yakky

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm pretty confident its a ground loop as I get a nice clear image with just one camera. For the records I'm running two cameras and power on a single cat-5 cable (<100ft) going to a Night Owl (TFT) Poseidon. I'll get some more captures with a single camera after setting the focus at night and turn off the physical iris when I do the setting.

Sorry I guess I tried to help in the wrong way by posting a link to a nice writeup on another site. You can google dahua and rtsp and find a very nice writeup.

Sorry to dig an old one up, but did you ever get the focusing issues resolved? I'm getting the same issues with my CNB, I'm starting to think its just noise reduction smearing and not really a focus issue. hi. for CNB it is best to focus at night to get the best from your camera. but you have another issue. and its not camera related...... i would work on the ghosting problem you have first. Yeah, its a ground loop, running the cameras in test mode on a less than ideal wiring setup. Just trying to decide what camera to go with. I'll try focusing the CNB at night. I already tried setting the camera to use the electronic shutter while focusing, helped a bit but still not as sharp as the Qvis. Will work on it some more.

Mike, isn't backfocusing a DSLR issue where the phase detection mirror/mechanism isn't perfectly aligned? Back to the topic, I should have been more clear, at day, the focus is ok, at night is when it gets wonky and smeary. Examples Daytime Qvis-Eye-34 vshmkMgcxjQ Daytime CNB VpsjUPtQ6yw Both the daytime shots are pretty close in sharpness, but at night the CNB goes down the drain: Night Qvis-Eye-34 =eIRXZeNGKwQ Night CNB 2YVJ3BQOpos

Its for a dahua but might get you started...

Sorry to dig an old one up, but did you ever get the focusing issues resolved? I'm getting the same issues with my CNB, I'm starting to think its just noise reduction smearing and not really a focus issue.

I can't provide direct feedback on those, but just wanted to say there is a lot of items that upsample CIF to D1. Best idea is to buy from somewhere with a liberal return policy.

With the right antennas, there is no reason you couldn't do a wifi bridge between the two buildings and use an IP camera.

I've been running ZM with 2-4 IP cameras for a couple of years now on a lowly Atom dual core. It works ok, but I'm heading the other way, going to a dedicated unit. Other than being able to integrate other apps with ZM, I can't think of a single advantage to a PC based system vs a modern dedicated DVR. Most of the new systems have mice and software to convert video to standard formats.

Why not solve problems instead of creating them? What is currently broken? -Anyone has access to videos? -Poor cabling? -Not enough cameras?

Depends on your setup, I'm usually on the couch, switch to channel 110, see what's going on, then switch back to whatever show was on. I just need two way audio so I can tell people to get lost!

Panasonic makes a Pet cam exactly for this purpose. It has a built in web server that streams video or jpegs with guest access. They are about $80 on amazon.

As far as tablets go, I'd probably just grab a used 1st gen ipad, its quality hardware and there are plenty of app choices. That said, short of having serious security issues, the idea of walking around the house with a tablet and monitoring stuff seems silly. I think a more elegant solution would be to broadcast your DVR output through your home cable system. I do this and its a great way to view what the DVR sees on any TV in the house. Google "CableTronix CTMM-10" I turn my TV to channel 110 and see what's going on.

I use both, but Zoneminder is the one to use for a true security install. Motion is great for a single camera, but the UI just isn't anywhere near ZM.

I'm jealous. I have a Night Owl Poseidon and I none of the "default" root telnet passwords work. I'm itching to get into it and find the content as you have. I'm running a brute force script against it, hopefully its a numeric password.... otherwise I'm screwed. I should know in about another week!

So I've been reading quite a bit here, and I've seen various cameras mentioned. It seems like the CNB VCM-24VFH is the bang for the buck leader overall, but I'm curious if there is an outdoor sub $100 camera that is worth considering? I've seen the QVIS Eye 35 mentioned quite a few times and some samples posted. Thoughts?

Wow, thanks guys, I guess the rep should have checked his facts. I mailed cnbusa if that makes a difference. I am ok without varifocal and don't need 24vac either. Ideally, I'd like: -outdoor suitable (will be mounted in eaves) -good night performance -fixed focus, 3.8mm -prefer non IR It doesn't need to be vandal resistant, dome seems appropriate, but I'm open to suggestions. Is there anything in the CNB line that has the nightime performance of the VCM-24VFH with the above criteria.

Can you be specific? According to the CNB rep I spoke with, it is the same camera.

Well, I guess since nobody had any input, I'll come back with my own. While the VCM-24VFH is a great camera, the VFL-20S is a nice alternative at less than half the price. In chatting with CNB, both cameras are suited for outdoor use, the biggest difference is the power systems, the 20S is only 12v.

So let me get this right, there is software that is supposed to give live view, but it is not working?

Probably the most simple way is going to be to find the mjpeg or RSTP streams for your DVR and have another computer record the video, perhaps using Zoneminder. The correct and most reliable way would be to have a computer based system and push the videos off to another server as they happen.

Unless your unit has Wifi built in, you are going to need that ethernet cable or you will be crazy.

I'm not sure you are going to get much into a web browser without some sort of plugin. It seems most of these lower priced dvrs server up some sort of rstp stream, which isn't handled elegantly by any web browser I'm familiar with. Your best bet is to find the jpeg or tiff location that the unit serves up and do some sort of frequent refresh. A quick google search shows they might have an SDK available, that might have some more clues on the underlying technology.

Thanks for answering. I'd like to setup something that is a bit more platform agnostic. I talked with Sean and there is in fact one available.

Anyone know if there is an SDK available for the Dahua series? I'm interested in one, but only if I can cobble something together to work on non windows platforms.