koolmer

I doubt that you will find any Software that runs with both cards.

I have some Hicap-100 and you cannot have two of those in 1 computer. I think it's the same for your card.

You should consider buying 2 identical cards with Software that supports 32 Channels and build a proper 32 Channel DVR with these. I did this and used these:

http://www.netvisiondvr.com/ProductInfo.asp?id=66

Works very well! I have the cheapest core 2 quad as CPU and CPU usage is around 19% with 32 channels connected and recording.

koolmer

Edit: you might be able to run both Software on 1 computer - you can at least try. Unless your computer is realy powerful, I think it will make it (if it works) VERY slow. The Hicap has Software compression - not sure about the other card that you have.

If you want cheap but professional CCTV camera with 3 years warranty, please take a look at:

That looks like no-name cameras with Sony CCDs that are then sold as "SONY". I hate this misleading type of marketing.

330 Euro is also not exactly cheap. I want something good for the amount of money that I have...

Hmm - I never heard of Sunkwang... Has anybody tried them? The Specs look good, but the camera itself looks a bit too "modern".

The one that rory shows in the link looks great! I wrote to CNB already a few days ago to receive a pricelist.

They have no Distributor for Denmark! Now I have to fill out this huge form to be able to buy from them directly... hope this is going to work.

Does anybody know the Distributor for Germany? Maybe I could just buy from there.

Any other suggestion besides CNB?

Hikvision cards from China have an iphone client. I have never used it, but the cards are awesome. The Software IVMS (from Hikvision) is free.

You can also get the card bundled with 3rd party Software. I have tried Skyvision (Bad!) and Netvision (good).

koolmer

Hi everybody,

Alright, I have a gate, which is currently watched by a high res color camera in an (very old) outside housing. The picture in the night is acceptable, but noisy. Actually there is lots of outside light from street lights, but faces are hard to recognize. Also when the sun shines, faces are very hard to recognize (sun comes from the side). The brand is Vista (UK OEM - don't know who actually manufactured it) and it has 470 TVL.

So I proposed a D/N WDR camera. Budget is 330 Euro incl. VAT & shipping. It should be a dome. I think a good WDR camera without D/N would also do it. There is quite some light.

koolmer

I have a few of the johnny 5 ptz camers from 123cctv.com and they fail often. voltage from the transformer has been verifled. is there any other advise I can get for this issue. tech support for the company we purchased them from is no longer open. our viedo screen shows lost signal. Ideas?

Has the camera ever worked reliably? If not, something is really wrong. I have looked at the camera and looking at all the IR + PTZ feature I am sure it consumes vast amounts of power and you will need a real strong powersupply for them.

What power supply do you use now? Can you get a (much) stronger one and try it on one of the cameras? See how the reliability is with the new power supply.

koolmer

Sanyo VCC HD2100, Fujinon Lens, Alnet Systems Software

 

How can I add screenshots in full res?

 

Regards

Mariusz

Looks good! You're covering almost the whole area with a single camera. The distortion is obvious though. I would like to see this in full resolution and also at night. I heard only good things about the Sanyo IP cameras. The only downside is that they are not supported by many NVRs yet.

I have a building with a CCTV installation that is about 15 years old. Some RG59 is outdoors for 20 - 30 meters and I don't think it's outdoor rated. Anyways I had to cut some of it and the copper is very corroded. However the cable was not really causing any problems. When I scratched the copper I could get it clean again and I could put some F-connectors on it.

The cameras are still working perfecly.

1) How do most IP-camera's get the data to the NAS. I know for instance, Mobotix can write directy to an NFS share. Does this imply that many other vendors need PC/Mac/Linux based software to write to an NFS share? I'm not to keen on having my PC-run 24/7. I am aware storage cards can be imbedded in the camera but I am keen on using a NAS.

Most cameras will need a NVR for recording. Only few cameras are able to write directly onto a NAS, flash drive or SD card.

2) Do most IP-camera allow for H.264 compression? Probably listed in the spec's but this one suddenly came to mind. There's no way raw HD-resolution can travel over current IP based ethernet in home installations.

Raw HD-resolution cannot be send over an IP network and there is no camera that does this. All IP cameras use a codec. You should check the differences between H.264, MPEG4, MJPEG, etc. On Megapixel you should consider MJPEG. It does consume more space and bandwidth, but also has better image quality than the others.

3) I've read that the night capabilities of megapixel devices have actually gotten worse when the resolution went up. The reason would be that the sensor surface has not gotten bigger so that each pixel receives less light than was the case with lower resolution camera's. How big an issue is this really? Can someone bring this into perspective. Perhaps dedicaded IR-lighting is now mandatory for good results?

I have no practical experiance here, but if you are concerned about low light, you should buy an IP camera with two chips and two lenses. One multi MP CMOS is for the day and one 1 MP CMOS for the night. Mobotix has good cameras like that.

4) My least understood area, lenses. So a lens, is like a permanent zoom right? The optical zoom can still zoom in further. Are these lenses camera specific or is there some standard? Is a camera with interchangeable lenses a good idea (I'd say yes if there is some standard). Finally, are these lenses specially made for surveillance or are they equal to (photo) camera lenses.

Normally cameras have no optical zoom (some exceptions) There is a standard, but it doesn't always apply to IP cameras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cs_mount CS mount is the standard on analogue and many IP cameras today. Mobotix has it's own standard AFAIK.

5) I've read a PIR-sensor can be useful. But that thought conflicts with an earlier assumption of mine. I believed all camera's for surveillance purposes had motion detection and area's could be excluded (like branches from a tree that wave about all day).

I never tried PIRs to trigger camera recording. A decent camera has enough motion setup options for me. You can specify where the motion must be in order to trigger recording or an alarm. I do believe it's trickey when you are outside and have lots of trees, plants, etc. Then it might be worth to try a PIR.

6) Can a camera be blinded by aiming a bright light at it? Like Xenon headlights from a car for instance.

Good cameras are not blinded that easily. I think MP CMOS chips can cope pretty well with bright light and still give a good image. I have seen a comparison between a CMOS and a CCD IP MP camera and the CMOS gave a perfect picture, while the CCD had some problems with sunlight reflecting from cars.

I thought this stuff is already existing for a while. I have seen it months ago on www.comartsystems.com

Anyways - it seems that the stuff is available. See www.comarthd.com

They don't tell the prices, but they make it look like it can be bought.

I don't think this is going to have any success. IP has taken over and has many benefits over HDCCTV. HDCCTV is not compatible with anything that people have right now. Sometimes not even the coax cable. It is also WAAAAY too expensive. A 23" screen cost 2300 $. For this amount of money I can build a real good hybrid DVR + 24" screen!

If this is an IP camera, there is no PAL or NTSC. PAL & NTSC is only for analogue cameras.

If these cameras do both, analogue and IP, then it doesn't matter as long as you use the IP network to view the cameras.

Edit: If the cameras are NTSC and you only have PAL screens, try to connect it anyways. The PAL screen will give you a B/W image - even on NTSC

I tried a few.

Not recommended from me:

GE Security (hardware of standalone DVRs is too slow)

Vista (Brand in UK) (quality is ok, but nothing special)

Comart-Systems (buggy Software, quality of recording is ok)

Recommended:

Hikvision DVR cards. I tried two different ones and they worked very well. Watch out what Software you get with it. Netvision is good software - ivms-2000 is okay.

Ok - if we talk about NO compression whatsoever than we should assume that the pictures are bitmaps. A bitmap has no compression and the content of a bitmap has no effect on its size. A bitmanp of the size 704 x 576 has 1216566 Bytes.

Lets assume we have 6 fps and now we can calculate:

1216566 x 6 x 60 x 60 = 26277825600 Bytes (calculation for 1 hour recording)

26277825600 : 1024 = 25661939 kB

25661939 : 1024 = 25060.5 MB

25060.5 : 1024 = 24.5 GB

So we would need 24.5 GB recording for 1 hour.

@ rory

You record at 720x480. Your Jeep as a bitmap has 1036854 Bytes. Now you recorded 646 frames, so let's see how bad the compression was!

646 x 1036854 = 669807684 Bytes

To make it short - these are 638.78 MB! rory you got 639 MB!

So the program REALLY didn't compress! It's a simple calculation. Ok - you used a codec, but I guess the program didn't leave you the choice to select bitmaps as outputs. Otherwise no program that I know could play that. I am actually astounded how close my calculation result and your result are! " title="Applause" />

koolmer

Strange! This camera has been sold by another company under another name in 2007 already. Maybe even earlier. It was called the Vista Eclipse.

See here:

http://www.norbain.com/news/ref:N4289A64EDB2EE/

The retail price in 2008 was 1195 GBP for the camera and 995 GBP for the DVR with 400 GB storage.

The camera is now discontinued. I wonder why. Maybe just not enough interest by the customers.

Edit: This was the 3MP version with the analogue outputs

For the price of a high end WDR megapixel, you could probably get two Acti ACM-7411 megapixel domes (supported by your hybrid unit), and focus one just on the entrance, adjusted for the back-lighting, and another for the general lobby area, that would give you more potential lines of sight, as well.

 

 

Don't forget the new TCM-7411 - adds H.264 compression and WDR to the ACM-7411. NVR support is a question. Have not seen the TCM- series yet but the ACM-7411 is indeed a nice camera.

 

NJD

The camera looks very ok. I have checked prices for this camera in Europe and the only thing I found was for over 600 Euro. For 800 Euro I can get the Mobotix with 360 degree view and 3MP.

I was having trouble finding a supported model list for IP cameras for your software, do you have any links/lists?

 

If that's what you are limited to, we need to know what's supported.

That's a really good point! Netvision supports the following IP cameras:

NV Series IP/EMDVR

DG 42XX/50XX EMDVR

DG 80XX/90XX EMDVR

DG Series IPC

Dahua Series IP

Sony SNC110/160

ACTi Series IP

Huviron Series IP

Mobotix M12 Series IP

ArecontVision IP

Camtron Series IPC

Axis Series IPC

However it will run on a quad core and if the IP camera has it's own software, it shouldn't be a problem to have that running in the background. But I am not willing to pay for another license of Milestone, Luxriot etc.

Not the best example, but here is a sample picture taken in a hotel lobby using a Mobotix VGA camera. As buellwinkle mentioned, you can configure custom exposure zones - this picture does not have any configured.

Actually I would love to use Mobotix. I have heard only good about it. I didn't know they had cameras in VGA. I thought they only do Megapixel. Somebody mentioned before that Megapixel is overkill for the application. It might be true, but I think standard 540 TVL will also not do it if I want to get details on the faces.

I would like to go IP based and I would like to have better quality than what I am used to when recoding 4CIF. 4CIF will not be enough to get good shots of the faces unless I use a mini PTZ. This however is not an option, because nobody will be watching the cameras 24/7.

Maybe 1024x768 is enough for my application or 1280x720. The main problem is the strong backlight and of course the price has to reasonable. Does anyone else have a suggestion?

@bones

ok I believe you. Just have to find a seller with the right version.

@ bones

That's what it says on the Panasonic Website...

I'd go for the Sony DH-140. It might be the best WDR-camera out there.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-SNCDH140/

 

If you go for a cheaper model that doesn't do the job then the money spent would be wasted.

It has about the same price as the Panasonic IP WDR Dome. I could go for it and demand the money from the Hotel. I can say that it is the only camera that will do the job well, but I have to be sure!

Have you tested any IP WDR camera? Have you tested this specific model?

Ok so the IP WDR cam cost 1000$ - I don't know if I would be able to get that from the Hotel. It's really pricey.

The analogue WDR Dome from Panasonic seems real nice, but the lenses! there are only two lens options: 2.2 mm fixed or 15 - 50 mm varifocal! This is really poor - maybe the 2.2 mm lens would work, but have to measure first.

Does anyone know a good lens calculator? Something where I could input these 2.2 mm and calculate the distance that the camera needs to the doors and the windows to get the right FOV?

Thanks

I'd suggest the Panasonic WV-NW502 dome (or 504 box style) camera. They have Panasonic's usual superb WDR capability, at 1.3 Megapixel. (They can run up to 3MP, but only in MJPEG, and no WDR at that setting).

 

It's a CCD imager, also, so low light capability is pretty good.

That sounds good! What about Software? Is it included? As I said, it's mainly for recording evidence. Netvision doesn't support Panasonic IP cameras

@Soundy

I will also check this one out.

Any other suggestion?

That sounds good. I have not heard much about Sanyo in the IP market though. Have you tested it yourself also with strong backlight?

What about the Software? I know it is not supported by Netvision. Does it have some Software included? This camera is mainly for recording and evidence - no need to be displayed anywhere.

Hi guys,

I have a job on a reception. The front consists of a big glass door in the middle of two huge glass windows. Here some pictures:

http://img203.imageshack.us/f/img0857v.jpg/

http://img821.imageshack.us/f/img0856k.jpg/

I would like to cover the entire front with a single IP Megapixel camera. However the camera would have to give good details on the people outside and on anyone coming in. I need especially the face very clearly, so it can be used to show troublemakers to the receptionist etc. I don't know if there is any IP camera that could handle the strong backlight in the scene.

Another camera would go behind the reception desk, but this one would not have to handle strong backlight. It should be a good color IP camera (1.3 MP?) and it has to work also when the light is dimmed at night.

I am going to use a Netvision Hybrid server to record the cameras and the existing analogue cameras.

koolmer

Edit: Both cameras should be Dome cameras - for design reasons.