Soundy

BTW, for the above board that I administer, I've recently installed the latest update (3.0.4) and it contains a very nice anti-spam feature: you can set all new users so that their posts are placed in the mod queue until they have X number of approved posts. This gives us a chance to delete spammers before any of their posts appear to the public - they can post all they want, but only approved posts go toward the post count.

Doesn't appear to be with this version of the phpBB software. This is a very old release, though. Newer versions support it, and a lot of other features.

You shouldn't need to "worry" about the voltage... if the devices all conform to 802.3af spec, they'll operate at 48VDC. If they support the newer 802.3af-2008, they'll handle anything between 36-57VDC. Regardless, the spec defines the voltage required; you don't need to know or check or compare them.

Are you connecting to the DVR and just not getting cameras, or not connecting to the DVR at all? Do you get any error messages? What browser are you using?

Aside from reducing the signal level, why not? In theory, this should work, but I'd start with the assumption that the the digital box will handle the analog tuning fine. Unless there's something that specifically states the box is digital ONLY, there's no reason to think it wouldn't do analog as well, especially since most cable companies (including Rogers, AFAIK) still carry both.

Are you connecting to the DVR and just not getting cameras, or not connecting to the DVR at all? Do you get any error messages? What browser are you using? If it's Internet Explorer, you have to be sure to preface the IP with "http://", because IE is brain-dead and if it's not on port 80, it doesn't know to try http (actually, it's good practice with any browser to always add the "http://" when using a port other than 80).

What cable boxes is Rogers using these days? Like I say, look through your onscreen program guide and see if there's a "Security Camera" channel... if there is, this method should be supported. The other thing you could do is contact Rogers and ask them if it's supported with your specific box(es).

I don't see why not... digital channels, as well as internet and "digital phone", are still analog-encoded for transport over the cable in the first place. Your only concern might be that the modulator passes enough bandwidth for your carrier's entire range, but AFAIK that range is regulated (CRTC, FCC, etc.) to within a certain frequencies anyway, so as long as the modulator passes that entire range (which I'd think any would unless it was poorly designed or built) there should be no issue.

Check out the offerings from CNB - excellent cameras for the price!

Wouldn't matter if it came out of a system, anything like that, that's destined for sale in the US, should have its own FCC ID code. If it doesn't, it was probably initially intended for sale overseas. Not that that matters to your problem, but an FCC code on it would make it a lot easier to look it up on the FCC's website.

I've not used the 484 domes, but I have used several of the CP484 "box" cams, and a number of the IS-110 domes and their predecessor, the ICS-111, and I concur, the 484 is a far better camera in itself. Besides that, I find those domes a PITA to work with. I'd take almost any other dome design over them, personally.

If you look through your channel lineup (with the on-screen program guide), you should see a channel labeled "SECURITY" or "CAMERA" or something similar... with my Shaw Cable/Motorola boxes, for example, it shows on channel 116 - channel name SECAM, program description "Security Camera". That means Shaw leaves a "hole" in their programming on 116 for just such a modulator. The trick, for you, is to find out what channel Rogers reserves for that purpose, and get a modulator that will use that channel. If some TVs *don't* use the digital box, and don't have the proper cable-ready tuners, you may need a second one that will use the standard channels 3 or 4 to feed those TVs. In any case, the trick is that the modulator must insert between the incoming feed and the first splitter, so it gets split out to all feeds in the house. Other than that, there should be no problems.

I've never seen this as a feature of the CAMERA, but it's a very common function on the MONITOR end of a backup-camera system (the kind you'd normally put on your car). If this is for that specific purpose, you might be better to just look at a complete system of that type.

Welcome aboard!

Unless it's severely under-sized (like, 24-gauge power), your existing wiring should be fine, siamese or not. Unless it's damaged or the insulation is rotting away, there's little reason to replace it - that's just extra work and expense. If the new cameras have different power connectors, just snip off the old ones and splice in the new ones (making sure polarity is correct). If the cameras are all 12V and come with their own adapters, you can discard the adapters (or save them for later use) and power the cameras all off one central 12VDC power supply... which as VST_Man indicates, is preferable for long-term reliability and maintenance.

Pelco D/P protocols are well-documented and dev kits are readily available... if your dome supports either or both (it should), you might consider using one or both of those instead. Have you contacted Bosch to ask if they have an SDK available?

Problem is, we don't know what pan/tilt range you actually need, or zoom level, compared to what the camera is actually capable of. Most "real" PTZs will have a full 360/180 pan/tilt range, but if it's stuck in a corner, then you probably don't actually need more than 90-100 degrees of pan or 70-80 degrees of tilt, for example. We also don't know what level of detail you need. Do you need to see fine details of what people are working on, or just that they ARE working? All these factors are crucial in coming up with some suitable recommendations. Remember, "virtual PTZ" is achieved simply with a super-wide-angle view capturing a large area, then cropping a smaller area in software and zooming that to a larger view. Any high-megapixel PTZ camera with a wide lens will give you the same base image, even if it doesn't have the built-in ability to zoom on smaller areas of the picture. If you don't need "movable" zoom but need to always focus on set areas (say, specific workstations), take a look at the IQEye Alliance-series domes, with their "Cameo" function, that lets you pre-define a number of "zoom" regions that you can then view full-screen or in various split-screen grids - think of it as a PTZ with a number of simultaneous presets. If you need a camera in the middle of the room with a 360 degree view, take a look at the Capture Omniscape, which can also give you multiple simultaneous "preset" views. Arecont also has a couple of "panoramic" domes that put four cameras inside a single dome, both 180 degree and 360 degree versions.

Alright, keep up posted! Is this what I'm looking for? "Jerry Hofmann is one of the most respected FCP experts in the world..." I don't have occasion to do a lot of video editing, but if I did, I would probably buy a Mac just so I could use FCP. When I was doing IT/tech support at a digital-arts school, I decided to take advantage of all the toys at my disposal to try making a video for a friend's band. I started playing with Premiere (I think it was v3 at the time) and with no training got absolutely nowhere. So I sparked up FCP 1.0 instead and grasped it immediately, and even got a video about 70% done before the project got sidetracked and the project files lost. C'est la vie. Indeed

Is there an "FCC ID" number silkscreened on the board?

Actually, it's fairly common for DVRs to export video in their own format (usually whatever format they're recording in, to eliminate the need for transcoding), and include a small player if it's something that slightly non-standard. I've worked with both Vigil and Capture DVRs that do this; the Vigil uses an Aztech variant of Motion-JPEG, and Capture uses their own "Minibank" format. The Vigil includes its player and an AUTORUN on the CD; if the player isn't installed, it will install it and its codec and launch it to play the video, or if it is already installed, it will simply launch the player. The Capture does something similar, if memory serves (I haven't played with their exported video in a long time). Both CAN export to other formats like AVI, but that takes time as the video has to be converted to the chosen format first. Others like VideoInsight record to common codecs like WMV (Windows Media), DivX and MPEG-4, and exporting simply copies the selected video file(s) to the disc. Either way, simply placing the files on the disc is the standard way of doing it. The other benefit to this practice is that it doesn't limit you to burning a video disc... you can export to hard disk (internal or external/USB), network drives, flash drives, even a floppy drive if necessary. You'll find few if any DVRs that will actually produce an "authored" video disc, like a DVD that you can simply plug into your home DVD player. The main problem would be the time required to transcode the video to the proper MPEG-2 format. The frame size itself matches 4CIF/D1 (704x480), but for DVD it's very strict, so anything smaller or larger than that would have to be resized. With CIF video, that would be a waste of the time it would require; with megapixel video, you'd lose most of your resolution and quality and that would defeat the whole purpose of going megapixel. In any case, if you've ever authored a DVD on your home computer, you know how much time can be consumed just in converting all the video to the proper format. Also, MPEG-2 is a much more inefficient type of compression for this sort of video, so it would take a lot more space than the video's existing native format (DVRs are generally optimized to balance quality and space requirements). And naturally, there's the quality loss that's inherent in converting from one compression scheme to another.

.EXE is an extension for an "executable" file on PC operating systems like DOS and Windows. The .INF file, I'm guessing, is named AUTORUN.INF - that's a file Windows looks for when you insert a CD, and if it finds it, it will follow the instructions contained therein, usually to run an installer or some sort of demo program.

Well, if you have an auto-iris lens and you haven't enabled the control on the camera, then yeah, that could be part of the problem. If you enable it and the scene just goes dark, it probably means the camera is just closing the iris because of its sensitivity settings... so again, you need to find the DC level control and adjust it for proper brightness.

I wouldn't worry too much about BLC/WDR... backlighting should not be a problem in an elevator (unless you're mounting the camera in the floor, or on the back wall looking at the door). WDR *might* be briefly helpful while the doors are open (depending on the ambient light outside the car) but it's such a short instance, it really shouldn't be a problem. If you're looking to capture any potential issues (vandalism, etc.), those are going to happen once the doors close anyway.

Scorpion, I did a decade or so of IT support before getting into CCTV - first for a small digital recording studio (my actual schooling is in audio engineering), then some phone support for IBM OS/2, then a stint with the same digital arts school I took my audio training at (oh, the irony), a couple years with our local government-run auto insurance company (did a bunch of new server/desktop rollouts all over BC), and finally another term back at the digital arts school. CCTV happened for me almost by accident

Yeah, but now you're comparing to Arecont, so you're really not in the same price range anymore.