Soundy

bpzle, I know what you mean! I used to be in IT as well; back in 2000, I interviewed and was hired for one job, and they told me that if I had my MSCE, I would be "worth" at least $5k more per year... well... I ended up working in a room full of MSCEs and could tech most of them under the table any day. One couldn't figure out how to get an internet connection working on a Mac, because he didn't actually understand TCP/IP. Another didn't know how to change out a dead floppy drive... and this was in an IBM computer that didn't even have screws holding it in, just flip a couple levers and pop it right out. Some of the techs were really good, to be fair, but most of the ones who waved their MCSEs as some sort of badge of honor were useless if what they faced didn't match their Microsoft-specific training. And yet, someone had determined that those letter meant they were "worth" more than me.

That's probably the difference there: there's probably no issue with DIY installs, and hey, there's nothing wrong with you helping your buddy out if he's doing his own install

Glad you got it sorted out You'll have to excuse bpzle, he sounds like he's recently had a run-in with some "trunk-slammers", guys with no knowledge of the industry who figured it was just a good line of work to get into and come swooping in underbidding everyone in sight. Actually, your story is pretty common around here recently: IT guys who, since they're "technically oriented", are being asked by their companies and customers to start doing their cameras as well. You have an advantage as well, since more and more cameras are going to IP rather than analog video, and your network and systems knowledge will come in handy for that.

Yeah, that's the main limitation, "current" PoE spec doesn't provide for a lot of current. New spec does, and is slowly making its way into the market, but expect to pay more for it.

I've very rarely used the baluns with the power pass-thru... mostly because they're substantially more expensive and other than convenience there's no advantage to them. I'll typically just use the blue pair for video with a standard GVI or GEM balun (Muxlabs are WAY more expensive, and I've never noticed a difference in video quality), orange and green for power (either split out of the jacket, or extended with 18/2 or station wire if necessary), and save the brown for future use, although it could be separated and added to the orange and green runs for a little more current capacity as well. Nothing wrong with the power supply - I believe that's a 24VAC, 16-channel, UL-listed model with circuit breakers on each channel? You could possibly go a little cheaper with something that uses glass fuses, but they're functionally the same. Local building codes may dictate whether Class 2 is sufficient or UL-listing is required for this purpose.

+1. +2.... Look for the Phihong PSA16U-480 for single channel 802.11af compliant PoE injection, you can find it cheap enough to not need to bother with what you are describing. I found those on eBay for $100... this by you is "cheap"??? I can get a switch with eight 10/100 PoE ports and two gigabit ports for $300!

Nothing wrong with those stats, especially for a four-input card. "Decent" may be pushing it... from the description they sound like pretty generic mediocre offshore stuff. That may be part of your problem. Higher resolution. Yours only does up to 352x288, according to the specs you listed. Maximum for analog video is 740x480, so you're only getting about 1/4 the resolution you should be able to. No, that should be fine. Your existing PC should be fine. You can go to a standalone, or a better card - just make sure it's spec'd for 640x480 or higher resolution, or 4CIF or D1. I suspect you'll find the cameras are half the problem as well, though.

Welcome back! You are correct, it would depend to some degree on the DVR - some allow you to divide the total FPS among the cameras as you desire (for example, you could have two cameras at 20fps, two at 5fps), while others will divide the total evenly across all channels and that's your maximum per-channel. In your case though, either way, you should be able to get 25fps each with only two cameras.

+1.

Yikes! That looks like the camera is failing...??

Attachments are broken - you need to upload the picture(s) to an image hosting site like TinyPic, Imageshack or Photobucket, and then link to that.

Could you provide photos of how this "noise" looks onscreen?

Thanks for reply. A combo modem/ router is present at the client's/ video server site. Have you found that using a separate modem would allow connection where it couldn't occur via the combo router? Not as such, but it would allow you (or the client) to plug the encoder directly into the modem so it has an "outside" IP and gives you direct access to it, thus possibly eliminating the router and port forwarding as a problem.

There's lots of other bandwidth and storage calculators out there, but this one seems to be the most complete, and popular, combining just about all the necessary functions for system design in one place. But again, I go mostly by experience, in figuring storage needs as well as lens selection, so as nifty as this software is, I don't really use it much.

Sounds like you're doing everything right so far. Try setting the device's IP in the router as "DMZ" (Demilitarized Zone) - essentially that completely unblocks that IP, and any ports that aren't forwarded somewhere else will go there instead. That should remove any firewall issues as well. Offhand, I can't think of a problem, unless the ISP on the server's end doesn't allow incoming connections *at all*. Is the router in this case a combination broadband modem/router? If not, try bypassing the router and plugging the server directly into the modem.

I generally don't bother - I can usually give a rough estimate based on experience, but the reality of recording varies so widely, that's probably about as likely to be accurate as any actual calculations. If you want a really good handy calculator, check out the offerings from http://www.jvsg.com/ - it will let you plug in most of the related factors (scene complexity, compression type, framerate, resolution, expected percentage of scene change and motion, etc.) to give you a fair idea.

Almost all forums disable the ability to use pure HTML in posts - it presents too great a security risk. BBCODE is there to provide much of the same functionality (formatting text, embedding images, etc.) without the same risks.

Most often, you have to configure the outgoing (SMTP) server setting in the DVR to use the one for the ISP that the DVR is connected through. The ISP should have that info available for if you were to set up a mail client on a PC on the same network - it will often be something like 'smtp.ispname.com'. SSL should not normally be required.

Canon cameras in that range also have bigger sensors so there is less noise then most consumer level cameras. I said "in their class". Although, considering those ARE full-frame sensors, there's not a lot else to that class That was the main point, there's more to low-light performance than just the type of sensor used. Processing is a big factor as well. Also why my 40D is cleaner than my buddy's 50D - going from 10MP to 15MP on the same APS-C sized chip

Agreed with the above, try the splice first - nothing to lose! If it works, you're laughing... if not, THEN you can worry about replacing the runs.

We normally use Vigil DVRs - most common model is 16-channel, 60fps total, 1TB storage, MSRP is *I think* around $3500. Add the cameras to that... We did a $100k+ system a couple years ago, with a buncha thermal cameras and Video Analytics. Work out the average from there

I find it's also handy to have a conversion calculator on my phone - good for lengths, areas, volumes, speeds, etc. Back to the subject: I don't have any pics of it, but I recently upgraded a site, replacing an old B&W National dome with a WDR color CNB for watching the front door of an apartment building, and the old Sanyo VCR with a cheap four-channel DVR. However, the site was happy with the existing wiring, so they didn't want the quote to include re-running it: a single piece of station wire, running inside the hard ceiling from the camera, but poking out just by the back wall of the lobby... then through the wall and out into the stairwell... then running along the walls of the stairwell, down to the basement... through the wall into the hallway, then down the hallway to the electrical room where the equipment was located. I've definitely seen worse... thin white wire along white walls isn't TOO ugly (just a little ugly). Silly thing is, the building super had spent plenty of time insisting, when I first visited the site, that they were fine with the old wire... but when it came time to install, he tried insisting that the generic line "wiring and connectors" on the quote meant it SHOULD be rewired, and that I'd told him on the previous visit that we would rewire it, and that he'd had quotes from other companies that included rewiring (yeah, one other, who wanted to sell them a complete over-the-top multi-cam system for about five times the price). The boss declared that, no, we would NOT be rewiring... buddy tossed a couple of "blah blah shoddy treatment yada yada" out, but ultimately I convinced him that his wiring would be fine, and he agreed that I should continue, and if the results weren't acceptable, THEN we'd have a problem... Well, I found the installer had used a balun at the camera... but not at the VCR. Wow, no wonder the picture was shyte. Put baluns at both ends, slapped in the new camera... and man, was he impressed. (Actually, probably would have been happy with the old camera once it was connected properly, but no point in going there )

I don't know about ocean air specifically, but we've been using Pelco EH3512-series housings in car washes for many years - the exteriors get pretty nasty with the soap buildup and corrosion and the paint coming off, but the cameras stay clean and pristine inside.

The DVR shouldn't matter anyway, as the text inserter is just overlaying the text on the video before it gets to the DVR. Really, all that matters is that your POS has serial output, and that your TVS can understand its data. Usually that means the POS is configured to spit out data in a generic delimited ASCII format. I don't know about the Casio box, but the Honeywell one I've used includes an assortment of cables and adapters for the RS-232 interface.

VERY rough: "double and add 30". More accurate (actually, VERY accurate): multiply by 9, divide by five, add 32. Going the other way: subtract 32, multiply by 5, divide by 9. Or... F=C*9/5+32