oldtimer

I had an occasion where they stole a camera from me. It was in a small entryway of n apartment building. I installed another camer in the same place, only thing it was a old B/W that was going to the junk pile. I didn't even attempt to hook into into the system. Chances are the thing didn't even work. I then installed a small covert camera watching the area which included the junk camera. When I installed the old camera I did use extra long bolts to make it a harder time to remove. Two nights later, they guy came back for the second camera. I got a good shot of him and the neighbors pointed him out. I went to his house and showed him the picture of him stealing the camera. I knew I wouldn't get much satisfaction from the police, so I told him that he was violating the laws with a few sections I made up myself. I told him he was going to be expecting at least 5 years in jail. To make it short, I got him to pay for the camera and my time, of which was very profitable. I got around 15 hundred bucks in the long run. Matter of fact selling cameras this way could make me a millionaire.

I am glad I was able to help you. Keep up on th board. There is a lot of helpful people posting. Best regards John

I have been in the CCTV business from the start and never a day goes by that I learn something new. I had a large challenge thrown at me about a month ago. It turned out to be a 1.4 Million installation. We should wind it up in another 2 weeks. Next Thuirsday after Thanksgiving we have an appointment to start another large job. This will be something others turned down or just couldn't do the job. We have never attempted what the customer wants but we like it that way. It keeps me young. After next week I'll explain what we will attempt to do. It should be interesting. Taking on these unusual jobs is where the money is, just installing cameras is a great job also. But if you specialize in something different, you don't have the fly by night competion bothering you. Dream up ideas to further use CCTV instead of just watching crooks at work.

Thanks much for the advice. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to put all the supplied info to work. Looking at these gems, I suppose they are not HD. (that's a joke son) Thanks much to the fellow posters. John the Oldtimer. P,s I might mention my birthday is coming up Dec 9th. You don't have to send me any presents, Cash will do.

Most recorders will take over when you install a new HD. If it's a old recorder, some of them will will not except a HP over 80gb. Make sure the jumpers are in the correct position as the old one that you are taking out. The programming is imbedded in a chip. I'm would question a PATA drive. If it's and old baby, chances are it's a IDE. Those Drives are going off the market. Call around, you might find one. With the price of imbedded DVR's so low, sometimes it's wise to junk the old one, unless you want to play around with it.

I'm not sure if I can recomend products on this site. We use a good board and we only pay around 299.00 for it. Let me check further about what we can post. I get the boards out of Floridia and they work great. Even on the Iphone and they will notify the client of any motion at the transmitting location. I'll get back to you John

It's sort of hit or miss with many Video Cards. Try it. You can't hurt anything but your feelings. Some of the older Motherboards won't except them. We use a Intel 31. I think its PR31. It sells for around 58 bucks and has a 3 year warranty. Your processor can be a low end for around 53 dollars and a 1 gb of ram will do you trick. You will have on board video on the MB. We have over a couple of thousand of these systems out there and they work great. I know nothing about your DVR board. I'm not sure if I can recomend any items on this board, I don't want to break any rules. The guys that run this site are great and you will meet many great people. Best regards John. ps. Mentioning the Intel Mother boards etc I don't believe is against house rules.

You might pay attention to my reply to Dan who is also from Texas. Chances are you may pick up a few pointers there. It's strange. When you have something happen like the shootings down there your way, the security business takes a little jump. Sort of goofy to say the most. We have noticed this happening the last few days up here. Best regards John

Sounds like you got one of those cheap worthless systems from Sams Club or the likes. To obtain a good picture you must pay a little more to make a differnce. Your main thing to remmber is the light conditions and then go on from there. You want a camera with a rating usually around .03. Make sure your DVR is a good one, because you may have a good camera but the DVR isn't able to produce a worthwhile picture on print. Pictures may look good on a monitor but reproducing them is another story. It depends also the frame rate is what you record at. Take the total frames per second (fps) your recorder will accept and then divide it by the number of cameras. If the number comes out lower than 30, get a better recorder. Many recorders also have a quality setting also for cameras. If yours does, play around with that. Another good idea is to put motion detector lights in your location if it isn't lighted very well at night. You know, the kind of light you put on the garage etc at home. Another thing we do is mount a concealed camera at a low position. Like direct at a persons face at a spot where they are bound to walk into. This because a majority of these crooks will wear hoods or baseball caps. If a camera is on the ceiling, you won't get their face. We have a high rate of indentification at our company. We mainly go after the fast food business. Hope this gives you a few pointers. Best regards, The Oldtimer.

That is the same camera I'm talking about. Do you have info or know what platform it operates on? I got a few in a trade in and I just wanted to see how they work. I usually do not deal in this junk stuff. I appeares more of a toy that somthing would depend on for protection. Thanks for the reply. Best regards John.

We took down a system using the cheap Panasonic IP cameras. No model number on it. It's silver in color and it has pan and tilt along with audio. I need instructions and the platform info. Chances are it comes on a CD. Thanks.

Thanks much for the idea. I hate those companies that enter into our business. I don't sell copy paper and supplies. Regards John

I found the model number from another camera. It's a Panasonic BL-C111. Any help on operation and setup would be appreciated. Best regards John

Using a lens of 2.8mm is extreme wide angle. This you must remember. Obtaining a top grade picture will be very hard at times. This type of lens in for just a general view image. Like who goes in and out. It will be hard to identify a person in detail. Where you point the cameras doesn't effect the picture even when you point them at each other. Be sure to not point them directly at any light source such as a lighting fixture or the outside sun light. If you have outside light in the background, to overcome this problem you would have to have a camera with "back light compensation" (BLC.)

They are in color now (that's a joke son)

I have been off line for some time due to medical problems and having a office problem where a water line broke and did extensive damage. CCTV has taking a downturn from what I gayher from many dealers. It should pickup shortly.

I have posted numerous times to qualify for the dealer and business section. As of this date. Not one reply. I have been in business 60 years, isn't that enough??? Oldtimer

A bit of info of early CCTV. Our company has installed CCTV since 1948 and is still operating. I am the original owner and I am still working daily since the origination. Actually we are the worlds oldest installer of CCTV. Some magazines give credit to others and call them pioneers in the field. One person was given credit for his work in the 60's. I could go on for hours on end with stories of the past. John R Jage ceo. Vidicom CCTV www.vidicomcctv.com I made a mistake on our web site addess in the previous message. I made the correction here.

A bit of info of early CCTV. Our company has installed CCTV since 1948 and is still operating. I am the original owner and I am still working daily since the origination. Actually we are the worlds oldest installer of CCTV. Some magazines give credit to others and call them pioneers in the field. One person was given credit for his work in the 60's. I could go on for hours on end with stories of the past. John R Jage ceo. Vidicom CCTV www,vidicomcctv.com

To obtain more recording time, put your cameras on motion. With regards to storing video on a CD, we have been picking up USB sticks. Mostly 1gb. They store your video correctly and if the police are involved, they can just plug into their USB port and use it as another hard drive. Very simple. They have no need for the client soft ware that came with you DVR. We have bee picking up those sticks for around 5 to 7 bucks. If you put your saved video on a CD, chances are you could bend it or scratch it and it won't work. The sticks make it handy and the police love them. I have been doing this for sometime now. We still use CD;s on occasional incidents but we have over 7500 locations and we try to take the easy road if possible. We are going to put our name on the sticks and inform them our pictures are copywrited. That way, if they are used by a newspaper or TV, they have to give our name as supplier. Good advertising. We pickup 2 to 6 jobs each time they hit the local media

You mention one thing that could cause a problem. The street light. If you use IR cameras, they may not turn on the IR diodes if you have too much light in the camera area. Buy one camera and experiment with it in each camera area. If it looks good, then buy your other cameras. I have been using small shatter proof domes that are tri axel with good results. Like another poster said. If they claim they will give you a good picture at 30 feet. Get a camera for 50 feet. The camera folks give you info under ideal conditions.

If this is an armored truck for money protection, the back section is usually air conditioned. They have a driver in front sectioned off from the rear. In back they have the pickup man and some times they have a third person in the rear. Put you DVR in a vault. You can get a good one for around $140 bucks. They have a small camera out that many call Flying Saucers. They are almost flat sitting in a ring about 4 inches across. You would never notice the thing if you paint it the same as the vehicle. The lens opening is just a 32nd of a inch opening. They are color cameras and they work great.

Most cameras come with that spacer ring(exrender) for the lens. What I believe you need is a tri axel camera. That way you can mount it on ceilings or walls at any angle.

I am not sure if you want the same four cameras on each monitor or what. If that is the case, just get a video distribution amp. just take a lead from the video out of a DVR into the amp and the output of the video amp normally has 4 videos out. Connect your monitors on these outputs. You should pickup a good amp for about 50 bucks.

It's that time of the year we never look forward to. Having to install cameras outside. We attempt to get them all in during the warm weather if possible. For shop owners, you will notice one thing, many installers will not secure them correctly in cold weather. To get the job done, they will only use two bolts or screws when it calls for four "etc". They hurry to get inside from the cold. For you fellows in warm climates, sit back and enjoy the warm sunny climate. Up here we sometimes have to install in weather of 20 to 25 below zero in emergencies. Our normal winter temperature up here is around 10 to 20 above. Yes long underware is a must.