Soundy

I've been in the business (officially) for just over six years, I've never seen ANYONE use a ground strap while installing a camera. Not saying you can't do it, just saying I've never heard of it being done.

Before you go tossing money at the wrong piece of the puzzle, what is this for? What is your budget? What is your existing equipment? If facial recognition is your prime concern, and you're not already locked into a particular camera, have you considered megapixel cameras? You can then use onboard storage (with some of them), or storage directly to NAS (with some), no DVR required. Even at the lower end of the market, 1.2MP is four times the resolution of 4CIF/D1. 1/3" chip, at 25m, you'd need a 60mm lens to get a field of view 2m wide. 9mm is WAY too wide to give you usable detail at that range.

"Rankmount"? Is that the new smell-recording technology??

I've never worried about a ground strap when installing or handling ANY kind of camera... never had a problem with it yet.

Framerate has nothing to do with facial recognition - all a higher rate does is give you more individual shots to choose from, it won't make them any clearer. 4CIF will give you four times the resolution and far better detail than CIF; 5fps@4CIF is better than 30fps@CIF if you're concerned with seeing details.

I understand now! Well... this is the tricky part: even in bright sunlight, you're not likely to catch plates going by at 50mph, at least not without very specialized cameras. After dark, there's no chance unless you have a flash attached. At this point, we're talking technology like is used in speed and red-light cameras - you'd need a camera aimed and focused at a specific point on the road, a tight flash beam aimed at the same point, and something to trigger both when the car hits that point. The technology is out there, but I don't expect you'll find it for anywhere near your budget... would probably be cheaper to just let them bash the hell out of your Jeep, then go buy a new one

Welcome, from Western Canada!

In aid of keeping everything in one place, I'll reply to a couple things from your other post: Ask yourself this: WHY do you want to catch license plates, especially of cars going by at 50+? They're not the ones that are doing the damage. If people are walking onto your property and removing bits of your Jeep, they're certainly not jumping out of those cars going 50+! I'd concentrate more on focusing on the sidewalk - if they're walking up, it's likely they're either coming along the sidewalk, or parking along the sidewalk. I'd say this is a good idea, and the only thing that needs to change is your parking habits. In short, pick a spot where you can nose-in or back-in your Jeep, then position your cameras to give a clear view down each side of it. Not only will that then give you good images of the Jeep itself, but should also give a good view of anyone approaching it from almost any direction. The only catch then is, you have to remember to always park in that orientation, in approximately the same space In that case, you could put out some planters or something else innocuous to delineate your parking space without giving away that you're creating a choke-point for approaching would-be vandals.... in other words, make THEM come to YOU.

Are ALL the cameras 12V? How many are using Cat5 and baluns? It's not uncommon to get ground-loop issues when you combine baluns with cheap 12V cameras. The ability of one bad camera to bring down others is a common failing of the GeoVisions... and I suspect, anything else that uses the same ConeXant-based cards.

My guess would be the Geo card itself, since everything else is drawing properly... Honestly, if you've ruled out the cameras themselves, this would be the point that I'd recommend putting in a loaner system, and taking this one home to your bench for further work, instead of sitting there ripping it apart on the customer's site. If you really want to use the throw-money-at-it-until-it-goes-away approach, you can then limit it to your own money instead of the customer's: buy all the different parts you think you'll need, swap stuff around until it's fixed, then rebuild the system with only the necessary replacements, and bill the customer only for those parts. The other stuff, you can either try to return to the store, or keep for future projects. The beauty with this plan is, if you start with the Geo card and that's NOT the problem, you end up with an extra card that you can build another DVR around And BTW, if I were you, I would STRONGLY recommend that he get a separate PC for all his "other stuff besides CCTV" - the cost of a couple service calls to remove spyware and clean up the "junk" will easily pay for a separate system, and he won't have to worry about downtime on his DVR.

Hey Scorpion, haven't heard anything from ya in a while, where ya been hiding?? Good to see ya back

For analog video, the recording will be far more processor-intensive, digitizing and compressing video in realtime.

No, they're terrible at fighting crime, they just sit there and watch it.

Military-grade is the best... expect prices in the mid-to-high five-digit range.

LOL! Very well typed Soundy. I actually read that without hesitation and realized it was shorthand when I went back to actually look at the words I guess I chat too much and it's almost a second language that I've learned to accept. Thanks I actually found a txt-to-English converter (http://www.lingo2word.com)... didn't use it on that sentence above, that's just learned from years of hanging out on a ricer forum where everyone types like that anyway. It doesn't flow naturally, so I did have to think about it for a few seconds There's a really cool plugin for Firefox that will do all kinds of text transforms, like 'leet, ROT13, Latin, Morse code, etc., I should see if they can add txt to a future release (it's like a dialect of 1337).

Thank you, it comes naturally.

That's kinda neat, but it looks like they're just a bunch of Esprits running the same tour, not actually synchronized to the music.

So, you DON'T want anyone to reply?? Oh... you mean "KNOW". Got it. See what happens when you don't use proper language? Your words mean something totally different than what you're asking. This is a pointless question anyway. Are cctv cameras any good? I dunno... are cars any good? Are houses any good? Is air any good? Food? Women? Nail clippers? What are you asking? Are cctv cameras good for certain purposes? Are certain cameras good, better or worse than others? Of course CCTV cameras are good... for CCTV. They're not so good for hammering nails.

You see, you CAN type in normal English if you really try!

Well, I'll start off with some of my likes and peeves when it comes to cameras, especially domes. As an installer, probably 80% of my "WTF were they thinking" moments come from cameras that appear to have been entirely designed by engineers with no concept of actually WORKING with them. Case in point: Panasonic WV-CW484, one of the finest super-dynamic-range dome cameras around. Brilliant in almost all aspects except for one: when you plug into the camera's service port, it disconnects the main video output (WTF), and *disables the SDIII setup in the menus (WTF?!?!). Now, Super Dynamic III is really this camera's claim to fame, and to NOT be able to configure that function while working from the service port is nothing short of utter stupidity, IMHO. Pelco's great for design brain farts as well... like using a 2.5mm (sub-mini) TS connector for their service port (requiring yet another cable or adapter)... then not actually including even a stub cable with the camera to allow you to connect it to any sort of common monitor connector (RCA or BNC)... and on their IS90 indoor domes, the service port is buried way down in the bottom of the camera where any but the thinnest plug won't even fit. On the IS-110 outdoor domes, the service port is nice and accessible, on a bracket immediately above the lens... which means in most instances, your cable is going to hang down right in your field of view. One of biggest ones has got to be the utter lack of adjustability in most domes. Take another Pelco genius design, for example: the ICS-111/IS-110 domes. They have a three-axis (sort of) setup that basically gives you full hemispheric adjustment... but if you're within that last three or four degrees of the side of the camera, the housing around the dome blocks the edge of the view, basically making it impossible to use the camera to look straight down a wall. You can adjust the camera to do it - barely - but once you close the dome up, you lose part of your view. Come to think of it, the IS90s suffer from the same problem. Ironically, some of the cheapest cameras out there have some of the most intelligent physical designs. All the CNB domes I've used, for example, work great for looking back down a wall, because they have the range of motion, and the dome doesn't get in the way. They also put a "standard" (somewhat - standard as in, a lot cameras are using it now) easily-accessible two-pin service connector, *on the back board* (not on the camera gimbal), and *include* a short cable with an RCA jack with every camera. Sure, I have sh*tloads of them now, but it's better than being stuck with NONE. Here's another good one... it's not on a CCTV product per se, but on a keypad for an entry system: they include a pair of oddball esoteric security screws with each keypad... BUT NOTHING THAT WILL DRIVE THEM. Not a driver bit, not an Allen key, nothing. These screws get tossed out from every single install, because I have nothing to drive them with. I have a security-bit sets with some three dozen different "tamperproof" tips, and nothing that fits these goofy keypads' screws. Okay, so how does all this ranting apply to your needs? Well... if you're selling to these guys on an installer's level, you biggest selling point should be, intelligence of design and how it will make the installer's life easier. IMHO, anyway. It's the little things that count... things like, captive screws for dome closure. A common and easily-accessible service port that doesn't get in the way. Full range of adjustment and full hemispheric view. If you're going to use tamperproof screws, include a tool for driving them (bits are generally preferable to Allen keys, for me... but if in doubt, include both). In short: if you're CNB and my existing supplier is Pelco, forget about price difference, you've got a lock with me I've got lots more (like the Pelco box cams that put the BNC jack in such a tight place you can't get a T-connector on it), but that should be enough to get things started

Hmm, interesting project! First thing you might want to do, is to confirm that you have control of the cameras. Try installing PTZ Controller from http://serialporttool.com, and use that to first make sure that the computer and cameras are communicating properly. Remember that the baud rates and communication parameters must match, and that each camera must have an individual ID set (usually set through DIP switches on the camera itself). Assuming all that is taken care of, do you have the specs or SDK for the Pelco P protocol? I haven't delved into low-level PTZ control specifically, but from my experience with other serial interfaces, you can't just send random codes to the device and have it respond - the commands must be properly structured, including checksums.

Complete brand and model numbers of the DVRs, at the very least. If they're PC-based, you can probably configure them for file system sharing, but if they're standalone/embedded types, you're probably stuck going through the web interface. If the latter, you may be able to script something to navigate the web interface automatically, but you'd then still be limited by the unit's network capabilities - I doubt most embedded systems will do what you want. Ultimately, if these aren't PC-based systems, you may need to switch them to PC-based systems to achieve what you're after... at that point, you could just run a regular backup app on each one, or even have them write to a secure network drive instead of a local drive.

I think this could be a good topic for open discussion - if I follow what you're getting at, essentially you're asking, what do installers look for in their CCTV equipment? What makes an installer happy, or pisses him off? Do correct me if I'm reading your question wrong. First thing I'd ask is, what do you manufacture? DVRs, cameras, accessories, etc...? All of the above? I could give you a lot more ideas about cameras, for example, than DVRs.

Cameras first... the mirrors will make tempting bait to finally capture the perps on film (metaphorically speaking).

Don't know the lux level, but based on your comments, I'm assuming it's extremely low, in which case, I would be happy with that image. Yes, extremely low. I swear, I'm gonna pick up a lux meter just so I can thumb my nose at Rory Thanks! That's me... Wearing blue jeans and an orange shirt... so both around mid-grey in there. That's a piece of pine 2x8 I'm carrying, too. I can send you the whole video clip, if you want... I can dial out the saturation on the DVR, but that will make the daytime image B&W as well. I should ask 3xLogic if there's a way to make it auto-desaturate when the camera goes to night mode. So far though, I haven't seen ANY DVR that does that... Best, Christopher