Pat

If we can foretell the IP market we will be rich (richer?). It could go many ways each depending on the type of installation. If you are large enough and securuty is important you will have distributed virtual recorders that can act as redundant recorders for each other but I can't see that in a small office or retail environment. In which case conventional DVR with IP out would seem to be better.

What do you mean by a web server and an IP camera. To me an IP camera is a camera and encoder in one box. As most IP encoders can be web servers I see no difference between an IP encoder and an IP camera. To me a web server is an IP encoder that streams to a web browser such as IE4 or netscape. Can you clarify the difference in your mind. Most IP encoders with four composite inputs share the 25 (or 30) fps as there is only one encoding engine so you cannot fairly compare 4 * IP cameras with 1 * encoder with four inputs. Quite a few IP cameras have 3 * composite inputs to make them identical to IP encoders. So you use the IP camera as a hub. 4 * IP cameras would give you 4 cameras and 12 composite inputs. How do you see the wireless cameras that would feed a localised webserver working, are these not going to be IP cameras or are you refering to 2.4ghz?

After having seen Geo pop up all over this forum I went and hunted them down this week. Would I be right in thinking that you would recommend them? If so can you suggest a good card for me buy so I can have a dabble with it and look at the performance please. As I am not actually going to use it in anger the number of inputs is not important. Some people prefer the older MS O/S over XP as they are not targetted as aggessively as XP by worms. The perfrmance hit and lack of drivers for certain hardware is offset by the stability and reduced possibility of attacks. Unfortunately there are people out there that work backwards from MS monthly security patches. They work out what the patches addresses and write something to attack it. If you do not run the update they have a way in (ironically it is the update that makes the aware of the way in). Not all end users will run the updates on there DVRs. Some people are ok with this others are not.

Hear what you are saying about the flexibility of digital recorders that are ethernet enabled giving flexibility but that is a smaller application to the large scale systems where you can have large 40+ monitor banks and multiple staff operating mutiple ptz cameras on one managed system. IP is ideal for the major systems. The concern about the quality of the camera can be removed by using conventional cameras and seperate IP encoders. The quality of IP video is now at a point that you cannot easily tell it apart from composite. Some of the high quality (and expensive) mpeg4 encoders are capable of DVD quality. So if you want that quality you can have it. People need to look at the quality of the recorded images over the live ones. The live video from a composite system looks perfect. The live video from an IP system generally looks poorer as the compression has been set such that the image is not as good as it could be. The recorded images from IP and digital recorder will look the same as the are using the same technology to compress the video it is just done at different times in the system. IP can look like composite but you wouldn't usually record that quality of video on a digital recorder as it would eat up too much disk space. Most IP systems stream at the quality that you record at this makes the live images look worse but the quality you see live is (or can be) comparable to that of a digital recorder.

This is my pick from the UK CCTV show. You may have seen similar products in the past (Philips E-dome, Sony panoramic). This appears to be in a league of its own for performance. 3m pixel, 17fps, two monitor outputs, motion tracking. Expensive at present but defiantely cool. www.grandeye.com look at the halocam.

Just come back from a UK show and need sleep. IP is definately going to be the future maybe not for everyone but for alot. I work for a company that makes large matrices and IP CCTV. We tendered and won Brussels airport a few years back (new terminal). The original tender was for an analogue system, it ended up as IP. This was because it turned out cheaper to do it with IP. There are something like 400 video streams. The existing cameras and speed domes were added onto the IP network using encoders, new cameras were IP cameras. The IP solution was cheaper as the cost of the cabling was lower. There would have been many km of coax. There were requirements to allow a number of different users access to the system such as police, customs, baggage handlers, the train station, you name it they have it. The beauty of IP is that is is distributed. To move a control room you need only run one cable. As the systems grows you do not reach a limit on video feeds. The matrix is virtual. If a new feature is developed it can be added without wasting hardware etc. Not in the price range for small installations but it can be very cost effective in many. The strength is what extra you can give to customer with IP. Campus security with handheld Ipaqs and wireless etc.

I am at an exhibition next week I will go to their booth and have a look at it. The important thing is does it move the IR cut filter. If you take the lens off and look at the CCD all colour cameras should have a blue ish piece of glass (actually crystal) over the CCD. This is an IR cut filter - it stops IR passing through it. It is there for correct colour reproduction. Colour CCDs are about as sensitive to IR as monochrome CCDs. Look to see if there is someway that the camera moves this and replaces it with a clear piece of glass. That switch is what you will have seen on the Sanyo. When the IR cut filter is out you are IR sensitive. It is like taking sunglasses off the camera. This is what makes the camera more sensitive. The switch to monochrome doesn't improve the sensitivity. You just do that as the colour are wrong without the filter.

Let me know how your testing goes. Do you know if it uses a moving IR filter? I expect it does as it is IR sensitive. I would like to know how it copes switching under strong IR. Usually these type of cameras switch on light level and this can cause issues when using alot of IR. In colour it isn't IR sensitive, it gets dark so the camera switches to mono (and moves the IR filter). Once the filter is out the camera can see IR and if there is a lot of it the camera thinks it is daylight and switches back. This makes the camera switch between day and night. Usually these cameras come with an external contact input to allow the switching to be driven by the IR photocell. This camera doesn't look like it has one. If they have cracked this it will be interesting.

When to use IP? The million dollar question. It has its price advantages in the single situations you mentioned for sure but what is going to be important is when does it become worthwhile for the larger install. On paper some of the advantages of large IP systems. Greatly reduced cabling - I do not mean cat5 is cheaper than coax but most large buildings/businesses are already networked if you are just jumping on an existing network then there are cost savings. Need to factor in the higher price of the IP camera though. Greater flexibility. You can in theory allow anyone with a network connection to see or control any camera. This means moving a control room is not such a problem. Talking 50+ camera systems here. Concerns here are it is not a closed system. Have to have faith that the security built in prevents any messing around. No 'matrix' - it becomes virtual - a CD rom. Free recording (kinda). A DVR compresses video so that it can be stored on a HDD without taking up too much space. An IP camera does this compression before transmission. The compression cost the money. An IP recorder need just record network traffic and requires no powerful processing. This makes it low cost - but you are putting a compression engine into each camera rather than having one centrally. Wow too much typing. The question of when IP meets analogue for cost will depend on the application for the next few years. However IP picture quality has reached analogue. I saw a demo at ISC of live v IP and could not tell which was which until I clapped and then it was just the latency that gave IP away.

I don't think I can help. I don't know the equipment and suspect it won't be due to interlacing (if it is you will see it on any system). Hopefully someone out there has used the equipment and has seen the behaviour and can help.

We should be looking at the control part of IP rather than the camera/encoder. Video compression is moving faster than I can keep up with and is interesting but tomorrow will hold something better (at least for awhile) so it is fleeting. Whereas the control parts are going to be fairly stable. The secret to IP is being able to make it operate like a conventional CCTV system (PTZ, Control, Integration). If multiple users can't control multiple cameras then it isn't much more than a web camera and that isn't a business to be in. There are IP systems out there with 300 cameras on them. This is where IP shines.

In which case they will be appearing v soon. I have seen a Kalatel based unit with one that should be being shown at the IFSEC (UK show) in a week.

Would anyone be interested in an embedded DVR with built in DVD writer?

Never used the equipment but is it blurring on freeze frames due to interlace artifacts??

I think you just put those pictures up to make us all want to visit.