CollinR

Why not record all 8 and edit the video at the end?

Video capture card > VLC > Windows Media Players

See if there is an audio port, thats how Geo works.

That sounds pretty good for the NY installers.

Condensation will be a major problem. Better bet is using a system designed to deal with it or a housing designed for this. They have refer housings for industrial computers, not cheap though. You might be able to do it but you would want it alot warmer then a normal refergerator runs, maybe like 65-70*F. That will help your condensation a bunch. I would ask a refergerator repairman how the temp control works and if it could be run that hot. Another thing is wine chillers, thats alot closer in temp.

Which one is it or did they switch on you? encode.exe = make the recording files on hard drive. decode.exe = make the recording visable on the local screen. If it's decode a video card with hardware support for decoding that video codec would help you.

Might try VideoLAN, it will transcode a bunch of stuff.

I'm pretty sure you can put that one a schedule so it will/won't do it at night if desired.

If you are at max CPU adding memory alone isn't going to help. There are other functions a video card can sometimes help with but this is somewhat card and DVR specific. I know nothing of your specific DVR card but I doubt there is a video card to help you much. Do you still have the GV800? I have had a GV800 in a B110 2.8 IIRC before, no problems with the on board graphics. I never did actually test the framerates either though, looked fine to me by eye across 8 channels. CPU usage will be high if you use alot of quality compression, only the DVR card itself can help you there. Video cards can only help with decoding not encoding or transcoding. Well obivously you could get a multi core Pentium processor but I doubt thats what you wanted to hear either. 98% CPU is just that CPU maxed out, you need to kill other system resource hogs or get more CPU capacity. Look at your task manger (Alt+Ctrl+Del) and see what other PROCESSES are running from all users. Sort by CPU use and start trimming the fat.

What about vertical? (If you haven't figured it yet, I know next to jack about REAL wifi.)

What was the CPU when the radeon was installed? This is usually more realted to software transcoding rather then decompression to the display. I have no problems with the newer Intel graphics, don't know which one you have but the GMA950 has been fine for me (you listed the northbridge chipset #).

This area is bringing on the suck, it's a total pain to find good deals on larger then 19" 4:3 aspect displays. LCD CRT or otherside, you basically get hosed for less then nothing.

It only partially matters which volume the OS is on for this stuff to work properly you must press F6 and install the drivers before installing Windows. Often you can't get 3.0GB out of SATAII without RAID in a single or multiple drive system if you fail to install the drivers in the correct order. I don't know why this is but I know it is. IIRC it matters much more if you have it plugged into the IC8 SATA controller or the JMicron controller. Since you say you used PATA you are on the JMicron controller. Either way I haven't seen one installed correctly after the fact. Download to test. http://www.majorgeeks.com/HDTach_d672.html I also see now, those two ports were designed for multiplier use. You can look at each one as 4 SATA ports. You want to find a drive caddy with an internal port multiplier. Unfortunately those drive caddies are more expensive then another motherboard. Further if I was going that route I would want a Silicon Image controller rather then JMB. It sucks but you have to really read the specs before you buy, I have done it and so has just about everyone else who has built a few machines. EDIT: They make SATA > SATAe PCI slot fillers that would prevent you from using a SATA cable through the case. It is designed to help in situations like this. Have you tried the Intel Matrix controllers? If you look at the southbridge does it say. 82801HH or 82801HR or 82801?? The ICH8 has been tested and should have RAID 0, 1, 5 and 0 + 1 capabilites ASIDE from the JMB controller you are currently tring. If this is the case just a driver redo will get you doing. I have never tried it on that board but they would have to specifically disable it if it is a HH or better yet HR chip.

If you have IR on the cam it will always suck. Very few exceptions and they aren't in your price range. It sucks and should be avoided, get IR seperate. I'm thinking even my IR floods would overwhelm the room with a decent camera. You might have to bounce them off a wall/ceiling to get the the proper effect without bleaching everything. This could also make use of a digital day/night as they aren't nearly as sensitive. 12'x12' is pretty small. It helps if you mount the cam over the door if it's in a corner, nothing much happens there and you would capture anyone there when they come/go.

When you installed XP did you press F6 and install the RAID drivers when it asked for them?

Geo has an output alarm setting in the camera config, I think you can run it against the schedule as well. Set the alarm output to bark. Run the soundcard output to a cheap amp and then on to outdoor speakers. Obviously this works best on headless systems as this will make all PC sounds outside. Major bonus is install Winamp and the guy can play music during the day over the same setup. You could also use GVIO to relay close a normal alarm siren, if you use an Ademco (or other real alarm) siren they won't be able to tell if they set the burgler alarm off or not.

Yup, its seems odd to go DIY with an unlimited budget. Bound to get disappointed. Luckly you will know enough to know if the consultant knows what they are talking about.

It's not worth it for most of my installs like that, basically to kill burn in on a single cam system like that you need to move the image around on the display. Those features only come on displays of several thousand dollars. Usually you can just replace a cheapo LCD a couple few times before you get into a thousand dollars much less several. 13" is pretty good sized but most don't have troubles with 8" if it's a look before you open situation.

You can also use a video in on a cheap VCR to get you modulated if you must. At least then you still have a VCR.

Lots of us will build systems to your specs. XP embedded images are somewhat hard to come by as they are very hardware specific. You can hybrid XP and XPe as Rory hinted at, they are very similar just broken down differently. Basically you can run all of the best stuff from XPe on XP Pro if you are geeky enough.

Use a BW bullet and seperate IR, don't go IR on the camera.

For no brains 24/7 recording the Plextor PX-M402U would be a pretty decent idea. Since it encodes to DIVX by hardware it doesn't need much of anything from the laptop. It'll also yeild a much higher quality possibility. I don't own one but I know they do work, well. Many have had them running 24/7 for years now. cachecreekcctv, More helpful stuff. Google for VLC or video LAN, you should be able to use that to stream directly from the Plextor over the net. You will quickly find VLC to be the most capable but also difficult media player, it'll play/transcode/stream just about anything.

You should not use those BNC "T"s, get something to loop out. There is a little more to it then that, Geo makes the assumption you do not want MPEG2 style storage requirements and furthers it in their codecs. Better codecs exist for similar video however there is no CCTV system I know of that really pushes that. I didn't know about looping switchers, this may be even cheaper and provide good quality results. Another option is the Geo loop out card (not too bad $) and a plain old auto switch. Way way cheaper then the 1480 (vs 800 which I prefer), cheaper then the Geo DSP add-on, cheaper then the multi-quad although not nearly as functional either.

I'm not cool with something like that hanging off the back of the DVR so if you use one I suggest putting a cable between it and the DVR. Part of the reason I much prefer the internal Geo options. Also I use the IO! You can do tons of cool stuff with it.

Yes you will probably need an RS232 to RS485 converter, it doesn't have to be Geovision but there is really no reason to use a competitior's. The GVNETIO has the RS232>RS485 plus a couple few IO ports for whatever you might want. It fits into an expansion slot in the case but DOES NOT require a PCI slot available. It does require an RS232 (Serial) port, there is also the USB>Serial adapters if you must.