shawn3090

I have 21 various ACTi cameras at my convenience store, and I am experiencing connectivity issues with one of them. It is an ACTi E12 cube camera specifically. After about an hour of operation, the NVR loses its connection to the camera, and the ACTi IP Utility is unable to find it. Pinging the IP address also does nothing. It must be power cycled in order for anything else to see it again. All of the cameras are powered by three TP-Link TL-SG1008PE switches (8 ports, 15.5 W/port). Is this a problem with the camera, the cabling, or something else?

Thanks for all of the replies. I ended up going with ACTi's in-house solution (ECD-1000), and it works perfectly. If anyone is interested, it natively works with ACTi, Axis, Sony, and Vivotek cameras, and it also supports ONVIF. I've got it pulling 16 cameras at 640x480, 30 FPS and it works perfectly.

The cameras are all ONVIF (I believe 2.2) certified. However, when looking for one of these I found an ACTi one online for $450. Are these devices really that expensive, or am I getting ripped off? I have tried this app on my Android phone (galaxy s4), and it lags like crazy. When viewing even 1 cam it takes around 10 seconds to update the live view compared to the NVR. I have no idea how crazy it would get with the weak CPUs inside those HDMI sticks.

I have a retail store with 21 mixed ACTi cams and their ENR-140 nvrs. I need to display about 9 of them in a grid to customers as a theft deterrent, and I need cashiers to see a grid of 4 important ones. With analog cams I would use splitters and quads, but how would I do this with ip cams? I was thinking about buying one of those hdmi android sticks, but I found the ip cam viewer app to lag very badly on my android phone.

I have a retail store with 21 mixed ACTi cams and their ENR-140 nvrs. I need to display about 9 of them in a grid to customers as a theft deterrent, and I need cashiers to see a grid of 4 important ones. With analog cams I would use splitters and quads, but how would I do this with ip cams? I was thinking about buying one of those hdmi android sticks, but I found the ip cam viewer app to lag very badly on my android phone.

Are you using 960h cameras or d1?

OK I guess this was my original source of confusion, as I was unsure how a simple NAS was supposed to handle everything. So what do you recommend for recording video? I would rather not use a full-blown PC, and my dealer is willing to sell to me at his cost.

Thanks. This sounds exactly like what I need. One more question though: Does anyone have any experience with qnap versus synology? My local dealer only carries qnap, so I would need to purchase synology products from somewhere else.

What do you mean?

I am planning a ~20 camera CCTV system using ACTi cameras and I am trying to figure out what I should use for my NVR. I have decided not to use a software NVR that requires a constantly running PC to operate, as that would involve extra work maintaining the PC. At this point, I am looking at buying 2 x ACTi ENR-140 and calling it a day, but their activex-only interface kind of scares me. So now I have come across Synology Surveillance Station. I have researched it for about 2 days and still have some questions that I could not find answers to: 1. How does SSS fundamentally work? Is the recording done by a host computer and written to the NAS, or is it software that installs onto the NAS itself? 2. Does a remote computer need any remote software installed in order to use SSS, including ActiveX stuff? 3. Is a PC required at all times for SSS to operate, or does it run independently on the NAS? 4. How do software upgrades work? Do you have to pay a yearly upgrade fee or something? Do you have to purchase new licenses per camera when you upgrade? 5. How compatible is SSS with ACTi cameras. Specifically, I am concerned about motion detection.

I have a ~20 channel analog CCTV system at a small business, and I need to upgrade it. The cameras are around 400 lines each, with some outdoor ones that somehow survive Wisconsin winters without any housing. It was all installed before I began working here. The existing coaxial cabling is a complete mess, and we have no idea what goes where anymore. Based on other threads here, I have decided to go with an IP camera system, but I have no experience with IP surveillance. I have used an Axis 206 back in 2009, but that was for live digital image processing, not recording. We have a brand new netgear r7000 router and a gigabit LAN ready to plug everything into. For cameras, I am considering ACTi. They seem to be well recommended here and not too expensive. At this point I am looking at the D and E series box cameras. The main difference between them seems to be WDR. Is this worth it/necessary on indoor and/or outdoor uses? The E series (WDR) are much more expensive, and I would also be buying the models with adjustable lenses. Also, is 1 MP a high enough resolution to discern faces when the camera is mounted 16 feet from the floor, or should I go for the 3-5 MP models? Does anybody have sample video from any ACTi D or E series camera, or any other recommendations? I am trying to stay with the low cost cameras (no Axis etc. please). I know that the ACTi cameras come with free NVR software, but I am still not sure whether I want a dedicated one or not. The ACTi ENR-140 looks good, but is it compatible with other brand IP cams if I decide to expand in the future? I will probably end up using only 12 of the channels, as a lot of the existing cameras are redundant, especially if the new ones have a decent resolution. Finally, PoE. I need a good PoE switch that can power all of these cameras. Ideally we are looking for 3 or so 8-port switches because our surveillance area is quite large. Everything I am looking at is only 10/100 (no gigabit) or has only a few PoE ports, and I basically need a good recommendation. Anything else I am missing? Any other camera/NVR brand recommendations? Where are some good places to buy the stuff from (is bhphotovideo.com good?)