Soundy

Port saturation is a good bet... there's also a good chance the switch itself can't handle the traffic. I'd suggest trying a Cisco SFE1000P switch - 8 10/100 PoE ports and two gigabit ports. Make sure your PC has a gigabit NIC as well.

Vigil systems specifically don't allow SMB network shares as data drives, because they're too problematic (drives dropping off or not reconnecting at startup; failed connections have no retry/recovery procedure, etc.) We've been using QNAP and Enhance arrays with iSCSI on them, though... works great. We tried an Synology once, but it didn't support iSCSI at the time... they do now, with the latest firmwares, so you should be fine.

They should accept Pelco D/P protocol from pretty much anything that can send them, as long as the comm parameters match up (baud rate, ID number, etc.). We've used a number of Spectra II, III, IV, and Esprit cameras just running straight off the 9-pin serial port of Vigil PC-based DVRs. I've also controlled a Pelco Esprit using PTZ Controller software on my laptop, with a generic USB-to-serial adapter.

I'm sure if he sent us each an "evaluation" model, we'd all be very impressed with them and more than happy to re-sell them to OUR customers! Just think of the potential sales!

"DVI-A" is something of a misnomer... it stands for "DVI-Analog"; adapters that support it are basically just using some of the otherwise-unused pins in the DVI connector to provide standard VGA analog signals. The kicker is, "DVI" itself stands for "Digital Video Interface". So "DVI-A" (Digital Video Interface - Analog) is sort of an oxymoron, while "DVI-D" (the second D is also for digital) is redundant Anyway, glad you found a suitable workaround

Looks like it - good detective work! They look like some very basic low-end H.264 cards, based on the listed specs (CIF resolution only, max of 25/30fps across all channels). You should have no problem getting the system up and running again with a fresh install of OS and software, but you might be doing your client a favor by suggesting an upgrade to a better system (Geovision or similar) that will give higher-quality video.

4. Get the mortar guys back to redo the job right, and then let them and the super fight it out over who pays for the extra work (hint: it WON'T be you). Actually, that might not be the case... how big is this job? Is this a well-known construction contractor? Were the boxes on the plans? And if not, were change controls being used? If you requested these boxes through the proper procedures, and they were on the plans, then it means either the GC or the bricklayers messed up, and should fix their work; you shouldn't be responsible for trying to find a solution.

Well, it really depends on the notebook. Some of them, the mic input will ONLY work with a mic, not a line source. You may need to go into the mixer and turn up the mic input, or select it as a source. Newer sound cards/chips actually allow you to define any jack as an input or output, and some will auto-detect what type of device is plugged into it... it may be detecting your feed wrong and configuring it as an output. Really hard to say with just this, because there are so many possibilities.

And on top of it all, you have that arctic cold to deal with now...

Depending on how the OUT port is wired, you may be able to just connect the camera to that (using the appropriate RCA-to-BNC adapter). If it's a straight loop-through, it should work.

So... you're trying to use your notebook to listen to the audio from your DVR? Seems to me you'd normally just do this via the remote client...

[FAQ] How can I expand the GV-System to have more video inputs? ftp://geo-demo-japan.dipmap.com/FAQ/Hardware/capture_card_hardware_upgrade-v-j.pdf

I'm sure you could... question is, what do they want to pay for it? Sure, you can sign up for a multi-year contract and get the hardware free, with most providers... but how much data does your package include, and what is it going to cost if you go over that? I scored a great deal when I got my smartphone - $15/mo. unlimited data (tethering not included) on an EVDO rev.A network... but that's a rarity. Same provider now will give you a whopping 500MB/mo. for your $15.

Yeah, don't think you'll see wireless catching up to hardwired anytime soon... keep in mind that as wireless gets faster, so does wired. This is the current top-level *residential* offering from my cable ISP: Catch it's, it's $150/mo., on top of your regular cable... but dayyyaam!

My understanding (not 100% confirmed, BTW) for BC is that "public" audio recording is legal, but will not be admissible in court as evidence unless there was signage to the effect. The Canadian Criminal Code includes an interesting bit: In other words, audio surveillance is illegal UNLESS one of the parties of the conversation is aware of and consents to the recording... which means you can legally record your own conversations without informing anyone else involved. Whether that's still admissible in court is another matter, of course. BTW, the MA stuff, I found from here: http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=13492 - includes links to the different states' legislature sites, as well as a summary of federal statues.

http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section99

That depends... do you know what you're doing? Personally, I'd charge about $1500-$2000, but that includes accommodations and travel from the west coast...

As thewireguys notes, you should also check the legality of audio recording: in many jurisdictions, just doing so is illegal. In others, it's illegal unless you have signs up notifying people that it's in use. In still others, it's legal, but invalid for evidence unless there are signs... and so on. And regarding background noise like HVAC... remember that over time, people tend to "tune out" background noise and common, repetitive sounds - heck, we live 100' from the train tracks and except when I have to turn up the TV, or when the freights are shunting in the intermodal yard about a kilometer down, I don't even notice the trains going by. The mic, on the other hand, WILL pick up those noises you don't even notice anymore, and you won't be able to tune them out of the recording so easily (the human mind is a strange beast).

You should be able to connect the MAIN MONITOR output to the composite video input (usually a yellow RCA jack) on most any TV. You'll probably need something like this:

http://www.crownaudio.com/mic_web/pzm.htm Keep in mind, a mic in the middle of the room is going to pick up ALL the room noise; if you're expecting to catch conversations at the register or something, forget it, unless it's right on the counter. It's not like a camera where you can zoom in later on one area; it's not like CSI where you can load up some software and extract a couple of voices clearly with a few mouse clicks.

Just a totally random guess, but could it be a setting to allow "x" seconds of movement before it triggers motion recording?

Hmmm, neat toy, but I don't think I'd sell it as a "replacement" for a proper remote client. Slow to load, super-fuzzy (looks like it's severely downscaled for transmission, then up-scaled again for streaming), and non-interactive.

I was about to suggest we all sign up and weigh in It may be too late for that; it looks like the thread had been deleted. Awww man... I hope somebody grabbed a screenshot of that, that was some epic fail right there.

Still sounds like a lot of extra work, going back and forth between two apps.

You might first try looking at the live serial data in a terminal program (HyperTerm, etc.), make sure you're actually getting legible information. From there, whatever you have receiving and interpreting the data - your RS232-to-IP box, in this case - has to be able to read and parse what the POS is sending it. If the POS puts a TAB after every item on a line, but the interface is looking for a CR, that sort of thing could be the root of your problem. Most POS interfaces just want plain ASCII with little formatting... I don't know about your registers specifically, but try seeing if they have an option to format output for a "Polewatcher" device - that will be about as plain-jane as you can get. Of course, then you have to tell the converter box that that's what sort of data to expect from the register. I can't speak for the box you're using, but when I set up a Honeywell SmartPIT text-inserter box, it allowed the user to customize the parser configuration to any format desired. It also had a function, in its web-based admin interface, to capture the incoming data to a file, that you could then email to Honeywell, and they'd send back the necessary config file (I only had to do this once; I had a working config for a Squirrel terminal within two hours). Might be something to investigate...