kensplace

They got back, they dont support the kramplex anymore, but they could send a manual to print for me, but that would cost 50 uk pounds.. Gave it a miss, thats over double what I paid for the unit.

But at least they did offer to help!

Seems intermittent for me now, as it works fine now.. Weird.

Maybe godaddy is getting sneaky money from parked pages lol....

Good idea, just fired of a email, fingers crossed they email back.

Just a end user, so dont deal in quantity so some firms treat you worse than a pile of poo (cough plettac) but then again, some bend over backwards to help all customers, hoping tecton is one of them.

I cant recall if I emailed them a while ago or not, I think I have been put of contacting manufacturers by plettac/grundig who have completely ignored every single request for info I make. Hope tecton fares better

Its a liteon 5045 they are pretty cheap these days, especially compared to cctv stuff, and the budget cctv ones I looked at recorded at a really low resolution.

The replacement (didnt even have to pay return shipping) works fine (touch wood, fingers crossed) so far, only glitch seems to a slight bit crosstalk/interferance on the sound now and again if I use the front a/v audio channel whilst using the scart channel. Will get on to support about that, see what they say, but i guess I can live with it for now.

Im in the same boat with my old tecton kramplex multiplexer, cant find any pinout details for the keyboard port, if I ever figure it out I will post it in case its the same for the drax (But you obviously would test at your own risk in case its not....)

Could it be a interlacing issue?

Is the DVR setup to deinterlace the picture if needbe?

IF you bought it 'new' I would get your money back, and ask the seller why they are selling pirated crap.

ALL Pico software sold on ebay (as new) is pirated and thats direct from the manufacturers site.

Pico software should not make anything go red, your cameras are either setup wrong or faulty, or the card is faulty.

4 Channel cards like this are usually just one channel multiplexed into 4, so if you want to record 4 channels divide the frame rate by 4 to get the real recording frame rate.

I would not recommend a pico card for any serious use, just for messing around with.

Downloadable schematics, connection details etc. Manuals get lost easily, and schematics are useful for bench repairs (even though many manu's like a throwaway society.....)

A sliding filter (like a built in lenscap) for the ccd so when you take a lens of for some reason, you can just slide down the cover and no dust gets onto the ccd.

Built in test pattern (do recent cams have them?) so you can check quality of connection easily and consistently.

Appears to be some problem with the forum, its not recognising any page prefixed with www (like the redirect for the www is broken) so

www.cctvforum.com just goes to a parked page with cctv ads, only

cctvforum.com works

Quick update, it arrived, and the picture quality is fantastic, it can record at full pal resolution, or lower for longer. Miles better quality than the cheapo 4-channel card of ebay, and miles better than the hauppage wintv card.

Comes with zoom, fast forward, slow motion etc, pal/ntsc, and all format dvd writer to burn recordings. Lots of inputs so I can switch between tv, sky digital, camera input, or pc tv card.

Sods law though, its a duff unit, keeps crashing, so its going back - fingers crossed the unit they send to replace it will be fully working.

Need to figure out how to get the multiplexer working with it, not even sure if it works properly for demux or not, or what settings, but got all the time in the world to figure it out lol..

Firmware is upgradable also, so who knows maybe someone somewhere will add cctv stuff to some hacked firmware.....

What do people use for the wiring going to 240v mains pan tilt units? (or anything that requires multicore mains)

Finding it hard to source cheap multicore cable (would need 6 core at the minimum) rated for uk mains (its a dennard type 2000 running 240v, but low amperage ie 24Watts)

Cant really get away with dual 3 core cables if it has to fit a 9.5mm hole in the connector (when I get one.. Currently got it hard wired up to a joystick from a old arcade machine, works fine, but not suitable for outdoor use)

Only need a small amount as I will be knocking up a relay control board to run of low voltage, so control signals can be transmitted safely long distance, and the mains is kept at the head unit only.

Dont know what the interface is on the DVR, but make sure if you stick a relay onto it that the back emf from the coil does not blow the DVR output if its not protected.

To be safe, you can stick a diode across the coil, in reverse, to absorb the back emf (the current in the coil, that the DVR applied has to go somewhere when the relay is deactivated, and without a diode to short it, it will just shoot back into the DVR as a high voltate.)

And if its a dull, overcast day, without much sunlight, then you probably wont have any juice for the night.

Camera should be fine, after making the mistake of buying a couple of dome cams from ebay (utter junk....) I waited until some decent kit came along for next to nothing on ebay, got a plettac fac830 and a sony something or other, both good quality, mainly use the plettac as its better at night (its been used by town centers etc for their cctv systems, and I wish I knew the protocol for it.)

Got a videmech pan unit on the plettac along with a computar zoom lens (7.5 to 75) so I can zoom right in on the trouble makers.... Waiting for a dennard 2000 pan tilt to arrive (cheap, only 10 quid + postage) but not sure where on earth I could put it, as it looks slightly to large, and obvious for the window sill lol....

Course that relies on me being there at the time, but I can have a second cam with a wide angle lens on for a overview, that can show me where the trouble makers head of to afterwards (as they seem to live very near....)

Just ordered a liteon hd/dvd recorder, so can just record to hard drive, then burn to dvd if needed, should be arriving in the next few days, will report back what its like.

(plus the other half isnt going mad at me getting more 'camera' junk, as we can record tv on it...)

Ask for the power supplies in question, test them to see if they are indeed 24v, and are not faulty. Kindof pointless supplying replacement camera's if they just plug them back into a suspect power source.

Also make sure 24v AC is the correct supply voltage....

Is that 26v measured with the camera connected or disconnected? Its usual for a crappy supply to show a higher voltage when their is no load, but return to normal under load.

Do the cameras not have a spec sheet, with a tolerance rating (+ and - percentage max voltage they can take)

If any one is using standard capture cards (bt 848 etc etc) like hauppage then its worth searching for DSCALER, which lets you use the cards to their full potential. Lots of de-interlacing, filtering, aspect ratio and more settings.

Takes ages to play around and get results, still learning myself, but looks like a nice tool.

No idea what chipset the geovision cards use, anyone know?

Im tempted to get a standard tv one, not bothered about the recording times, 1 day would do, 2 would be great - its just so I can leave it on, and forget about it really.

Until recently I was just hitting the record button on a vcr when I suspected trouble, now I can hit record on the PC, but I cant leave it on permanently on the pc as its way to resource hungry.

Anything that can record at least 24 hours, at at good quality (ie for evidential identification/prosecution purposes) would do the job.

If you mean a covert camera in a PIR sensor then you will probably find that all of them will have to have a hole that the camera looks out of, otherwise the lens would not be able to see... They should have a wide angle lens in them, so they should see a fairly wide area.

You could always get a tiny board camera, and install it in a PIR sensor yourself, just rip out the exising internals and stick the camera in, maybe use the whole where the led used to be for the lens.

Not going to post a link, but I have seen several CCTV videos (available on the net) showing people having sex in a alley at the back of a night club which is very near where I live.

The place is shut down now, wonder if they got sued...........

Wonder if the people know they are famous now.....

Some cctv operator enjoyed his job, panning tilting and zooming in, getting the action...

Whilst I cant imagine the US lying over a issue like this, I cant understand a few things.

1. It looks like something, but not a plane (but that could just be the low speed shutter/high speed object problem)

2. The entry hole - ITS ONE HOLE, not one big hole with two holes where the engines smashed through. Just one hole. The engines and wings must have just vanished, as they didnt go through that wall........

3. The engine manufacturer (Rolls Royce) states that the engine remains found ARE not a rolls royce engine, and certainly not one found in a commercial plane as claimed.

Course thats just what I have read / seen online... Who knows.

Once you have done your changes, you can use shields up to give it a quick test to make sure nothing untowards is open and insecure, its not perfect, but its pretty good (and free...)

http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

'only simple security system is a DOG! Laughing'

I wish... Had one dog stolen (but returned via the police) and another that just went missing one day (presumed stolen)... Wish I had a security system watching the dogs!

Dont suppose any one has any info on the plettac 830 camera (specifically the control protocol for it).

I have figured out the lens/power connections but dont have any software (just need protocol info, can write my own software).

Unfortunately when I emailed plettac (ages ago) they never bothered to reply, which is a shame, as many other manufacturers who I did contact with similar queries bent over backwards to help.. Guess plettac dont like the little guys...

Its a nice camera, which is supposably controllable via rs485 but I have zero clue as to what to send to it..... (when my rs485 converter finally arrives that is lol)

Any one anywhere got any ideas?

What is the quality like on a typical low end price cctv drv, is it better than / comparable to or worse than say a hauppage pci wintv capture card at full resolution?

Is it better than VHS or S-VHS?

They seem to have (if the mention it at all) low recording resolutions compared to the display resolution, are they worth looking into - I dont want to get one if when it comes to the crunch vital quality has been thrown out of the window when it recorded.

Also what about a standard domestic hard disk based TV recorder, they seem to have good reviews, are they suitable for CCTV (any one tried one?)

How do either/both cope with recording from a multiplexer, which was designed for recording onto timelapse?