Soundy

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.

Outdoor-rated vandal domes are just fine in restaurant coolers, particularly if they have heaters (in the domes, that is, not in the coolers). Mark, I'm in the GVRD as well, we handle a major local restaurant chain and they've been very happy with the CNB domes we've been using (some of them replacing Extreme domes that overheated and died, many replacing cheap junky IR bullets... yes, that fogged up in the coolers. There's a bit of an art with some domes in coolers, if they aren't internally sealed, because warm moist air from outside the cooler can get into the dome and condense on the cold surface... but this hasn't been a problem with the CNB designs we're using.

As I understand it, it's completely legal to record surveillance audio in BC... however, for it to be admissible as evidence in court, there must be warning signs in the premises that audio is being recorded (although this is not the case with video, oddly enough). I'm not a legal expert, however... you'd be better to consult a lawyer for confirmation.

ASUS's website doesn't even list that motherboard... you sure that's the right model number? Anyway, the pins you're looking for are labeled either RESET or RST on every motherboard I've ever seen... IF they're labeled.

How about for 8-channel units then? Or just use dual-voltage cameras, and/or go all 24VAC, and avoid the problem altogether.

DON'T use individual power adapters with that many cameras, if for no other reason than the logistical nightmare of tangled wires and power bars necessary to support it all. A single 32-channel regulated 12V power supply with individually fused outputs is recommended... or if you can't find a 32-channel model, a pair of 16s will do. Something like this: http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=2&model_num=ALTV615DC416UL

Depends what you mean by "control" but if you're talking about pan/tilt/zoom controls, then no, you don't need a DVR; you just need an appropriate controller - joystick type, keyboard type, or just a computer with the appropriate software.

Yes... minus whatever portion of the screen the software interface itself uses.

I couldn't name you any in the US, but you should be able to find it on their website at www.iqeye.com

So what is this solution, Alex? I've been playing with VLC to do it, and if I could get the cameras to play the stream for a short period and then stop, it would work. If I could get VLC to switch to a new stream after a set period of time, it would work. It SORT of works in that I can force a new instance of VLC after a delay, and that loads another camera, but it doesn't re-read the command line parameters or config file, which means I can't have it load a new caption or logo overlay for each view, which isn't a REQUIRED feature, but would be a good selling point (ie. a title stating which camera is currently displayed).

Actually, if you want a decent low-profile dome cam, check out a Pelco IS90 - small, clean-looking, really good picture, no need to monkey around with replacing the innards. They come with both a clear bubble and black mask (pictured), and a smoked bubble.

What should they do if they find other systems to be problematic then? Spend excessive resources to work around someone else's design problems? Sometimes you start building things one way, things work fine for several hardware revisions, then you find newer hardware has problems... is it cost-effective to go back and redo everything from scratch to attempt to MAYBE make it work on that hardware, or do you just say, "this isn't very good hardware, we don't recommend using it"? Look at it this way, how much more pissed off would you be if they DIDN'T list the supported hardware, you bought something else that they know doesn't work well, and then you had all kinds of problems, only to THEN call them and have them say, "Oh yeah, it doesn't work very well with that, we don't recommend it."?

What sort of monitor? If it's VGA, you can use a VGA balun to run over Cat5e... or just use a 50' shielded VGA cable. We get them at a local computer retailer for about $30.

We've recently been using IQEye Alliance-series domes in retail installations, they're fairly low-profile and very clean-looking megapixel domes. Before that, we used IQ511 megapixel box cams in Pelco DF-5 domes for these same retail clients. Either will work great and should be inconspicuous enough for your purposes. If you go analog, most any small box cam in the Pelco enclosure should work nicely. There are lots of other options, of course, but these are a couple I'm familiar with.

Check out ak357's "plug-and-play" IP cameras, they look ideally suited to what you're doing - no static IP or DDNS required. http://cam2life.net/

Yeah, and a wimpy 15w pencil iron? Please, that's for girls! This is the only way I roll: GO BIG OR GO HOME!

Nah, I prefer Xersin multicore solder. Still using a spool I got from Radio Shack some 25+ years ago That Kester stuff is junk! ;o)