Soundy

You want the specs to include "1/2 inch", and "megapixel" (or MP). If it's a day/night model, you want it to be "IR" as well. Beyond that... anything for focal length that suits your needs.

Check these out: http://qnapsecurity.com/ I haven't used their NVRs, but I've used several of their network storage arrays, which the NVRs are based on.

Other than it maybe not being a "megapixel" lens (your description doesn't say), I don't see anything "wrong" with those specs.

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What sort of internet service do you have, that the router doesn't connect automatically or isn't connected permanently??

I think that opinion applies to most of us here to some extent... or we wouldn't be here in the first place.

How about the famous $250 Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipe story that's been floating around since before the Internet? Ultimately, the big difference with a forum like this is that you're not likely to be helping your own (potential) customers anyway. Someone from Kalamazoo who comes here asking for help probably isn't going to hire me to come down there and do the job, so I'm not really cutting my own throat. There's a very very small chance it might affect a CCTV installer IN Kalamazoo... then again, it may be enough to convince the DIYer he needs professional help. It may be enough to save someone from unscrupulous or un-knowledgeable local companies as well, or may even help a local company with the upsell - look at the recent case of the guy who came here asking for advice on which of two bids to go with for his apartment building, wanted to steer toward the company that was going to go IP, and ended up with the other company but getting them to go at least with a hybrid setup. Bet those guys would be thanking us if they knew where their customer got his advice (speaking of which, I want my commission!)

Any dry-contact relay should do the trick. All the inputs are typically looking for is a change of state. By default it's probably set up for normally-open contacts - shorting between the two input pins would trigger it. You can probably configure it to look for normally-closed input as well.

You could check these guys: http://www.theiatech.com/ Not cheap though. It's kinda ghetto, but you could look at putting a "bubble mirror" in the area, and point your camera at that. Or if you don't mind buying from fleaBay, try this: http://compare.ebay.com/1-7mm-panoramic-view-ultra-wide-angle-camera-lens-m12/like/380185416418

And in jxk716's case... the CW484 comes from the factory with a back-box in the same packaging with the camera. So how do they ship it WITHOUT the back-box, unless they either remove it, or are selling used equipment as new?

I thought "MJPEG" was a streaming standard... Yes, but the client and DVR still have to exchange control codes... and not all use MJPEG (H.264 and MPEG-4 are also common, and I've even seen Quicktime and WMV used). The video stream itself may be compatible, but the client also has to tell the DVR when to start and stop streaming, which channel(s) to send, where to search, etc. etc.

^Mark has a good suggestion here - I'd try that next. Setting the DVR as DMZ will get around any port-forwarding issues and confirm whether or not that's the problem. And beyond that, again, just throwing different software at it will not likely solve the problem either - there simply are no standards when it comes to DVR remote viewing, so everyone has their own way to accomplish it, and very few of them are cross-compatible. The chances of someone else's software working with your no-name DVR are slim to none. As far as identifying the unit... are there ANY labels on it with part, model or serial numbers beyond the link you posted? I'm surprised scorpion hasn't stepped in here, he can usually identify them just by looking at the picture

"Yup, touch yourself..." (To coin a phrase...)

Can we touch you ? Are u for real He got every ting you want! Cheap, and quality! Jack love you long time!

Any "modern" system should be more than sufficient - the last VJ240 machine I built was, I think, 1.8GHz Celeron... that was a good three years ago. The card is capable of 4CIF@30fps on each camera, but I had to dial them back a lot to avoid dropped frames on that machine. Just make sure there's plenty of RAM and if possible, use separate drives for system and video.

I believe you can still download the v2.x software from http://www.video-insight.com... v3.x should be available by request but requires a key to install. If you ask, they may be willing to provide it for free or cheap, since their model appears to be mainly based on selling the hardware (or used to be; v4 is all-IP and uses separate IP encoders to support analog cameras, AFAIK). Note that the VI software is locked to the hardware and will only work with *legitimate* VI cards, so if it's a knockoff or clone, it likely won't work, and nobody here will provide assistance (not supposed to, anyway - it's against the rules).

So WHY are you forwarding the ports in the 600xx range? Do you know that those are the ports used by the DVR? Information on configuring the DMZ is on page 35 of the manual: http://www.sitecom.com/download/4407/WL-613-Full-Manual-English.pdf Check the "Enable DMZ" box and set the DVR's IP in the "Client PC IP Address" section. Then try it the remote access.

"Sitecom 54g" doesn't help - I need a model number to look up the manual. If your port forwarding isn't set up properly, then it doesn't matter what software you use to access it remotely. You can try a thousand different packages and they still won't be able to communicate with the DVR.

you sound like your from the 1950's and still cling to industry protection. i've worked several trades and in every one a better informed customer is much much easier to deal with. especially as good CCTV is so darn expensive. to a lot of people even cheap crap is expensive. the more they know what they are getting the happier they are, you get less warranty call outs for silly things. if they know enough about the industry they also will know why its best to get a professional to do the install instead of the local handyman. the problem with industry protection is it tends to isolate the industry from the customers its trying to sell to. its basically self defeating. you only see the customers that HAVE to have it rather than the much bigger mass market that WANT it. the industry becomes closed off, so it gets minimal innovation and other industries overtake it. take a look at what its like at the moment. you have a small professional market but a huge, loud and proactive cheap crap market which is just about flooding the industry. if the professionals don't raise their voice and educate customers they will become an insignificant minority. QFT.

Yeah, AFAIK, all CW484 models ship from the factory with a back-box. If you didn't get one, I would suspect that they're giving you a used camera that was originally flush-mounted and the back-box discarded after install. Either that, or they're REALLY REALLY cheap and kept the back-boxes to go for metal recycling for a couple of bucks.

... wow.

What model did you order, exactly? I know the one we normally use - WV-CW484 - is a flush-mount design but *includes* a back-box for surface mounting, so you always have the option.

I used to run everything on my own equipment, and still do for some things just due to entropy, but if you run the numbers, it's often far cheaper to just do it in the cloud. Large server farms with acres of equipment racks are extremely economical to lease some space. I just paid Hostmonster about $200 for a three year extension, and I host a dozens of websites, many email addresses with Postini spam filtering, ftp accounts, SQL databases, and numerous other services. They provide high uptime, backups, UPS, and high bandwidth. Best, Christopher This is all true, and I've actually been planning for a while now to move most of my hosted stuff off-site (Dreamhost came highly recommended to me). I'll probably still keep my own up as well though, as it's far more convenient to just toss files on a network share when I want them available online, especially as it's easy to just save files to the share directly.

We had to put some cameras in a gas station once, the type with the lighted signs that stretch between the two pillars on each island... they wanted the cameras under those signs, where they'd be relatively low and accessible, so we quoted Extreme domes, which were twice the price of other options, but damn near impossible to crack open unless you really know how. Because they were undercover (twice, under both the sign and the canopy), we did only a cursory job of sealing them - used the supplied gasket and sealed them against the sign, but didn't seal the wires running into them from inside the sign. Six months later the call came that two cameras were down and the other two were foggy. Got onsite to find all four with water in them. Seems the cleaning crew were in with pressure washers the day before and sprayed the signs on all sides, which let water inside them, where it ran down the wires into the cameras. I don't think the cleaners actually made any money on that job... needless to say, we went overkill sealing the new cameras.