Soundy

Looking at the video again, that really doesn't look like the noise is coming from the camera or the cabling - it looks like image corruption IN the DVR... possibly a failing input, more likely a corrupted hard drive or failing compression hardware.

Okay, actually looked at the video... that looks like compression artifacts. Are these true day/night cameras or just cheapies? Offhand I'd suspect the DVR - is it a standalone or PC-based?

Welcome aboard!

It's not just the current capability of the power supply... if the cameras are too far away and/or the wire too small, you'll get voltage loss at the camera. Smaller wire has higher resistance and limits the current available to the camera, as well. If these are 12V cameras and a regulated power supply, then the supply is spitting out JUST 12V... it could be down below 11V by the time you get to the camera... and as others have noted, when the IR kicks in and the current draw increases, the voltage will drop even more. How far are the cameras from the power supply, and what size wire are you using?

I can test it on my WinMo phone, if you want to shoot me the IP in a PM. Really, the OS shouldn't matter as much as the browser.... IN THEORY, if it works on a range of mobile browsers, that probably means it doesn't use ActiveX or anything else proprietary, and should work on almost any browser. My Samsung Omnia has Pocket IE, Opera, and Snapfire (Mozilla-based). IN any case, it looks like you just need to have both ports 80 and 8000 forwarded to the DVR (unless you change those options).

It's a limitation of the SD/MMC spec (MMC - MultiMedia Card - is the original spec that Secure Digital is based on). To get beyond 2GB, a modified spec, SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) was introduced. Problem is, even today, not all devices support SDHC. This same question comes up regularly in photography forums, BTW, from people whose cheap PCs have an SD slot that doesn't support their cameras' SDHC cards. See if the specs list "SDHC" anywhere... SD/SDHC cards normally come pre-formatted FAT32 so they should work out-of-the-box. Probably a cost measure as much as anything else. I know these things aren't particularly cheap... LAN would just add to the cost.

Bullet style may be easier to mount, in your case. I haven't used any of CNB's bullets though, so I can't vouch for them specifically, but if they use the Mona Lisa chip, they should be comparable to other Mona Lisa models. I don't believe so. You have a fair bit of existing light here, and the Mona Lisa cameras work really well with low light. Check out some of the other threads here about them; there are lots of photos and screencaps. In this case, it would be more for better NO-light operation...

Wow, um... okay. There's one very important thing you need to realize here, right off the top: everyone posting and answering questions here is doing so AS VOLUNTEERS, ON THEIR OWN TIME. This is not a fully-staffed professional help desk; this is an assortment of people who work or just dabble in the industry, checking in when they have the time, answering questions when or IF they can, out of the goodness of their hearts. So waltzing in here and in only your second post, accusing other participants of being "reluctant to help" and "lacking in expertise" is really not a good way to endear yourself to the people you would seek help from. If we were "reluctant to help", we wouldn't be here in the first place. Think of how YOU would feel, if you volunteered to help someone with something (say, painting their house, or fixing their car, or moving some furniture)... taking time out of your day, simply out of the goodness of your heart... and then they chew you out because you're not doing it fast enough, or in a manner they like, or in some other way not up to their standards. How inspired would you be to keep helping them? So, you want to know why some questions go unanswered? Well, there are several possible reasons... not the least of which is, maybe nobody HAS an answer. In your case, it just may be that nobody else here knows anything about Honeywell DVRs. Since most people don't sit here on the forum all day, every day, but simply check in a couple times a week, or as their time permits, it's also possible that nobody has seen your post before. When you log in once a week, hit the "New Posts" link, and get a dozen or two threads to look at, it's very easy to miss some... or to start with a couple others and then not have time to get to the rest (again, VOLUNTEERS here, on THEIR OWN time!) Sometimes people simply don't give enough information with their questions. This is not necessarily the case with your other post, but it IS a common problem. When someone comes in and asks, "my camera doesn't work, what's wrong?", well... there's not much that can be said to that without asking a TON of follow-up questions... and again, since everyone here is a volunteer with lives outside this forum, it's sometimes just too much effort to try to extract the needed information to make a proper diagnosis... and so those posts get passed over for something that CAN be answered. Realize too, that the members here are from all over the world. That means a full range of different time zones. It's quite possible that, at the time of day you're posting, the majority of other users are at work... or having dinner... or in bed asleep... or taking their dogs for a morning walk. Personally, right now, it's 4:18AM where I am, and I just got home from a late-night job removing cameras before a site renovation. Normally I'd be sleeping right now. I'm sure others here can think of some other reasons why posts sometimes go unanswered. I don't think you'll find any who disagree with the ones I've outlined above. Certainly, insulting people is not a good way to encourage them to help you. If you spent any time reading this forum, you'd know that, perhaps aside from a select few participants, there is no "bias against newbies and non installers". We understand, we were all newbies and non-installers once, too. In fact, the people who run the forum recently created additional areas specifically for "residential" or home users and DIY (do-it-yourself) installers. Anyway, that's my little rant. I'm very tired and I'm going to sleep now. If I hadn't spent all this time explaining to you how things work around here, I might have had time to actually look at your other post, despite not knowing anything about Honeywell DVRs myself... but you see, my free time is finite. So now your other question will just have to wait. One last word of advice: next time, a simple "bump" of the original post is a much better way to help it get noticed... and asking nicely, rather than "being an arse" and accusing and insulting the people you want help from, is a lot more likely to get you that help in a timely fashion. Cheers! Edit: oh yeah, "So stop being arses and if you can help, help!"?? Really?? You know, that goes both ways - you could try helping first, before giving other people $#!t about not helping you. This forum is here to provide an EXCHANGE of information... NOT just to be YOUR private support line whenever you need it. Wow. Just.... wow. I'm going to bed now before I REALLY get into ripping you a new one.

Looks similar to these, which I use regularly:

"When I enter the address indicated by IPChicken into my browser, it takes me to my Linksys router's home page."

Don't think so - he appears to be hitting his router's config page on port 80.

Hmm, okay, it makes more sense now! Are those parking spaces along the side with the sodium light as well? First thought here is that if you want to mainly watch for people dropping off kids they shouldn't be, you really just need to see the parking stalls, not the whole lot, so you can tighten the view up along the one side of the lot - that will improve detail a lot. If a particular unit is the concern, you could add a second camera with a tighter shot on its door, or even just zoom the one camera in tighter on that door, to catch the activity coming and going there. Check out the VCM-24VF model - I don't know what the difference is between them and the 20VF, but they seem to be the version that's readily available, and the ones we use extensively. You might also look at the VBM-24VF, which is a bit cheaper, and you'll probably want a pendant mount for it to properly attach it to the pole - http://www.cnbtec.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=486

Actually, the DVR card should work as well, IF the software for it supports web access - you could just view it through your phone's browser (well, as long it doesn't require IE). OOoo, that's not good - that means anyone on the internet could access your router's config by just randomly typing your IP. I hope you at least changed the default admin password. Normally if you have external admin access enabled, it will default to a port like 1080 or 8080 - it certainly shouldn't be using port 80. From the photos, it looks like this should work... making sure, of course, that you're specifying the proper port number on your browser's command line (eg. http://108.1.xxx.xxx:8000 - I assume you already have this figured out though, since you say you can access it on your phone's WiFi connection). So we're back to the possibility that the DVR uses other ports besides what you set there for its communication... again, a way to test that is to enter the DVR's IP in the router's DMZ section. You could also try adding the Gateway address in the DVR setup - this would be 192.168.1.1. It SHOULDN'T be necessary, but it won't hurt to try. Use the same address for the DNS entry as well. Hmm, wait... looking at the picture again, there's a separate entry for "http port" in the router settings... port 8000 is likely for the data connection that client software (or a web app) would look for, but the initial web connection would need to be made on port 80, and from the sound if it, your router's config page is snapping that up. Try disabling "remote admin", or changing it to a different port, and then forward port 80 to the DVR, as well as 8000. Or change the router's HTTP port to something else, and forward that to it (maybe 88).

There's no way to do this without using the internet, unless you're prepared to spend well into the five-digit range. IP cameras would let him view the camera directly, but that would still use an internet connection. Your best bet is a DVR with internet viewing capability (either through client software or via browser); you'd only need to set up the router at your place, then at his end, you just install the client software and put an icon for it on his desktop (or if it uses the browser, put a shortcut to the web page on his desktop), and tell him, "Click here to view my cameras". Ideally, you'd want something that automatically connects and displays all cameras when it's started up...

Rather that trying to ID everyone from the parking lot cameras, you might want to consider one wide-view camera for the parking lot, to capture activity, and another that's a tight shot on the main entry door to get the clear face shots. If the door is accessed directly from the parking lot, getting it in a corner of the parking-lot cam would help with the ID as you could correlate the two pictures. Or you could have multiple cameras on the parking lot, so each will have a closer view of at least part of the lot - one in each corner, for example. It's hard to give any more specific advice without some sort of diagram of the layout of everything - parking lot, mounting position(s), building entrance(s), etc.

Probably not. If it's a Linux-based system, it probably uses the ext3 filesystem, in which case you could probably read the drive on a Linux PC, or MAYBE using an ext3 driver for Windows... but that's a big IF in itself. And even IF you manage to read the drive, the video on it may be in a proprietary format that you won't be able to view. I've run into a DVR like this before... the only way to "export" video was to hook up a VCR or some other sort of capture device to the monitor output, then hit record on that while hitting play on the DVR. Not very efficient, but that's to be expected from a cheap system.

You'll need more than one if you want to identify anyone outside of just a small area of the parking lot. Of course not. Built-in IR is usually a cheap hack to compensate for poor low-light performance, and one of the main strengths of the Mona Lisa line is their excellent low-light capabilities. You'll never get enough detail out of an analog camera to identify someone at that distance.

What town is this? There may be someone local to you on the board who can help in person... The catch here is, if you're covering a 75' x 60' parking lot, you're going to need to go megapixel to get enough detail to identify anyone... probably in the 5MP or higher range. That alone will be a pricey camera. Second, nothing with built-in IR will cover that whole area - you'd need to look at external illuminators. HOWEVER... IR will also be of limited usefulness in identifying anyone, as it tends to make people look like zombies with glowing eyes. What does the parking lot have now for lighting? You can use any of a number of lens calculators on the 'net. In general, a 2.8mm lens on a 1/3" sensor will give you just under a 90-degree horizontal field of view. Here's a good site with some examples: http://www.ezcctv.com/cctv-lens-guide.htm Here's a simple but effective online FOV calculator: http://www.sweeting.org/mark/lenses/cctv.php Plug the shortest and longest focal lengths into your calculator... your range of angles will be anywhere between those two numbers. For example, using the above calculator, a 2.8-8mm lens on a 1/3" sensor will give you a range of 81 degrees, down to about 33 degrees. Using the formula in the first link above, and assuming the camera is midway along the 75' side, you'd be needing about a 2mm lens to get the entire parking lot in.

Does it still do this if you disconnect ALL the cameras except one? How about if you disconnect ALL the installed cameras and just plug in one "test" camera? If noise is getting on one of the lines, either through EMI or a ground issue, it could affect all the cameras. Ground issues can manifest as interference that gets worse the more cameras you connect, so disconnecting all but one is a good start.

Ugh... give the n00b a smack upside the head! Quick test: snip all the zaps strapping the cable to the conduit... this should allow it to sag away from the 480V line. See if that doesn't clear up the problem right there. Then you can go back and either re-route it along some lower-voltage (120V) stuff, or to the girders, or use some cable saddles or something to attach it right to the bottom of the Q-deck, away from the 480V.

I've used standard GEM Electronics crimp-on BNCs with plenum RG59 - the trick is not stripping off the outer jacket, so it adds some thickness when you slip the BNC's inner "tunnel" under the braid. Other than that, most connector manufacturers do make versions specifically for plenum/FT6 cable... just gotta check the specs or part numbers. GEM makes a "universal" BNC that comes with three different size ferrules... http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=32&category_id=17&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

Too vague a question. Bandwidth will depend on codec, compression level/image quality, image sharpness, image complexity, image saturation, amount of movement, nature of movement, frequency of movement, framerate, whether the camera does onboard motion detection/analytics (to minimize whether and when it actually sends data), and of course, the actual resolution... Best bet is to try to figure out what the client wants to hear, then pull an appropriate number out of your ass. Then look for a camera that will fall within the requirements.

Just looking at your pictures... is the video Cat5 actually strapped TO the 480V conduit, or just close to it... and if the latter, HOW close? How far does it parallel the 480V for?

Because many times even when the IP address renews it will get the same one it had previously. The modem can go for months without getting a new IP address. It's not truly static though as it can change. Agreed. You don't "need" a static IP *for this to work*. You DO need to either have a static IP, OR use a DDNS service, if you want to be ASSURED of being able to connect in the future. Worst case, the IP changes, and you have to look up the new IP before you can connect again. Not really a big deal. BTW, a static IP from your provider doesn't completely guarantee the IP won't change: our telco/DSL provider here recently made changes to their network structure that resulted in several of our customers having changed "static" IPs. In this case, "static" actually means "reserved", which in DHCP terms means that address from the pool is marked as being permanently assigned to a certain MAC address; however, if the pool itself is reassigned, the reserved IP gets reassigned along with it. Every version of VNC I've ever used has defaulted to port 5900, and 5800 for HTTP. They also allow you to set it to whatever port you want. VNC should require only a single port. I find that difficult to believe. I've worked with dozens of the Westell 2100's and they all had configuration options. To find your modems internal IP address access the Linksys configuration page & click on status. The Default Gateway will be the modems address. Most likely it's 192.168.1.1 or 254. Or it will be a more "random" number that matches what you get from www.ipchicken.com, which means the modem is operating in "dumb" mode. There's nothing that says the modem HAS to provide NAT translation.

I suspect moving the Cat5 away from the 480V will make a BIG difference, even if you just move it by a foot or two.