Soundy

Unfortunately, even if they do care, there may not be much they can do about it other than just having YET ANOTHER "chat" with the guy. They can only enforce the law as it is, not as it could or should be. I don't know about UK legal process, but it seems it would be more up to the city council at this point to determine that this guy is breaking a bylaw, and have the police enforce that (do they have separate bylaw officers there? over here, the city police would not normally perform bylaw enforcement). This.

Yup - look up "cctv rf modulator" on your favorite search engine. "Channel Vision" is a fairly common brand name to look for (no personal experience with them or anyone else, just see that name mentioned a lot). This device would be inserted where your cable feed comes into the house, immediately before the splitter that sends the signal out to its various destinations. If your cable company doesn't provide a "blank" channel for this purpose, you'll also need a notch filter to block regular signals on the chosen channel.

Whaddya say, guys... beatdown crew? Who's up for a trip to the UK?

Yeah, those look exactly like the Capture cameras: http://capturecctv.com/product.php?prod_id=523

Small chance but what if her neighbor using cam with "HLC" high light compensation" will not be able to blind camera I get the impression these are cheap, probably eBay-special cameras... a pen light could probably blind them.

If the camera has an auto-iris lens, no... if it doesn't, then daylight will make no difference - the lens is still allowing the same amount of light in. From the look of it, these are cheap cameras and not only would not have auto-iris lenses, but would probably be affected substantially by the bright light.

Hmm, well, if a Costar "Fastrax" is the same as a Capture Fastrax, I'm fairly familiar with those. Speaking strictly from a Vigil DVR standpoint, I've found the cameras don't respond to the standard "Menu" button as defined for Pelco D/P protocols. I think I have to use the "right" button or something to access the menus on them... You could try downloading "PTZ Controller" from www.serialporttool.com and just try various commands and buttons on it and see if that will get you in. The most reliable way to program a Capture Fastrax camera, that I've found, is with an actual Capture controller... If you want to send me one of them, I can probably figure it out for you

The "store link" was simple eBay results search for "16 channel multiplexer". Go to eBay, type "16 channel multiplexer" in the search box, and you'll end up at the same place. No specific store, vendor, seller, auction, or pricing. Now then... I get what you're looking for... my suggestion would basically have put you back where you started. Thus the recommendation to include as much info as possible in the original post: if we know WHY you want it, we have a better chance of coming up with a suitable WHAT. In your case, you'll have one problem no matter what you do: pretty much all HD TVs and monitors now are widescreen, and your resulting output will either need to be stretched horizontally (which will lead to pixelation), or it will need to be displayed "pillarboxed", with black bars on either side. Remember that a 16-channel grid is 4x4, so you're actually only cutting each camera's dimensions by four (so the '480' vertical resolution is cut to 120). The best you'll probably find in a *TV* type monitor is 1080p, native resolution 1920x1080... divided into 4x4, that gives you 270 pixels vertical per camera... better, but still not full res. Your device doesn't need to be a PC, it just needs to be able to output VGA, DVI or HDMI signal at up to the monitor's native resolution. Keep in mind that unless you match the monitor's native resolution, you'll lose some sharpness to the monitor's own upscaling as well. All that said, we end up back in the same place: it will probably require a PC to get you the control you need.... that, or a fairly high-end standalone. Now, to get smooth motion on a 16-camera grid, you either need a true 480fps@D1 card that displays via DirectDraw... or a basic 16-channel card, even a 30- or 60fps model, that displays using overlays. The latter method, the display doesn't use the card's processing, so the card's maximum framerate won't matter.

The 24VF should be fine for that as well. I *believe* there's a heater option available that will help prevent fogging.

That is correct. Think about what happens when someone shines a flashlight directly in your face - that's what you're doing to the camera. And BTW, a standard cheap red laser pointer will be quite effective as well, in the same way (don't shine it directly in your own face!), and unless it's foggy, will be harder to pinpoint the source.

Nobody pointed anyone at anything. He asked what the "top companies" were... the discussion simply evolved from there. Since the OP didn't specify whether he wanted to keep it to companies that build PC or standalone, I suggested 3xLogic as a good company. And BTW, keep in mind that most "better" standalones ARE still PCs inside, just running customized hardware and probably an embedded OS of some kind.... not unlike these "standalone-type" units: http://www.3xlogic.com/prod/983/mvr-series-micro-video-recorder The line is pretty blurred.

Unless there's some burning need to run this on a computer, may I suggest: [edit by mod: store link removed]

Since this probably isn't a wireless camera, the only way to disrupt the transmission signal is with a pair of wire cutters. No, this is just another technique to blind the camera.

Sounds like a slick little setup!

I really have no reason to explain further. Of course not, because you know I'm right. A codec, BY DEFINITION, adds compression, minimal as it may be. I'm quite familiar with the video encoding options in Windows. One of the defaults is "Uncompressed Video", in addition to several very ancient codecs (RLE, Microsoft Video 1, Indeo, H.263, etc.). VidCap may be prompting you to "select a codec", but that doesn't mean it's right either.

Considering "codec" stands for "compression/decompression"...? and your question is? some unknown codec with little to no compression .. ????? If there's no compression, you're not really using a CODEC.

Actually, it's not all that complicated. Start with the basics: recording IP cameras doesn't NECESSARILY work any differently than with analog cameras. Analog DVR: you connect power and signal lines to each camera, then connect the signal lines to the DVR's capture card. Hybrid/NVR: you connect power and network lines to each camera, then connect the network lines and the DVR to a network switch. In this case, you can imagine the switch as taking the place of the capture card (or imagine it's a USB capture device, to make the picture a little clearer). Almost all IP cameras can be powered from standard 12VDC/24VAC power supplies, just like analog cameras (there are some odd exceptions, like some IQEye models that accept 12-24VDC but not AC, and several other brands that are 12VDC only). Starting from there, it should be easy; all IP does it give you more options for how to do things. In the case buellwinkle describes, some cameras can write directly to a network storage device, foregoing the need for a typical "DVR/NVR" type machine... however, the topology is the same; you're just replacing the DVR/NVR in the map, with a NAS device. With PoE (Power over Ethernet), again, everything is laid out the same, you just have an additional option for powering the cameras: the switch provides the power over the ethernet cable, eliminating the need to run a separate power wire to the camera. Now you can start getting into the "decentralized" idea: you can have cameras on different sites, the NAS on one or more sites, and all you're doing is routing the cameras' data to the NAS (or DVR/NVR, as the situation demands) via LAN, WAN, VLAN, internet, etc. Still the same basic topology, you're just inserting some additional transport methods. To use the analog model, imagine you disconnected the cameras from the DVR, plugged them into a box that sent the video over the phone line, then at a remote location, plugged the DVR into another box that extracted that video for recording.

Considering "codec" stands for "compression/decompression"...?

If you WERE using coax cable and Coaxitron protocol, you don't need a Coaxitron controller... Coaxitron isn't a control protocol so much as a method for running control signals over the same coax as the video. All you need is a standard controller (DVR with serial out will do) and an appropriate converter. The cameras themselves support Coaxitron input over their coax connectors. HOWEVER, Cat5e is even easier: use one pair for the video (with baluns), another pair for RS-232/485 control, and if the runs aren't too long, use the other two for power. If the runs ARE longer, you can run video and control for two cameras over a single Cat5e. Or video for four. Or video for three and control for one. Or any other number of combinations...

If it will record from a composite input, sure, you could hook a camera up to that... or feed a camera into an RF modulator and then hook that to the PVR's cable input. Then you'd just have to select the right channel/input, and tell it to record everything. That's not going to be "uncompressed" either, though. The Motorola PVRs our cable provider gives us, use MPEG-2, same as on your basic DVD (although it's encrypted, specifically to prevent copying). That will take a lot more room than MJPEG or MPEG4, and not give substantially better quality. Keep in mind too, that as with H.264, it's a codec designed for full-motion 25/30fps video, and probably won't be as efficient at lower framerates.

There's another utility in there that you can build into the image, so the first time the new deployment runs, the thing re-detects the hardware and other system-to-system changes... can't remember what it's called offhand, basically it's the last thing you run before grabbing the image, but it works fairly well. EDIT: "sysprep" is the one you're looking for, if memory serves.

http://cam2life.net/products-IC202w.html No fancy port forwarding needed - give the customer the web address, login and password for their particular camera. Wireless, so you can move one or more around between kennels as needed. Customers can look in from home, or from their phone. Send a PM to ak357 for more info

It's not clear if you want to use these cameras with a Coaxitron controller, or use them via Coaxitron with a standard controller? The cameras DO support Coaxitron, according to the manual so if you have a Coaxitron-capable controller you should be good to go. If you want to use them with a standard RS-232/485 controller over the single coax run, all you need is the appropriate converter. Should be a piece of cake... just be sure to bill the $#!t out of him!

Look on YouTube for "green laser pops balloons" - it describes how someone modified the laser out of a DVD burner for higher output, well beyond the standard "safe" levels found in commercially-available laser pointers (those are generally <5mW... this one was something like 300+mW). Something like this probably wouldn't take long to kill the camera's sensor, and the distance wouldn't matter at all - it would probably work just as effectively from half a mile away. None of the equipment would need to actually be operating for damage to occur... but keep in mind that even a simple cheap red laser pointer would be enough to "blind" the camera as long as it's on (ie. someone looking at the video would only seen a bright red bloom). Naturally, all this discussion is purely theoretical.

The HDcctv guys claim they can do it. Frankly, most decent compression systems will be virtually indistinguishable from uncompressed, IF you max out the "quality" settings on the codec, and still give you some fair space savings. Most systems just either do not come with that level set, or don't allow the absolute highest quality to be set.