If you are at the early stage of installing CCTV cameras for protecting your assets like home or office, you may consider learning a few things about CCTV cables. Different camera systems use different cables. The tips that will be discussed here will help you in securing your house or office better with CCTV cameras by choosing the right CCTV cables.
If you are installing surveillance cameras in places where there is return air flow, i.e., near a heating or air conditioning system, then you have to use plenum rated CCTV cables. In other places the standard coaxial cables will do just fine.
Before choosing a coaxial cable you must keep in mind that the quality of the output video depends upon how long the cable is used that is how far the cameras are from the DVR and what is the noise or interference level in the place. A standard RJ/59U siamese coaxial cable that runs both video and power in the same wire can be run up to 1000 ft without amplification and may have noise reduction facilities. So if you are going run the coaxial cable up to 1000 ft these RJ59 cables would work fine. If you need to run more distance than 1000 ft, then you are going to need RJ6 cables. If you need to transmit video from the CCTV over a distance less than 200 ft you may consider using mini coaxial cables.
Most of the standard surveillance cameras use analog composite video signals of 1V peak to peak, not an RF signal. An RF video signal requires aluminum coaxial cables to send signal to your TV or DVR. So you must use copper braided/ copper core coaxial cables for your CCTV system. If possible use coaxial cable with 95% copper braided shielding a solid copper core.
The network or IP cameras don’t require coaxial cables. They can be installed with Ethernet cables like CAT 5 and CAT 6 cables. Like Coax cables, these Ethernet cables are also available in plenum and non plenum ratings.
By knowing a few details about the type of CCTV cameras you are going to use, the distance at which they shall be placed and the air circulation system you can choose your cables correctly and efficiently.