FarmerCharlie

I need to replace the connectors on the Siamese cable on my Clover OC950 camera. Guess I got them with the lawn mower. The cable has red, yellow, and white small shielded wires. Can I assume that the colors are the same as the plugs on my other cables (red power, yellow video, and white audio)? And if the red is power, can I assume that Red is positive, and the shield is negative? Thanks, Charles

Could someone make a recommendation on the best cost-effective choice for analog video cable for runs of 500 feet or so from inexpensive Clover CCTV cameras? Most of the run will be in PVC conduit, but some will be above ground. I already have the power lines in Siamese cable I installed last year. I can find 1000 foot rolls of "Direct Burial Outdoor Quad RG6/U" for about $130. And I found Belden 1829BC for about $184. I think both use aluminum foil and braided aluminum shield. Someone told me that I really should use a copper braided cable for this. There are so many options that I'm just getting more confused the more I read. Thanks, Charles

Maybe I ought to think about doing this. I would need to handle up to 4 outdoor cameras. The cables from the cameras to the balun(s) would vary from about 20 feet to about 200 feet. Do the inexpensive 4 channel baluns I see advertised really work? Would the availability of 12 volts from the existing Siamese cables make a difference? I guess I need to start doing some reading.

Last year I was considering upgrading my NV3000, but got busy with grass planting, and never got around to it. Now I'm back on that project. I like the basic operation and the software of the NV3000, but need more channels, better frame rates, and more than the one audio channel. I use analog cameras. I'm thinking about the NV6240EX 8 channel PCI-e card, but have also been looking at the standalone EH1008H 8 ch Linux box, which would be about the same total cost. 1. Would the standalone box have the same software and general setup and playback that I am used to? 2. Would it playback recordings that I have from the NV3000? 3. How would the performance of the NV6240EX8 and EH1008H compare in terms of frame rate, resolution, and video compression? 4. Are there any other gotchas I should explore before making a change to standalone? One reason I am considering a standalone box is that I am also looking at a separate 4-channel capture card for my WEB camera streaming, and it is quite possible that the two types of video cards may not play well together in the same computer.

Thanks for the info. I assume that the software was the same, and there is no new learning curve. And I assume you could use the new card to play previous recordings. Correct?

I have been looking for a 4-channel card for WEB camera streaming. I have an Avermedia NV3000 which works fine for surveillance, but not for separate WEBCam streams from 4 cameras. Until now I used two Diamond VC500 and VC600 USB cards in each of two separate computers, and split the camera video to feed both the NV3000 and the four Diamond cards. My new Windows 7 computer won't work with either the Diamond cards or WindowsMediaEncoder, so I am now down to only two WEB cameras. Today I found a four-channel capture card that I thought might replace the USB capture cards. The card is a VC440e by Webcam Corp. (http://www.webcamsoft.com/en/vc440e.html). Does anyone have experience with these or other similar cards? The company does also have surveillance software, but I'm not sure it is as sophisticated as the Avermedia software, so I would probably continue with the NV3000 or maybe an NC5000 in the same computer or a different computer if necessary. Thanks, Charles

I have four analog cameras setup to broadcast images from bird nests. Last year I upgraded the cable on Channels 3 and 4 to install pretty good RG6 cable for the runs of about 200 feet. I buried part of the cable and also installed conduit in case I needed to rerun the cables in the future. This worked fine last year. This year when I hooked up the cameras I noticed that one of the cameras displayed some ghosting. At first I thought I had burned an image into the chip, but today I took a monitor to the camera to test it, and did not notice the ghosting. I'm guessing it may be a cable problem, but it bothers me that the two cameras I still have setup on the cheap ($20.00 / 100 feet) ready-made cables are not showing the problem; it's only on one of the ones I upgraded last year. I'm attaching two images. The top one is a wood duck box in daylight. The bottom one is the same image at night. The night image shows a bright light at the entrance, because the box also has an interior camera with its own LED supply. In both examples you can see what appear to be two entrance holes; there should be only one. Any ideas? I'll bet the advice is going to be to go ahead and run new cable through the conduit, and I'll do that if I have to. But I'm hoping someone may have a couple of simpler things to try first. Thanks, Charles

They are on 12 volt DC. I think they are all on a multi-channel power supply, but I'll have to go check. It's a little strange to me that the two cameras that display the ghosting are on RG60 cable I put in last year. The other two are still on the cheap Siamese cables, and they seem to be OK. I'll try your suggestions and let you know if that fixes it. Thanks, Charles

Uh Oh!. After downloading the newest version of the software, now when I play the files on the remote computer, the sound is no longer there. It is fine on the remote computer in the Preview mode, but not in Playback mode. Maybe reading the new manual will help figure out what's going on.

Yes, I am using version 7.7.0.0039. Changing software versions had no effect on the lack of sound during playback or MPEG encoding.

I'm not dissatisfied with the card. I used to use do surveillance for a biological research project using time-lapse video recorders. That cost several thousand for just one camera--not to mention all the time I spent designing a circuit to automatically switch the tape to real time when it detected a heart arrhythmia over radio telemetry. I was amazed at what this inexpensive card can do for about $100. I am thinking about upgrading to get better frame rate and resolution. The other project (broadcasting the four separate streams from the same four cameras) came up after I already had the NV3000. That project requires individual access by the encoders to the four separate video signals. It would be nice to combine both projects into one card if anyone knows how to do that. Right now I'm using four USB capture cards for the WEB Camera project, but I'm looking for a four-channel frame grabber, such as an ADLINK RTV-24 or some of the Osprey cards.

I am currently using an Avermedia NV3000 card with four cameras for monitoring wildlife. The computer is a Dell E520 Pentium D Processor 820 with 2.8 GHz Dual Core with Windows XP. It works OK, and I really like being able to set it to record to disk based on pretty sophisticated motion detection. But now I would like to move up a step in quality--maybe to something like VHS quality. This image shows a screen shot of what I am getting now. http://www5.vetmed.auburn.edu/~branch/images/birds/20100503-06_44_16_DoubleOccupancy_a.jpg Camera 1: Sony TRV900 (probably overkill for this application) Cameras 2 and 4: Clover OC950 IR cameras. Camera 3: ACC-E04N-HVD IR camera from Active-Vision Usually I get about 3 frames per second at 320x240. What sorts of systems are available for doing pretty much what I am doing now, but with somewhat higher video quality? Do I need to go to a stand-alone recorder? If so, what are some suggestions? One more complication: I want to stream some of the cameras live. Right now I am having to do this by feeding the video signals to Diamond USB capture cards and capturing with WME. It would be nice if I could encode the streaming video right from the DVR. The two feeds are at mms://cvm-vid.vetmed.auburn.edu/martins (using a Clover OC950 inside a purple martin gourd) and mms://cvm-vid.vetmed.auburn.edu/woodducks (usually shows exterior of martin gourd during the day with the Sony TRV900 and the interior of a wood duck box at night using a Clover OC950)

Version 7.3067, dated October 2008. I think I went back to this version because I had some sort of problem when I downloaded a newer version I am able to broadcast the whole NV3000 4-channel signal to the WEB, but I could not get it to make the four separate channels accessible to Windows Media Encoder. I think that these boards switch between the different channels in series. What I think I need is a board that encodes them in parallel.

That was what I expected too before I bought it, but I have not been able to get higher resolution or frame rates. The best I can get is 7 FPS at 352x240 or 3FPS at 720x480. I guess that could be partly because of the computer; I don't know how much CPU time the card uses for the compression, but the CPU usage is usually less than 70% with both the DVR card and the two instances of WME running. In general, do the stand-alone DVR boxes tend to perform better than the cards?

I am running water and electricity a couple hundred feet from the house. I thought I would go ahead and add CCTV cable in the same trench, and I'm not sure what to use. The only rated underground I can find is RG6 at about $.10 per foot with a flooded polyethylene jacket. My cameras are all analog. Is this the cable I should use? Or is there a suitable Siamese cable for power and audio?

What sort of marking tape can I get to put near the top of the trench? I would like it to be detectable with something simple (like a metal detector).

I am replacing the cheap Siamese cables for my cameras with better quality R59 Siamese cable. I installed a 200 foot run today, and it seems to work fine. On that particular camera I also need to add audio cable from the microphone that is built into the camera. What would be the best economical cable to use for a 200 foot run? Thanks, Charles

I can't seem to get the search engine working this morning, so please pardon me if this has already been covered. I am planning to run a cable about 200 feet outdoors using 1" diameter PVC conduit. While I am at it, I thought I might get enough cable to replace the cheap Siamese cables I already have for three other cameras in different locations. I am using analog cameras. This is a home non-security system, and I can't justify spending more than necessary. My question is whether the combined RG59/power cables are enough of an improvement over the cheap cables to justify getting a 1000 foot spool. The one I am looking at has an RG59/U cable with a separate 18G power cable at $168 per 1000 feet. Or would it be better to use regular RG59 cable with a separate power cable? Thanks, Charles

The electrical power is only for occasional use. Most of the time there will be no current, and I could even switch that leg off if it turns out to be a problem. When I first dug the trench it was just for water and power. The camera idea came later. I would go back and dig it a little deeper, but the trencher has already been returned.

I think I'll follow your advice. Good thing I checked here before I started.

I decided to use 1" plastic conduit. It is in 10' sections, so I can use a snake to pull the strings through as I assemble it. I figured I would cover the water and electrical lines with about 1 foot of dirt and then add the conduit for the video cable. Does that sound like a reasonable compromise? Thanks for all the suggestions. Charles

Thanks for the quick replies. This has got me going in a whole new direction. Maybe I'll use some 1 inch tubing. Would I be able to push a solid pull-wire 200 feet later? My snake is not that long.

I had not thought of that. The water line I am using is 3/4 inch flexible polyethylene line. Would it work if I just add a second one to use as a conduit? If so, should I install a pull wire when I bury it?

I thinking about switching from an AverMedia NV3000 to a Geovision GV-650 8 channel card. One feature I need is video alarm detection similar to what my NV-3000 has. On that card, under the advanced recording detection, I can create three separate detection rectangles for each camera and set the sensitivity for each of the areas. Does the Geovision card have a comparable feature? Also, can this card be setup to reduce the frame rate to reduce the video file size? Finally, can the card produce separate video streams that are compatible with WindowsMediaPlayer? Currently I have to split the video input signals and capture them on USB capture cards and encode them using WindowsMediaEncoder. Thanks, Charles

I have had an Avermedia NV3000 for about a year. I'm thinking about upgrading to an NV5000 or changing to a Geovision, and would appreciate some advice. Based on the number of posts here, the Geovision cards seem to be more popular. Is that correct? Specific questions: 1. In deciding on a Geovision card, is the GV-650 roughly comparable to the Avermedia NV5000? Is it expandable to 8 channels, or would I have to order the 8-channel version to start with? 2. Can these cards be setup to reduce the frame rate to reduce the video file size? 3. Can the Geovision cards produce outputs that are Windows Media Player compatible for broadcasting WEB cameras? With the NV3000 I have to split the video and use two USB capture cards and MediaEncoder for that. 4. If I change to Geovision, will I be able to play my old NV3000 recordings, or would I have to install my NV3000 card in a spare computer? Thanks, Charles