Soundy

Ummm, find where? Online? Retail store? Any computer or electronics or home theater store should have them...

Wow. Better not show him the 'scope tests on the video signal then - wouldn't want him to know that he shouldn't be happy with a non-perfect setup!

Yup! That's all an NVR is - something that records video from a network stream. Doesn't have to be big and fancy. Correct. Adding more IP cameras later would just involve plugging them into the network, and configuring them in the NVR. They don't have to plug into the same switch, they just need to be on the same network. In fact, I currently have an old router set up as a wireless bridge on my network, and have two IP cameras plugged into that. Not necessarily. You could also use a "video server" device with them, and put them on the network as well.

^Not to confuse the issue, but those numbers may vary a bit as well, depending on the camera... ie. a dual-voltage camera that will work at 12VDC/24VAC, will usually work over a range of voltages, and some I've seen will actually work at anything from 10-28V, AC or DC... so especially with a 24VAC supply, those would be forgiving of a significant drop over a longer distance. BTW, 1A is a LOT of juice for a single camera... most run well under half an amp, even with IR. Also, a dual-voltage camera that draws 1A at 12VDC would only draw about 500mA at 24VAC, which would increase the usable distance as well.

Right. So you'd need a decoder to convert that digital signal back to analog to feed to your DVR. But as Rory notes, that won't be cheap, so unless there's a particular need to feed a camera over the network, or the boss is into spending the money just to experiment, it won't be a very cost-effective exercise. Back to the original question, "is there a way to connect ip cameras to an embedded/standalone dvr?" - as with much else, the answer is, "it depends". Some embedded DVRs DO have IP camera support, so it would depend on the actual unit you have. It would also depend on whether it has support specifically for that camera (or video server, in your case).

It's a common rule of thumb in the photography world, that "prime" (fixed focal length) lenses tend, in general, to be cleaner and sharper than zooms (notwithstanding the ultra-pricey high-end professional zooms), and that shorter-range zooms (like a 70-200mm, which is about a 3X factor) tend to produce better output than similar-grade long-range zooms (like a 28-300mm, or a 10X zoom factor). The larger the zoom, the more compromises that need to be made in the design to keep things compact and usable. I haven't seen any real qualitative tests, but I would imagine the same holds true for CCTV lenses - larger zooms are more convenient and versatile, but I'd expect them to make the same sort of compromises of quality (unless you spend big bucks).

What's to be confused? Higher resolution, more data, more space required... No, you don't necessarily need to reduce the resolution... you could reduce the framerate, or you could increase the compression level (with lower quality). Or depending on the DVR, you could use a different compression. It's going to depend somewhat on the codec the camera uses, vs. the codec the DVR uses... if it's an H.264 camera and the DVR is using MPEG4 or MJPEG, you may find the MP cameras use less space than the analog ones. Naturally the "percentage" of additional space usage depends a bit on how "large" this "large analog system" is already - if you have 50 analog cameras going as it is, adding two MP cameras would barely make a dent. But on the whole, your best bet will probably be increasing the drive space, as more cameras will always take more space anyway.

We use the Cisco SFE1000P extensively - eight 10/100 PoE ports and two GbE/miniGBIC ports. They're 1U, half-width, fanless, and been rock-solid for us. They retail around here for about $300. For more ports than that, there's the SFE2000P, which has 24 10/100 PoE ports and four GbE ports, two of those having miniGBIC option. Retail here is around $600. I haven't used these yet (haven't had the need) but based on the 1000P's performance, I'd be happy to give them a shot too. These are great for cameras because pretty much all current cameras are only 10/100, so we save a bit over going with an all-gigabit switch (the SGE2000P, for example, is almost $1000, for 24 PoE gigabit ports). The two gigabit ports are perfect for connecting a DVR/NVR, and a NAS array.

Wouldn't recommend it unless there's specific benefit to using flash memory (eg. mobile systems, etc). Besides the WIDE variations in actual performance from one model to the next, flash memory is known to have a finite life of read/write cycles. While there's much debate over the realistic usable lifespan, for the cost/capacity point, I don't know that I'd want to risk it.

How "damaged" is it?

I don't know much (okay, anything) about GV's product lineup, but I can't imagine it would be that big a deal to add six IP licenses to your existing GV installation.

I believe Rory has some shots in another thread showing a VBM-24VF with the IR from another camera... seems to work pretty well. However, if you already have a motion-activated floodlight, you probably don't need the IR - the camera will already see quite well in low light, and the flood light kicking on could well to enough to switch it back to day mode (depending how bright it is and how it's aimed).

Okay, that makes more sense Most better DVRs don't have this limitation. I know with a Vigil, I can export any timeframe I want to a single file, up to the limitation of the filesystem. As a test, I just exported *two days* (actually, two days and one hour) of my front-porch camera, D1 @ 10fps, and generated a file just over half a gig (yes, only 500MB) in about 5 minutes. Granted that's motion detect, but with the public sidewalk and a bit of the street in frame, it does see quite a bit of motion... and it's a B&W camera, so it takes probably one-quarter the space that color video would. At those specs, you could take it all back to the office on a flash drive... dump it to your RAID, then use the drive again for the next day's video. As a point of interest, I had a camera set up for a while to do a time-lapse sequence, 1 frame every minute, at 1.3MP... just looked at an export I'd done of that a while back, 10 days' worth, came out to just under 2.5GB. Thanks, that was an original - I get residuals if you use it

^And sometimes you just have to do what's necessary. In a perfect world we'd all have unlimited budgets for the best cable and components. In a perfect world we'd all be able to use fiber for those 600m runs. In a perfect world there would be multiple 2" conduits between floors or between buildings, pre-strung and nicely labelled on both ends for easy upgrades. Alas, most of us don't live in that perfect world, so we have to MAKE things work, even if they shouldn't... to coin a phrase, we have to play the hand we're dealt; we can't just sit around wishing for four aces.

Would be interesting to take a look at their technology and see what kind of system they're using. I can think of a couple possibilities... When I worked in car electronics, some alarms used a glass-break sensor that was essentially just a microphone in a housing tuned to a certain frequency band - a noise of sufficient level within that band (corresponding to the frequency generated by breaking glass) would generate an output sufficient to trigger the alarm input. You could use a similar concept, feeding the mic into an op-amp comparator, and adjusting the input trigger level as needed. Something else that MIGHT work would be a piezo pickup - a buddy once made a set of "cymbal" pads for an electronic drum kit using these: he cut out a plywood disk, glued a Frisbee or plastic container lid to the top, and attached a piezo pickup to the bottom. Hitting the "cymbal" would cause the piezo to generate an output voltage that triggered the input on the drum brain... in you case, it could be used to trigger an op-amp comparator as well. You'd just need to attach it to some sort of diaphragm that would respond appropriately to the gunshot sound... alas, I have no idea what that would be.

Vegas is primarily a video editing/compositing application... similar in target market to Premiere, Final Cut, etc. (although quite different in functionality - I prefer it to Premiere, personally). It can record from a most WIA-compatible devices, but as Rory notes, it's not really designed to record surveillance video 24/7. And as Rory says, MOST computers DON'T have a video input... the ones that do (Media Center machines and such) are usually using a separate card for it. DVR cards have several differences specific to the purpose... such as multiple inputs (4/8/16, commonly), usually one or two outputs... some support alarm inputs/outputs... some have multiple channels of audio input as well. BTW, the inputs on DVR cards AND the composite input on your media machine, all accept analog cameras...

Images Per Second. Generally used interchangeably with FPS (Frames Per Second), although that's not technically accurate. When a DVR lists specs like that, remember that that number (120 IPS) is split across multiple inputs and usually refers to the maximum for ALL inputs combined. NTSC video spec is 30fps; PAL is 25fps. That's the specification for the video itself and no electronic trickery in the DVR will improve on that.

You are correct. Compression is not the primary function of these cards; digitizing analog video is. Some cards then compress that video, but some systems do the compression in software. This person is either lying to you, or doesn't know what he's talking about. Either way, you should stop talking to him. Either that, or send him in here to explain himself

Well said. I've done a few balun-over-UTP installs that showed noise issues. I've also done some that were crystal-clear. In fact, my very first time using baluns was not over UTP, but over station-Z wire, and it looked better than any of the other existing or new cameras on the site that were using RG59 (and before anyone says it's the camera, note that the cameras using the baluns were the same National domes as we added elsewhere with RG59). In this particular case, we had a customer that wanted four cameras installed over their gas pumps... but all we had available was a pair of 1/2" conduits to get there. We told them they could have two that WOULD work well (the most RG59 that would fit through that pipe) , or four that MIGHT work, but MIGHT also be noisy, using station wire for video and power. The customer opted for four, so we pulled four runs of station (one pair for video, one pair for power)... and had horrible EMI noise. We were about to remove the station and go to two coax/station runs (we normally use doubled-up station for power alongside coax), when I noticed the baluns at our supplier... at $35 each, they were a spendy option for a cheap customer, but we got a pair to try out... and they were just stellar, way clearer than the other coax-connected cameras. So we got three more sets, and the customer was happy. And as in the above example, they give more options where space or available wiring is limited. I've used them in a number of other sites as well, where I had to use existing wire as it would be impossible to pull new wire between floors. Well the other thing is, unless you compare side-by-side, how do you know if coax won't have problems in a particular instance either? I've inherited a number of sites with really noisy coax - some is aluminum-shielded RG6, some is cheap RG59, some even RG58... some just have bad grounds, bad connectors, any number of other issues... coax surely isn't immune to problems either. We just finished another site where we had limited space available (a single 3/4" PVC conduit) to get two analog cameras and one IP camera out to a car wash. We opted for three Cat5e runs - one to carry the two analog cameras, one for the IP cam, and one spare (because someone ALWAYS wants to add something later - rather be looking at it than looking for it!). And yeah, those runs have a bit of noise in them. Considering where they're running and how the power is set up between the two buildings, I'm frankly not surprised... and fully expect that RG59 could have similar issues as well.

There are still some systems that run power-over-coax, but they're few and far between...

Hmm, I'm not sure I follow this part... you want to do 24/7 just for the first year and then cut back, or you want to store a year's worth of 24/7? The former is easy... the latter will require a TON of disk space. Okay, this gets trickier... most DVRs store video in a proprietary format, and most that I've dealt with do it with tons of little short oddly-named files, which means you wouldn't be able to just take the recording drives with you for viewing (well, you could, but it would be a PITA to go through). What you'd probably be looking at, is plugging in an external drive, and exporting the day's video, yes? Of course, if you're doing that EVERY DAY, you could potentially save on on-site storage - you could just buy a ton of external drives, and keep those for your long-term archive, and have the DVR just retain a week or two (assuming you want that full year of retention). Or have the mass storage (large RAID array) at your office, so you bring the external drive back, and then back it up to the office array. This is probably desirable anyway; if you're spending the money to "do it right" then you should probably spend a bit extra to make sure your data is safe H.264 will compress better and give you smaller files. However... Well, one question would be, are you planning or considering using megapixel cameras for any of this, or is analog sufficient? If you're wanting partial megapixel, you'll need to consider a hybrid DVR. Would the surveillance cameras be existing ones that you're adding into the system? I could do all this with a Vigil system - which is where the "however" comes in: their latest systems all record in H.264, but they also have a proprietary codec called Aztech (variation on MJPEG) that can compress MJPEG video as much, or in some cases more, than H.264. I'd probably set it up with a local RAID array for storage, since 24/7 recording at full quality is going to eat up lots of space (we use QNAPs, they work well). I'd have to look into it, but it should be possible to configure it so the "fish cams" have priority to the space over the surveillance cameras (so if things fill up, the surveillance cameras start to recycle footage first, so you don't lose space for the fish cams). In almost all cases, yes. Most systems (including Vigil) will, or can, export a player with their video. Some can even create a self-running export - video and player embedded in one file.

Impossible to say based on just that info. *All else being equal* the 540TVL camera will have higher resolution and better image... assuming the listed TVL specs aren't "fudged" (many are, with cheap manufacturers). However, all else is rarely equal... many other factors can have an effect on the image: - The brand and type of sensor - The size of the sensor - The supporting electronics (image processing) - The quality of the lens - The quality of the glass/plastic in the housing

yes thanks that what i wanted would this cable be suitable? if not why? That MIGHT work... my experience with that sort of cheap workaround is that they tend to be iffy at best (now that I think about it, I MIGHT have tried something like that many years ago, and found it didn't work at all). You could try it, but I'd be willing to bet the even if it works, it won't be satisfactory; you'll end up needing the active splitter anyway, and will have just wasted the money for that cable.

I doubt they would intentionally set a size limit... more likely, just used a controller or supporting firmware code that at the time, had a limitation to it, similar to the LBA48 issue. It might be something that's addressable through a firmware update... or not, if the limitation is in the hardware. I have yet to see a surveillance DVR that records its footage straight to optical disc - they're pretty much universally there for backup/export of video. I have NO idea. Everything so far is just speculation and educated guessing based on the DM brochure, and just general experience with a variety of systems. Best course of action, I think, is talking to DM support directly. It might help to ask for second-tier/second-level support, though, since if they're like a lot of larger outfits, their first-level support guys are probably mostly just reading off troubleshooting scripts and aside from a select few, aren't all that bright.