Soundy

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Toys toys toys! Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard!

A single Cat5 pair is WAY too small to run PTZ over, let alone the heater. According to the calculator here: http://www.netkrom.com/voltage_loss_over_cat5_calculator.html at 150ft. and the full 1.5A, you're dropping 5.7V. Even at 50' and using 1A for JUST the camera, you're dropping 1.2V on a single pair. Using a second pair will cut the losses in half, but I'd still recommend using AT LEAST 18/2 for the power.

Okay, I got the impression the remote monitor you're trying to send video to had VGA input as well as composite. Alas, if it only has composite in, you're limited to what the monitor will display, no matter what you do. With LCD monitors, that tends to look particularly poor due to the square, well-defined pixels. Yes... that is the whole point: it will take your full-resolution VGA signal (some models, I believe, do up to 1600x1200 or even higher) and generate a composite/s-video output... which gets around the limitations of your video card that apparently won't do over 640x480 to its S-video output. The VGA output on the Averkey is just a loop-through. (Note: the Averkey is designed to do more than that - it will let you do things like freeze the display and zoom in on portions of the screen... it's meant mainly as a presentation device). The VGA baluns are used simply to extend a VGA signal over UTP, instead of using a long VGA cable... so either way, ultimately, if you want higher than 525 display lines, you need to go to a monitor with VGA input, and get the VGA signal there one way or the other. S-video doesn't improve the resolution AT ALL - all it does is send the luma and chroma (brightness and color) portions of the signal separately, which generally allows for a sharper display IF the display device support S-video in. Re-combining them into a composite signal provides no benefit, no matter if it's done at the sending or receiving end. Won't work; you can't simply "merge" video signals. Hmmm.... I'm not sure I entirely follow; the "stream of consciousness" style is a bit confusing. Here's what it boils down to: composite NTSC video is limited to 525 lines; your standard composite video is typically 480 interlaced lines ("480i" in modern marketing parlance). That's the most you have to work with if you're going to ANY monitor's BNC input, regardless of your source, regardless of your transport method, period, end of story. Anything higher than that is going to be downscaled somewhere along the way. If you want higher-than-VGA resolutions from your DVR, you have to use a monitor with a VGA input (or HDMI or DVI, which I mention only because someone else is sure to bring it up... but extending those to >100' is REALLY bloody expensive, so it's not worth mentioning in context of this discussion).

Going VGA-to-composite won't improve anything over S-to-composite... the composite signal is still your weak link. An Averkey will allow you to run higher resolutions, but the composite signal will still be your weak link - you'll get finer details, but they'll just look fuzzy, as video signal is still limited to 525 lines. (BTW, I've used the ATI cards, you CAN get the driver to display higher res out of the S-video port... but again, your actual display resolution is still limited to NTSC spec). So... going VGA all the way is the way to go. No, taking VGA 100' won't be cheap. It doesn't need to be THAT expensive, though - a retailer here has 100' shielded VGA extensions for just under $100. PITA to run that cable though - a UTP extender is definitely more efficient to install.

You need something like an Averkey interface... a mere cable won't do the trick.

That makes a heck-of-a lot more sense. I kept asking him, are you serious? Static accumulates in the wire? He said to turn it around and it will reverse the static. I don't know if this is an official AT&T procedure or not. I suppose if you reverse the cable then you will knock off some of the corrosion, but it would have been easier to unplug and replug each end. Best, Christopher Wow. Umm.... really? Wow.

Most of what you want to do is easy, but not so much when try to you put them all together. I say "most" because your biggest problem is going to be finding something that will give you the 10-15s delay. Surveillance DVRs are generally designed to display live video, and to allow search and playback of recorded video as a separate process... 15s timeshifting isn't really a design criteria, and I can't think of any that would really do it. What might work better is a home-entertainment type PVR, the kind you'd hook up to your cable or satellite, to allow you to record TV shows and "pause live TV". That would make it easy to pause the live feed for 10-15s (or whatever time offset you want), then resume the feed with the introduced delay. This could easily be done with a PC and some software like SageTV, Beyond TV, or even Windows Media Center... or using a cable or satellite PVR. The trick then, is finding one that can accept input from an HD camera. Most of the cable/satellite type units (all of them I've seen, anyway) only record their own received feeds. I'm sure they exist, though. As for powering the camera over the signal wire, you can do that with an IP camera using PoE (power over ethernet), but that wouldn't work with your time-shifting PVR; you generally require a computer to receive and display the megapixel image. You could potentially do it with a basic PC driving a VGA monitor, and do some custom coding with a camera's SDK to display the time-delayed video. I know IQEye cameras have some small command-line utilities that may do what you want. You could probably also use something like VLC to receive an MJPEG or H.264 stream and replay it with a time delay.

Welcome aboard! Plenty of other "old dudes" hereabouts, you'll fit right in.

Yeah, this is a pretty broad topic... If you're monitoring or recording audio, there may be legal considerations, depending on where you live. Best to look into that first. If you're looking to only SEND audio to the camera, that shouldn't be an issue. Some cameras do have built-in speakers, but they'll tend to be very small speakers, so they won't be very loud. In analog cameras, they also tend to be the purview of the really cheap all-in-one systems. Either way, you'd need an extra pair of wire to feed audio to them. As thewireguys suggests, there are probably more IP cameras that have built-in audio, since once you're digitizing video for transmission, it's easy to add audio to the signal.

You won't find many CCTV cameras that do HDMI, since HDMI cables are typically limited to a maximum of 15m length... that's impractical for most types of installations. You'd probably be better off with a consumer camcorder in this instance.

Dunno where you get that, I've been using it for outdoor installations for years... direct exposure to wind and rain, no problem. I wouldn't submerse it, but it has no problem with weather.

I believe it sequences through cameras, and will let you choose which camera(s) you want it to use... meaning you could select just one. Not a problem at all - most people provide little or no usable information, and when asked specific questions in an attempt to determine details, only give half-assed info, leading to a lot of back-and-forth and guessing. Witness an extreme case here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23463 Mostly because BNC connectors are used mainly on "professional" grade equipment... it's not more expensive because of the connectors, it's because the connectors are relegated to higher-end displays that are inherently more expensive. The cheaper option is:

Yeah, at first glace, the *math* looks scary, but it's really just a table look-up, which can be done in a couple seconds. Great on the bench... not so handy in the field, unless you pack a smartphone or want to carry a printed copy of the table. Far more convenient to just carry a light meter and read the dial...

The PVC should be completely water-tight if you glue the sections together with proper PVC solvent. To right-angle down the post, you could use this: Or this: Or use ENT (electrical non-mechanical tubing): Or use Liquidtight tubing and fittings... you could terminate the pipe with one of these: Then thread in one of these: Add another to the camera housing, and connect with the flexible tubing.

Tom, the "alarm box" he's using WILL do what he needs it to: From what I gather, he already has this part working: motion on a camera triggers an output relay on the box to turn on the sirens. His problem is that he only wants it to work during certain hours, and the DVR doesn't have the ability to set a schedule for the alarm trigger; it's active all the time.

That's a cheap no-name card... I have no idea what other software might work with it. There's a good chance it's designed to only work with the software provided with it, so you're probably looking at a new card as well. I know for certain that Vigil will do what you want, but they're sold only as a complete turnkey system (you can't buy the card and/or software separately). Geovision should do it as well, but they're not particularly cheap (at least not compared to the card you have). Someone else might be able to suggest another software that will work with the card you have and do what you want. Personally, I think simply putting your siren and/or alarm-box power on a plug-in timer will be far easier and more cost-effective, allowing you to use what you already have. If you need a more complex schedule, just use a better (digital) timer. tom: from what I gather, he's not using PIRs, and he's not using the inputs on the box... he's using the output(s) to control his sirens, and he wants to trigger them based on motion detected on the DVR, but only during certain hours.

There are other DVR software packages that will do what you want, but it's not likely any of them will work with the card you have.

Right. If your keyboard/joystick or DVR already do Pelco D or P, you don't need it.

You could have explained all this right off the top and saved a LOT of time... Anyway, how about if you get a basic plug-in household timer, something like this: http://tinyurl.com/37pdz8y Plug the power for the relay box into that, and set the timer to only turn it on during the hours you want the alarm to be active.

^I was gonna say that!

Some DVRs also allow you to plug in a USB game joystick, gamepad, or even a flightstick, and use that to control attached PTZs

Not knowing that software, I can only give generic advice, but... You'd want to wire the power to the siren in series with one of the NO (normally open) outputs of the relay box... so, from the + wire of your power supply, to the + terminal of a siren; then from the ground wire of the siren to the common of one box output; then from the NO terminal of that output back to the ground wire of the power supply. Then you'd connect the box to the PC, and tell the software to use that box and trigger the given output when it detects motion. That's about all there is to it...