Soundy

Nothing wrong with being vigilant and aware of the technology available! Most of us around here LIKE to hear about extreme, "out there" technologies, even if we aren't likely to ever implement it ourselves. My comment was more directed at those trying to discourage the OP with the potential drawbacks to any solution here. As long as the client understands that there are no guarantees to any solutions provided, I stand by my assertion that doing SOMETHING is better than doing NOTHING. I suspect the client is thinking the same way.

Wow, this is getting WAY out there! Some nice toys there, Lolo, but probably a bit beyond an Indonesian hotel's means Guys, I think the basic concept here is, it's better to do SOMETHING than to do NOTHING. Obviously none of these systems will be 100% effective, but even something 20% effective will save some lives! I doubt wide-angle distortion will be a huge concern, either - basic vehicle underbody design and layout doesn't vary THAT much around the world, and someone watching on a remote monitor (particularly a trained security expert) will be able to tell pretty readily if something looks out-of-place enough to warrant stepped-up safety measures.

I can go back 10 more feet but wont I need zoom ?? Idea is to get recognizable face shot if needed... "Zoom" is kind of a nebulous term when applied to CCTV. Don't think of it the same way as you would with your pocket camera. "Zoom" is basically another term for a varifocal lens... such as 3-8mm, 2-12mm, 15-50mm, etc. Moving further back simply means you need a lens with a longer focal length. That could be a fixed-length lens, or a zoom/varifocal lens that lets you adjust the length across a range. Using the simplest lens calculator I could find... http://www.tamron.com/cctv/lenscalculator/index.php Your distance will be about 20'... your horizontal width of field should be about 4 (to get the whole door in, assuming again that it's a single door), and uncheck all but the 1/3" varifocal box. That gives you a focal length of 24mm. If Panasonic has a lens for that camera with includes that in its range (12-30mm, for example), then that's what you need, and you can fine-tune it once it's installed. Some cameras can record directly to NAS, but both must support it. If your NAS has an FTP server, some cameras may also be able to ftp to it directly.

Sorry... I was working up some angles for you on a lens calculator, but ran out of time and then was out of town for the weekend. Roughly, though... at 11-12', assuming a standard single 3' wide door, you're probably looking at something in the 8-9mm range for tight shot covering little more than the width of the door. How far back CAN you go?

Depends mainly on the distance to the door... the farther you can mount the camera back from the door, the better the angle you'll get. Lens choice will depend on that distance and the width of the door.

Those ExirView cameras are standard analog output, they'll work with any existing analog-video system.

That Panasonic would be fine for either position, depending on the lens length and resulting field of view. For the front door, you may need to place the camera farther back (to get a better angle) and use a longer lens to get a tight shot. It would help to know what, if any, budget you have available for upgrading cameras. Something like this might be worth considering as well: it avoids the angle-of-view issue, as well as backlighting issues you normally get pointing a camera at the door: http://www.honeywellvideo.com/products/cameras/sp/37779.html

"Popularity" is meaningless. The camera used should be the right one for the given situation. No one of these types is perfect for every purpose. I agree with you. we always choose cameras for different purpose. But everything has a trend to forward. For example, with the day & night and high resolution technology, cameras with the IR function or high resolution is get more popular in the market. So i want to know in the future which kinds of camera will be the main trend, not only for the style, but also for some new technology, CCD sensor or lens. You didn't specify any of that, you asked us to choose from camera form factors (box, bullet, dome, etc.). Honestly, I don't understand the point of the question. Are you planning to invest in a large supply of cameras and want to make sure to get the ones that are most likely to sell in the future? Why would it matter? Sure, the "high resolution" (megapixel) segment will continue to grow, as the technology gets cheaper... but that goes back to rory's statement, the cheapest cameras will always sell the most. Beyond that, I don't see why there would be any substantial changes in the market for any one form factor or technology. There's nothing happening in the world that would make domes suddenly gain popularity over bullets, for example.

Does it power up at all? Make any beeps or anything? If it has a "Spot" output, do you get video from that?

"Popularity" is meaningless. The camera used should be the right one for the given situation. No one of these types is perfect for every purpose.

Pretty hard for anyone here to do anything with the limited information provided... What make and model of DVR? What do you mean by "can't display the 16 channels"? Can it display fewer channels? Single channels? Is the screen always blank, or only on the 16-channel layout? "What is causing the problem" could be dozens of things, not the least of which is user error.

How about a low-light camera WITH IR illuminators?

Keep in mind the bandwidth you have available - the poor redraws may be more a function of your phone's data rate than of implementation of the client, and there may be no way around it. The upstream speed of the internet connection the DVR is on comes into play as well: I don't know if any still do, but I know some DSL providers used to limit upstream to 128kbit. There may also be settings in the DVR to accommodate different connection feeds, with the DVR adjusting framerate and/or compression when re-processing for the internet stream. A NAS has the added advantage of being useful on your home network as a file/media/music server; some also have web/ftp server functionality with MYSQL/PHP support. The one important thing to remember, if you do go that route, is that just as not all cameras support it, not all NAS systems support direct camera capture either.

IP cameras will allow you to view the cameras directly, but most DVRs (which you would use to record the analog cameras) have network-viewing support, some via web browser, some via remote client application. It sounds like you have at least a basic knowledge of networking, so that makes it a lot easier: just think of each IP cam like another network device, be it computer, printer, etc. Just plug it into the network, configure it, then aim it. Most of them, you use a provided utility to give the camera an IP (or tell it to use DHCP from your router), then do the more advanced setup through a browser. Yes. Well, you'd have to tell the NVR the IP addresses of your cameras, and configure it with your record parameters, but yeah, that's about all there is to it. Personally, I'd suggest a separate PC for recording - they tend to be a lot more flexible and upgradeable than the homogeneous little black boxes you can get. The answer is, "it depends". Some cameras include some very basic recording software. Others can record internally (SD card or internal flash memory). Some can also send images and via via email or ftp. Or, you can get a NAS box ("network attached storage"), which is just a box with a bunch of drives that you connect to your network - some cameras will support saving directly to some NAS devices, and then you just access the saved footage from your PC. NVR = "Network Video Recorder". Its primary purpose is to record the video from network cameras. It can be a standalone box, or a PC with NVR software on it.

I tried using the "screw-able" zip ties once, thought it was a cool idea... problem I found was, if you need to adjust or add to, or worse, remove from your bundle, or for whatever reason need to cut the tie... then you have to remove the old stub and re-screw the new tie. They're more expensive, so you don't want to just use them for EVERYTHING, so now you need to carry two different types... and they tend to twist out of place when you tighten the screw down. I have two bundles of these things, black and white, that I haven't used in years. I MUCH prefer these sort of anchors: The top row in particular, are clean and solid, and extremely useful - I've often used them to attach equipment to the wall by placing them in a sqaure pattern matching the outline of the gear (within the outline, so the stand it off from the wall), then zapping the gear down to them. Best part is, if you need to cut your straps, your anchors are still there for re-use.

Whether you capture to BMP or JPG won't make a significant difference - what he's saying is that the video is already compressed (probably HIGHLY compressed) and as such you're inherently starting off at a fairly low quality image... there's no way around that.

Looks like a photo of a failing CRT.

Huh? The term "VGA" has two common uses: Generically, "VGA" is a type of video signal produced by most computer video cards and accepted by most computer monitors, typically using HD15-type (15-pin high-density D-sub) connectors. In this context, VGA resolution is 640x480, period. "VGA recording framerate" refers to the framerate it can record at, at that resolution.

Exactly. I had that happen to me a while back as well. Customer told me he was looking for a system which will meet certain specifications, I put together a quote after visiting his business, called him back for feedback, was told he is still "thinking about it", drove by a couple weeks later and he had cameras up. Big deal. It happens all the time for one reason or another and all I can do is make sure the people who pay me for the equipment I sell and install are happy with what they get then maybe they will pass on my name. Next! The problem is more the ones who DON'T tell you they're getting multiple quotes, but instead get you to jump through all sorts of hoops and go to extreme lengths, wanting all the fine details, only to take that and buy everything themselves from eBay or something... basically making you do all their legwork while doing nothing to discourage the impression that they actually want to give you the business.

Oh yeah, something to keep in mind if you're shopping for $65 DVRs direct from China or somewhere... http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=19541

Yeah, but how many times? I could set up all 16 channels on this machine to record the same camera with different parameters I don't normally use time-lapse either, but this is just a wide shot of our back yard, and I wanted a time-lapse progression of the changes in weather. But I found setting that up precluded using motion-record of events... unless I set it as a separate motion-alarm recording... but then that messed up my smooth time-lapse flow (steady minute-by-minute progression, interrupted by blocks of slow progression during motion events)... so it occurred to me, I could just record the two separately from the same stream. And I'm not limited to two recordings - I could set one channel that records motion on the railroad tracks in the background at 2fps with low sensitivity, one that does motion in the driveway at 10fps with high detection sensitivity, and yet another for my time-lapse... and so on. I know some others allow you to stack different sensitivity zones for triggering, which Vigil doesn't, but I haven't yet seen one that lets you assign different record settings to each zone within one channel using analog cameras. True. I'm dealing with a Vigil here... motion-triggered clips aren't fixed-length, they'll go as short or as long as motion is occurring, with the specified pre- and post- tailings. Extending this concept, IP cams also make it easy to record a single camera on multiple DVRs, no splitters or signal loss needed... something that can be handy for off-site recording and so on.

...I can have my DVR record it on multiple channels with multiple settings For example, I have one channel with a regular masked motion record at 10fps... and another set for a time-lapse, one frame every 60 seconds. Sure, I could do that with an analog camera... using a splitter and losing some quality. I like this way better Plus I can add as many different variations on the concept as I want!

Would probably help to know what your budget is. There are options ranging from $500 to $5000 that fit your criteria, just for the DVR. Cameras to go with it can range anywhere from $20 to $1000 apiece.

You get one camera to record on multiple different channels with multiple different settings, without splitting the signal? Really? Here's a case in point: I set the DVR up to record 60-second time-lapse constantly, jumping to 5fps when motion is detected in a certain area. Pretty standard, right? Except those motion records really mess up a nice smooth time-lapse playback. So now I can make two completely independent recordings: one dedicated time-lapse, one motion-triggered. Not something that you're going to use every day, but still something different that could have specific uses.

We installed a number of cameras on a tower about that height. Unlike your instance, the tower was installed specifically for the cameras, but it does have lightning protection: there's a lightning rod that extends a good meter-and-a-half above the highest camera, and is bolted directly to the steel tower. The tower itself is then grounded at the base (heavy-gauge copper wire clamped to the tower, and to a plate buried 7' deep beside the concrete base). Three years in service now, not a single fried camera... good thing, too, since three of the four are FLIR thermal cameras worth a combined $50,000.