Soundy

I'm not an expert on this, but considering that the existing wire you're using with the baluns is probably standard solid-core telephone wire, or maybe solid-core Cat3, I don't think stranded Cat6 would see a problem, at least not in the foreseeable future. We do have ONE elevator camera on one site, running on Cat5e, with no problems in the first two years. The wire was provided by the A/V company, who also run video to three small monitors using the other three pairs. You know what, I looked at them when a customer brought them in to a site I was working on... I don't remember offhand how they connected, and I didn't actually install them. I *think* (but don't quote me on this) that the camera board (mounted on a basic two-axis yoke) connected via a small wiring bundle to a back-board, and that board had a PCB-mounted RJ45 jack... but I could be wrong about that. Assuming I'm right though, the back-board might be able to go in behind your corner enclosure, or even on top of the car, with the interconnect wires extended as necessary. One other thought, if you do end up needing to retain the existing cameras, you could probably improve the quality by reducing the baluns to two per camera, just one at each end (you make it sound like there are multiple pairs in use *per camera*). Of course, that assumes the camera themselve don't just suck.

I'd recommend doubling the conductors, standard phone wire can be a little thin for some cameras' current requirements. We typically use the red and yellow together for positive, and the green and black together for negative.

Yeah, that's the one problem, the thermal stuff is NOT cheap. If memory serves, the FLIR WideEye runs in the $25k range... the SR-19s around $15k.

Some of the ACTi IP dome cams are essentially board cameras inside basic domes... you might be able to retrofit something like that. The big problem will be wiring - even IF you have two pairs available in the runner lines, it would be iffy to use that for ethernet. You MIGHT be able use something like Veracity HighWires in conjunction with the baluns - they're designed to let you run ethernet over existing coax, but I don't know how it would work with the baluns. You might be better off, if you don't actually need megapixel resolutions in the elevators, keeping the existing cameras there and using video servers (Axis makes some) to integrate them to your NVR setup.

If you can't find it in the setup menus, you could plug it into a router, and the router should show it in the DHCP Client Table.

I don't know if they make a PTZ. You could mount something like these SR-19s on a PTZ platform and get at least the pan-tilt function. On this particular site, we used two of these, and a WideEye model, which provides a full 180-degree view, essentially using two cameras in one box:

Oh sure. Thermal imaging looks very different from visible light imaging - generally the cooler something is, the darker it is in the picture. The image is unaffected by ambient light - images look pretty much the same day or night. Here are some examples, with a series of thermal cameras on top of a 50' tower, accompanied with a day/night Pelco Esprit PTZ: This is a FLIR SR-19 from just a few moments ago - contrast is low because heavy rain cools down everything: This is a visible-light image from approximately the same position, at the same time: From the same tower, in a different direction: And visible light: And for comparison, the same shot from the FLIR in the day:

Check out the thread here: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11322&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=83 wow. nice setup. need a large housing to house this one. i have check avigilon's website they dont have ptz camera. the one used in the link was a professional HD series. Yeah, the range something like that would operate at, PTZ probably wouldn't be a huge benefit - you'd be placing it probably 10+km from the mountain and wouldn't be moving it more than a couple degrees anyway.

Yeah, if you're placing your camera a long way from the site, quality of optics will be critical - the lens alone mounted to that 16MP Avigilon listed above lists at $10,000. Yeah, really depends on your needs - again, whether it needs to be close to the site or not. Something closer, the housing and protection is going to be a LOT more critical. Oh yeah, I was gonna mention that too, thermal would be kick-ass for this purpose. FLIR is one of the big names in that area - www.flir.com

Check out the thread here: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11322&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=83

Wow, that's a pretty esoteric purpose! Sounds cool, though (pun not intended)! I guess the first question is, what do you want to monitor exactly? Do you need close-up, high-detail video of things like crater activity and ground movements, or wide views of general activity, or...? I'd think something if you wanted something for long-term reliability, you'd want something fairly far away with a high resolution, so it's not damaged by the heat and corrosive gasses that are common to volcanoes. You'd certainly want a high-quality weather-sealed enclosure to protect the camera. At the high end of the scale, there's another thread here where a 16MP Avigilon camera with an effective 1200mm focal length that's used to view activities several miles away in pretty good detail... but you're looking at something in the range of tens of thousands of dollars.

Weird, dunno why it doesn't like it in your post.

Try using tags to embed pictures.

http://s739.photobucket.com/albums/xx37/Neptune769/ I dunno... works for me. Minimum post count maybe? Not sure what that is exactly.

Yeah, a half-bridge won't do the trick, you need a full bridge, which means however you hook it up, you'll have two diodes in line - that's AT LEAST a 1.2V drop (probably closer to 1.4V).

Is the camera itself staying on while the LEDs are blinking? Try metering the voltage at the camera, see if it drops significantly when the LEDs come on - my bet is that the current draw from the LEDs is causing the voltage to drop to a point that the LEDs shut off... then when they're off, the voltage goes back up to the point the LEDs can turn on again... and around goes the cycle.

Ain't that the truth! Same goes for DVRs as well. There's a thread for this as well, at least for megapixel cameras, as well as numerous samples of different cameras in various individual threads. Part of the problem is, there are SO many different types of cameras and their performance is affected by SO many different things... add in that most better cameras allow at least some level of user-adjustment than can significantly affect the image quality... you could compare some generalities, but it's difficult to really quantify a lot of what you're showing. People do this from time to time... usually posting diagrams and asking for camera positioning advice. As long as you don't post any store ID info (name, address, etc.), I don't see that the owners would have any problem with you sharing diagrams of your setups. Blur out any faces or other identifying info on any camera stills, too, of course.

Means he wants to know how far away you are (rough translation)

All that notwithstanding, high framerates are often overplayed in CCTV. You're generally looking to record "trouble" events to see what happened, not making movies, so while 20+ fps may "look nicer" it's often far more than is necessary simply to see "what happened". For license plates, unless you're trying to capture fast-moving cars in a small space, 20-25fps is WAY overkill. FAR more important is a fast enough shutter speed so that the plates aren't blurred. If you get into systems that sync a strobe light (like photo radar/red light cameras) all you need is a single frame, synchronized to the strobe.

Lighting is your main issue here, since most pub entrances (in my experience) are fairly dark, and you get NASTY backlighting on people coming in when the door is open. If the budget allows it, I'd suggest a pair of Panasonic CP484s (box-type) with ~3-10mm varifocal lenses, or CW484s (domes). They'll work well in the dim light and handle the backlighting really well.

Yeah, that's an important point too - no-name stuff, the specs they list may not necessarily be accurate or truthful.

Probably have a firewall active on the laptop that's blocking the incoming connection from the other machine.

I think that's the "career whinge" for just about everyone here!

Welcome aboard! This really is an industry where "you get what you pay for", and when you pay more for a camera, there's a lot more to it than the sensor. For example, there's the processing circuitry - the stuff that adds features like extended/wide dynamic range, low-light noise reduction, digital slow shutter, day/night mode switching, backlight compensation, bloom suppression, digital zoom, and so on (this is a generic list, btw, and not all features apply to the cameras you listed). There's the "accessory" support, like auto-iris lens drivers, user-adjustable shutter speeds, serial-controlled onscreen menus, etc. There's the quality of the housing - metal vs. plastic, Lexan vs. glass vs. plastic domes, weather sealing, etc. There's the lens, if one is included (as it is with most bullet or dome cameras) - varifocal vs. fixed, auto-iris vs. not, and just the quality of the optics (particularly glass vs. plastic elements). And there's the sensor itself: with the cheap camera, you don't know what sort of manufacturing quality you're getting. They may be using "factory-second" chips (those that didn't pass the manufacturer's initial QC checks). They may simply be made to lower standards, or with looser tolerances. Or they may be just fine... but that's the chance you're taking. And of course, if you're sourcing from eBay suppliers, there's the standard cautions there - are you actually getting what you think you're ordering? What if you get a bad camera that needs to be returned under warranty? Will you need to pay your own shipping? So many ifs that you don't have when paying more at a local supplier or reputable online seller. So yes, you can set your customers up with the $50 cameras and they'll PROBABLY work fine for them... just make sure to "manage their expectations" so they don't come back later wondering why they can't zoom in on the reflection from a dine-and-dash customer's spoon to see the name on their driver's license, like they'd do on CSI (which you won't get with the $200 Bosch either, BTW).

No... at least not with such a minimal amount of information. There are literally dozens of types of replaceable fuses in use in the world, we have no way of knowing what YOUR power supply needs. Most PSUs I deal with that have replaceable fuses, use automotive-type glass fuses. Some (Pelco in particular) use regular 3AG size, some (like Altronix) use mini-scale 1AG sizes, which are hard to find. Nevertheless, try a local auto-parts store for these types.