Soundy

This would be a bit of a crap-shoot, even if it's worked before, because for such a basic concept, there are so many different ways that LCD displays are put together. They operate on a polarizing principle, and some designs use a polarized glass or plastic cover as well, both of which have their own levels of reflectivity and angles of refraction, and all will respond differently to different types of light at different angles. I remember some car stereo models that used to have a black-on-orange LCD display under ambient light, but if it got direct sunlight on it, the display would look orange-on-black. Was pretty neat. Something you could try, before hacking the LCD itself with LEDs, would be modifying the camera itself, replacing the IR LEDs with white or colored visible-light LEDs. Maybe test first with an LED flashlight right beside the camera (disable the internal IR LEDs), and test different colors with filters or colored plastics.

Never heard of it before - it looks very interesting. Optical signal transmission isn't new, although I haven't seen this sort of an implementation before. I would suspect it works fairly well as long as you keep the two units aligned - don't know what the tolerance would be if the car has any "shimmy" to it. Do you know what the pricing is on it?

Welcome! In fact, this site is a great place to start - browse the threads in the areas you're interested in learning about, and feel free to ask stupid questions

This is your problem: the Brooktree company (the "bt" in "bt878") was started by Yankees - direct descendants of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in fact - and the card is now not working just to spite you.

Adam, I think he's using the composite output from the CATV tuner box. Mark, you don't say what this setup is doing (it would help if the video amp diagram showed which line was the input), but it looks to me like you're trying to record the CATV feed on a channel of the DVR, by taking its composite output from the CATV box, and splitting that to the DVR and monitor? Where in the diagram are inserting the isolator? The wavy lines are almost certainly a ground-loop issue, and I'd be willing to bet the CATV box is the center of the problem... not the box itself, necessarily... quite possibly a bad ground on the CATV cable. Remember that all the signal grounds on the CATV box are probably common, so for example, if there's a bad or noisy ground on the CATV cable, that will translate to the ground on its composite output... which would then translate into the common ground on the video amp as well. I could suggest some troubleshooting steps, but clarifying the layout first would help.

Baluns at every camera isn't really an issue - some cameras even have built in, or can be ordered with the option. These days, the cost of Cat5e+baluns is about the same as, or even cheaper than coax+power - at our wholesaler, a 1000' box of Cat5e is actually cheaper than a 1000' box of RG-59; at a local retailer, the two are the same price. Now when you're talking about 500'-1000' runs, is that just within one of the buildings, or are you calculating the full length of a home-run cable pull? If the latter, consider devices like this to transmit between buildings: http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=3272&cid=root http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=3262&cid=root http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=1613s&cid=root (There are 8- and 16-channel versions as well... NVT isn't the only maker of these things, just the first one I came up with). Put one in each "remote" building, with a power supply beside it, and run your cameras back to that (whether coax or Cat5e)... then you can use a minimal number of Cat5e runs back to your DVR location. 16 cameras require only four UTP runs, vs. 16 coax runs - a substantial cost savings. Another option, if you already have network between the buildings, is to feed the cameras in each building into video encoders, transmit everything via network, then record them all to an NVR... although in pricing that option recently, I found it would be cheaper and less complex to just use VGA or lower-end megapixel IP cameras. So that's an option too Plenty of possibilities... lots will depend on your site specifics, actual size/distance/layout of the buildings, desired layout of the system, actual number of cameras, and of course, budget.

I suspect the LCD has glass or plastic in front of it that's reflecting the IR and any ambient light you're throwing at it. If this LCD has its own backlight, you'd be better off finding a way to activate that.

Yeah, a "good" PTZ won't be cheap... and keep in mind, you'll still want one that has auto-iris and WDR, or you'll be right back to the same problem when you zoom out. Plus, you'll need some way to control it - if the DVR supports it, you might be able to use that, although it might not be too convenient. Otherwise, you'd need some sort of joystick controller... which of course, is an additional cost.

Yup, dynamic range is exactly your problem: the camera derives its exposure from looking at the entire scene, but most of the scene is actually fairly dark (the backs of the pews). Put a lot of people in there, especially in their "Sunday best" dark suits, and the camera isn't able to compensate. Zooming in would help... tilting the camera up a bit MIGHT help as well, although probably not enough. Something does does spot or even center-weighted metering would be even better, but those aren't common functions in analog CCTV cameras (some megapixel cameras, like IQEye, let you define exposure zones that would address the situation perfectly). Looks like this camera has probably 3.6 or 4mm lens... something like the CNB VBM-24VFs (if you want a dome) would probably work well, as they're auto-iris, have a really good dynamic-range function (not fully "WDR", but still good), and include a 2.8-10.5mm varifocal lens so you can get in tighter on the stage. CNB has other models that are WDR as well, but I don't use them, so I don't have any model numbers right off the top of my head.

All the colon does (btw, : = full colon, ; = semi-colon) in this position is allow you to specify a port number to use. If you don't, most browsers and programs will assume a certain default port. If you're using http, it will generally assume port 80 (ie. http://71.153.139.72 and http://71.153.139.72:80 are the same thing; ftp://71.153.139.72 and ftp://71.153.139.72:21 are the same; telnet://71.153.139.72 and telnet://71.153.139.72:23 mean the same, and so on). In the case of your DVR, the internal webserver would be "listening" (for incoming http connections) to port 80, and once you're into the web interface, would use the other ports for its various other communications... so sending http requests directly to port 5050 would do nothing, because the webserver itself isn't listening to that port. One other thing: most browsers (particularly anything Mozilla based), if you don't specify a protocol (http, ftp, etc.), will assume http. Internot Exploiter, however, does not: if you're using, for example, port 81 for your second DVR, you would have to use the full "http://71.153.139.72:81"; simply putting "71.153.139.72:81" won't work in any version of IE. Finally, a handy trick that MAY work on your DVR (it depends on the specific implementation they've used in their web interface): you can specify a username and password with the URL as well. Try http://username@71.153.139.72 or even http://username:password@71.153.139.72.

So, if you want to use one central power supply, you can just snip the wires with the barrel plugs off the transformers, and wire them into the outputs on the power can (be sure to check polarity!). One word of warning: using baluns along with a central power supply with a common ground rail, can potentially lead to ground-loop issues, unless the baluns are designed to prevent that, or you're using cameras with their own internal voltage regulator (such as most dual-power cameras).

What baluns are you using? Exact make and model, and/or photos, would be helpful.

Netgear should have similar functionality, although it may be called something different. What model router is it?

The way I'd do it, would be to leave the DVRs all on the default ports, and forward them as needed in the router. So on the DVR, you'd forward "public" port 80 to "private" port 80 at DVR1's IP, and "public" port 81 (for example) to "private" port 80 at DVR2's IP. See this thread for more info: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=23165&start=15

And Raincouver (or the burbs thereof) here.

Just started hosting a couple sites with DreamHost... liking their features and support so far.

That's a limitation of the capture driver, then, and/or of the software itself. Most "true" DVR software will have those settings internally... obviously these apps just use the WDM control options, which in this case are limited. What is your capture device?

Any relation???

You know this thread is 2.5 years old, right? I don't think Stoogman is around anymore; he hasn't posted since Nov. 2008.

This is very common with software-compression capture devices. The software is processing the signal as if it's a color picture; it doesn't know the camera is B&W. Find the Saturation setting (should be in with brightness/contrast/etc.) and dial it all the way down (some software also has an option to set the camera as a B&W type).

We had a bunch of strange problems with some Areconts with Vigil DVRs, which were generally addressed with firmware updates. I'm told Arecont's SDK is a pain in the arse to work with.

Thanks, My memory of doing this with composite was on much smaller size monitors. They were probably 4:3 aspect as well, so they wouldn't have looked stretched.

Vigil systems are available up to D1@960fps - 30fps for each of 32 channels. However, 25/30fps ain't all it's cracked up to be. Check this link: http://www.panasonic.com/business/security/demos/PSS-recording-rates.html 15fps will be indistinguishable from 30 in most cases; most people won't even see the difference at 10fps; even at 6-7.5fps, the video may look a little "jittery", but many people won't notice anything specifically "wrong" with it. Meanwhile, at 15fps, you're generally saving half the disk space over 30; at 7.5, you down to 1/4 the space. (Not exactly, of course; as noted, some codecs handle things differently... but on average, this is the case). Higher resolution at lower framerate is almost always preferable to lower res and higher fps. I don't have a pricelist right handy, but you're generally looking in the $3000-and-up range. As with cameras, though, these aren't comparable to $300 standalone "budget" systems.

Where are you located? Audio surveillance is illegal in some jurisdictions. Only if it's a condenser mic. Use a dynamic, and you won't need to power it, and you shouldn't need a pre-amp. That would depend on the DVR. Many record the audio channel(s) independent of the video channel(s). Some will let you select the audio channel for live/playback independent of the video channel, others allow you to assign each audio channel to a specific video channel(s)...

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