I got a store which currently uses tapes for monitering. how much work would take to switch it to digital. i am assuming i can keep the cameras and just replace the recorder with a digital one.

If you just want to replace the VCR with a DVR you can do it easily with a single channel DVR. It slots right in and works great. Very low cost. Try this link for some technical information on a single channel DVR.
http://www.vitekcctv.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=162

plug and play:

Kalatel has a few single channel DVRs, ranging from

1- VDR - around $800 and Retail and up - no LAN (no pc Connection/remote video), no Audio - 40, 80, 160GB
2- DSR-1000e - around $1400 retail and up - Optional LAN, Optional Audio - 40, 80, 160GB
3- DSR-2000e - around $2100 retail and up - LAN, Optional Audio, S-VHS Output - Keypad Input - 40Gb - 1000GB.

Thats a bit pricey, basically you can use your analogue cameras, as the only thing that makes recording digital is when it ends up on a hard drive, however some companies use proprietry cables for their cameras and some I have seen with power up the COAX but these are very rare. 1 ch recorders are pretty poor because you must feed it through another device either anolouge switcher or MUX or quad unit, you can by standalone devices that will do 100fps or more for 4 to 16 camera inputs for under $1500 Auatralian about $750 US and that is retail pricing.. If you use a single channel recorder then you will see eiother a switched image (and miss bits) a quad image (small images that cant be seen well) or slow images througha MUX , having an input for each camera is a must for good qulity recording. If its not fully digital and you runt hrough analogue why change?[/quote]

US Suggested List Price. There are cheaper ones but you get what you pay for. Kalatel Products listed are actually cheaper than most other high end brands.




Yes, they must go they must go through a mux (suggested). Yes it is not as good as an all in one, but it is cheaper and easy to upgrade existing eqiepment.

[

Cmon thats still pricey, I was trying to be conservative I mean I sell a 4ch 100fps Standalone that records at full PAL resolution and has inputs and outputs plus twin VCR output.... @ $670 Australian $480US and that is fitted with a 80GB HDD and I am expensive!!!

I dont disagree that its pricey, thats the pricing on this side of the globe. What brand do you sell so I can check it out .. do they sell them in the US? Im still searching around for a cheaper one, just havent found any as cheap as you mention, in 4 channel. Plus im looking for a brand that allows me to write my own custom software for, which Kalatel does.

How can a Mux and a 1 ch standalone be less expensive than a 4 or 16 ch standalone? I mean the most you would pay would be around $1750 for realtime 16ch standalone with multiple drives




But you can adjust the frame rate of the standalone anyway! and compression! and file size!! and bandwidth!!


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having an input for each camera is a must for good qulity recording.
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I did not make this point well, you can get good quality images, what I meant was to record more than 1ch onto a 1ch machine like you were proposing would mean either switching (loss) or MUX and the images may be so small they can not be indentified easilly, four small squares to vs the size of one full picture is a big difference



I agree that Digital is much better I never sell anything else I meant why use analogue components like a MUX and switcher before you reach the digital recorder

[quote="DVR_Expert_Australia]How can a Mux and a 1 ch standalone be less expensive than a 4 or 16 ch standalone? I mean the most you would pay would be around $1750 for realtime 16ch standalone with multiple drives[/quote]

1 ch DVR - $385
4 channel Mux - $550 - total - $935

4 channel DVR/Mux all-in-one - $1495

Personally id rather just pay the extra $500 and go for the all in one. This is ok for small systems.

But for large systems: both Triplex Muxes

1 ch DVR (320GB) - $2245 First Cost
16 Channel Mux - $1560 - TOtal - $3805

16 channel 320GB DVR/Mux - $4445

Double the price for sale in the Bahamas due to import tax etc.




and you can do that with a single channel DVR also

See the Kalatel DSR-2000e.




Huh??? There is no difference in image size in the Kalatel Units, between an all in one and the single channel. You get more images on the all-in-one as its not going through a cable, even S-VHS cable, and it is less jumpy, but image size is simular enough not to notice any difference.




Kalatel's multiplexers (and i imagine most others) are digital now.

http://www.geindustrial.com/ge-interlogix/kalatel/prd_multiplexer.html

dude i agree with you, the all-in-one is a better choice, just with the US prices some people cant afford it when the mux and DVR (VDR) is a cheaper route to go, for now.

Then again i only quote all-in-ones right now anyway, but that may be why business is slow :(

I dont think you undertood me.. to record a multiplexed image you record one frame of small squares and if you have one input into a 1 ch dvr then you are recording a multiplexed image... meaning that each camera is recorded in one large picture... very small when 16 cameras are done!

Digital MUX and standalone are the same thing!!!! and to be honest those prices are way out... you can buy 100fps 4 Input imported for $200US and if your stamps add up to more than $1400 US to ship a $200 item there is something wrong. Plus recording from the mux will probably be slower than the 100fps dived by four 25FPS per channel that you get with a standalone unit with no operating system and alarm inputs... so why would you get a mux at all when the standalone is a mux!!

The prices I have seen in here are insane and I can only assume that you all are trying to disguise actual costs... the kalatel single channel recorder is nothing more than a connexant based chip on a proprietry board with a MUX chip and looping output balanced 75 OHM signal... why should it cost so much??

dude those are the prices in thr US, dealer prices to us, the dealers get them cheaper and sell them to us integrators at those prices which are straight out of the manufacturers price sheet, and us integrators sell them for list price (or less). i wish they were cheaper, phillips is about $500 more in the 4 channel market, Ultrak/Honeywell even more, some others even more. Things are just way more expensive in the US i guess than australia? Then its double the price in the Bahamas from the US! PC based (windows) systems are cheaper but i wont touch them, people here cant take care of their computers.

Can you send me some info on what product you sell/install which is the price you are mentioning, i could be very well interested. Seriously. I dont know what it would cost to ship, but as a high price example I could always just check with UPS or Fedex. If listed as a computer from the seller, we get it duty free (as it contains somewhat of a computer and hardd rives it isnt a lie :-)

thanks
Rory

No problems, I would be happy to give you guys our site, but as this site seems to be sponsered by PELCO, I do not wish to divulge our company info, in australia we are quite technically advanced and I am one of a few people that have bothered to do some research on DVR cards but Australian Business is all about the greasing of palms and not about knowledge.

I mean government buys from people who distribute these " So called" high end products and tenders are written specifically to a manufactorers specifictaion... I will have a think about it but I would be happy to give you our Korean manufactorers details or our Japanese manufactorer but I would be wary of posting it on here, as I see this as a potentialy big thing that has just started and I would not risk our competition knowing our sources.

Mind you I did try to offer my assistance to the big companies however they were not interested... which is great now because I slowly eat up all their business.. let me give you one word of advice....Most manufactorers sell direct and NO you dont need to buy lots to import.. so you are buying from a distributor then a dealer then you have to mark it up... you arent even the middle man!!! CCTV in Asia is soooooo cheap, you can get anything at one or two peices,, there is no loyalty... I sit back and watch the big companies with all their overheads mark it up then just sit in beneath them and make a killing!!

As you know price is everything... but yes so is quality but keep in mind companies like Kalatel have overheads but most companies arent manufatoring so that means that they are buying form Asia and re-badging the gear.. why buy from a middle man and then have to quote against them!!

I want to clear up a possible misconception by our Australian contributor about multiplex recording. Any multiplexer regardless of brand records full size images in a rapid sequence. A quad records compressed images but not a multiplexer. Each image recorded by a multiplexer is a single camera shot and they are encoded and decoded to record and playback. So you will not suffer picture quality from a multiplexer recording as you would a quad, or multivision system, but you don't get the higher frame rate you would get in many self contained DVR systems. You also don't get many features such as object search or record on motion only. The whole idea of the single channel DVR is to allow someone who has already invested in the multiplexer to replace an old VCR rather than toss the mux and vcr and buy a whole new system.

I dont think I am wrong (however not really used much in the way of mux)... But I did not say that a mux does not record full frame images, I only stated that once it comes out of the mux on one cable to a 1 input DVR then you can no longer utilise the encoded images? Maybe you can but I have nevr seen that, Mux's are very slow and as they are still anologue, they lack a lot of features that you mentioned, howeverI have seen Digital Muxs.... but why bother when DVR is as affordable or standalone embedded DVR @ $200US .Can you clarify for me how you can get 4ch into a sigle ch input without switching or making images smaller as I was not aware this is possible?

Using a one channel dvr is really no different than using a time lapse recorder except you have a higher frame rate available, better video, and faster access to the video. You still get the same encode decode function so you are really only recording one frame at a time and watching one frame at a time. You get a full sized picture, not 16 squashed little pictures. If you envision a one channel dvr as essentially a tapeless vcr you will see how it works out. This is not to say that it is equal to a dedicated 16 camera DVR.

I had no idea,, my apologies to everyone,,, however... does that not mean that to view the encoding of site the police or owner would have to have an encoder player at home? that doubles the expense and that I imagine would be a haslle for police as they would take your whole system would they not. Mux is slow, encoded, does not usually encorporate , masking, searching, paging, TCP/IP or Audio... I was simply stating that for 200$ US you can get the same thing with all those options and it can record uncoded! it would surely cost more to have 2x components tha 1x component!

From a book i have: (LTC Training Center)

I know some of it is outdated like multiplexers are digital now, and you can choose fields or frames, maybe AVCONSULT can double check this info too, i didnt write it. I think the book is kindof old maybe 2 years though i only bought it a year ago, But the concepts are the same. Basically multiplexing is high speed switching of full size images.

-------------START CLIP----------------

"There are two specific forms of multiplexing available. The first, "TimeShare", is used with all types of video transmission, ie; coaxial, microwave, fiber optics, infrared, etc. The second, "True Multiplexing", is available through Fiber Optics only .."

"Video cameras do not produce continuous flow pictures as they appear on the monitor. In actuality the camera produces sixty individual fields of video. Each field is half of the frame or final picture. In other words, if a camera produces 600 lines of horizontal sweep or resolution, only half of the lines are painted onto the monitor at a time. First all the odd numbered lines, then the even lines. Each picture is called a field and and the two half pictures pictures combined are called frames. This combining of fields is called 2:1 interlacing and is a very common practice and feature of most quality video cameras. The final word is that a total of 60 fields or 30 frames of video pictures are produced by the camera each second. The timeshare multiplexer takes advantage of this individual picture theory of the camera by combining specific, individual fields or frames of video from a multiple of cameras into a single continuous run. As an example let's look at two cameras being multiplexed together. Each camera is producing 60 fields of information. The multiplexer will take the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th etc, field from Camera A. It will take the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, etc, field from camera B. These individual fields will then be coded and sent to the recorder or de-multiplexer as a single video signal."

"If we were to view this combined signal as it is produced on a monitor, it would switch so fast between camera A and B that the picture would appear to be double exposure. The de-multiplexer is a unit that is attached to the output of the video recorder and/or in front of our monitor in the same manner as a switcher. It will read the encoded video signal and allow only those fields or frames of video information pertaining to the cameras to be viewed."

"One very important point here is that some video multiplexers work with fields of information and some work with frames of video information from each camera. This is important when it comes to recording the information. A unit that works with fields of information will only reproduce a video picture of half resolution compared to what the camera actually made in the first place. That is equivalent to normal play back on a video recorder. In other words if you are working with a 600 line resolution camera, the de-multiplexed picture will only be 300 lines. A frame multiplexer will carry the complete video picture, so no loss of resolution will occur but more time will be lost between cameras."

----------------END CLIP--------------

and a note on fiber optic multiplexing:

---------------START CLIP-----------

"With fiber optic transmission, we take the electronic video signal and transform it into pulsed infrared (IR) light. This IR light is then injected into a piece of glass and allowd to travel to a receiver. The fiber optic receiver takes the pusled IR light and transforms it back into the electronic video signal. You must also understand that light travels in waves and that the length of the light wave determines the colot of the wave."

"We measure light in nanometers which represent billionths of a meter. Since different length light waves have different characteristics of travel when injected into a fiber, it is possible to inject multiple wave lengths simultaneously and seperate them at the other end. This gives us the ability to multiplex up to 25 seperate, real time, video signals into a single fiber and break tjem apart at the other end. The major advantage of this type of system is that there is no time loss of the individual video signals. "


---------------END CLIP-------------

Yes they would need the same brand of coded multiplexer. But how would you give evidence to the police with the all in one, burn it on CD right? Same with a single channel DVR connected to a multiplexer. With tape however you are stuck with the police having the same equipment or taking it to a person that does that for a living and has all the different decoders, people have been doing it that way for years with tapes. Tapes = Pain in the but!

The all in one is still a multiplexer, just that you dont have that cable to the recorder which looses video and speed. You have to spilt up the signal either way.

Both single and all in one you can connect to a PC and burn evidence to CD for the police, to play on any computer anywhere without having to install any software, at least with the kalatel DVRs. I have done this many times for a local nightclub here with the single ch.

Cost wise its cheaper in the US for 2 seperate units, at least when requiring large hard disk space like 320GB+. I guess because they arent as good as the all in one :-)

Yes, that is correct, the police would also need a multiplexer and a DVR to decode the system, or the customer could offload the video onto a simple vcr using the video playback out connector. That is the generally accepted way of archiving video with the very simple one channel DVRs. Another way is to feed the video playback into a Dazzle 80 video to digital converter which allows you to record AVI clips into a computer which can then be saved onto a CD. The single channel DVRs main purpose is to allow an end user who already has a substantial investment into a multiplexer the option of removing his old time lapse vcr and installing a dvr instead. Dumping the whole system and going with a dedicated multi channel DVR is always a better option but unfortunately not all end users have the monetary resources to do this.

Rory that looks like an awesome book, can you forward me a link so I know where to buy it. The one I have is too in depth and I fall asleep everytime I read it.

http://www.ltctrainingcntr.com/

website is pretty chabby, but a good book.

I agree with AV. A multiplexer is a digital device not an analogue one. A mux takes in multiple video feeds. It places an image from each one into a frame store, digitise and tags it and then sequentially outputs each frame to the recording media be that a tape or a standalone singe channel digi recorder.
A combined mux / dvr is the same as a mux and a digi recorder but in one box. The advantages of the combined unit over the two boxes are;

There is no D>A A>D conversion between the mux and the hard drive on an all in one unit. So no coax or S-Video (not S-VHS) cable.

You are not limited to 50 or 60 fps (video recorder) you can record at higher frame rates and so get a faster update rate on you cameras but you use more disk space as you are recording more images.