Soundy

I have VCM-24VFs mounted outside in direct weather... no problems at all. Guess a lot is in the care you take in mounting them. I certainly don't recommend submersing them. BTW, IP66 means, specifically: "No ingress of dust; complete protection against contact." and "Water projected in powerful jets (12.5mm nozzle) against the enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effects." - "Test duration: at least 3 minutes; Water volume: 100 litres per minute; Pressure: 100 kN/m² at distance of 3m" Water running down the wire isn't included...

I think you're thinking of the DBM dome - the VxMs are IP66.

Composite will look terrible - you're scaling the video down to 640x480, then displaying it at more than twice that resolution, probably stretched horizontally. You can get VGA-over-UTP baluns for relatively cheap... or DVI/HDMI-over-UTP extenders for quite a bit more. Or go with ssmith's suggestion.

ICD-835P is the model number of the camera itself. The P/T head is a separate entity - search on "Videmech" turned this up though: http://www.norbain.co.uk/downloads/manuals/P66_(660_new_version).pdf

Motion detection generally just looks for changes in the image, not the type of changes (brightness, etc.). Short of something that gives you video analytics, there's probably not much that can be done about passing reflections - motion is motion.

The closest thing you'll find is probably VLC along with a codec pack like K-Lite... but many DVRs, especially cheaper standalones, use proprietary codecs/compression schemes, and even proprietary file formats that can only be loaded by their own player/VMS. A better idea may just be to create a folder to toss all those player icons into. This is a subject of much ongoing debate, but in general, MPEG4 and MJPEG still have better quality than H.264, so it's a trade-off. H.264 was (at least partially) designed for consumer and HD compression and thus performs best at 25/30fps, but as the framerate drops, so does the benefit. Some manufacturers use proprietary compression that's designed specifically for surveillance use, that claim better compression that H.264 without the loss of quality, such as this one: http://www.3xlogic.com/aztech

Motion detection usually requires fairly sudden changes in a scene to trigger... the movement of the sun should not cause a motion trigger on ANY system.

That's right... and you're not doing them any favors if you let them throw it at something that's not going to perform as expected when it's REALLY needed.

ptzguy, it seems you're missing the point, specifically in regards to this statement: "Also a camera at £50 with 520TVL's is, in my opinion, good value for money and practical for the job in mind. If cost wasn't an issue 600TVL cams would be installed" To be blunt: TVL numbers don't mean $#!t. Saying it's "good value for the money" is meaningless based solely on the TVL rating. How good a value is it if it doesn't have decent noise processing, good low-light performance, or good optics? Cheap junk cameras all look fine with regular daylight under ideal conditions. Search the forum here for the number of people who've bought "good value for the money" package systems from Costco or Maplins, then couldn't get a usable image from them when it really mattered.

We don't do "entry level". The customers who want cheap are the ones who want to nickel-and-dime you to death, want everything done "under warranty" (we've had six-year-old systems killed by lightning strikes, and they want to know if it's covered by warranty ), and demand the most attention, for the least amount of money. We've had prospective customers tell us that they're going to go with the cheapest quote; we thank for them their time, and just walk away. What's the point in busting your hump to come in a few dollars cheaper with your good stuff, than some guy who's selling Chinese junk, putting in all the effort to make it work halfway-properly, and then having to deal with the irritated calls when the cheap doesn't live up to expectations? It's not worth the headache.

Unfortunately, it might be hard to sell the whole assembly for what it's actually worth. The camera is only a small part of the value of that setup; the P/T head and lens are what's really valuable, and you probably don't have the ability to test those (either the controller or the knowledge). Maybe Sean will offer you a good deal?

Yeah I realize what the IR correction is for, but what i meant was that the IR lenses are typically what we call Day Night lenses. Like Tamron have what they call IR lenses, which have IR Correction and adjust for focus shift between visible and infrared light. While Fujinon just calls them Day Night lenses. Question is though, does this also help the DOF focus shift? No. That phenomenon is purely a function of physics: larger aperture = lower DOF. That's nothing to do with IR light. True.... but not overly relevant in this case.

It's been said here many, many times: TVL is only a fraction of the "camera quality" equation, and frankly, it's been "fudged" and abused so much by cheap offshore manufacturers, it's nearly meaningless. I could show you even mid-grade 420TVL cameras that blow the doors off cheap-cheap 600TVL cameras under *all* conditions, not just with "perfect" lighting. You get what you pay for in this business; that's a fact.

The raised sidewalks were what caught my attention - very common for Yaletown.

By "non-IR camera" I assume you mean that the camera's IR cut filter is fixed in place; if so, the answer to your question is yes. Of course, you'll be paying extra for the IR-correction capability of the lens that you'll be unable to use, so it's best to find a non-IR-corrected lens if you can. Although its my understanding they also adjust for focus shift which will still happen on a Varifocal camera used in a day night application even if it has a fixed IR Cut filter? Rory, take a look at that Bosch document I linked above - they describe quite clearly what "IR correction" does in a lens. Nothing to do with "focus shift".

Hey, Alex, that street looks familiar... Neat how you can plug the phone number from the window into Google Maps and get the exact location: http://goo.gl/maps/zHME

I'd just take the lenses, if I had the money - they'd be happy on my Canon 40D

Well, assuming you rate "camera quality" from 1 to 10, given the information quoted here, what you have could be a 1 or a 10 or anything in between. The specs and picture above could be just about any camera. You don't say what you paid for it, so we can't know what the "next level" is. We can't see how good (or bad) the picture is, so we can't define "better". Without knowing the price or image quality, we have nothing to base a recommendation on.

Agreed, just looks like a simple board camera with some IR... or possibly white-light LEDs, I've seen them in an arrangement like that in a video-intercom door station. In any case, should be easy enough to hook up: the video and power share a common ground. Connect a 12VDC adapter or power source to the +12V and GND wires, and an output of some kind (RCA or BNC connector) to the V/O and GND wires - center pin on the connector goes to V/O.

Like dvarapala says, it's pretty simple to extract a stream from an MJPEG camera. For example, with IQEye cameras, the following URL in a browser will give you a single still image: http://camera.ip:port/now.jpg And this will give you the live stream: http://camera.ip:port/now.jpg?snap=push This gives you the stream at one-quarter resolution (each axis reduced by half - so a 1.3MP 1280x1024 image is reduced to 640x512): http://camera.ip:port/now.jpg?snap=push&ds=2 ...and so on. Most cameras support similar command sets. BTW, these URLs also work in some media players, like VLC.

There actual BRAND names on any of those cameras? Specs generally have little to do with actual quality.

You could probably get CNB DBM-24VFs for the same price as the cameras you listed there, or even less... I've seen the VCM models (the vandal domes) go for as low as CDN$160 online; the DBMs are the plastic-case non-vandal indoor types and should be a fair bit less.

The "dynamic contrast" setting is kinda neat! What compression is the Axis using, and what capture card/compression are you using with the CNB?

Depending on how complex the control signals are, could you get away with an IP camera that has alarm I/O? If it's just turning one or two things on or off, this would be easy to do with a number of cameras.

If the cameras are DC-powered, there is no "voltage frequency" for them to draw from. Most electronics of these sorts have their own internal clocks anyway.