True day and Night cameras offer a pure monochrome image and provide a much better night time image than a normal IR camera.
The Cameras we sell have different focal length lenses which are expressed in millimeters. The smaller the number, the wider angle the lens. A 4mm lens is very wide angle (on a 1/3" CCD Chip, roughly 62 degrees horizontal viewing angle), whilst as we move up to 6mm the angle closes in and the image appears nearer. If you are not sure what focal length you require, you could choose one of our vari-focal CCTV cameras.
Digital Video Recorders (DVR’s)
We only sell DVR’s that are able to record in high resolutions, as there is no point in using high quality cameras only to be let down by poor recording quality.
We only sell DVR’s that are very quiet. We have tested DVR’s that have made a huge amount of noise (from the fans inside them) and would make the room in which they were being used virtually unusable.
Our DVR’s can be either connected to a PC/Pen Drive for backup or have a CD/DVD burner built in to them for backup (dependent on model)
All our DVR’s feature motion detection as standard. On these DVR’s the user can set motion detection to be activated for a certain time of day or night), and also adjust the recording frame rates.
We only use top quality Hard Drives in our DVR’s.
The DVR’s we sell are either 4 or 8 channel models. “Channel” simply means the number of cameras which can be connected to the DVR.
Our DVR’s (dependent on model) can be connected to a PC VGA monitor, a television, or a dedicated CCTV monitor, it’s your choice. If you already have a monitor or TV then of course there is no need to purchase one from us. If you wish to connect the DVR to your television you will need a bnc to phono cable or bnc scart cable which we can supply.
Monitors
Our Digital Video Recorders can be connected to a PC VGA monitor, a television or a dedicated CCTV monitor. If you are connecting to a television you will need a special cable which we supply.
CCTV Cables
We offer three lengths of ready made CCTV cable, 7.5m (25’), 15m (50’) and 22.5m (75’). You will need one length per camera.
Power Supplies
All the power supplies we sell are regulated power supplies to protect the CCTV cameras from power surges etc. You will need one power supply per camera.
