Soundy

25 or 30, depending on whether you're working with PAL or NTSC. There's no benefit to recording at a higher framerate than the video standard provides. In fact, there's not usually any benefit to recording at even HALF that framerate.

That's just it though - the width of the beam at a given distance will depend on the unit's design. There is no "universal calculator". What you're looking for is really just basic geometry - the beam pattern can be thought of as a triangle, so if you know the width at a given distance, you can calculate the width at another distance. You can use standard Pythagorean math (a^2 + b^2 = c^2), or basic sin/cos calculations. Or just think of it as a simple ratio: if the beam is 10' wide at 20' from the source, it will be 20' wide at 40' from the source. Inverse-square law then states the light level will be 1/4 of what it was at 20'.

Would really depend on the design of the specific illuminator - the LEDs used, reflector/lens design, how the LEDs themselves are mounted and positioned... manufacturer data sheets are your best bet.

What current (amperage) rating is the power supply? A line moving up the picture could indicate a ground-loop issue as well.

"Public port" is the port the router listens to on the outside connection, for incoming data. "Private port" is the port it sends that data to on the LAN. Usually they'll be the same, but there are instances where you might want to change one or the other... for example, if you have a DVR or webserver that doesn't let you change the port from the default of 80, but you have an ISP that blocks port 80, you could assign a different public port, and forward that to the standard private port.

This is the package we use: http://www.optexamerica.com/productpage.aspx?l1=2&l2=6&id=38 Outdoor-safe sensor/transmitter, indoor receiver with selectable chime and form-C relay output.

How do you know that uninstalling the software will also remove the settings?

As long as the runs aren't too long, you can actually use a single pair for each "leg" of the power. If you were using baluns to run video over the Cat5e, that's what you'd be doing. As for "not safe", keep in mind that Power-over-Ethernet spec allots 48VDC power over the brown and blue pairs. Where problems arise is that with long runs, low voltage, and too-small wire, you get voltage drops and current limiting that can cause the cameras to not get enough power.

Like bpzle says, you have lots of options here. You can use the Cat5e for power AND video using baluns... you can use the RG59 for video and the Cat5e for power... you can use the Cat5e for PoE-powered IP cameras... No need to rewire (and probably not possible either, as the wire is probably stapled in various places, if it's done according to code).

General advice around here is avoid *ANY* CCTV products from fleaBay. Probably why nobody (at least none of the regulars) has any experience with them. The only time you'll see someone here discussing CCTV components from eBay, it'll be someone asking why they don't work as advertised.

I worked on a similar camera once... if memory serves, one wire controlled zoom and one did focus - connecting to ground would zoom one way, and to power would zoom the other way. Same with focus. At a guess, I'd think the red is power and black is ground, supplied by the camera... the other two would be for zoom and focus. Shot in the dark, but give it a go...

It IS an older camera - http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=67166&catGroupId=16816&surfModel=WV-CS854B (SuperDynamic II is a couple generations old). Should still be a good image though, unless there's something actually wrong with it....

Without looking it up, I'd say there's a 99.9999% chance that those cameras support Pelco protocols themselves. Hook it on up to the Q-See and give it a go.

We do have a local supplier (in Maple Ridge)... I'll find out his contact info and PM you.

Not actually IN the Falls, I hope! That's kinda far east to be Canuckistan - it's all Leaf Nation out there, isn't it?

Does he want JUST the monitor, or the mouse and keyboard control as well? A number of people make KVM extender solutions that use a single Cat5e run - we've used Belkin, A-TEN, and another whose name escapes me at the moment. You could also plug the DVR into the network and allow the customer to access it with client software on his workstation. If he only wants video, you can use VGA baluns (we usually use MuxLab by client spec, but lots of others make them), although long VGA cables CAN be had cheap - here's a 50' one for $25: http://a-power.com/product-5420-557-1

That actually depends on the specific hardware and how it handles multiple cameras. It would be rare that multiple cameras would split up the resolution, but it is possible depending on how the manufacturer has implemented things. There's a lot of weird designs out there. Correct. The software is just taking in the signal from the card, via the card's driver. It can scale down the resolution from there, but it can't create higher resolution than the card produces. Doesn't sound like anyone here is familiar with them.

I'm in Vancouver area as well; we've used plenty of the VCM-24VF cameras, as well as earlier similar CNB domes, outdoors in direct weather (assorted Cactus Clubs, mainly) with no problems other than raindrops sitting on the dome. In all cases of direct exposure, they're mounted directly to walls, no pendants required.

I generally prefer static as well, for the reasons already covered. Plus on a lot of sites, the camera positions are already numbered, and I like to assign IPs to match the position for easy management (192.168.2.101 for camera 1, .102 for camera 2, etc., for example). There's nothing wrong with DHCP as such, but some systems (especially some cheap routers) implement it poorly, with short lease times and without support for reserved addresses. If set up properly, there's no reason it shouldn't work fine. I have seen instances where machines would reboot and randomly receive new IPs from a router... but those were a particular line of LinkSys routers that had that issue. I mostly use D-Link, and they almost universally have DHCP reservation support, so once a camera pulls an IP from it, that IP can be added to a reserved list so that it will ALWAYS receive the same IP. If you understand how DHCP works (or is supposed to work), there's little need for concern. With every IP assigned, a lease time is also set, that the IP assignment is good for. At the halfway point in the lease, a device will begin to poll the server for a renewal. It has up until the end of the lease period before the server will return the IP to the pool and make it available for another machine. Most client devices will retain the assigned IP indefinitely until it receives a new one, or until the IP is released. The problem arises when the server and/or client devices don't follow the spec properly.

The fact that he came up with the number indicating 43fps recording, which isn't possible with NTSC or PAL video?

A couple overviews of the whole camera, and a few of the inside, may help someone determine what make/model the camera actually is. If you can, look around for a label (probably silk-screened on a circuit board) with an "FCC ID" marking, followed by a number. If the camera was sold in the US, it should have one of these. That number can be looked up at www.fcc.gov and will give you at least a manufacturer.

Agreed, it will depend somewhat on the cameras you have and what DVRs or NVRs support them. Some cameras can write directly to network storage, no DVR required. That said, you could look at a Vigil NVR (see link in my sig); it will handle a wide range of network cameras (including generic HTTP support, if you know the camera's parameters) and falls within your budget. Being PC-based, you can easily drive your large screen through VGA or DVI.

It would take a *LOT* of force to actually crush the wire to the point it shorts between the core and the shield. You could drive over most coax with a truck and while it's not very good for the cable, it wouldn't cause a short, and likely wouldn't cause a break either. At worst, crushing it like that would affect impedence, which could affect loading and noise rejection. For a short, you'd need some sort of physical damage by an outside object. If you can, get ahold of a 75-ohm terminator, they make handy diagnostic tools: put one on one end of the line, then measure resistance across the tip and shield at the other end. A single reading will tell you if there's a short or open.

That is correct. TCP data "ports" have no relation to the network jack "ports" on the router. It is possible with some setups to use two DNS entries, like dvr1.domainname.com and dvr2.domainname.com, but generally that would require a webserver to handle the requests, and usually all it would do is then re-forward them to the different ports anyway. I don't know of any routers (at least not cheap consumer/SOHO models) that can do subdomain name-based routing.

The plan: we have a customer with several sites, many with IP cameras. They want to be able to have a monitor at each site that will randomly display a live camera from another site. The sites are already all connected via VPN, so I can access the cameras on any site from any other site. What I need, is software that will automatically switch from one to the next on a schedule, maybe every few minutes. These are all IQeye cameras, and I can use the IQstream utility to do a single camera in full-screen, but it has no option to sequence cameras or close after a set period of time. My one thought is to put it in a loop in a batch file, then schedule another process to kill the IQstream app every so often, but that would be glitchy at best. These sites also all have Vigil DVRs, so I can use the Vigil HD Viewer app, but while it will do a split-screen of multiple cameras, it won't do a sequence of full-screen views either. I don't need to record anything, just display. I know there will be bandwidth concerns; we'll deal with that when we get to that stage. Ideally this solution would have the ability to work with a streaming media server at the client's head office, where they have lots of upstream bandwidth available, so the stores only need to support a single stream... but before any of that happens, I first need to find something that will handle the displays the way I need. Thanks!