Soundy

Soundy, They do have 4 pin connector for power supply on PCB Yes, which doesn't have -12V. ------------------------------------------------------------ They do not use 24 v They stepping up 12v to 48 v for PoE confusion is about their pdf What they mean that board can take between 12 -24 V not that board need 12 and 24 v that all http://www.directindustry.com/prod/korenix-technologies/industrial-ethernet-switch-card-29418-410948.html "Korenix patented Built-in DC24 to 48V Booster for powering PCI card and PoE ports in rail, bus, transit transportation systems" Maybe it's just the bad Engrish, but to me that says they're claiming they boost from 24 to 48.

I'd be interested to see how that works out under FULL load - this sort of cheap offshore stuff, I'd expect to find that they're counting on 99% of devices it will be used with, not needing anywhere near the full 15.4W. Kind of like the "200W" car amp my buddy bought once, that had a 10A power fuse - even at 100% efficiency and assuming a full 14.5V, you CAN'T get more than 150W without blowing the fuse... nevermind that a typical cheap Class AB amp is only about 40% efficient. Yet somehow they manage to claim that it does 200W output power...

Soundy, They do have 4 pin connector for power supply on PCB Yes, which doesn't have -12V.

And how are you converting the file?

I dunno, those pictures look pretty good to me, all things considered. You'd have a hard time getting more detail than that without going to a megapixel camera. "Refresh rate" on an analog video camera is fixed - 30fps for NTSC, 25fps for PAL... perhaps you mean shutter speed?

What DVR is this from? Most systems aren't set up to record audio - are you sure there's audio on the file to begin with?

^I call BS on that. They state a full 15.4W *per port*... there's no way it will do that all at once. One port at a time, MAYBE. MAYBE. The page states the card starts with 24VDC and steps it up. The only place it can get that 24V from a PC power supply is using both +12 and -12V rails together. The PDF says it uses the ATX 4P power connector (uh, and what if your motherboard needs it???), which doesn't have -12V on it. And as noted above, even on a 500W Antec supply I have here, the -12V rail is only 0.8A *max*. They may be good stepping up from 12V, as the PDF suggests (contrary to the page Harrar linked to, which states only a 24V supply), but not from 24... It's a nice idea, but there's something fishy in all that.

That depends on your needs. So far, we don't know what they are, so it's hard to say. And to be sure, you need to define the difference between what you actually NEED, and what you THINK you need (aka WANT). Frankly, given the hardware you list in the first post (four cameras), 60fps total is probably more than enough. I can't speak for how others deal with it, but with the Vigil and Video Insight hardware, the total frames are divided into "banks" of 30fps, and it can be split up any way you like within those banks. Example: on a 60fps card, the odd-numbered channels are one bank, the even-numbered channels another. So you could put all four cameras on the same bank, and give each one 7.5fps; or give one of them 10fps, two of them 6fps, and the fourth 8fps; or any other combination adding up to 30fps. Or you could just put them on channels 1-4, meaning two cameras on each bank; you could then assign them 15fps each; or 20 fps to one and 10 to the other; or 29 and 1... or whatever is suitable. At 15fps per camera, most people would be hard-pressed to tell it from standard 30fps anyway. In any of these cases, resolution is independent of framerate: you can run a single camera at 30fps and full D1 if you want; you could run all four at D1 and 15fps. But then let's get back to NEEDS: running them full-out is going to chew up a LOT of disk space, especially if you don't use motion recording. It's also probably not necessary to have that high a framerate. It's NICE, it's PRETTY, but it's probably not NECESSARY. So you can play with the settings, monitor the disk space over time, and adjust them as necessary to find out what works best to balance "smoothness" vs. retention time. But ultimately, it's up to you to decide what's best for your situation.

Vigil supports a couple dozen brands... www.3xlogic.com

I'd be pretty leery of that - I don't see a power connector on it, meaning it would have to pull +12V and -12V from the PCI bus to get the 24V that it then uses to step up to 48V. That's a lot of current to be drawing from the motherboard, even assuming 100% efficiency in the conversion. Looking at a 500W Antec PSU I have sitting here, the -12V rail is only rated to a maximum 0.8A, which means you'd have a MAXIMUM (again, assuming 100% efficiency) of 19.2W available, which is barely enough to drive ONE device to spec, never mind two.

Yes, but that has the same problem I noted above: once you use one pair for video and one for PTZ, you have only two left for power. At 200' and with a PTZ's higher draw, that just won't be enough.

Sorry, mis-read that, I see it's just a 7" monitor... same idea applies, you could use an articulated mount of some sort attached to a stud inside the wall, so you could adjust the position of the monitor to sit flush.

If it needs 7" of depth, it's going to stick out the other side of whatever wall it goes into (unless they're 2x8 or larger studs)... presumably this would be a closet or utility room or something? You could build a box back into that area, use an articulated wallmount to attach it to the back of the box, then position it up flush with the visible wall and put a frame around it. Wouldn't be hard to mount a piece of tinted glass or a two-way mirror there, and wrap the frame around that, so it just looks like a wall mirror.

Couple different methods we've used: a smoke detector wired into the maglock circuit, along with a latching relay so that if the smoke goes off, the lock stays off until a reset button is pressed; or a motion sensor above the door that interrupts the maglock circuit. Which works better for you (if either) will depend on your exact needs: if you expect some sort of emergency that would require fast evacuation, other than fire, then the smoke won't do. We also had one site where they'd attempt to use the maglock to trap petty thieves (snatch-and-grabs of chocolate bars, and such), but the motion sensor above the door would let them escape... then reset just in time to stop the clerk running after them (they asked me to disconnect the motion... I pointed out that the fire marshall would have something to say about it).

Can't think of any reason it wouldn't work... an AverKey would be ideal for this, as it splits out a composite signal and has a VGA pass-thru, so all he'd have to do it insert it "inline" with his POS monitor. http://www.avermedia-usa.com/presentation/product_avkimicro.asp

True, Geo seems to be particularly susceptible to poor/noisy signal... but signal strength should have NO relationship to the type of sensor used.

Well, you can do that too... I mean, I just use baluns that are video only - no power tails or anything else. I'll usually split the jacket, pull the blue pair out for video, then slip the jacket back around the others to run into the power can. I'll typically use the green and orange pairs for power and leave the brown pair for "future use", unless it's a particularly long run, and I can split out the brown to add to the power pairs.

I've really only used video-only baluns... I just split out the other pairs I need and hard-wire them as necessary. I've used GEM, GVI, MuxLab and NVT baluns - I wouldn't say any of them are substantially better or worse than the others, but I do like the GEM and GVI for their tool-less connections.

Found this via Google: http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/secureview-video-transmitter-receiver-system.html No.

An old DVR chassis with a P4 HT 3.0 MHz processor, 1 GB ram, new 1 TB Seagate... It's pretty light on resources.... Nice... wonder how it would do on my old PIII/1GHz server that I'm about to retire?

If you're talking Cat5e, 200' would really be pushing it... even at 24VAC, two pairs would be under-sized for the power (since the other two would be purposed for video and control), especially when you factor in the additional current requirements of most PTZs.

That makes no sense at all, both types output the same video signal, the sensor construction and material should have no bearing on that at all. Maybe you should use something other than GeoVision, especially if that's the best answer their support could come up with...

Unfortunately, there are already a number of free services similar (if not functionally identical) to this, so you'd have to come up with something extra-special to make it worth paying for...

There actually are devices made specifically to facilitate this: http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=413a&cid=root http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=452r&cid=root http://www.muxlab.com/products/vec_quad_video_balun.htm http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=41&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1