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aliciac

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Posts posted by aliciac

  1. Posted

    Hi guys!

     

    Just an update to my upgrade issue please. I'm now ready to purchase a new DVR as was advised to me since my current DVR appears to be past its sell by date! I have about £400 to spend on a new 16 channel DVR and three extra cameras. I currently have eight 'QVIS EYE-1000-V2B 1000TVL Weatherproof Varifocal Dome Camera, Black' cameras (http://goo.gl/JYBwJJ) and would like to buy another three to take the total to eleven.

     

    Here's my question. I would like a DVR that I can connect to my router and view video on my mobile phone from a remote location. I've researched a few 16 channel DVRs that all appear to be capable of remote viewing, but there are huge variations in price, even when they have the same 1TB hard drive capacity. I've seen some at £200, and some at £400. I presume the price difference relates to build quality and the quality of recording that the DVRs are capable of. If my current eight cameras are not HD quality, do I still need a DVR that can record in HD quality? Is it just future proofing to buy an expensive DVR?

     

    One final thing - is it possible for the DVR to show the current eight cameras on a screen (as is the case now), but the extra three cameras, record their feed but not show them on the screen in store? The reason being that cameras 9,10 and 11 are planned to be installed in a store room, and obviously I do not want customers seeing what stock there is in the store room!

     

    Any guidance on a suitable DVR choice would be much appreciated!

     

    Thank you so much!

     

    Alicia.

  4. Posted

    Thank you brebenac for your reply and your offer to help locate this battery! Sorry it took a while, had other pressing issues of late. Opened up the DVR to find a load of dust! Took some pictures of the PCB as requested. There's a risen PCB also which slots into the main PCB and connects to the hard drive and CD writer. I was able to remove this riser card to take a photo underneath. However despite taking out all the screws for the main PCB, I was unable to remove the PCB from the DVR casing to take a photo of the underneath of it, not sure if it's glued on something underneath. Did try with a little force, but not too much so as to break the PCB. Anyway, have cleaned out all the dust now at least with compressed air! So please if you get a moment, take a look at the photos I'm attaching. Hopefully you'll be able to identify the battery somewhere. Also I noticed that when the power is removed from the DVR, whilst the date resets to 1st January 2000, 00:00, the settings for menus remain and do not revert to default. Don't know if this information is of any significance.

     

    Thanks very much!

     

    Alicia.

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  6. Posted

    Hi again!

     

    I've just opened up my DVR to locate the battery, and I just can't find it! There appears to be no battery, unlike a computer motherboard. The model number of the motherboard is AV-785M, there's a sticker on it saying that. I can post some pictures if anyone can help me identify where the battery is?

     

    Thanks!

     

    Alicia.

  8. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I'm looking for some advice regarding my CPCAM CPD505 DVR system (8 cameras). The first issue is that the time defaults to zero after a power cut, so I have to set the date and time after a power cut, even a momentary one. Not a huge problem I know, but if there's a power cut overnight and I don't know about it, the DVR won't be recording with the correct time until I spot this. I presume this has something to do with the battery (if there is a battery inside). Is it just a matter of changing the battery like on a PC motherboard? Would it be a CR2032 battery?

     

    The second issue is regarding a hard drive upgrade. Currently there is a 400GB hard drive (IDE) in the DVR. With 8 cameras recording at high quality, only 13 days are stored before being overwritten. I am not sure how big a hard drive will be compatible with this DVR. I might also have trouble finding a 3.5" IDE hard drive larger than 500GB. Is a IDE to SATA converter a recommended workaround? Or a slave hard drive perhaps?

     

    Any advice would be much appreciated.

     

    Thank you for your time!

     

    Alicia.

  9. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I have a CPCam CPD505 system. I am trying to backup to USB, but get the following error message:

     

    WARNING

    USB ERROR

     

    The system seems to recognise that a USB drive is connected, otherwise it gives another message, but will not backup to USB.

     

    I am using a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 4GB USB drive, full formatted as FAT32 (not NTFS). Please can someone tell me if there is only a limited number of USB drives this system works with?

     

    Thanks very much,

     

    Alicia.

  10. Posted

    Thanks for your detailed posts the toss, Horizon and shockwave199. The camera was £80, so not very cheap, but yes, not particular expensive either. I concede I did make the mistake of not getting it installed by a professional though! Would have saved me this bother. Armed with the excellent advice I have received here, I will have another play about with the camera this weekend and try and get a decent gap between the DAY -> NIGHT and NIGHT -> DAY numbers, with the latter being distinguishably higher than the former. Will leave BURST on and DELAY CNT as 30.

     

    Will keep you guys updated on how I get on!

     

    Thanks for now! Appreciate your time!

     

    Alicia.

  11. Posted

    Thanks very much for your post The Toss!

     

    Yesterday I tried to change the settings as you described. I attempted to change the 'DAY -> NIGHT' setting to 20 and the 'NIGHT -> DAY' setting to 50. However, when I moved the number for the first setting, the second setting also changed! I don't know why this would happen. As you explained, these two numbers should be different, but as soon as I started moving the first from 3 to 20, the second started moving by its own from it's 5 position to exactly the same as the above. Bizarre!

     

    Unsure of what to do, I left them both on 20. Had no choice. I also changed DELAY CNT from 10 to 30 in case this helped because I had doubts the other changes I'd made would help. I also switched BURST to on.

     

    And then about an hour before sunset, the camera switched to black/white mode. And just sat in that mode all night until an hour or so after sunrise. I think I might have made it worse! No colour at all in night mode.

     

    Where am I going wrong? I don't want a black/white picture at night. I want a colour picture all through the night. I got this with the old camera, I should be able to get the same with the new one.

     

    Next time I think I better call in a professional to install a new CCTV camera. This is a lot of work when you don't know what all the settings mean and do!

     

    Anybody feel free to offer any other suggestions on settings changes to get colour back in night mode.

     

    Thanks so much!

     

    Alicia.

  12. Posted

    Thank you the reply MindTwist. Sorry about the delayed reply, been so much else going on at work at the moment.

     

    I've had a look through the small manual that came with the CCTV camera. Whilst the menus look similar to those that I posted a link to, they're not the same.

     

    In the manual for my CCTV camera, in the section for "Day/Night mode", it says:

     

    "Day/night mode.

    Auto: Select this and the camera will show a colour image in high lux and will change to a black/white image in low lux.

     

    I have five options to play with in this menu:

     

    DAY/NIGHT - Auto.

    BURST - On or off.

    DELAY CNT - Choose number between 1 and 100. Default is 10.

    DAY -> NIGHT - Choose number between 1 and 100. Default is 3.

    NIGHT -> DAY - Choose number between 1 and 100. Default is 5.

     

    I presume I have to change the latter two settings, but to what? I have a feeling you're going to say trial and error which means climbing up a ladder several times and waiting for night each time!

     

    Any further comments most welcome!

     

    Thanks very much!

     

    Alicia.

  13. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I've had to replace one of the CCTV cameras on my system because the previous camera stopped working. It was an outdoor camera. I bought another outdoor camera online from a website for £50. I think it is a generic brand but has a SONY EFFIO-E 700TVL chip. The camera was installed and works well, in daytime at least. The camera certainly gives a sharper clearer image than the previous camera. The problem is at night when the camera continuously switches from night colour to night black/white every two seconds, non stop from dawn to dusk. However when a car passes by, the headlights from the car appear to keep the camera in night colour mode! I have tried changing the power supply but to no avail. All the LED lights on the face of the camera appear to be on at night. The camera has a small control unit built into the wire which provides an on screen menu. When I installed the camera, I did not change any settings (all have been left as default). I have checked the manual, but am unsure which setting it is that I need to adjust to ensure the camera remains in colour mode at night (if indeed this is a setting problem and not a fault with the camera).

     

    I found this website, but am not sure if it helps my problem: http://www.eclipsecctv.com/OSD-security-camera-578-explanations.html

     

    Please help someone! Any ideas welcome.

     

    Thanks very much!

     

    Alicia.

  15. Posted

    Thank you SectorSecurity kindly for your reply. Yes I have checked and the noise is coming from the hard drive. But the system is still working. You said I can replace it with any make, but can it be any size too? The current hard drive is 250gb, but could I replace it with a 1gb one? Assuming I can find a 1gb hard drive in with IDE connector!

     

    Thanks again!

     

    Alicia.

  17. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I have a AVTech CPD505 CCTV system with 8 cameras attached. It's been working great for years but over the last few days, there's been a whining noise coming from the DVR. It could be the cooling fan, but it sounds more like a hard drive about to fail. The system is however working fine despite the noise. I need to open up the DVR to investigate, but before I do, and the problem is the hard drive, how easy is it to replace the hard drive? I have the manual for the system, and it talks about installing a hard drive (this must have been done by the original installer guys, not me), but nothing about replacing one. So, should it simply be a matter of swapping old for new? Do I have to format the new hard drive first? What's the largest size I can buy (the manual talks about a 500GB hard drive, so that might be max)?

     

    Or does the hard drive contain software for the system to work? In which case I should clone the old hard drive to a new hard drive before it fails?

     

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

     

    Thanks very much,

     

    Alicia.

  18. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I've got a CPCAM CPD 505 DVR system with 8 cameras and one microphone attached. Everything is working as normal, however when I backup to CD or USB, although the video is backed up, the audio is not. However, when I playback from the DVR itself, both video and audio is played back on the LCD TV.

     

    Does this mean my system is incapable of backing up audio to CD or USB, or is it a problem of the software that I'm using on my PC to playback the files? The software I'm using to playback on my PC came with the DVR system, it's called Video Server E. I've checked the manual of my DVR system, but there is no mention of backing up audio with the video. The manual can be found here:

     

    http://scorpiontheater.tech.officelive.com/Documents/AVTech_Manual_English_CPD503_505_507_V0.99.pdf

     

    Hope someone can shed some light on this please.

     

    Thanks very much,

     

    Alicia.

  19. Posted

    Thanks for the reply Soundy, it's much appreciated. I will give it a try and see how I get on. Do you know if I will need to activate audio recording in any menu, or will the system automatically begin audio recording once a microphone is correctly connected? Also, roughly how much extra hard drive space will recording audio on top of video use? At the moment, with a 500GB hard drive installed, using "best" the quality setting, I get about 30 days of recordings (that's all six cameras). Presumably this will reduce? Or has the system always recorded audio, just no sound, and so it will not affect space usage?

     

    Thank you!

     

    Alicia.

  21. Posted

    Hi everyone!

     

    I'm looking for some advice please on adding a microphone to my CCTV setup. I have a CP CAM 505 system (the PDF manual can be found here: http://scorpiontheater.tech.officelive.com/Documents/AVTech_Manual_English_CPD503_505_507_V0.99.pdf) and want to add a microphone to it so that it can record voice as well as video. There are six cameras connected to this sytem (capacity is 8 cameras) and the images are shown on a standard LCD television connected to the system by a BNC cable.

     

    I want to know what type of microphone I will need (hopefully an inexpensive one), and whether I will need to connect speakers to the CCTV system, or whether I can use the television's speakers.

     

    For example, would something like this be suitable?

     

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CCTV-Security-Microphone-Kit-10mCable-PSU-High-Quality-/280653659612?pt=UK_CCTV&hash=item415842fddc

     

    And then connecting the CCTV system to the television with something like this?

     

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-Phono-RCA-Male-Twin-RCA-Male-Cable-Lead-10m-Gold-/260579388906?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item3cabbdedea

     

    Also, would I need to change anything in the CCTV system's menus, to enable audio recording for example?

     

    Thanks very much! I look forward to any replies.

     

    Alicia. x

  22. Posted

    Hi guys!

     

    Just an update to my last post yesterday. Everything works great with those settings Soundy confirmed yesterday! Just wish it hadn't taken so long and so much effort, but I guess I learnt a lot along the way.

     

    I've also noticed the same with Linksys routers - even if the client (my PC in this case) has not been turned off, it can be allocated a different IP address from time to time. Bizarre, but will bear this in mind if ever buying a new router.

     

    Thanks again for all the help, I couldn't have done without it.

     

    All the best,

     

    Alicia.

  23. Posted

    Thanks for the further advice guys. From my router's config pages I can't find any "Static" or "Reserved" option under "Network Address Server Settings (DHCP)", only this:

     

    DHCP Server: Enable

    Starting IP Address: 192.168.1.100

    Maximum Number of DHCP Users: 50

    Client Lease Time: 0 minutes (0 means one day)

    Static DNS 1: 0.0.0.0

    Static DNS 2: 0.0.0.0

    Static DNS 3: 0.0.0.0

    WINS: 0.0.0.0

     

    I don't think any of this applies, so will have to go for the DVR Static option. By the way, my DVR is powered on all day everyday as is the router, so presumably the DVR will apply for a new IP address every day according to the above settings - another reason why I should go Static.

     

    I'm at home right now but will give it a go tomorrow. Just to confirm, I'll set the following, please let me know if something's wrong:

     

    DVR:

    NETWORK MENU:

    Network Type: STATIC

    DNS: 192.168.1.1 (address to router)

    Port: 5550

    NETWORK SUBMENU:

    IP: 192.168.1.10

    GATEWAY: 192.168.1.1

    NETMASK: 255.255.255.000

     

    (Presumably the GATEWAY and NETMASK entries are correct if those stayed the same when DVR was set to DHCP and could be accessed from home).

     

    ROUTER:

    PORT RANGE FORWARD:

    Application: DVR

    Start: 5550

    End: 5550

    Protocol: Both (TCP and UDP)

    IP Address: 192.168.1.10

    Enable: Yes

     

    Thanks again! Will let you know if it works tomorrow!

     

    Alicia.

  24. Posted

    Hi!

     

    Tom, thanks for the offer but I'm in Kent so a long way from Chester. However I think I have solved the problem.

     

    Thanks also to Soundy for the detailed reply, you clearly know your stuff. You were right - my DVR does have a submenu within the Network Menu. Once I select STATIC in the Network Menu and press enter on STATIC, a submenu opens where I can enter IP, GATEWAY and NETMASK. However when DHCP is selected in the Network Menu, although I can go into the submenu, I cannot edit IP, GATEWAY and NETMASK. Presumably this is logical?

     

    Based on your advice Soundy that in the Network Menu, DNS does not mean the same as IP, I have changed the settings as follows which has meant that I am able to access my DVR from home.

     

    NETWORK MENU:

    Network Type: DCHP

    DNS: 192.168.1.1 (as you suggested, address to router)

    Port: 8080

     

    In the Network submenu, this produces automatically:

     

    IP: 192.168.1.103

    GATEWAY: 192.168.1.1

    NETMASK: 255.255.255.000

     

    As I wasn't sure whether my ISP was blocking Port 80, so to be safe I have changed the DVR setting to Port 8080 (as shown above) and have changed the Port Forwarding to 8080 in the router settings to reflect the same.

     

    You were also right about the router's security settings, it does not matter whether those security options are enabled or disabled, I am able to access my DVR from home either way, so have re-enabled them.

     

    Also I noticed that the IP that my DVR was given by the router was 192.168.1.103. The 103 part is important because to get access from home, I also had to change the Port Forwarding in the router settings to 103, so that now reads:

     

    Application: DVR

    Start: 8080

    End: 8080

    Protocol: Both (TCP and UDP)

    IP Address: 192.168.1.103

    Enable: Yes

     

    Great so far, no problems accessing my DVR from home either via Video Server E or Internet Explorer. The DDNS service from dyndns.org works also.

     

    I just have one last question. When there's a power cut or the DVR or router is ever powered off, the new IP given to the DVR by the router can be something other than 103. I have tried this by power cycling the router, the DVR then appeared as 192.168.1.106 in the router's DHCP Clients Table, and the IP in the DVR's Network submenu has automatically changed to 192.168.1.106 to reflect this. No problem you would think, but the Port Forwarding was set up for 103, not 106, and so access to DVR from home was lost. All I had to do was change 103 to 106 in the Port Forwarding setting, and everything was back to normal. But is there a way around this?

     

    Thanks a million again! Sorry for another longwinded question!

     

    Alicia.

  25. Posted

    Hi again!

     

    Thanks for your reply Mitstarion. I'm still stuck on one issue but have managed to access my DVR from home using the Video Server E software and via Internet Explorer, but have achieved this only by setting the DVR's Network settings to my current IP address and DHCP mode, like this:

     

    NETWORK MENU:

    Network Type: DHCP (other options are Static and PPPOE)

    DNS: My current IP address

    Port: 80

     

    So even though this setup works, I'm aware that once I restart my cable modem, I'll have a new IP address and thus will have to change the IP address entered into the DVR. So I may be wrong, but I think that my DVR settings should be as follows and have now put them back to these default settings:

     

    NETWORK MENU:

    Network Type: Static

    DNS: 192.168.1.10 (my DVR's default)

    Port: 80

     

    But with the DVR set up like that, although I can access my DVR from the store computer (same location) since they are plugged into the same router, I can't from home. My router is a Linksys WRT54G, and attached to it is a standard Windows XP computer and my DVR, both connected to the router with patch cables.

     

    In my router's security settings, I have disabled the firewall and unticked these following options:

     

    Block Anonymous Internet Requests

    Filter Multicast

    Filter Internet NAT Redirection

    Filter IDENT(Port 113)

     

    This is just in case my router is blocking me from connecting to my DVR away from my store. Please let me know if I should re-enable any or all of these if they do not affect me connecting from outside.

     

    In the Port Forwarding menu of my router, I have set the following:

     

    Application: DVR

    Start: 80

    End: 80

    Protocol: Both (TCP and UDP)

    IP Address: 192.168.1.10

    Enable: Yes

     

    Finally in my router's DDNS settings. I have created a free account with dyndns.org and set the details within my router, and my router reports that the IP address was sucessfully updated.

     

    So having done all that, why is it still not working from home, either through Internet Explorer and using my dyndns.org host name or through Video Server E and using entering directly my IP address?

     

    I would have thought that with these settings, Video Server E at home would contact my store's router, which would then direct it to my DVR based on the fact that the IP addresses in my router's port forwarding menu and the IP address set in my DVR match.

     

    As I say, the only way I can get it to work at the moment is by entering my current IP directly into my DVR's Network settings and also setting the DVR's Network setting as DCHP and not Static. I've noticed though that once the DVR is set as DCHP, my router's DHCP Clients Table lists it as a random IP in the form 192.168.1.***. And when the DVR is set as Static, the DVR does not appear in my router's DHCP Clients Table. Presumably the reason as to why this is must be obvious to those in the know?

     

    I'm confused, please help! Sorry the question is so longwinded. Maybe the answer could help someone else in the future too.

     

    Thanks again!

     

    Alicia.

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