Soundy

Easier said than done?

I haven't used the Mobotix, so I can't comment on its specific suitability for capturing the images you need, but your concept is sound - if you don't need live monitoring or massive amounts of storage (I'm guessing at most, it would be a weekend before someone noticed the theft and went to check the video), then onboard storage keeps things compact and simple. My only concerns would be the security of the camera itself (don't want it to walk off after the materials!), and that the location and angle would provided the needed view (you say the location is third story; will the angle be too sharp to see faces or car plates?)

By "view 200 feet", do you mean that's the width of the area to be covered, or how far away it needs to see? A camera can technically "see" to infinity, but the further away you get, the less detail you get. A wider shot will also mean less detail, so the more area you need to cover, the closer the vandal would have to be to the camera to be able to recognize him. How recognizable does the subject have to be? What is the overall width of the area to be viewed? The specs you listed for a camera mean nothing; they're the most basic to any analog camera and could be any $10 junk camera off eBay. For the coverage you need, you may be looking at megapixel, or using multiple cameras. Take a look at the pictures here for examples of distance vs. clarity: http://www.ezcctv.com/cctv-lens-guide.htm Look at this thread for some more examples: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24549

IF the problem is that the camera's shutter and the monitor's IR are out of sync, then disabling the camera's IR won't change a thing. Rather than starting with hardware hacking, I'd suggest changing the shutter first... takes about 20 seconds through the on-screen menus and is easy to undo if it doesn't help or makes things worse. I'd start with going to the next-slower shutter speed and see if that eliminates or at least changes the nature of the problem - that's a quick way to test if my theory is correct.

VideoInsight, up to version 3, sold their analog and IP server software as separate packages, and the two could be run on separate machines or on the same machine. Beyond that, there are plenty of other "hybrid" systems out there. Exacq comes immediately to mind (I haven't used it, but lots of others here have). Vigil uses the same software whether you're running all-analog, all-IP, or hybrid (they don't sell DIY though). If you're looking for JUST IP software to run separately from your current analog software, VideoInsight versions 4 and up may fit the bill. The only catch you may run into is finding commercial-grade software that will work with your TrendNet cameras, as TrendNet is a bargain-basement consumer brand.

That page says, "You can connect to maximum 4 IP cameras via Turbo NAS and set up a video surveillance system with comprehensive monitoring, recording, and playback features." Again, probably just licensing considerations... especially as QNAP does have other systems designed specifically for NVR use, rather than all-around network storage... But that would really be a question better directed at QNAP.

Wall power is irrelevant - pretty much guarantee there's an internal power supply that knocks it down to ~12VDC. IF the LEDs' brightness is being controlled via duty cycle, it's probably using some internal clock source, not the 60Hz line voltage, and while it may "drift" a little, I think it's more likely that it's just slightly off the camera's shutter speed - for example, the camera may be using a 1/60 shutter speed, while the LEDs are running at 58Hz, which means they would be close to in-sync most of the time, with the odd "burst" that you're seeing. Turning off the camera's IR wouldn't help, as the problem (assuming my theory is correct) is not interaction between the two, but just timing differences between the camera's shutter and the monitor's LEDs. If anything, you'd want to disable the monitor's LEDs.

There's no such thing as a "hybrid card"; IP cameras don't use a DVR card at all: they stream via the network only.

There are several possibilities, but the most likely are that your computer you're displaying/recording it on is just too slow, or your network is choking (it's a LOT of data).

Many NAS systems support direct recording from select cameras... you could see if your ReadyNAS does, find out what cameras it supports, and go with one of those.

Skype?

Regular incandescent bulbs produce IR as well...

No reason it should be any "worse" than red light - it's just marginally longer wavelength. In any case... some designs control LED brightness by varying the duty cycle of the power source - in other words, by flicking the power to them on and off quickly. It's possible, if the monitor's LEDs are being dimmed this way, that they're slightly out of sync with the CNB's shutter. If the CNB has the ability to adjust the shutter speed, try tweaking that.

Software licensing. Most NVRs - whether PC-based, standalone, or NAS-based - charge license fees for the actual software, usually on a per-camera basis, or sometimes on a "block" basis (in 1, 2, 4, 8, 16-camera blocks, etc.). Legacy considerations, mainly, I would think. A number of systems maintain roots in analog DVR designs... Vigil is one PC-based example that uses the same server software whether you're running an all-analog DVR, an analog/IP hybrid, or a pure NVR, so maintaining a "channel number" layout keeps things consistent. I believe GeoVision uses a similar model.

This screams "ground loop". What cameras did you remove, and what are the new ones? Do they both use the same power supply? I bet the old ones were dual-voltage or had internal power regulators, and the new ones don't...

You could run up to four video feeds over a single piece of Cat5/Cat6 cable... although you'd need to get power to them as well. Depending on the cameras and their power requirements, you may be able to pull a single Cat5/Cat6 run to the first camera, and use one pair each for the two cameras' video, and the other two pairs for power. If the power needs are low enough (no IR!) and the cameras support 24VAC, with the relatively short distance involved, the two remaining pairs should be sufficient for powering both cameras.

Drivesitter does a ton of cool stuff, check it out! Free 30-day demo! You can configure it to monitor any SMART parameters and inform you if they exceed any specs you set... if the drive temperature gets too high... if the drive fills up...

An IQEye camera (such as the Alliance series) could address that with its "Cameo" feature, that allows you to define multiple "zoomed" views and access each individually on separate HTTP ports.

There would be several options to control bandwidth, depending on the system used. If the cameras support a sub-stream, you could use that to record at lower resolution/quality (better than nothing!). Or record at lower framerates remotely. Or, as you say, only record certain cameras. A better option, to my thinking, would be to implement some sort of health monitoring to simply monitor whether the NVR is functioning properly, and produce an alarm or warning if something is wrong, so it can be addressed immediately. One of our customers is doing this with their Vigil installs, many of which include Enhance Tech or QNAP NAS arrays: the Vigil VCM app on his office server pops up a warning and emails him (and me) if a camera goes down, if a DVR is offline, if the DVR isn't holding the required number of days of storage (minimum 90 days), if there's no recorded footage within the past 24 hours, or if a number of other error conditions are met, and we're also looking at implementing something like DriveSitter to monitor the health of the internal drives. The arrays are also configured to send an email if any of their drives show imminent failure; since they're all running RAID5 or RAID6, this gives us a chance to swap a failing drive right away, to avoid any data loss.

I think "high price" is a hallmark of "western" brand labels... and with a few exceptions, you're probably paying more just for the name with the likes of Pelco, Bosch, Honeywell, Panasonic, etc. If you need a lower entry point, look at CNB, KT&C, Dahua, etc.

Possible, yes... not even necessarily difficult. Practical, though, is another matter: you not only need enough bandwidth for the camera traffic, but you need to account for the overhead of the VPN itself, which can potentially increase bandwidth requirements by up to 50%.

I can find very little on this camera - I assume from your description, it's a PTZ? Do you at least know if it's using optical or digital zoom? Seeing as you got it off fleaBay, I wouldn't really expect much from it...

This was the only thing I could find for a camera model "HR520": If that's the one... it's no wonder you have problems: it's cheap crap, and the claims of WDR are misleading at best... outright lies at worst. It's hard to tell from the tiny picture, but it does look as if dynamic range is your problem, in which case, you'll want something with GOOD WDR, or at least a good BLC (backlight compensation) function... or at best, something along the lines of a Panasonic SuperDynamic model. If the owner wants to actually IDENTIFY faces, however, you're going to need a much tighter shot, and you'll probably want to aim it at the entry door ONLY - you won't get sufficient detail for a good ID with the wide shot shown in your attachment.

A cable looping back from the serial port to another add-in port doesn't look any more "polished", IMO. Not that looks should matter in the least, unless you're making something that sits in a display case for customers to see. Personally, I find most things that use RS485 will work fine just connected right to the RS232 port - run your wire pair into a DB9 plug with a nice plastic shell and be done with it.