Soundy

And in some cases (like C.O.P.), the come back through the process and continue to share what they're learning and discovering along the way, which can be beneficial to us as well - once again, the forum as a two-way street. Some even stick around afterward... (Speaking of which, wonder if C.O.P. is still out there somewhere and how his job ended up?)

I wouldn't even begin to guess WHY... obviously though, they found it sufficient over the last five or six years, or you'd think they would have increased it. Compared to the time-lapse VCRs and muxes the systems are replacing, 1fps is smoooooooth.

This is a point I often make when someone start spewing out specs/requirements for full 30fps/channel: not only will you probably not notice the difference at 15fps in most cases, but you probably won't see an *appreciable* difference at 7-8fps either, unless you're recording fast-moving objects. We do systems for two of Canada's major oil companies, and frankly, both of them spec only 1fps for *every* camera (although we usually dial it up a bit for critical views like front door and paypoint shots). As "nice" as full-motion video looks, it's rarely NECESSARY. When you're looking to save on storage costs, framerate is one of the first compromises you should make.

I haven't used QNAP's NVRs in a production environment, but FWIW, I have used their NAS arrays on at least half a dozen sites now for iSCSI-attached storage on Vigil DVRs/NVRs - they've been solid and reliable and support has been, if not outstanding, at least a solid cut above most of what I'm used to. They support RAID 5 and 6, hot spares, and the bigger rackmount units have redundant power supplies. The NVRs, AFAIK, are based on the same units, just with software/firmware oriented more toward surveillance and extended IP camera support, rather than as general all-around storage and media servers. They also have a mobile viewer app for Windows Mobile, and I believe are working on apps for iPhone and Android as well.

Depends where one lives, the cheapest guy gets the most business here for example. Lower rates equal more jobs equal more money. Yes, but copying his business model means you have to undercut him - substantially. At some point, one of you will be operating in the red no matter how much volume you do.

Not at all. Unless there's a big sign on it saying "THIS IS A FAKE CAMERA" you have every reason to expect that it's a real camera and that you're being watched and/or recorded. In fact, that's generally the point of fake cameras anyway: to make people THINK they're being monitored, even if they aren't. If he did then come out and say, "oh, it's a fake camera, don't worry about it", your next question would be, "then why is it pointed AT ME?" The only reason for someone to do that would be as an intentional nuisance. A laser pointer or bright light won't "disable" the camera as such, but it will "blind" it quite effectively, as long as it's pointing directly into the camera. (Actually a nice powerful green laser pointer would probably fry the camera's sensor in pretty short order... not that we recommend doing such a thing, of course!) Sue

So, the proper way to price labor is to find out who is the cheapest and match his rates? The cheapest guy is going out of business, and it's because his rates are too low. There must be a better way to set prices than to identify the most moronic of your competitors and copy their business model. Hahahaahaha, I love it... great first post, welcome to the board " title="Applause" />

Or http://www.qnapsecurity.com Synology has similar type devices as well, although I've not used them. We' been using QNAP NAS arrays for iSCSI storage for our 3xLogic Vigil DVRs/NVRs. The standard NAS boxes have some limited IP camera support in addition to all manner of home/web/ftp/media/etc/etc services; the "security" products AFAIK are built on the same basic units but focus more on the NVR functions and support a LOT more cameras. Ditto 3xLogic. http://www.3xlogic.com

I didn't know facial recognition worked on turtles!

If the alarm has a PGM output, you could always program that to trigger the DVR, then program the panel to trigger that output when the sensor/zone is tripped.

If you read the actual link, you'd know why... in fact, the section is even called, "The Why": One of 3xLogic's engineers stated to me that Aztech CAN, in some circumstances, compress BETTER than H.264... if that's not "why" enough, I don't know what is I haven't had the chance to test that claim yet, mostly for lack of H.264 cameras to play with... I should test it with this Pelco Sarix dome I have here; one thing for sure, it's a prime example of the extra processing power required: decoding the full-blown H.264 stream is bogging the $#!+ out of my test NVR.

Looks like the lens that comes with the AV3155DN domes...

Skip the attic, it's too hot... tell him to jackhammer through the slab in the basement, dig a 4x4x4' hole, line it with reinforced concrete with rebar on 6" centers, then put a 3" thick bolted steel trap door over it... there should be plenty of room in there for the system, it will keep cooler underground, and it should survive a nuclear blast, let alone vandals...

It's always preferable for your security system to have its own dedicated computer, especially if you have or expect to have more than one camera.

From tom's description, I'd say the thing on your fence is a motion sensor of some sort, deigned to trigger the camera and/or floodlight. But... if this is on YOUR side of the fence, accessible only from your property, does this not mean your neighbor would have had to trespass on your property to install it? Can you not have him charged for this? You would certainly have the right to take it down - let him get you on camera; if it's on your property, there should be nothing he can do about it.

The card is most certainly your problem, not the camera. The camera knows nothing of your computer, operating system, card, driver, or capture software, it simply spits out a video signal. More to the point, the card obviously works (how well is another matter), the problem is that the other software you're trying doesn't recognize it. This is probably because the card's driver doesn't conform to WDM spec. It MIGHT work with another generic driver designed for the card's chipset, but no guarantees there. Best bet, ultimately, is to buy a legitimate, non-eBay-junk card.

Wow, who knew the original subject line would turn out to be so prophetic?

This will only work if your router does DNS forwarding. 'ipconfig /all' should show the DNS settings as well - it will OFTEN, but not always be the same as the gateway; use whatever it tells you. Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : vf.shawcable.net Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-25-D3-C7-BC-DC Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.195 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 23, 2010 2:15:19 PM Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, July 24, 2010 2:15:19 PM

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78799 (You don't need the IMAP portion). BTW, you do need to enable POP or IMAP from the Settings page on your Gmail account, before you can use those methods for retrieval (login to Gmail, click Settings at the top-right, go to "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab)... you will probably have to enable one or the other for the SMTP to work as well.

I bet Scott Broscious would have some input on this! *ducking for cover....*

The device you're looking for is called an RF modulator. There are numerous manufacturers (Channel Vision is one of the better-known names - www.channelvision.com), and even more resellers of unbranded units. For this to work, your tenants must all be on the same in-house cable system (at least, anyone who wants to view the camera(s) must be). Most cable providers will have a channel labeled "Security Camera" or similar on their channel lineup, which contains no signal. The modulator would connect into the incoming cable feed before it splits out to the rest of the building, and the modulator set to use that channel.

Huh?!? From the Manufacturers' spec sheets - active or usable pixels: Pelco CC3751H-2 768 (H) x 494 (V) C10CH NTSC 768 (H) x 494 (V), approx. 380k, PAL 752 (H) x 582 (V), approx. 440k Sanyo VCC-6584 768 (H) x 494 (V) VCC-5884 768 (H) x 494 (V) Bosch LTC 0455 768 H x 494 V LTC 0485 768 H x 492 V Panasonic WV-CP280 768 (H) x 494 (V) Are they "cheap chinese brands"? Looks like someones feelings are hurt. Come on now, girls... You're both right. From the VCM-24VF spec sheet: Total Pixels Number: 811(H) x 508(V) 410K Effective Pixels Number: 768(H) x 494(V) 380K

There should be no compatibility issues from one brand to the next. The main concern will be the interface type (IDE/PATA vs. SATA). Other considerations with SATA will be the power connector: all have the SATA power connector... some have the legacy IDE power connector. If the DVR uses the legacy connector, you may need to make sure the drive has one as well; sometimes you can use an adapter cable, but some DVRs may not have room for it. Also, many SATA drives have a jumper to select 150Mbps vs. 300Mbps transfer speeds... I don't know about DVRs, but I've run into a few motherboards that don't support the latter and won't recognize the drive unless it's set to 150Mbps. In the same vein, with IDE drives, you sometimes have to be wary of jumper settings: if the DVR will work with CS (cable select), you're usually okay. If it requires Master or Slave settings, you may have issues depending on what the drive supports: some have separate jumper configurations for Single/Master/Slave and may need to be set to Single if it's the only drive on the bus. And in both cases, some DVRs may not work with drives over a certain size. If you're just looking to pop in a smaller used drive, this probably won't come up... but it's something to keep in mind.

You MIGHT be able to do something with Microsoft's SyDiff utility (google it for info on usage and where to find it). Basically, you run it once, it takes a snapshot of the system, then you install and configure the software, run SysDiff again, and it creates a "difference" file containing all the code, file and configuration changes, that can then be applied to a new system. It works well with some installs - usually simpler ones that don't need to make a lot of complex system changes. It might work in this case. Beyond that, as Rory indicates, some installers that are properly written support command-line switches to help automate their running, but it doesn't sound like GV's does any of this. The other option is to use disk images for deployment. There are several different tools and methods for doing this, some of which are more "automatable" than others. When I worked at a technical school, we had it down for some labs (the ones whose network cards supported PXE boot) where we could build a complete image, including OS, software, system tweaks, etc., put it on a network share, then when told to (through the boot menu), the machines would boot from the network, run Ghost, and automatically apply the image... after that it would reboot, run a few other automated configuration processes, and be done. Imaging works best if you have identical hardware in all the machines, but it IS possible to tweak a system before taking the image, so that it will work across different types of hardware, including different motherboard chipsets.

I guess it depends on me, not on the providwer... How is it supposed to work? Assuming I have all devices off (PC, DVR and router), should it be enough to turn on DVR and router to get them connected to internet? With most types of broadband, the router is connected as long as it's on, and connects automatically when powered up. If you have to log your PC into the router and click a "Connect" button to get online, though, it sounds like your internet connection may be using a form of PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet, as opposed to PoE, Power over Ethernet) - some PPPoE providers do require you to connect manually, similar to a dialup connection. If this is the case, there may be no way to do it. You could try firing up the PC, making the connection, then shutting down the PC and seeing if it maintains the connection, but if the router disconnects automatically after a period of inactivity, you may be SOL there as well.