cctv_down_under

I have tried before to extend a VGA signal up to 15 - 20 meters but the end result had some loss, I have heard there are now LAN based devices to do this, I basically want to house a DVR in the comms room and control it....without remote software with a Keyboard Mouse and Monitor in another room 15 - 20 Meters away. I know you can get higher quality VGA cables and Mouse and Keyboard is no issue but even with gold connectors and higher quality cables, do you not get a loss?

In short, you can not do it with Geovision, I understand fully what you are trying to do, but in order to do that you would need to have your Back office POS Server speak to the DVR on an ethernet level, this would need translation so that it knows where to look for on the transaction (data log) to identify a single register, Unfortunately Geovision does not do this, they rely on each box for the data, which actually usually is not needed, you could wire each box to the ethernet version but in reality the Geo ethernet version is only to allow for transmitting longer distances, you need an ip based POS Server application, this serves all clients that connect, what you need to do is to create a second directory on your POS Server where the transaction logs are kept, from there you need to have translation software on that PC, this can convert the transaction logs to ascii txt and into a readable format, then your remote pos investigation should sort for terminal and operator code as part of a header, then it can identify which register is which. The best by a country mile at this is March Networks POS Investigator, it is simply quite awesome as it is not a data capture that would have been sent to the printer, it is a full transaltion of the transaction logs, therefore you could drill down like this. Find an operator and see all his results, then drill down to a time period, then look at ony the sales from the fruit department, then only tomatoes, then only the voids of the tomatoes and then only the sales that were voided and discounted by more than 30% that took longer than 30 seconds to do and were under $10.....you get the idea.....you do not get manager overides, open department sales and all those other features in data capture devices because they only have the data that would have been printed on the docket itself.

I know it exists, I just have not tried it and wondered if anyone had

Are you sure the power supply for the dome is ok, those things use quite a lot of amperage

Have a look at this link and you will see two images of the same camera, you will see that in one it has defualt settings and tries to stay in colour mode, causeing a huge amount of noise and then in the other it is forced to low light mode and has had a AGC level adjustment....mind you not enough and you will see two completely different results with the same camera http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6562

The snow, you are seeing is Gain....turn down your gain level, by firstly switching off agc and setting it manually, try to realise that better cameras try to stay in colour longer so therefore they will have more noise as they add more gain, if your lighting has something bright in the image or is on the level of switch over then maximum gain will be added casuing snow. I am betting though that your lenses are the issue, i would try a NEW lense and see if that makes a difference, they could be burnt out, I have seen this heaps of times before...I would also check to see that you have tested each camera at the same scene, not assumed that one is better because they are all outside and subjected to the same light, there may be more scene reflectance in one view compared to another.

The problem you are seeing would be solved by using a camera that has a wide dynamic range support, firstly turn of flicker and BLC as this is not your issue, I am not sure about flicker becasue I think it is for fluro lighting and the flicker oscillation effect, perhaps coops knows, but your BLC will cause that area to flare, you need to take that camera on a lead and look from the same lighting to the glare to test...so take it from out of the shade and point it at the glared area and see if it stabalises, my bet is that the dynamic range is your issue

Firstly, you are going to be hard pressed finding a pc based card that will do a large res without HW compression at those rates, infact it will be impossible because of the PCI bus limitations, the only way you can do that frame rate is with hardware compression and I only know of one DVR that does it affordably and that unfortunately is not a PC it is a standalone box, the only other option is to do it through IP cameras or converting analogue cameras to IP...if you could sacrifice some of the frame rate you could get the Bosch Dibos, which would allow you to have either 16 Analogue (Reduced Frame Rate) and 16 IP (Whatever frame rate you have bandwidth for)...or 32 and 32, this way you could have 32 IP inputs at the frame rate you desire so long as you have the bandwidth. Be carefull that when some manufacturers talk about hybrid dvr's like this they often add all inputs to the frame count, for example in PAL, if you went for a hybrid 32/32, you could say 32 x 8fps Analogue 256FPS and then 32 Ip x 25fps = 800fps...making a whoping 1056FPS I hope this helps

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6562

Jmac is spot on, what you are seeing is the gain level when in low light mode, IMHO too many people just go off spec sheets, i ahev ementioned many times that there are many ways to make those specs lie and cheat, not only that you should choose a camera that lets you manually adjust gain levels....when a manufactorer sets a mode for low light they will go for the highest setting, this means loads of noise and loads of unwanted recordings, not to mention references when using compressions like MPEG4 etc for transmitting video. I am not going to runt hrough all the things to read on the spec sheet again, but what you should definately look for in a camera is the following. 1/ Look if it has an IR cut filter 2/ Make sure that the camera has a relay trigger to switch between modes, it is no good setting it up for low light and expecting it to handle daylight, they are one extreme to another, yes I know shutters can be set but in reality it is easier to find a camera that supports modes...thjen what you do is when you run your coax or what have you, run two data wires, connect these to the relay on the back of the cam and to your I/O output on your DVR, set your dvr to activate the output at sunset and force your camera to night mode from day mode. 3/ Make sure your camera allows you to adjust the Gain Control, if you can manually adjust it then you can throttle "overkill" back so that you get a better result. In all seriousness I use the Bosch range becasue it is so easy to configure them at the DVR end through the Bilinx tool, this means I can slide the settings up and down and set the three modes "24hr" "Low Light" and "Traffic" and from there just a few twekas can make such a difference, I really suggest you try a good lens and a LTC0495 cam, you should be very pleasantly surprised

I recently saw one of the best cameras I have ever seen in the industry. I am not totaly sure how it all worked but the demo was amazing, from what I could see it was like a combination of four cameras in one Box with several HDD's but the cool thing was it was the equivelant of 4x 10 megapixel cams, using mirrors and what I can only assume was some kind of stitching mechanism that joined 4 x 10 megapixel images together. They showed some images it had taken at a sports stadia with 80,000 people in it...they placed it at one end of the stadium and ok so the picture was nice and wide but big deal.....well...they zoomed in on the image to the farthest person at the end of the stadium (from the other end) and I swear you could see his face clear as day! The best part it is portabe, so the implecations are immense, they showed another picture which appeared to be from the top of a tall office complex and you could get plates from cars that were 200 meters away in 7 different streets, so imagine the cops turning up to a riot and taking one shot of the crowd and then having the station look through the entire croud from one frame...amazing...plus often you have to search through several cameras for footage like.... "where did that guy go, lets look at this camera...no...he must have gone somewhere to another camera" I was suitably impressed that 2 of these could do an entire football stadia

You need to take into consideration other factors, if you use the Megapixel camera and ITS software you may be able to use other factors like Scaling and Rendering and the compression may be better suited to the actual aplication that you use to review the information. I may be wrong about this but it does make sense, it would be interesting to compare both of the file sizes for both of those products but I am way to lazy to do that. ~ I hope this helps

Only recent Dome cameras, last year or so from Bosch support Pelco protocols, from memory so unless Geo does BiPhase then I doubt it will work, you can however get a PIT (Protocol Interface Translator?) Controller that can convert from say Biphase to whatever protocol you wish to have ..IE from Biphase to Pelco or you could buy Biphase to some other brand, depending on what keyboard you have or what Matrix or DVR you are using...but these are usually fairly expensive becasue they are usually designed to handle multiple PTZ's off a matrix. It would be worth trying the Pelco Protocol though just in case and I would check to see if you can buy the interface they used when they made the new domes becasue the old domes are the same shape and may allow you slot a card or an add on (I do not know becasue I have never had a look inside much). ~ I hope this helps

http://www.austarsecurity.com.au/images/stories/brochures/SpeedDomeBrochure.pdf Here is a prtty cheap option, I was sure they had some weird new 44x one but it may not be on the site yet

If you could afford just a little more I would go for a PTZ camera, you can get some pretty big zooms from the latest ones on the market. The reason I suggest this is because I would then wire a PE Beam across the road, this way when the car comes through the beam, the PTZ can be told to either zoom in, or perhaps even use a pre programed tour based on the average speed that is required, you might not just get a snapshot, you may get soime usefull images, also using a PTZ will allow you to put the camera on tour on all other times around your property, so your wife might like the protection it would provide, but lastly the best part is it will Auto focus for you so you can have diferent views very fast without having to muck around with focus etc. By the time you buy a zoom lens and pano camera you would be very close to affording a decent PTZ

Anyone got any other cameras they want to send to me for testing

If you buy an intelligent UPS with software you can set the level of shutdown and where it turns off if you do not use the coms cable and the software then it will by default run the UPS dry and then wehn power comes back on it needs to gain some power before turning itself on (charge) if you set the level to allow for power off in the ups to leave some juice, it can resume when regaining power

So true CSG, it si oftne cheaper to go to a company that does metal fabrication and ask them to make things, mind you it usually is only cost effective if you are going to constantly use them

Bosch make a half decent one, it is a bit big though

My persoanl opinion is to stear well clear from any cameras that have inbuilt IR Illuminators, unless you can dissable them wit a jumper or pin

Can someone please PM me some prices on this device and advise if it has a power supply with it?

Or better still, take the pc you are trying to connect remotely on to the site (let us hope it is a laptop) and use a crossover cable to the box, if you still get the artifacts you can rule out bandwidth

I think rory may be right, it looks like some of them need a clean, you need to be carefull because the LED's will reflect off dirty glass, also just check...although highly unlikely, but some cheap cameras with led's built in have a clear piece of plastic over the front of the glass to protect the glass and if you do not remove this you can have issues, the halo effect you can see is typical of cheap LED's built into a camera, but you said you had external ones so that is surprising

It realy depends how you are mounting it, I tend to use a roof based parapet mount, this mounts ont eh roof of a buildng and has a built in swing arm that allows me to bring it in over the roof for servicing

Do not worry, that is what we are here for Not a doubt... not even a chance that you would do this on your own, besides that you will need not your average installer for this kind of work, so you will need to choose wisely This is possible on IP solutions only, and even then it would still be advised to have several NVR stations becuase of bandwidth and directional flow. I would suggest you break your system up into three segments and stick to IP cameras (remembering though that unless you pay big bucks that ... if your network goes down you will lose recording). Imagine making a big circle around the whole floof plan and grouping the cameras together in sections, IE one wharehouse may have 8 cameras so that would all go to an 8 input switch in that section etc etc. You need to realise that with a PC or a standalone you need to either operate it from the BOX's location which would be scattered around the network or you will need to wire everything back to one location and then use an anologue matrix to control it from remote locations (a very expensive excercise in labour) The best option is to use IP cameras and then you may only need to run a few rings of Fibre, this should be on a seperate network to anything else and should be designed by a true data proffesional. Keep in mind if you do not set up this fibre ring you will be adding massive labour amounts to the job by having to run 100 long cables etc (there are ways around this but none as easy as the networked option). I realise you still need to wire to each switch however 8 or 10 or 20 cameras coming back to one point is a lot easier than trying to run 100 to a matrix. The other option is to use DVR's in each location rather than a switch (considering that you have to cable to the switch poitn anyhow) but 99% of most DVR's either PC or Standalone are not going to have sufficient enough a virtua matrix to support your needs (now before anyone flames me, I am talking about the bandwith issues and abilities to use managed switches that IP represents). You really need to work out if you will be monitoring the data or just using it for retrieval becasue this makes a huge difference to your infrastructure that you require. NVR or Hybrid machines are going to be your best bet and setting them up in groups on a token ring network is going to give you the most redundancy and flexibility. The scale of the job would normally dictate that you would need to contact a very good integrator and someone that has doen this scale of job before, sadly I am In Australia as I would have loved to help you (I will bethere at christmas though). With 100 cameras every man and his dog will be PM'ing you to assist I suggest you speak to a integrator that has VERY strong links with a manufactorer, because if the integrator is worth his salt he will engage the manufactorer to assist in the design, ensuring no mistakes in calculation and design occur. Firstly consider if you can afford the services of a Consultant, this way he can design and specify the equipment and this way you are covered.becuase the consultant takes the responsability of ensuring the end result for you and will specify the job and put it out to tender, he can also decide wh he invites to tender on the job, ensuring you get the best eductaed proffesionals. Otherwise just pay me to fly over and I will consult for free for you LOL