Soundy

So let me guess, do the cameras all have wavy/shifting diagonal lines through the picture? I've run into this many times with baluns on 12VDC cameras - it's a ground-loop problem caused by the fact that most cheap 12V cameras have a common ground internally between the power and video, and adding a balun to the equation just creates one ground path that's substantially longer than the other. It's not the fault of using baluns, or of Cat5 over RG59... it's the fault of cheap camera design. There are a couple solutions... cleanest one is, if the cameras support 24VAC, to switch to a 24VAC power supply. That's probably not the case though. I've had varied success playing with grounding the power supply and/or some (but not all) of the BNC sides of the DVR-end baluns, to the chassis of the DVR... either might help, or they might not, or they might make it worse, or they may just clear up some cameras and move the noise to others. The only thing I've found that eliminates the problem, short of switching to 24VAC cameras, is to give each camera its own "wall-wart" transformer... or AT MOST, have two cameras per adapter. Naturally, that's not as "pretty", since it also generally requires two or three power bars (depending on the physical size of the wall-warts, the number of cameras, and the spacing of the outlets on the power bars). But I can pretty much guarantee it will clear up your video.

Yes, it's cumulative. If each user needs 256kbit (for example) for the stream he's watching, two users will need 512k, three will need 768k, and so on. There's not a way around that requirement, but using an off-site streaming server at least shifts the bandwidth hit to a larger pipe - then instead of the camera needing to feed each user an individual stream, all it has to do is feed a single stream to the server, and the server then feeds the needs of the multiple users. Framerate required will really depend on how much "action" he wants to see. If he wants to watch cashiers counting change out to the customers, he'll need 10-15fps or better. If he just wants to see if people are actually AT work, where in the store they are, and/or whether they're doing work or just sitting around, then 1-2fps should be fine. There are a number of different ways to do it. Again, using a single offsite streaming server is probably the easiest - then you just provide the desired users with a single website and login, and they'd connect there and select which camera they want to view - in practice, from the user's perspective, similar to looking at videos on YouTube. Sorry, I can't suggest one specifically, because I don't use one myself, but I know of others who do. As to WHICH cameras, well, all I'm familiar with for IP cameras are megapixel models - getting something like that is extreme overkill if you're only going to run 320x240 video. The 1.3MP IQEye cameras I use most are 1280x1024 resolution. What might be more practical is to look at some of the PTZ IP cameras from the likes of D-Link - those are generally VGA resolution (640x480), but will allow you to control the pan, tilt and zoom remotely, so if you've got some mangers all watching the action, the owner can move the camera around to pinpoint what he wants them to see.

I'm with survtech, I generally just select based on experience and having a good general idea what lens will provide what views. Using varifocals helps too, because you can fine-tune to the view you need... and carrying a few extra lenses of different zoom ranges helps too, just in case Really, the minimal amount of fiddling required far outweighs the time you'd spend plugging all the relevant info into any software (room sizes and layouts, in particular).

I've NVT, GEM, and.... some other brand I can't recall offhand. All have worked fine for me, including mixing-and-matching (GEM on one end, NVT on the other, etc.). I like the GEMs for their price point and snap-down toolless connections.

2fps should be fine over DSL, especially if the cameras have H.264 streaming. If the bandwidth is really limited (I know some providers limit the upstream to 128kbit), you could always push the video to a video streaming/hosting site, and the users can view it from that link instead of going direct to the cameras.

Keep in mind that all you need is a single pair for baluns to work - doesn't need to be twisted or shielded or anything. An unused pair in the emergency-phone run will usually do nicely. Most elevators will have power outlets on the roof to plug in a camera's adapter - if not, an electrician should be able to add one. The other thing you could look at is powerline transceivers, either video or network (and use an IP camera), and modulate your signal over the car's power feed.

Well, Cat5 is generally more flexible/pliable and fits through smaller holes, so it can be less effort to install... plus you have the future option of adding more cameras (you can run up to four on a single piece of Cat5, power not included, or simply add another if you're using one pair for video and two for power), or you can install a PTZ in the future because you have a spare pair for control... and of course, there's always the future option of simply dropping in an IP camera if so desired (you can do it over coax using Highwires, but a pair of those will almost cost as much as the camera). As to why it looks so bad... are these all 12VDC cameras?

Kinda depends on the software. Adding an external drive to a PC is easy.... getting the DVR software to use it may be another matter. I know versions of VideoInsight pre-v3.0 only supported a single target drive for all video... as of 3.0 they let you assign a separate destination for each camera. Others (like Vigil) allow you to designate a number of destinations and it will rotate through the pool as necessary.

Even if they were PoE, they're already in place and obviously already powered, so there wouldn't really be an advantage to using a PoE switch... just extra expense.

^Why would you pay a premium for PoE switches in this case?

Well over here in British Columbia, we still get tomorrow off (in observation of Queen Victoria's birthday)... so a hangover for tomorrow is fine

Um just a thought, slightly aside, but I think I would be forcing the contractor to correct his mistake and pull in the proper cable here... especially if it's leading to extra expense for YOU (ie. the video servers). Either that, or slap him with the bill for any additional time and materials required for you to work around HIS mistake (something we did recently, where the electricians only ran 1" and 3/4" EMT for us to pull *9* camera runs through - we had to use Cat5 with baluns instead of coax, so we billed the cost of the baluns back to them). It won't necessarily solve your network problems, you'll still need a better switch (or switches) to handle the traffic...

If you search the drives, does the missing file show up anywhere? If so, where? It could be that something is depositing it in the wrong path. If this is older software, and the installer is poorly coded, it may be trying to install the file into a non-existent location... for example, properly-coded Windows software, if it wants a file in the 'system32' folder (as is common for DLL files), should use the path "%WINDIR%\system32" - that way, no matter what the actual name of the Windows folder is, it will find it. Now if, say, the program was originally written with Windows NT or 2000 in mind, the default Windows folder name is C:\WINNT, so a poorly-coded installer might want to put the file in "C:\WINNT\system32"... except on XP, they went back to using "C:\Windows" as the default system folder. In that case (not saying that is the case, just postulating out loud as to a possible cause of the file going missing), the file may not get put on the system... or the installer might CREATE the "C:\WINNT\system32" path and put the file in there, but Windows won't know where to find it because that won't be in the system-environment path, which is a list of places Windows can look for application files. Anyway... search the drive for that file and see if it actually exists somewhere, and if so, where. Make sure to set the search options to include hidden and system files and folders.

What make and model of switch are you using? That could be a f*kuvalot of traffic, you probably want a good enterprise-grade switch to handle it, not some cheap $150 Belkin or something. And yes, it should be gigabit.

Video Insight uses this for their support. I know, that's where I first discovered it. It was such a pain having to put VNC on customers' machines and set up their routers for it, or worse, having to walk them through setting it up so I could do remote support. So the first time I used this with VI, I had to find out how they'd done it!

Wait'll you start getting into Foveon sensors

Welcome!

Er, what do you mean exactly by "broadcast on webcam"? Are you simply trying to get your Geovision system visible from the internet?

Does it actually have a "720P" preset?? That seems kind of odd, since "720P" is an HDTV designation and really not relevant to IP CCTV. That's still only 1.2MP. Sorry, but I get annoyed by improper or mis-used specs and marketing jargon. Toss that at customers, they start getting improper or unrealistic ideas and expectations, and then you have to make them feel stupid when you have to straighten them out. Terms like "720P" and "1080P" don't belong in CCTV unless you're talking about feeding video to an HDTV set using an HDTV spec. Megapixel IP video is capable of resolutions far beyond HDTV (5MP is 2560x2048), and yet can be limited in framerate - "720P/1080P" is only correct if you're producing a full 30fps or better, which many cameras won't do at those resolutions. Yeah, saw that... we were out biking all day. Family day and all.

Why would you do that, anyway? What's the purpose of wasting an extra 300 lines of video data?

If the software is displaying "NO VIDEO" in the camera window, then that generally means there's no signal coming into that channel. It's remotely possible that it's a hardware problem with the card itself, but far more likely that the camera or its wiring aren't working.

Better in the long run, yes, but not nearly as satisfying! So yeah, first thing I'd suggest is hit symantec.com and find the removal utility for whatever suite of theirs you have installed... see if that helps. If not, a reinstall may be necessary. And if all else fails.... follow these example: (NWS lyrics)

First thing I do on any machine having troubles, if it has Norton anything on it, is remove Norton. Not just with the Add/Remove Programs method, but using the "removal tool" that Symantec has for just about all of their products - something that will (should) remove all traces of the application. Norton's "consumer security" products are, in my experience, worse than the problems they purport to protect against. Unfortunately, between that and PC Tools messing things up already, you may be at the point of needing to simply reinstall Windows clean, without these hindrances. Either one may have blocked the Swann install from making some change it needed to make, while the install still thinks that change was made. That can lead to a repair or reinstall of the app not working because it thinks that original change is still in place.

How do you get that?? 1280x720 = .92MP. 1.3MP is 1280x1024. Anyway, seems to play fine for me using VLC and K-Lite. It's too short to tell for sure though, because VLC reverts to its mini-player window once the video is done. Trying it in WMP 11 as well, but I can't find the F*@^#ING menu to tell it to play at 100%. F#*$ing Microsloth and their f*&$ed up idea of making things pretty by hiding all the menus! Hmm, seems to be a wee bit of motion blur when you move the object a little faster... slow shutter speed perhaps?

Doesn't sound like UPnP... that DOES configure the router. The link above claims that the camera does NOT. This actually sounds very similar to how programs like TeamViewer work. TeamViewer, specifically, is built on UltraVNC, but what it does when you run it as a host service, or ask it to connect up, is log in to their central server, and give you a nine-digit code and random password (unless you set one yourself). A remote user then fires up TeamViewer, which connects to the central server, and enters that same code and password to connect to your machine. UVNC provides a similar service that we and some others use for remote technical support - you customize a version of the VNC server that runs as a standalone, then run VNC Client in listen mode on your desktop machine (with the appropriate port forwarding if needed). The customer downloads and runs your little tweaked server, and if necessary, selects one of a number of support destinations (I have ours set for our office, and for my home PC). The server then creates the outgoing connection from their system, so no configuration of their router or firewall is necessary. The server never actually installs anything, so once you close it, it unloads from memory, and it's gone. The reason TeamViewer and its ilk are not hampered by routers, NATs, and most firewalls, is, as noted above, because it never needs to initiate an incoming connection. It creates an outgoing connect, in this case to a central "directory server", where support personnel can connect in as well, and establish a two-way link. From the description give, it sounds like these cameras operate on a very similar concept - they bypass the need for port forwarding and router configuration by simply making an outgoing connection to a dedicated Speco server; anyone wishing to access the camere then connects to the server as well with the appropriate access code and password. The beauty of this, with the TeamViewer model at least, is that you never need to know the IP or a DDNS name for the remote system; its IP could change daily, it could even change locations, and all you ever need is the access code, because once the system has an internet connection, it connects back to the server and you access it via that. If these cameras work the same way, they share the same benefits. I would suspect that once you connect to the camera, it actually creates a direct, secure (VPN-like) tunnel to the camera, so all the data isn't flowing through Speco's server.