Soundy

I haven't really had to do any setup to any of them, either... I've gone through the menus and tweaked most of the settings, but as yet, there hasn't been anything there that needs changing from the defaults.

www.serialporttool.com has a good selection of protocol analyzers and utilities.

Actually, there should be a stop switch that stops the camera from going beyond a certain point... the skipping is still a bad thing. What happened in our case, is that it started skipping just during normal movement, so the preset tours gradually went out of whack - it would go 200 degrees one way, then skip a few degrees while moving back, so it would only come back maybe 196 of the 200 degrees the motor was turning... then it would go back 200 degrees the other way, but end up 204 degrees from where it started... and so on. After a while all it was looking at was a concrete wall.

That will work fine - baluns work best over twisted-pair, but they don't require it. I've run them over 18/2 shielded and unshielded, shielded 16/2, and even over station-Z wire (22/4). (Actually, in a pinch once, I powered two 24VAC cameras off one pair of the station wire, and ran video for one of them over the other pair... cheesy, but has been working fine for about three years).

I don't think that's the cause. We had the same problem with the MiniTrax we installed: the belt appears to stretch over time so it's just a little loose and skips when there's any tension on the drive. It's worse in warm or sunny weather, when the belt softens and expands with the heat. If memory serves, you can loosen up the mounting screws for the motor and push is back a little, thereby adding some tension, but this is only a temporary fix if the belt continues to stretch. Ultimately, we pulled the MiniTrax out and replaced it with a used Spectra III. It was a better camera anyway

Have you tried Pelco D or P? They're fairly generic protocols that almost all PTZs support. You may need to change DIP switches in the camera to switch protocols. If you need standalone PTZ control software, try PTZ Controller from www.serialporttool.com

Ah, looks like the MiniTrax. If memory serves, there's actually a DIP switch inside that lets you select the protocol. I know the one and only MiniTrax I installed, I never had to use Fastrax protocol, I just connected it to the DVR and away she went, out of the box. Something you could try... I found this manual that appears to be the same camera: http://www.eneo-security.com/mall/2/assets/manual/74116_en_man.pdf - check page 49. The ADT manual says to contact tech support if your DVR doesn't support Fastrax protocol (page 15), but... try following the other camera's manual (since they otherwise look nearly identical), set DIP switches 9 and 10 to both off, and see if it goes to Pelco D. (In fact, the manuals themselves are nearly identical, aside from the Eneo one having both German and English). Remember you'll need to power-cycle the camera after changing switches, for the changes to take effect. It would make sense, actually, that ADT wouldn't change the function of those switches, but would remove the info on using Pelco D from the manual: they want you to buy their rebranded Fastrax controllers, rather than be able to use any generic Pelco D controller.

There's a smaller "bowdown.gif" emoticon I've seen on a lot of sites, so I googled it, and found the HUGE version www.smiliesftw.com

Hmmm, that link just leads me to a blank page... which model is it? I have used some older Fastrax II cameras, so I may be familiar with yours...

Fastrax is Capture CCTV brand name... this is probably a re-branded Capture camera. You could try contacting them to see if they have software for what you want to do. www.capturecctv.com

Define "top"? Best quality, cost is no object? Most features? Most useful features? Most interesting features? Best overall value? Or by "best companies" are you talking about the companies themselves? Take a look at Vigil - www.3xlogic.com. 16 and 32-channel systems.

The DRX50 series Vigil would probably be sufficient for you. It supports a combined 60fps across all cameras, which really should be plenty for your needs. http://www.3xlogic.com/node/28

I love the GEMs - those and GVIs are our mainstay. The NVT and MuxLab are overpriced and I've never found any real benefit to them. CNB does make versions of those domes with built-in baluns, BTW, so you can just wire the UTP straight into the camera, then you only need the balun at the DVR end.

A Vigil DVR will handle all of these requirements. So will others, but Vigil is the system I'm most familiar with. Most of the answers below will apply to most better PC-based DVRs, but again, I'll answer for Vigil specifically, since I'm familiar with them. Absolutely. Yes. With Vigil, you can set different user groups and give them access to different cameras and functions. You can also set up camera "groups" - for example, you could create an "Office" group and clicking that would display all the office cameras in a grid. Not if the network is well-designed and uses quality components, not cheap consumer gear. With Vigil at least, the video streams are recompressed for internet transmission, so they have greatly reduced bandwidth. Not really. Most of the CPU will still be used for the local recording/indexing/database/compression processing anyway. The DVR has to read the video and recompress it before streaming it out... for the client machine, it shouldn't require any more processing than watching a YouTube video. If you go with a Vigil, you get the whole thing as a turnkey system - PC, capture hardware, software, all ready to go. The systems are built and tested specifically for this purpose and they're running a stripped-down, efficient, embedded version of WinXP. No. I can do it on my Atom N270-based netbook without a hitch. Any basic $300 PC should do just fine. For that matter, and spare P4 or AthlonXP you have kicking around should do just fine. That really depends. Framerate, frame size, and compression all come into play. You'll usually want to set all cameras to record on motion only, so it will depend on how much motion there is in the covered areas, and how well you set up motion masking (for example, if a camera sees the street in one corner, you'd want to mask that so passing cars aren't triggering recording 24/7. The basic Vigil system is 16 channel, 60fps (total across all cameras), with a 1TB drive - with proper setup, you should easily get 30 days out of that. Anything suitable from Pelco, Altronix, Enforcer... 12VDC or 24VAC as appropriate. Ditto, any quality Belkin, APC, TrippLite, or other UPS of suitable capacity. Some power supplies have space for a 12V gel-cell battery to keep the cameras running for a short time, too. Look at the CNB Monalisa line (www.cnbtec.com). Search this site, you'll find they're very popular. The VCM-24VF is a solid, clean dome design, 2.8-10mm lens, dual-voltage, true day/night, 600TVL. Never worked with the Aver systems. I've come across several GeoVision systems on one client's sites... we've been gradually replacing them with Vigils. Don't like the GVs, personally - the interface is very poorly designed. The only thing missing from your specification is budget. Rough numbers, though, expect to pay $2500-$3500 for a quality DVR, a couple hundred apiece of cameras like the CNB Monalisas... wiring and labor would depend on the site.

We get them from ADI/Burtek in Burnaby, but you have to be a wholesaler/dealer with an account to shop there. Naturally I can't reveal pricing info here Others like Tri-Ed have them too. A few years ago, RP Electronics was selling "egg crates" of baluns at $5 unit price (this is a retail store, BTW)... at the time, the cheapest we could get were the NVT ones for something like $35/each, so this was an amazing deal. But like they say, if it looks too good to be true... well, suffice to say, none of them worked, all of them had scrambled video. Live and learn...

I haven't worked with this grade of wireless products myself, so I couldn't tell you. I'd like to, but the need/budget ratio hasn't been met on any jobs yet When I've had to do something like this, I've used a water-tight PVC box to just mount a standard 5-port D-Link switch. To power the switch, I ran 24VAC to the box, added an adjustable voltage regulator board, and wired the barrel plug off the switch's power supply to that. Tell them I'm not charging for my time - just feed me and fly me

Yeah, that's a bit annoying... the VCM is a slightly different enclosure than the VBM, lower-profile for flush mounting with a separate back-box... but with the VD you lose the day/night and the lens is a shorter zoom (4-9mm vs. 2.8-10mm for the VF). If the customs stuff is done properly, you shouldn't have to pay the duty twice. I don't know if you'd have them shipped as "warranty replacement" or something, a good customs broker should be able to sort it out for you... or even call RevCan or CBSC (or whatever the appropriate agency is these days), spell out your situation, and ask them how to deal with the duty issue. They're still fine cameras, you just lose the day/night function and get a shorter zoom range on the lens (at least as far as I can tell from the spec sheets). I don't know how well they'd work with external IR lighting. Worst case, get the VF models for this job and keep the VDs around for future use...

It's probably the same as a cheap-cheap National DVR I have kicking around... unfortunately that's installed on a temporary job at the moment so I don't have it handy. I'll look it up as soon as I can.

I didn't know Cisco was getting into this game... got any links/info on "their model for CCTV"?

I can't speak for the Panasonic specifically, but I'm doing something like this with an IQEye IQA11 dome, recording the IP data on a Vigil DVR and feeding the analog out to a customer awareness monitor. I know with the CW484 dome, the SDIII function is disabled when you're plugged into the service port, which to my mind is absolutely ridiculous (had a hulluva time setting up the SDIII for cameras that were mounted in a bulkhead!)

Found a manual for the Ultra 8, and it states that camera supports Pelco P. so I would think this one would too.

Primarily, that it's IP based. Some will argue for "traditional" analog systems, and those still have their place as well (as do hybrid systems, which I deal with extensively), but in your case, the large area involved can really benefit from the use of IP systems. Wireless isn't a selling point as such, but where it is necessary or at least preferable, it's certainly a lot easier and cheaper to implement with IP. For example, you have two cameras at or near the guard hut - if, for the sake of argument, the guard hut was too far for a direct wired run, you could use a wireless link to the hut, feed that into a switch, and run the two cameras over the single link... and for that matter, other cameras that are also in proximity to the hut. Doing something like that with analog gets a lot more complex. There's that too. Again, IP gives you a lot more options and flexibility in a situation like this. That COULD be, but I really don't see THOSE cameras having something like that. Well hey, send me a plane ticket, and I'll come consult in person... cuz I'm just that kinda nice guy

He's full of $#!T. "Wi-Fi compliant with wireless standards IEEE 802.11b/g" - there's no such thing as a "different frequency". 802.11n draft supports 5GHz, as long as you're using all-N equipment, but so do the "home units". Agree with you there. I think this provider has the better plan overall, but he's selling you a bill of goods on the quality of the cameras. IP definitely has some benefits here, when you have multiple buildings. You can have a single network drop to a building and add more cameras by adding switch ports within that building (using quality switches, of course, so they don't choke under the traffic). Ultimately, you can even route video over the internet, if necessary.

Getting ethernet over the powerline is the easy part... I still have to get three cameras to three displays. Will a single receiver drive three displays, each with a different camera? Keep in mind, none of these are IP cameras, this is just using existing analog cams. Most likely, I'll be splitting off their inputs to the existing GeoVision system (using active splitters, of course).