Soundy

Wow. Um... yeah... wow. I don't get that - does that mean I can't use a multi-channel 100+VA Altronix or Pelco or something? That's really weird. I wonder why they say that? I think most of them I've put in are sharing a 24/40 wall wart with another camera (we usually have them spec'd for things like ID shots aimed at bad backlighting situations). I should see if I can find out why they specify that... now I'm curious!

I've never seen a camera spec state NOT to use a power supply over a certain power rating (then again, of all the CP-484s I've installed, I don't know that I've ever read the manual other than for setup menu info). You sure it doesn't say that the camera doesn't REQUIRE over 10VA, or something else to that effect? That said, all my 484 installs have been indoor, so I've never had to put one in an environmental housing, for all the many cameras I've had installed in heater/blower housings, I just run a single power pair into the housing, then usually into the heater/blower connectors, and run a set of jumper wires from there to the camera. Hasn't failed me yet. Check the specs on the heater/blower, but I'd think a 40VA would be more than sufficient to run both the housing accouterments, and the camera.

It's still an RCA jack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector

When I was in my audio engineer training, one instructor has a favorite phrase: "There are no rules, only guidelines". To paraphrase, never count on absolutes - you can't say that one is "ALWAYS" better or worse than the other. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses that you need to take into account when determining which is best for YOUR OWN needs.

Doesn't matter where you are you can view and export recorded footage from any computer in the world using IE, Firefox or Safari. Your client can be at the site or on the other side on the planet doesn't matter That's fine if they only want a short bit of video... what happens when the cops come in and want 12 hours of footage from each of a half-dozen cameras? And before you go there, yes, I have had this happen - the police were into one of our fuel sites asking for a full 12 hours of all the cameras in their store, trying to track the movements of a missing person. Since we service two of the four largest oil companies in BC, we get requests like this, oh, probably every 2-3 months. It takes literally hours just to export to a USB drive, I don't want to think about how many days it would take to suck it back over a broadband connection. Well, let us know when it actually IS Until then, the argument is moot.

Many (most?) IP cameras can also email and/or ftp images based on a variety of triggers (motion detect, external alarm input, etc.)

Ah, but there's the catch: no matter how grand your software, it can't get around the bandwidth bottleneck... which is perhaps why having a DVR on each site is still desirable. Depending on the use, it's also often desirable for the people AT each site to actually have the video for that site available - for most of our clients, when the police need video of an incident, or if a manager needs to review an incident, they're usually AT the site... having no video stored locally and needing to send them off to some distant head office for it is not really feasible. I would hazard a guess that this is why toughman's customer wants a DVR for each site, in addition to the central monitoring. And again, as you said, your software isn't ready for prime time, so... yeah. I'll be happy to beta test it for you though

This is true, BUT... I don't think you want to try recording 40 cameras to a single location over broadband, unless you're recording CIF at ultra-high compression and about a frame per minute. Plus, Vigil is a solid system that's currently at version 5... your solution is still in beta *nudge nudge* BTW, you can also do something like this with the VideoInsight systems, which I've also dealt with... but personally, I think the Vigil system is a lot cleaner. That's my three cents (fuel surcharge included).

We actually have a few customers doing exactly this, using Vigil systems by Camacc/3xlogic. One of the main ones is a series of pubs and liquor stores - three of them, each with a Vigil DVR and a mix of analog and IP cameras, and the owner sits with the Vigil Client on his laptop and checks in on his stores The other big one is a major restaurant chain that used to do this with GeoVision DVRs; we recently took over the account and sold them on the Vigil systems when we did their new flagship store, we've since replaced a few of the GeoVisions with Vigils, and will be putting a few more in some new installations. They, too, are running a mix of IP and analog cameras. The Vigil Client allows you to configure multiple sites and create "groups" of cameras to view selected cameras from different sites on one screen. It also allows full search/playback, and supports remote PTZ control. This is the Client on my machine here, with multiple different clients' servers configured: This is a "Group" I set up for the pub/liquor store client; for those familiar with the geography in the Vancouver, BC area, the first site is in Surrey, the second is in Maple Ridge, and the third is in Downtown Vancouver: Internet on these sites is mostly via cable-modem, although a few run DSL. Haven't noticed a significant difference between the two, except that the local telco's DSL service has a tendency to change IPs regularly unless you pay extra for a static IP. Speed is good enough that PTZ cameras can be controlled near-realtime with relatively little lag.

Auto-iris is generally a function of the lens, not the camera itself (I suppose if the lens and camera are one integrated unit, it sort of becomes a function of the camera). Almost all analog cameras have the required driver circuit for it (IP cameras seem to be lagging in this regard).

Welcome! Well, to answer your questions in order: 4, not really, probably, and yes. How's that? Take a look at the diagram here for an example: http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1 Also take a look at the offerings from www.nvt.com There are other manufacturers, but these are the two I've used. Actually, to expound on the second question, I haven't seen a general move from coax to Cat-5, but I know *in some instances* we've been going that way, mainly because it provides an easy upgrade path to IP. If we know there's a chance a particular site will want to go to IP in the future, we'll use UTP and baluns so the needed wiring is already in place. When you start getting multiple cameras over longer distances, the ability to send four feeds on one wire gets VERY cost-effective; however, the cost of the baluns themselves makes coax more cost-effective (for us at least) for shorter runs (like, up to a couple hundred feet).

Actually, passive baluns are claimed to be good for anywhere from 1,300 up to at least 2,000 feet over Cat-5e. I've seen active baluns claim upwards of 8,000ft(!!!). Reference links: http://gemelec.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1 http://www.enforcer.com.tw/EnforcerVideo/balun.htm

^That's a good idea... and if you're using IP cameras, there are IP-over-power devices available as well (I think the ones I've seen at Staples are made by LinkSys).

^All good advice. Alternately, could you get away with temporary surface-wire runs to the cameras? A piece of four-conductor station wire will suffice - one pair for power, one for video using baluns. Wire can be tucked around baseboards, slipped under area rugs, tacked up with staples or even pushpins (yeah, I've seen this done... not done it myself, but I've seen it work)...

Yikes, what a nightmare! I feel for ya man - if I ran my own company I'd be looking for a way to come up and finish the job for ya. I'd be worried at this point that it's gonna take these clowns even longer than they're billing you for to finish it up, and they'll want to bill you even more... and it probably still won't be working right. Seriously, they're trying to bill you for TWO parts trips... to the SAME store... how is it your fault if they can't figure out everything they need BEFORE they make ONE trip? And RADIO SHACK? Great, they're paying twice what they should for that stuff. What a gong show! -40... ouch, where are you located?

Is having the tech support really worth it? I'm pretty computer saavy and have worked with another DVR in the past. Computer savvy isn't terribly useful with most standalone/embedded machines, because there's typically "no user serviceable parts inside". Everything is built onto one or two proprietary boards, the operating system is embedded, and it's generally not user-accessible at all. Especially with the off-shore brands, the setup and options can be poorly laid out, and the manuals can be dreadfully brief (IF you can understand them)... so yeah, tech support is definitely a desirable thing. If the thing uses any standard PATA (IDE) or SATA drives, the price differences are almost negligible. I'm looking at Western Digital IDE offerings from my regular supplier: 80GB - $50 160GB - $60 250GB - $75 320GB - $85-$90 (depending on 8MB/16MB cache) 500GB - $100 Over six times the space for only double the price is a pretty good price curve. 1TB IDE drives are pretty hard to find (relatively), but if the thing uses SATA, 1TB drives can be had starting at around $120. (Disclaimer: these are retail prices from my regular supplier in Vancouver, BC... specific prices may - and probably will - vary in your area, and depending on where you shop, but the differential will likely be similar).

It has a MALE VGA connector? Like, with the pins?? That's really odd... outputs and inputs both typically have female (with the holes) connectors. As long as it has the standard pinouts, I'd think a VGA extension cable (male-to-female) would work.

What make/model of converter is it? Maybe a different converter would be better - sounds like it's not feeding the monitor the proper signals to keep it awake. I've used a couple of these successfully - the cheapie DVRs I mentioned in this thread used an internal composite-to-VGA adapter that was problematic in some models, and our supplier/contractor's solution was to have us remove the card and use an external converter. And no, I don't remember what make/model that was either But in any case, it did work fine with a standard cheapie VGA LCD.

Most times, I think, for any given level of... well, a lot of stuff... the price differences are related more to features, function, bells-and-whistles... moreso than base quality. A lot of PC-based DVR manufacturers, for example, use the same basic card, or a variation using the same basic chipset(s)... what you're paying for between the cheap and the expensive is the quality and functionality of the software (and in some cases, the quality and reliability of the PC itself). In the case of embedded/standalone units, a lot of it may be the quality of the surrounding hardware (those nameless ones I mentioned, we had a run of them that were horribly unstable - turned out to be an issue with the whole batch of composite-to-VGA cards), the quality/usability of the interface, little features like selectable VGA resolutions... We've installed several cheap units (National Electronics brand, I think) that didn't even have a method for outputting video short of connecting a VCR or other capture device to the monitor output and then recording on that while playing back the desired footage - no CD-R, no USB port for a flash drive, nothing, not even available as an option/add-on. Most came without hard drives but allowed you to install your own in a removable sled... but the drive used a proprietary format so you couldn't even plug it into another machine to extract the video. If anyone has any comparisons like 3RDIGLBL is asking for, I think it would be good for them to be posted here, I'm sure a lot of people would be interested... might even be worth its own thread.

Even if I still had one in front of me, I couldn't tell you what brand it was, because I don't think any of them had brand names - the boxes just had "DIGITAL RECORDER" or something like that in big bold letters... I don't recall them even having a model name or number on the units, maybe just a serial number. We put in several of them a couple years ago in a local restaurant chain, subcontracted from another company across Canada who has a contract with the chain's parent company, so they're not even anything we spec'd or ordered - we just got shipments from the contractor with all the gear for the sites. These things were uber-cheap units, as were the cameras they sent us ($30 1/4" board cameras in cheap plastic domes)... at best I can guess they're some east-Asian manufacturer, based on the bad Engrish in the manuals. The VGA output was provided by a separate card that was linked internally to the composite output.

Megapixel means, very simply, 1 million or more pixels. Technically that requires a minimum resolution of 1024x1024, or equivalent in a different aspect ratio. A 1280x960 "widescreen" camera, for example, would also be a megapixel (about 1.2MP). 1024x768 (VGA resolution) doesn't qualify as megapixel, although it is pretty high resolution for a CCTV camera. If you're unsure, look at the camera's specs - it should list vertical and horizontal resolution (like, 1280x960). Multiply the two, and you have your answer. D1 (720x480) is actually less than 0.35MP.

Ah, now I gotcha. We sometimes use terminal strips ("European" style) for this sort of purpose, particularly on the test bench. You could also consider Molex types... Those are just links from one of our local suppliers... as far as Phoenix connectors specifically, you could always try just contacting themdirectly.

I've used Kopex, Liquid-Tite, assorted flexible plastic, EMT, PVC, split-loom, tape wrap, and even just left the wires exposed, depending on the location and specific needs. Normally I'll just use a combination of PVC and plastic liquid-tite, unless code calls for EMT.

About the most "standard" thing you'll find is the typical barrel-type connectors, but those are pretty much limited to 12VDC cameras and supplies. 24VAC cameras, unfortunately, use a wide range of different connections, sometimes even varying within one manufacturer's product line. Many use screw terminals, some use spring-clips... more are using variations on Phoenix or Molex type connectors, sometimes on a tail out the back of the camera, sometimes in the camera body itself... but rarely are they interchangeable between brands.

Bingo! Happens all the time!