Soundy

I'd double-check with the mfr. before getting a bigger card... unless it supposed SDHC, 2GB will be the max. Still, with the B&W, video/images should be anywhere from 1/5 to 1/10 the size of color.

Probably wouldn't be hard for an electrician to add one of these to the circuit. Pretty much all of them fit in a regular single-gang space. They're designed to replace a standard light switch. I have one in my back-door foyer and one in the guest bathroom. I can't speak for the specific one I linked you (I just did a Google search) but many of them DO have light sensors as well, and will only turn on below a darkness threshold that you can set. They also have user-settable off timers. That one was just for illustration... there are lots of different versions out there. If it's workable, it would probably make more sense to just use the existing lighting (not to mention, it would look a lot cleaner).

My guess would be technical reasons... processing power required to compress H.264 at higher resolutions?

I found that the ability to manually set the minimum shutter speed was very useful to balance this out... interestingly, I also installed some Arecont box cams (don't recall the model) on the site that gave me a wider range to adjust the shutter speed - the 3155s allowed you to enter up to 10ms; the others up to 80ms, and I found 40ms to be about right for my needs. I emailed Arecont to ask about firmware update to address this; they simply sent me a little command line snippet to add to the browser (so like, http://camera.ip/shutter=40... not that exactly, but you get the idea). That was nice, because it made it a lot quicker to update all the cameras without needing to go through their config pages (which, incidentally, suck as well).

How about just putting something like this on the regular house lights in those areas? http://www.lightinguniverse.com/products/?tid=557&psku=6191273&af=1582

Dude. Seriously... three screws, one straight-on, two at angles, all three tucked out-of-the-way so you have to change the camera position to access them all... just to unlock and adjust the backfocus?? is CRAPPY design. Needing THREE different Allen keys to loosen/lock all the camera adjustments... is just CRAPPY design (even if they are kind enough to include the three drivers with the camera). I've been told by one NVR developer that their SDK is a major PITA to work with, too.

Check this thread: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21982&hilit=aztech Probably reading some of my posts In fairness, don't discount Arecont outright, they do work quite well once installed (at least the AV3155DNs I've been using do), and ideally once you pull your hair out getting them installed and set up, you shouldn't have to do it again

"Images per frame" means nothing - one image = one frame. The amount of motion will still make a difference, even with continuous recording. Depending on the codec used, in general, less motion means less data, as most of the time the compression is looking only at what has changed from one frame to the next. Little or no motion means little or no change, which means that frame requires very little data. Light AS SUCH won't matter much... COMPLEXITY of the scene will. A solid grey wall can be compressed a LOT... a random multi-color pattern cannot.

How much traffic is through this area? 2GB MiniSD, combined AIR and VMD triggering... should be able to get substantial record time.

Those sort of cheap wireless cams have horrible transmission quality and near-useless range (or lack thereof).

What's your budget range? Vigil will do what you want, but it's a bit on the pricier side compared to the standalones you're looking at.

Hey Rory, how much does this thing really need to record, and how unattended does it need to be? I'm thinking, why not just a covert camera (PIR-type, perhaps) with onboard storage... something like this? http://www.vdomain.com/products/memocam/default.asp Four versions - color 1.2 megapixel, low-lux (0.003 B&W), standard B&W, and standard VGA color: No wiring required other than a power feed... just record to the internal card... stop by now and then (or have someone trustworthy stop by) to swap it out for another if you need to record for long periods. Or depending on what sort of incidents you're trying to capture, if you'll know within a short time period that the incident has occurred, you don't even need massive amounts of storage.

a ptz does not have to be on tour all the time. but it is the best camera type for a carpark. its just good to have the option of a moving camera when needed. Ah, but that's still only useful when someone is sitting watching the camera. I've done lots of pub and restaurant installs, and my experience, in their parking lots, that's not likely to ever happen - the staff have more important things to do, and none of them are going to pay someone just to sit there and monitor the cameras (they'd be more likely to pay a security guard to simply patrol the lot on foot). The main thing parking lot cameras are used for is a general replay of any incidents - one car backing into another and driving off, perhaps a fight... you don't need exceptional detail to see what happened, and the make, model, and maybe color of involved vehicles, so one or two basic wide-angle cameras are generally sufficient. With the amount of area you need covered, facial recognition or license plates are going to be unattainable anyway unless you're using something with SUBSTANTIAL resolution, or a much greater number of cameras zoomed on smaller areas. The best way to get plates in such a situation is simply to have one camera zoomed in on an entrance/exit choke point. No, you certainly don't want a PTZ for this purpose - it's really not worth the extra expense.

Odd... usually manufacturer websites have a link that lists who their dealers are. You could always try contacting CNB to ask about a local reseller. Don't bother with a PTZ - a *good* one will cost you anywhere from $1000-$3000, and won't give you as much full-time coverage, since it will only record what it's pointing at at any given moment. I've never used a CNB DVR, so I can't comment on their quality. I *have* worked with an old DynaColor that was pretty solid and feature-rich (don't know about POS), and one or two Digital Watchdogs that were pretty good, too... but those were just brief flings, I'm really not that familiar with them. Those are all higher in the price range, and like I say, most of the times I've dealt with (read: had foisted upon me) standalones, they were cheap cheap ones (GE, National Electronics, etc.) because the person didn't want to spend any money...

I normally use tinypic.com, otherwise i use my own website to host the images. Not sure how it works by attachments here, though it does let you zoom the image larger then displayed in the post. Attachment file sizes are limited to 150k...

How "hidden" are we talking? I've seen IP cameras that are no bigger than standard analog board cameras... something like that could be easily hidden inside something else. Or just run any standard covert camera to a wireless video server.

You'll have to put them on another photo-hosting or photo-gallery service, like Flikr, Photobucket, etc., and then link to them there.

If there's already a working network connection between the two buildings, I'd say a multi-channel video server would be the best bet to get multiple cameras fed back to the other end. CNB makes (or OEMs, I dunno which) a single-channel video server, but I know others like Axis, Panasonic, and Vivotek have multi-channel models - four analog inputs, single ethernet output, for example. If you wanted to keep the cameras to a dedicated network, GEM has an IP-over-coax adapter that claims up to 1.8km usable distance... others like HighWire probably do the same.

There are no REAL "standards" when it comes to CCTV wiring colors... however, the yellow-inside-black would be a coaxial wire and is 99.99% likely your video feed (the shield is ground)... and red and black are most commonly your power wires (red for +, of course). The others are probably audio and/or serial control and if the camera doesn't support those features, are probably there because the manufacturer wanted to just use one type of wire for all their cameras.

Unfortunately the cameras won't help you with the threats - you need audio for that. Look into the pocket memo recorder. If the police can't stop him from having cameras, they can't stop you either. They know this; hence, their advice is meant to help you maintain your case against the neighbor. If you do decide to put the cameras back up, hide them - put them under the eaves of the house or elsewhere that they won't be noticeable. Your property is now being damaged, nobody could blame you for wanting to protect it.

Well, I won't get into the DVR, because frankly, the systems I deal with will eat all of your budget right off the top. However, some other thoughts/advice... The CNB VBM or VCM-24vf vandal domes will actually do nicely for almost all your positions. They're 600TVL, they're super-clear, and they have outstanding low-light capability. They are true day/night; they don't include IR, but they'll work with external illuminators. They ship with a 2.8-10.5mm lens, so they're adjustable to cover everything from about a 90-degree wide view, to fairly tight shots for detail on choke points, like the entrance. The downside is, you'd probably eat up most of your initial budget just on the cameras - others here have found them on the 'net for around $160 for the VCM models (the VBMs are a bit cheaper, just aren't as flexible in mounting options), but at that rate, pray that you never need support for them; expect to pay maybe 40-50% more from a "reputable" dealer. However, they are extremely cost-effective *for the quality* - in other words, you'd pay a lot more for most other cameras that work as well. You can get cheaper cameras, but that will give cheaper results, and if you don't get usable pictures, then that money is effectively wasted anyway. Regarding IR cameras: cameras that have built-in IR, usually have it as a cheap workaround for crappy low-light performance... until you start getting into the higher-end day/night cameras. IR is not great for identifying people, especially up close. It will be of limited usefulness identifying cars in the parking lots. And really, most of the places you'll looking to use it, if it's too dark for the CNBs to get a good picture, people will probably be tripping over their own feet at that point. Rather than text-overlay for the paypoint terminals, look into a DVR that supports POS logging - ie. it captures the same information that would go to the TVS box, but instead logs it, time-synced to the video. This allows you to actually search transactions and filter them to aid searching. Audio... forget it. Besides the potential legal issues (depending on where you live, it may be prohibited outright), you really will get little more than a mash of noise. Sit in the bar... close your eyes... listen to everything going on around you: that's what the mics are picking up. Try to listen to someone having a conversation two seats away: that's about how useful anything you record will be. In addition, very, very few "pro" cameras have it built-in (until you start getting into better H.264 IP cameras), so you'd be looking at adding and wiring separate microphones... and then you're still back to the "mash of noise" issue. So yeah, you're probably looking at starting off with *good* cameras in the critical areas, and then adding more as budget allows. I'll leave the DVR suggestions to the others, because frankly, the only cheap ones I have experience with, I have experience with BECAUSE they were cheap and the customer INSISTED on something cheap, and found afterward that they just weren't effective.

These are common - just look for "auto-iris". Doesn't really use "programming" as such - as the brightness changes, the camera (in a DC-iris setup; or the lens itself in a video-iris design) simply varies the voltage to the iris drive motor. Just requires a simple linear circuit, really. The variations don't really become as noticeable at most CCTV resolutions... the small pixel pitch becomes a larger factor than the lens aperture. Plus, in my experience, you're usually going to be using a wider aperture anyway, as more light means less AGC and faster shutter speeds, both of which are big factors in CCTV image "usability"... plus with the super-small sensors and resulting short focal lengths - both of which also affect DOF - you end up with pretty usable total DOF even at f/1.

The VCM housings are IP65 or 66. I have several outside in the direct weather, not a single problem yet.

Superb point. I had not taken those feature filled NASes into consideration. I do not know to what extent a dedicated NAS is a good idea or not. I mainly use the current NAS for streaming movies. Judging from the bandwidth used, my current NAS isn't even breaking a sweat. Might want to check how it's doing for disk-I/O though... that could easily become the bottleneck. I haven't looked into it fully, but I believe H.264 is the superior codec (bandwidth and compression wise). But this topic is within my area of interest so I should be able to manage This is a topic of much debate in the industry. IN GENERAL, H.264 can provide better compression and thus require less storage and bandwidth than MJPEG or MPEG-4 (the other two most common codecs). However, H.264 is optimized for full-motion 25/30fps video; surveillance video often records at lower framerates, especially when it comes to storage considerations... plus most lower-end megapixel cameras don't do full framerate at full resolution (the IQEye IQ511, for example, will only do 15fps at the full 1280x1024 resolution). As framerates drop, H.264's bandwidth edge drops, as it tends to not be as efficient. It's also generally accepted that, when it comes down to fine detail, H.264 *does* make some sacrifices vs. the others; in other words, it's often not as clear. And finally, it requires a lot more processing power on BOTH ends - both at the camera, for encoding it, and at the NVR for decoding on display. Depending on the specific implementation, some versions of it are worse than others (I recently found out, for example, that Pelco's implementation in their Sarix cameras puts a HUGE load on the NVR - displaying or playing back more than a few cameras would bring all but the most powerful systems to their knees. Yes, it does have its advantages... but it's not the be-all and end-all Holy Grail of CCTV. As with everything else, there are trade-offs. I don't like the sound (no pun intended )of slowing down the shutter speed. I want to avoid blurring motion too much. Am I correct to say that 1/60 of a second is ideal and going any slower will blur fast moving objects like cars and people that are running? Sorry. But having read so many times that a lens can make such a hughe difference, it is high on the priority list. Well, it CAN, but there's really so little variation in CCTV lens designs, it's not usually worth getting your knickers in a twist over unless you have tons of money to spend on mission-critical solutions. When it comes to megapixel cameras, you have two primary concerns: megapixel-type lens vs. non, and whether your camera has a 1/2" sensor, in which case you want to use a 1/2" lens(1/2" lenses will work fine on 1/4" and 1/3" sensors, but won't usually give you enough benefit to offset the increased cost). Beyond that, the same rule applies to all: the wider the aperture, the more light you can collect, but the less depth of field you get - again, it's all in the tradeoffs and which factor is more important for your needs. This is probably such a noob question but here goes: does varifocal mean that a lens could be ajusted from like (making it up here) 35 mm to 60 mm. Correct.... although in the CCTV world, 3.5mm-6.0mm would be more common Technically, it means "variable focal length". Usually, yes. No.... OPTICAL zoom means exactly what it says: the zoom/magnification is done by the OPTICS (ie. the lens). What you're talking about (doing it in software) is more commonly known as "digital zoom", and all it's effectively doing is cropping out a smaller section of the center of the image, then blowing it up to fill the frame again. To fully comprehend, I hope when looking up backfocus, it is a common term lol. Yes. All it does is adjust the position of the sensor and thus the distance between it and the back of the lens. Some cameras include rings that you put between the lens and mount (like washers) to achieve this. More advanced cameras have "auto backfocus", which have a servo drive to adjust it automatically, to achieve an autofocus-type function. This is usually initiated by a small button on the camera, because again, it's normally something you only set once, not something that gets tweaked constantly. Hmm are normal optical zoom settings not remote-(software) controllable? Nope. That requires a motor on the zoom ring (and since changing the zoom affects the focus, it needs one on the focus ring as well). Then you need some way (specific electronics) to control them. It adds a lot of cost, and unless the camera pans and tilts, it's not generally cost-effective, as the ability to zoom in on one fixed point is of limited usefulness in most cases. In short, it CAN be done (and is; I have a fixed camera with a built-in remote-zoom-focus lens) but it's not common because the cost-vs.-usefulness factor is so low. I can only say One a different note, this company was on my list after Mobotix lol. They do have cheaper, "standard CCTV" styles as well... but probably still on the upper end of the price scale.