Soundy

Good ideas. A text inserter is the easiest to implement and will work with any DVR (or VCR, for that matter) and any analog camera - you'll usually set it up with a camera pointing at the till and/or paypoint counter, and transactions appear onscreen as they're rung through. It's pretty easy to see then if something is passed over the counter without being scanned or entered as part of the sale. However, if you have a DVR that supports POS logging internally, that can be a lot more powerful and useful, as it will let you search the POS data and will sync that to the display. Agreed there too! Almost all of our liquor customers (bars/pubs and liquor stores) have at least two cameras in their coolers.

No special cable or camera required - the DVR detects motion from changes in the image.

Removable IR Cut filter - basically in day mode, the filter is in place to block infrared light for more accurate color; below the designated light level, the camera switches to black-and-white and the filter moves out of the way. This type is also know as a "true day/night camera". Sure... or if there's not a substantial price difference, just go with all 24VFs. How about more of the same? The CNBs are weatherproof and work great outside as well. We recently put three of them on a restaurant's uncovered patio - the only light here is from a couple of street lights 100+ feet away, and a little filtering through the shutters on the dining room windows:

It will depend on what light, if any, there is inside, but these cameras work great with very little light. And if there's NO light, well, there won't be anything to look at anyway - anyone breaking in will at least be packing a flashlight (unless they're wearing military-type night-vision goggles). If there's enough light for someone to stumble around, there's enough to get a good picture. They are available with varifocal lenses, yes... the ones we use have 2.8-10mm (if memory serves). As for vendor, I couldn't tell you offhand who ours is... you can probably find a local one via their website (www.cnbtec.com)

For cameras, take a look at the CNB "Mona Lisa" series of day/night domes. They work great in low light without the need of cheesy workarounds like IR. Excellent cameras for the price.

A useful diagnosis would be a lot easier if you gave a better definition of "bad (fuzzy)". Maybe with screenshots?

In theory, the drive should work... but whether you'll get DVD-burning functionality is questionable. For example, Windows XP's built-in CD burning will only work with CD-Rs in a DVD writer; it doesn't recognize DVD-Rs as recordable disks.

I'll go through your post more in a bit, but just off the top of my head, for your front door and hard lighting situations like that, you'll find the advice here pretty much unanimous: Panasonic WV-CP484 or WV-CW484 (box or dome style, respectively). The box model will probably be a bit cheaper than the dome, but you may need the extra ruggedness of the vandal-resistant dome in your situation. They tend to go for around $600 at online stores (according to a quick google search), which I realize is a big chunk of your budget, but there's little else on the market today that will handle bad backlighting like Panny's SuperDynamic III cameras. For low-light areas, check the other threads here on the "CNB Mona Lisa" cameras - they're a nicely designed dome with good quality for the price and outstanding low-light response. The Picasaweb link doesn't seem to work, BTW... tells me it's a broken link.

"Heater/blower" and "low power consumption" are mutually exclusive.

Well, I don't see anywhere to configure IP cameras in this one... but interesting thing, it will normally run for the same amount of time before locking up (about 90s from power-up), BUT if I go straight into Menu and then into Database Setup, it locks immediately. Hmmmmmmm...

I've recently been given this neat little DynaColor DG208 DVR... probably because it locks up consistently after about 2 minutes of operation. Anyone familiar with these things know if this is a common problem, and/or if there's a fix?

Thanks... this is actually the original HDD, we replaced it for the original owner because it was locking up after several years of service. If I can sort it out, it will make a handy loaner, or just something to play with. Appears to be VERY well-featured for a standalone... in fact, looks like it's just an embedded PC.

Thanks, I'll give that a look!

I am in a high volume bar business and it takes 8 hours to watch 8 hours of video . There is no way to see how much alcohol is being poured, how much money is being charged, how much change is given, etc. at 5 FPS. I don't have time to watch all the time, nor do I want to. It would be nice however to be able to see what is actually going on when I do view remotely. Inventory controls work great but when you have multiple employees on the same shift, working from the same inventory, you sometimes need to pinpoint where the problem is. If I was viewing for security purposes only 5 FPS would be more than sufficient, however that is not the case Thanks to all that have replied, I greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Have you considered upgrading to a system with POS integration? A proper setup will log the transactions from your POS terminal(s), time synchronized to the video, or even read directly from the POS database, and display transaction data alongside the video. You can search transactions, select a specific one, and see the video from that time... many will also highlight a scrolling list of transactions matching the video as it plays.

Pics show up fine here. If cosmetics are a concern, how about a covert install, board or small bullet cam inside one of the lighting fixtures? Low enough for a good view, without being conspicuous. A nice clean dome design on the bottom of the archway keystone might work too... paint something up to color-match the walls so it doesn't stand out too much.

The Capture and Pelco cams I've dealt with, once they're on an Autoscan program, need a slight directional "nudge" to break out of the autoscan and enable control again. Give it a slight up or down "tap" and the autoscan should stop... then see if the other commands work.

5. ??? 6. Profit!

A quad takes up to four video signals and displays them as either a 2x2 split display, or cycles through them, or in some cases will do a picture-in-picture display (one camera full-screen, another in a small window). A multiplexer performs the same function, plus processes video for output to a time-lapse VCR, and processes the video playback from the VCR for proper display. A VCR, well... it does the same thing as a home VCR: it's a Video Cassette Recorder, and it records video.

Your cable should be fine. If the server has built-in serial ports (DB-9 male) those should work as well.

There are lots of threads here about solar solutions. You won't find a camera with *built-in* solar power because the size of panel required is simply too large. Keep in mind that you'll need to power either a recorder or a wireless transmitter as well, or use a camera with built-in recording. You'll also need a fair-sized battery pack to power the system at night or when the weather is poor, and the panel will need enough output to keep the battery charged when it's sunny, *in addition* to running the camera.

Just a thought on the existing system: is it using onboard video with shared RAM? If so, it really sounds like the RAM is going. You can test it for free with MEMTEST86+ (www.memtest.org)

What framerates WERE you recording at? 30fps is "full motion" for NTSC video, but 15fps is virtually indistinguishable to most people. How old is this PC? What processor does it use, or more importantly, what RAM? Any current board you get will use DDR2; if the system is old enough to use DDR, or worse, SD-RAM, you'll have to replace the RAM as well... and possibly the power supply... pretty soon a "cheap upgrade repair" becomes more expensive than a whole new system.

Yeah, would kinda help to have a price range here... the "best" cameras are the likes of Avigilon, and for that "best" you'll pay 10 times what more common brands cost, and the lenses can cost more than the cameras. Might help to know, too, if you're talking about "the best" analog or IP cameras, as there are manufacturers that ONLY deal with one or the other.

What socket/chip is in this machine? I found listings for several SIMILAR board model numbers... but not that one specifically. If you can, download and run SIW (http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html) - it will give you plenty of details on the board make/model info. But based on numerous ASUS boards I've installed over the years, I've never seen those pins labeled anything but RESET.

Not exactly, 1/3" SONY CCD, B/W with 600TVL more expensive than 1/3" SONY CCD 420TVL or 480TVL, but B/W camera no more used, people in Russian or east Europe like use B/W camera with high resolution. Did you miss the part about "same features and brand name"? Of course a higher-quality B&W will cost more than a low-quality color... all else being a equal though, B&W tends to be cheaper than color. B&W is sometimes preferable for night/low-light use, and B&W video takes a fraction of the storage space of color, and so may be a desirable choice where storage is a concern.