Soundy

You also don't know if you're getting a LEGITIMATE product, or a poor look-alike (counterfeit GeoVision cards are a good example of that).

^Agreed, you should be fine with that.

Of course, all the theory is irrelevant as long as manufacturers fudge their measurements and numbers...

F/1.2 means the iris will open a little wider, allowing a little more light when it's completely open (about 1/3 more, in this case). Not a concern unless you need really low light capability, and probably not enough to worry about unless the cost is the same. You'll still need one cable to each location, whether using UTP or coax. Four-over-one is useful if you have to run four feeds from one location to another. Mostly comes down to which is more cost-effective for you, although using Cat5 would give you the ability to upgrade to IP cameras later... or if you wanted to add a second camera at a location, you wouldn't need to run another cable for it.

I'd stick with domes, personally... less opportunity for tampering. MOST box cams are a similar size and shape, and so should fit in MOST enclosures. There are a few exceptions, but they're rare. Only if it's particularly cold and/or damp. A good *sealed* enclosure should have no problem without a heater/blower in most circumstances. Where do you live? Only if it's a "true day/night" camera with movable IR cut filter (ICR). The cut filter on a standard color-only camera will simply block the light from the illuminator. If you use a TDN camera, BTW, make sure the lens you use is listed as "IR" or "IR corrected". Besides, if this guy wants the cameras being obvious as a deterrent, you'd probably be better extending the deterrent with motion-activated flood lights. Not only do you then get a picture in color rather than a ghostly green glow, but a person's first response to a bright light snapping on is usually to look toward the source of the light... which if it's mounted near the camera, means he'll be looking toward the camera too. That depends entirely on the camera and the lighting. No it doesn't.

True, but it is also true that it doesn't happen when you use coax instead. Actually, the same POTENTIAL for the problem exists. The issue lies in the fact that you end up with two substantially-different-length-and-resistance ground paths to the same point (since the balun inserts a long coil of wire in the video ground and signal lines). If you had substantially different ground paths using coax/power, you'd have the same issue. Although granted, that's not likely to happen in most installs, the ROOT of the problem still lies in the cameras having a shared power and video ground. Yes, and those will have the same potential for the problem. Separate power supplies are great until you get more than about 6 cameras and fill up your power bar. Go to 8+ cameras, and it starts to get very messy.

I can now answer this question semi-definitively: YES, the channels have individual overload protection. On this latest install, I had one camera that would come on for a little while, then go off. The indicator lights on the VPS (it uses the standard LEDs that are built into the RJ45 jacks) normally all light up green... a few seconds after the camera went out, its jack switched from the green LED on the right, to the yellow one on the left. Unplugging the cable restored the green LED immediately; plugging the camera back in brought it back up for a minute or so before it dropped out and the LED went yellow again. I plugged a Cat5 tester into the line and found that wires 3 and 6 were showing a short. The VPS uses wires 1 and 2 for video; 3, 4, and 5 for -12V, and 6, 7, and 8 for +12V... so I had a short somewhere on the green pair. We snipped the plug off the source end, attached a new one leaving the green pair out... ta da! problem solved. So yes, Virginia, there is self-resetting overload protection on every port. I only say "semi-definitely" because I don't know what form it takes, whether it's a PTC or some kind of overload-sensing circuit - I would be on the latter, seeing as it does indicate the overload situation... plus in my experience, PTCs tend to take a few minutes to reset, which this reset immediately after the short was removed.

That depends somewhat... as I've noted before, we almost never use coax for ANYTHING... it means having to stock and cart around two more types of cables (RG-59, and station wire for power). I have a box of coax that's been sitting in my garage for about 14 months now, I've been using it so little. I have two boxes of Cat5e in my van that get replenished every three months or one large install, whichever comes first. This is not a downside of baluns so much as it is a downside of cheap 12V cameras that have a shared power and video ground. Use dual-voltage or AC-only cameras (in other words, something with an internal regulator that separates the video and power grounds), and you don't have this problem, regardless of whether you use 12VDC or 24VAC.

Hmmm, I think you'd pretty much have to buy another copy of Windows... you could probably find a copy of XP for cheap, since it's nearing the end of its support life.

CIF, 4CIF, D1, etc. refer only to the image resolution, not the framerate. If working 64-bit drivers are such a challenge, why not just reinstall the system using 32-bit Windows? Or even just XP for that matter?

Jacket shielding really isn't relevant, since the pairs are all inside the same shield... Not running giga so you say just leave the orng & grn pairs alone huh? Well, assuming standard T-568A/B wiring... as musher notes, some cable may use different colors, but those are the most common (the others being blue and brown pairs). If it were me, I'd probably be punching down to a keystone jack in this case, and just leave the blue and brown pairs out - split them off and splice the video run(s) to them directly, or connect them directly to baluns.

Given that a number of power cans of this type come with only two-prong cords in the first place, I don't think you have much to worry about - the high voltages are all contained within the switching unit in that thing anyway. Unplugging it might be a good idea when working inside it anyway, grounded or not.

It really depends on the TV. For starters, analog cameras still use a 4:3 (non-widescreen) aspect ratio, and CCTV monitors still tends to reflect this; a widescreen TV, on the other hand, will usually stretch the image. Also, since analog video is around 720x480 resolution and high-def TVs tend to be 1280x720 or 1920x1080, the TV needs to "upscale" the image to fill the screen, which can cause various artifacts and "jaggies" if the resizing is done poorly. And finally, your average TV isn't meant to be left on 24/7, while CCTV monitors are.

i have decided to buy a few morph suites and wear them under my clothes in public to keep my privacy safe Ooooh, so that's what these guys are actually up to:

Yeah, it's theoretically possible, since 10/100 ethernet uses only two pairs (orange and green). You shouldn't see any interference in the video because the data signal is very low power and the video line will be balanced (assuming you're using baluns). I wouldn't expect the video signal to cause issues with the data either, as again, it's very low power, and the different twists in Cat5e/6 are specifically there to prevent crosstalk between pairs.

Yes.

Nothing wrong with running that way.

When you're talking four cameras, provided to you by your employer, and given to you before heading to site, well... you hope that they all work when you unpack them. Realistically, bench-testing 200 cameras for 24 hours each before deployment isn't really viable unless you're a large integrator with your own dedicated QA shop... and even then, I don't think it's reasonable for an integrator to have to be constantly on the lookout for a manufacturer's shortcomings. One SHOULD be able to expect the vast majority of equipment to work as delivered. 2-3% failure rate, sure... 50%?? NOT acceptable.

That's a great idea, but it assumes that the equipment is actually given to you with enough lead time for testing, rather than being dropped off a couple before you're supposed to be on-site... or worse, drop-shipped TO site. You were given some links. You're free to leave any time.

Where in this thread did I specifically mention Spectra IVs? The old thread you keep bringing up was specifically about Spectra IVs. But fine... Spectras in general tend to be at the higher end of the cost spectrum, and most people asking about PTZs here don't want to pay that premium... that's probably part of the reason you don't see a lot of results for the term. EDIT: Funny, but for as much as you complain about Rory's nit-picking, you're sure doing a lot of it yourself.

Heheh... took me four tries to word the thing in a way that the auto-censor wouldn't nuke it. I don't think there should be any issue with people checking out that site - maybe at one time it was direct competition for this one, but not anymore; like I said, as far as traffic and activity, it doesn't hold a candle to this place.

That would depend on what anyone is looking for: There must be about 1 million Spectras sold. There must be a community of people who fix them. Last time I checked, there were only a few hundred posts for the entire realm of the Spectra: 451 posts vs 1,000,000 Spectras in operation. So what's your point? I'm still not clear on what you're getting at with this - that the whole place is irrelevant because nobody talks about these things? Maybe there are some legitimate reasons for that: - People who fix them don't hang out here. - Despite them having known problems, those problems are few and far between. - Most people who post here are looking for lower-cost solutions and Spectra IVs are at the higher end of the price spectrum. Again, what's the point? - Maybe nobody is familiar with that camera - Maybe nobody HAS an answer for you - Maybe the people who have the answer haven't seen your question This isn't a paid tech support forum. The people who help here, do so on their own free time, of their own good will. We don't spend all day browsing for new posts, and don't always have the time to read every question. Some people always check the "New Posts" link, some just look in on subforums that interest them. If you're unhappy with the response, you can always ask for your money back. Well, you can complain about it... or you can DO something about it. Post about the esoteric stuff. Recommend it for solutions where it might fit. Participate more, share your knowledge, and maybe more people will learn about this stuff. Again, we're all doing this on our own free time; we're not beholden to anyone's demands for content. You'll find very little about Vigil DVRs before I started posting here, but they're the ones I deal with 99.9% of the time, so you'll find me posting most often about them and very little about competing products. If I leave, then there will once again be very little mention of them. Doesn't make it an "esoteric" system, just means that nobody HERE deals with them.

It's some sort of auto-censor thing... I edited the URL and the rest came back... had to fully spell out the site name for it to show up. Odd thing, considering there's an entire thread dedicated to "other forums" elsewhere...

I linked to a thread discussing this very topic.

How could 'nobody ever have had a problem with one' if Pelco wrote a report on the problem. What? IS Pelco going to write a report on a problem that doesn't exist?s You're not reading: I said, "Maybe nobody HERE ever had a problem with one.", and that's why you don't see anyone posting about it HERE. And I never claimed a problem didn't exist... but AFAIK, Pelco doesn't actively seek out forums to post about their problem. And so there's been no discussion of it HERE other than your brief mention of it long ago. I didn't say you did. Ummm... I don't see you mentioning anything about "generic components" in THIS thread. You're delving back into posts from over a year ago that I haven't looked at in just as long. Specifically, you said, "Problems that arise on major brands are barely touched on this forum.", to which I simply noted that there certainly IS such discussion, and linked to my own thread about my problems with Arecont, and then followed up with "Or maybe it's the simple fact that "major brands" don't HAVE nearly as many problems as the cheap no-name offshore junk, and that's part of WHY they're "major brands"?" Nowhere did I claim that "major brands" (I put that in quotes because different people have different ideas of what constitutes a "major brand"), including Pelco, have NO problems... only that they don't have anywhere near as many problems as the cheap brands, which might account for why they're considered the "major brands", as well as why you don't see as much discussion of their issues.