Goose

I'd go with 7 myself. While XP is still an excellent stable OS, the fact is it's about obsolete. Now granted, that doesn't matter a whole with what you're doing, but I've found 7 to be just as stable if not more so than XP nowadays.

A Hikvision subforum seems reasonable. We don't use their software or DVR's, but we do use their encoder cards.

I'm also curious if you guys have had any success with Hikvision cards under Windows 7. My entire server is running with DS-4208HFVI cards and hopefully here soon our entire casino will be upgrading all it's computers to Windows 7(better late than never right?), and I'm definitely going to be snagging some licenses from our main IT guy. I know our software(Airship) works because I've tested it at home, but Hikvision doesn't really specify if the cards themselves do.

Not sure about the codec, but have you tried playing it in vlc?(http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) I've yet to come across a codec or video type that it won't play.

Agree with above go over your restore procedure. My IT department was backing up on a tape drive for years, I brought in our security system contractor in and they said they wouldnt have any temp servers w/tape drives, obviosly we changed our backup method.

 

If you have a/c to cool down your equipment check on its regular maintenance and also test any high temp alarms if you have them. It would not be good to do regular maintenance on DVR's+other equipment and you loose all the equipment because your a/c unit failed.

 

Other lessons learned:

-Check any UPS's if you have any!

-Make sure your electrical outlets are labeled with location of circuit breaker and the circuit breaker in the electrical panel is labeled indicating what equipment is on that breaker.

Out maintenance department does monthly check ups on all the AC equipment and UPS equipment in the Casino. But I hadn't given that any thought, so I'll at least be checking their logs every once in a while.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Name:Airship

Site:http://www.airshipdvr.com/

 

 

This is what we're working with. It's a solid interface.

 

 

 

Hi Goose!

 

You work with Airship? I always wanted to test that software.

The GUI is nice looking and seems good built.

 

 

JD

It is. And very easy to teach, even to people who aren't very computer literate because of it's basicness. Though in some spots I think it's too basic, but it works very very well.

Considering that my previous(and before this only) experience with CCTV digital software was the generic Geovision software, I'm quite happy with this.

Yeah it's a PC based DVR system and the RAID arrays are internal. And it sounds like the stuff I'm already doing is sufficient.

And yeah Christopher, good point about doing drills to make sure things are working as they should. Duly noted.

Name:Airship

Site:http://www.airshipdvr.com/

This is what we're working with. It's a solid interface.

Ok so I'm coming up with a preventative maintenance checklist as a reference for keeping our server up and running.

Our CCTV server contains a rack with 8 DVR's(and an archive DVR), setup in RAID 6 with two workstations.

With a server like that, what would you guys do in the way of preventative maintenance? Either daily or weekly.

Hey folks.

A little bit about myself. I'm a Surveillance Observer/Tech from Washington State and have been working in the industry for going on 7 years.

My manager turned me on to this site, so I figured I'd check it out.