fa chris

Anyone should be able to give him MSRP, it's not against forum rules and I'm sure a lot of us have arecont price lists kicking around somewhere... with some editing, they would only show MSRP. I'm not a retailer so I can't help you out.

I'm not to impressed with American Dynamics equipment, but I've never even looked at their IP line up. Mainly because it was so late to the game and the intellex's are simply overpriced and obsolete at this point. Their focus has always been on the access side it seems. Net client is a nightmare to use if you want to bring up past incidences. To be fair, we have thousands of intellex's and analog cameras in the field, have always been very solid, but have had zero reason to use them in the past 4-5 years. Everything out there now simply outclasses them, maybe buying ExacqVision will turn them back around.

California has the three strikes rule, I don't know of any other states that have it. Some may, but most don't. A lot of states have the death penalty and actually use it though. Violent crime, petty crime, etc. is something we have a handle on. White collar crime and corruption in politics on the other hand... every single person in our congress is bought off, and so is our president.

yet we still have the same problem. must be global warming then.

that is to say, out of the lifetime cycle, people will keep the analog products, and just as tomcctv referred that they will exist in the system of hybrid. But anyway, nobody will choose to add analog products any more? How about the SDI system? Even if analog products are added for whatever special case, they'll be put on ip encoders (video servers) and networked into a pure IP NVR. There won't be any DVR's or DVR cards involved with the system. Instead the cameras will be connected to one of these: http://www.axis.com/products/video/video_server/ and connected into the network like any normal IP camera. We're already seeing a lot of this now. Add 100 cameras, take over the existing analog with video servers, get rid of the DVR's. Built in 4g wireless connectivity (or 14g by then) hooked into the cloud, no wiring, no onsite storage or servers, just a web interface somewhere to view everything right? now to solve that pesky power problem...

yikes, just tried it. found all kinds of random feeds...

long term they'll eventually disappear, what's left of analog will be stuck on IP encoders. i'd be surprised if people were still installing any analog systems in 10 years, but the lifetime cycle of those currently in place is a long time and they'll be serviced for a long time, so for the next 20-30 years or more we should still be able to find them everywhere.

indoor - 8' from the bottom of the camera to the finished floor. will mount it on the ceiling up to 15' or so, if the ceilings are any higher then go with a pendant mount to bring it down. outdoor - 15' from the bottom of the camera to finished grade. always. if you're mounting it on the roof of a 3 story building or something, then put it as high up as possible so it's easy to service. at 15' you can still get to it with a ladder easily enough, it'll see over most vehicles if it needs too, and someone walking by won't be able to jump up and hit it with a baseball bat.

4.2.2.1-4.2.2.6 are all level3 dns servers, have always worked good for me.

blower defroster's work this way, which is how pelco's are normally listed. lots of blowers kick on when the temps go up though, and typically most seem to just run continuously anymore. I don't see a lot of completely sealed enclosures. different ways of doing things from different manufacturers i guess.

what I see the need for from these forums is a solution for the DIY market. everyone wants quality stuff for $500-600 and it's just not possible, put together a product in this range and push it hard. for example, maybe 4 decent analog cameras (expandable to 8 or more) with an IP encoder hooked into a home router and using someones home computer (or old computer) as an NVR running some cheap or free (they exist) recording software. this eliminates the need to buy a dedicated overpriced proprietary dvr and eliminates the need for some type of encoder card in the computer. i don't know what the cost would be sitting at, but the goal would be to spend the majority of the budget on better cameras and save on back end wherever possible. might not be worth your time profit wise once you put the system together and try to get it the right price point where you can move it.

this works too:

Put up intrusion alarm signs instead of video system signs, even if you don't have a system. some type of small signage is always a plus in my opinion, even if you don't have electricity or locks on your doors... at the very least, it makes your neighbors house look more appealing, and thieves are opportunistic.

most outdoor domes will come with a heater blower. heater for the winter, blower for the summer.

Ask your cable supplier. We didn't use cat5/6 but we used FEP jacketed gel filled 18/2 on a job on the north slope of alaska, ran it outside with no problems. I'm sure you can find similar. Wasn't cheap, and wasn't easy to work with. Works great though.

I used the same installation of winxp for my daily computer for 8 years (migrated the harddrive from computer to computer). I never even ran a virus scanner, had a small free firewall and no other protection. Did plenty of surfing, installed/uninstalled lots of programs, etc. and never had an issue. I had another XP installation on a server which had an uptime of over a year before I rebooted it, it wasn't connected to the net so I wasn't worried about updates. Never understood how people could have problems with XP, it's a solid OS. Nowadays I'm on win7 (and looooooooove it), have a virus scanner and web browser, and do all my browsing in sandboxie in vmware. Guess I'm getting paranoid in my old age. edit: also, always had my services tweaked on XP so it ran great.

for non-plenum, the difference is $125. non-plenum cat5e is dirt cheap.

I checked our price guides, 1000' of plenum rj59u + 1000' of 2 conductor 18awg is around $100 more than 1000' of cat5e. the big difference maker is the extra 18awg cable.

There's a button or check box in the programming software which says "Lock IP" or something to this effect (don't have it on my PC at the moment). This should hopefully lock in the IP. My biggest issue with Arecont's though have been entire sites full of cameras seem to randomly "forget" their assigned IP. Arecont claims it's not possible.

"If you aren't doing anything wrong you shouldn't care" is a crappy cop out to taking away peoples privacy. Guess you're OK with someone tapping all of your phones, reading all your email, evaluating everything you do on your computer, tracking you via GPS locators, etc. as some giant sick voyeur show. I mean, you're not doing anything illegal after all so why should it matter? These are the issues we're dealing with in the US and which thankfully are systematically being struck down... but every single one has been a fight.

when 200 cameras are drop shipped to a site and installed by a sub, regardless of brand, you just assume your tech's will be replacing a few when they get there.

Badmouthing other peoples work to the customer who paid for it never looks good. We avoid negative words and avoid referring to the original installer, instead focus on what needs to be done to fix it. Instead of "whoever installed this used the wrong zip ties" go with "we need to replace these existing zip ties with UV rated zip so they don't get brittle break off." We simply list out what needs to be done and what the advantage is to doing it this way, not what was done wrong. When it's done, your work will show the customer how bad the previous installer was.

thermal stress will eventually get to it being in an unconditioned space (ie: going from cold to hot instead of being in a somewhat constant ambient temp). as for the hard drives, Pelco claims every 18 degrees F over room temp decreases harddrive life by 35%. this is where you'll probably have an issue, but i've seen DVR's squirreled away in closed cabinets, unconditioned warehouses, etc. without a huge impact. you might have hard drive failures every 2-3 years instead of every 4-5 years, but it is what it is. in an apartment or flat roofed structure criminals might gain entry through the roof, in a typical house they might gain entry through a skylight but i doubt they'd somehow break into the loft. in short, i live in a mild climate and would put one in my attic if i had nowhere else to put it. a basement would be better though.

according to the manual you need a center positive source of 12vdc at 1.5 amps. the connector is a 2.1mm pin-type female. pretty standard for cctv cameras. Something like this should work: http://www.nellyssurplus.com/servlet/the-1550/12V-DC-5-AMP/Detail however, I don't see the plug size specifically listed on the site so ask SEANHAWG (send him a PM or call the store) before you order 3. Google will turn up some results too. Specifically you're looking for 12vdc, at least 1.5 amps or 1500ma's (can be more), and a 2.1mm center positive source jack, and most will say they work on most cctv cameras. Radioshack probably has something that will work if you get the right adapter plug for their enercell ac adapters.

Their endura system is OK, but there's a reason people use pelco cameras and other peoples DVR's.