Soundy

28VAC is a not-uncommon option in some power supplies, intended specifically for use over longer runs where voltage drop will be an issue. Usually it's done with a special transformer with a secondary wound for 28VAC with a tap at 24VAC. The Pelco supplies actually have three screws per channel: one common, and one each for 24 and 28V. Keep in mind that that spec voltage is RMS - peak-to-peak voltage at 24VAC will be about 33.7V. Cheaper multimeters will give an average of that, so they may read a little higher than the actual RMS voltage (you need one that actually states "True RMS").

With text OVERLAY, no, it's pretty much impossible to search the POS text (short of some pretty fancy anayltics). What you need is the ability to capture and log the POS data in sync with the video. Many DVRs can do this, but need to support the exact format that the POS uses - ie. which columns are what data (price, date, till number, etc.), and what control characters are used to delimit columns and rows. Vigil, for example, supports a wide number of POS data formats via both serial and network. It can also connect directly to several different types of databases (MSSQL, etc.) and read the POS data straight from the backend system. The SmartPIT can re-output the filtered data as plain text as well, so it could be used with a DVR that can log POS info but doesn't recognize the format your POS system uses.

Really depends on the design of the cameras. The Panasonic CW484 domes list something like 9-30VDC and 12-36VAC as being supported. Some are fussier about overvoltage than others.

If you're still in the process of installing all this, is it possible to run the needed coax (RG59 or RG6) along with everything else? Power for the camera could be drawn from somewhere closer, like the guardhouse or the gate controller. If you can't add new wiring now, all you need for video is a single pair of unused wire, whether it's UTP (Cat5e, Cat3 phone runs, etc.), station wire, bell wire, etc. Basic passive baluns are good for up to 1000' (depending on which manufacturer claims you believe), and active baluns can give you over a mile on twisted pair. Worst case, you could use a video-over-powerline option, or even a short-range, single-point DSL setup to run it over the phone line. Again, the power could be derived somewhere close to the camera - guardhouse, gate controls, etc. - and all you need to worry about is getting the video over that distance. Personally, I'd look first into what wiring is in place for the phone - it's probably Cat3, and probably only using one pair (maybe two, if it's a digital system), so there are two or three spare pairs available there. With that setup, you'd probably run coax and power to the camera; connect the coax to the balun where the phone line terminates; then at the other end, tie in the other balun at the phone panel and run a coax line to the office where you can connect it to the monitor (and to a recorder, if you so desire).

Welcome!

Welcome, from sunny (well, for the next 10 minutes at least) Vancouver! Takes all kinds, doesn't it? Nice to see someone who really does their homework... AND legwork! I don't know about the others, but I'll look forward to viewing and reading some of that. Hope you don't mind constructive criticism though, because you're sure to get plenty of it from this lot! Feed the geeks, tuppence a bag?

Almost looks like a custom build...

It may depend, too, on whether the cable system is FULLY digital or not. Around here, on Shaw Cable, channels up to 59 are still analog and can be tuned on any TV with a cable-ready tuner. Channels beyond that require the digital set-top box; however, they do provide a channel marked "SECURITY CAMERA" on channel 116 (which should also be tune-able on most cable-ready analog TVs).

Your basic text-inserter just overlays the text on an analog video feed, so as long as you have that, the DVR shouldn't matter. I've most recently used a Honeywell SmartPIT for text overlay and found it an excellent unit, and Honeywell's support was outstanding (I needed the text filter custom-tweaked; they did it and sent me the new filter within half an hour). http://www.honeywellvideo.com/products/ias/da/pr/125775.html

Short of going to 10,000 rpm enterprise-grade drives, there's not a huge difference from one to the next for basic DVR use. 7200 rpm, get the largest write cache you can (16, 32 and 64MB are common)... I've had one manufacturer recommend avoiding "green" drives for 24/7 uses.

Damn, that's WIIIIIDE. Do I even want to ask what those things cost??

Brown/blue are PROBABLY 24VAC, not 230. If you've hooked 230 up to it, there's a good chance you've killed it already. The others are probably for control and alarm input or output... but they could also all be alarm I/O if the camera uses Coaxitron or other up-the-coax protocol. There must be some sort of label somewhere with a brand name, serial number...??

For AC, polarity doesn't matter (at least not at this level). If the camera was DC-only, the red would be positive and the black ground, but since it's dual-voltage, that polarity doesn't matter either. Chances are they simply use the same red/black wire pairs for all their cameras for simpler manufacturing. Nope. The camera output is baseband video (should be PAL, in your case). It would connect to the video jack of an A/V input on your TV (often a yellow RCA jack). To go to the aerial in, you'd have to use a video modulator.

The green connector on the camera is your power input - it does need a matching plug. The camera can be powered by 24VAC or 12VDC. The power supply you have there is a 24VAC output - basically it's just a stepdown transformer, feeding into a distribution board with up to four fused outputs (only one of them is configured). You'd connect the N1 and L1 screw terminals in the power supply to the green plug on the camera. If you can't find a matching plug, you can simply snip the connector off and splice the wires together. Since the camera accepts dual power, there is no concern over polarity.

Agreed, you COULD do them both on one machine, as a cost-saving method, but both are really mission-critical purposes (especially the POS) and should ideally have their own dedicated systems. POS doesn't require a lot of processing though, and any basic new $250 system should suffice. If it's a question of desk space, use a KVM switch so the two can share a single keyboard/monitor/mouse.

Motion detection isn't usually too intelligent - all it does in most cases is recognize rapid changes in the picture. Quickly shifting light (like passing headlights) can trigger it, as can image noise, color shifts, etc. Adjusting the sensitivity will probably help. Setting up some masking (if the DVR supports it) will help as well, to block out areas where you DON'T want to detect motion. BTW, the "NC" setting has no relation to this. Depending on the DVR, it will mean it either looks for a "normally closed" input from an external sensor to trigger that camera, or detected motion will trip a normally-closed relay output.

As far as connecting it to your computer, all you should need is a basic USB video-capture device: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=usb+video+capture

More turns to secondary will bring down voltage ? Adding turns to the PRIMARY maybe... although would would be tricky as with most transformers, the primary is inside the secondary Either way, physically modifying a transformer would be an iffy proposition - aside from the chance of damaging something, you'd have to know HOW MANY turns to add/remove to get the change you want. A 28-to-24V step-down transformer, IF you could find one, would do the trick (anything with the current capability and 7:6 winding ratio would do)... but a better idea would be to simply replace the existing power supply.

This is true - I thought of that AFTER I'd left for work so I couldn't edit my post But I agree, the absolute best way to get the most accurate picture (pardon the pun) of what's going on with the waveform is with an oscilloscope.

In this sort of situation, masking may be more important that simple sensitivity - for example, if there's a busy highway in the background of the frame, you want to be able to block out that area so it's not triggering recording every time a car goes by. Keep in mind that sometimes you don't have to have specific areas unmasked, either - for example, if masking is in "blocks" and the top of a fence cuts through the middle of a row of blocks with the busy highway beyond... you can safely mask out the entire top of the fence, as anything coming over it will still trigger the unmasked area below. As another example, I have instances where there are tables on a restaurant patio and then a road in the background... I find I don't need the tables themselves fully unmasked if the road is also caught in those areas, because the lower part of the table still catches people's legs moving, or the people shuffling in their chairs, and that can be used to trigger recording. When setting masking, in other words, look at the whole scene and think intelligently about what areas actually need to trigger and which you can mask out.

Hmmm, not necessarily. As with any IP network, your layout can have all cameras run back to one switch, or you could, for example, have two cameras at one end of the building run into one switch there, then a single cable run to the far end of the building, where it and the other two cameras plug into another switch... really, there are as many different options for network topology as you can think of, and no one design is inherently better than another. IP *can* save time and costs because of this, but how much really depends on your needs. IP does give you a lot more flexibility, though. Yes, provided you wire properly (using proper TIA-568A or B configuration). On the POE switch, the answer again is, "not necessarily". Almost all IP cameras can be externally powered with 12VDC or 24VAC power, the same as most CCTV cameras. That can mean one central power supply, or individual transformers for each camera that can be near the camera, or in a central location. Or you can use POE (Power over Ethernet), or any combination of the above. Once again, the benefit is *flexibility* and more options. If you want to record the video, then you probably need some sort of Network Video Recorder (NVR). No. No. Some cameras have limited internal flash memory, and some can use flash media like SD/SDHC cards, but not all of them support this. As with the other answers, there are many different options. You can use an NVR, which is essentially a PC or standalone box that receives the video information from the cameras via the network, processes the video, and stores it to HDD, and usually lets you search it and play it back. You can use a "hybrid DVR", which combines NVR functions with analog DVR functions. You can use Network Attached Storage boxes, essentially just small hard drive enclosures that plug into the network to provide storage space for anyone on the network. Some NAS boxes and some IP cameras support standards that allow the cameras to store video directly to NAS boxes; you'd then run the appropriate software on your PC or laptop to search and view the video over the network. As with the camera layouts, this too allows you some flexibility, as the NVR, DVR or NAS can be anywhere in the building where it can be plugged into the network; you CAN put all the equipment in one place and run all the cabling to back to it... but you DON'T HAVE TO.

You could, with the appropriate balun, but only two pairs would be left for power - at 12VDC that would be marginal, especially if these cameras have IR LEDs built-in.

Depends whether the DVR can send the proper commands via the protocol being used. For example, I can hook the same camera configured for Pelco P to both Vigil and Video Insight PC-based DVRs, but where the Vigil has "buttons" to invoke the camera menus, the VI interface does not. If the camera supports Pelco protocols, you could try something like PTZ Controller from www.serialporttool.com

...except your average multimeter reads RMS voltage, not P-P. Fortunately the math is easy: Vrms * 1.414 = Vp-p. Or get a multimeter that actually reads p-p.

100m is nothing extreme - RG59 for video, 18/2 for power... or one run of Cat5e with baluns, use one pair for video and the other three for power. Bing, bang, boom.