WirelessEye

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping there was some sort of "CSI" bs like goggles or something that would block out everything except visible light. Nothing like that huh?

I am faced with my first DVR installation for a company that wants 30+ days of footage and need 10-12 cameras on it. I have found one that is networkable, has MPEG4/H.264, a built in CD/DVD burner and 2TB of storage for $--------. This is the most inexpensive DVR I've found that has all of these capabilities, is it any good? I've been looking at this one: [edit by mod-link removed] If I'm not allowed to post this link, then the model number is the SUPERVIEW16 w/ the HDUP250T500 upgrade.

It's all about cost, and when you pay the "cost". Projectors offer the cheapest largest displays initially. Bulb replacement generally occurs ~2000 hours (if you're lucky) and is $450+ each time. Figure on around 5 projector bulbs per year (which equals about $2,500/yr in operational costs). Figure on more bulbs (~8 bulbs @ $4,000/yr) if you run 24/7 (which most likely you will) as the constant heat wears them out faster. At the same time, a decent projector and a 150" high contrast screen will "only" cost $3,000-$4,500 wholesale. You could easily run 36-49 feeds per screen and still have an *ok* size. On the other hand you could get some 50" plasma's with much more up-front cost, but with next to nil maintenence cost for the 6-8 years the screen will last. Really it's a trade-off, but they do make very good projectors that have great contrast (DLP is excellent) and also high resolution.

Found it: http://www.vumii.com/productsitem.jsp?content=1 Make sure to view their demos. They are amazing.

I can't really tell you what we use as we have tons of R&D into it. It's a combination of components that we've found to work very well together. So in answering your question-- we build our own radios. There are other sources for 900Mhz radios however. "Smarter Security Solutions" makes a nice setup, pricing is below Avalan. I don't quite remember, but their data rate is either 48Mbps or 54Mbps. "Encon Wireless" is another that does 54Mbps-- don't know pricing on these however.

What about vertical? (If you haven't figured it yet, I know next to jack about REAL wifi.) Vertical? Are you talking about polarization? If so, it doesn't really matter. Polarization, both horizontal and vertical are flooded in 900Mhz pretty much in any urban environment. 900Mhz is ideal to use in suburban environments where trees are an issue.

I hope your customer has deep pockets (and long arms). I have seen this system demo'd at trade shows, and it is amazing (and the camera window is bulletproof-- literally). The only downside of course is that it costs tens of thousands of dollars and your lights will dim when those illuminators turn on, but every silver lining has a cloud right? There is an Israeli company that sells a system that is actually better (at least I think). The system is 35k for the camera which uses a high power IR Laser that is focusable for extremely long range illumination-- further than the Extreme CCTV system. If I can remember the name of the company I'll post it.

True, but even at 5 bars you're only going to get 1Mbps with Avalan. That's why we never bought any of their stuff. There's a lot of other 900Mhz equipment out there that is 54Mbps, not to mention cheaper. Although, I don't recommend using 900Mhz unless you absolutely have to, due to the saturation of that frequency.

After bashing DVR's for their shortcomings in another thread. I now have another job that requires one. A big one. 50+ cameras. All analog. Needs outside web access for occassional logins outside of building. Wants around 3-5fps and 2 weeks footage stored on unit for each camera. I've found 1 that can do it so far. I'm hoping I have more than 1 choice. Anyone know of any others?

Rory is correct. You can have your wireless gear outside, (with your electronics weatherproofed) and cable leads to both the antennae, (mounted outside as well) and the Cat5e will run to the other end. The X10 type garbage, which has the wireless integrated on the other hand- can probably go through a typical residential wall (allbeit a short distance), but distances and wall types are two huge variables. Some houses have a lot of metal in the walls from studs or stucco mesh, so you could have issues. One thing you have to remember, no matter what the frequency is of the wireless, a clear line of sight is always desirable. Even if they advertise 900Mhz "obstruction penetrating" video links, obstructions will still greatly diminish wireless signal. 900Mhz is less prone to being killed completely by 1 solid object than a higher frequency, but with wireless everything is variable.

That motherboard does not have built in RAID, so a controller would be neccessary. Raid 5 is going to be the best Raid for surveillance footage backup. It offers you complete backup if a drive fails. If you do have a failure, you pull out the drive, insert a new one, and the array will rebuild. There is another RAID (10 I think?) that does this as well, but costs oodles more and you get way less disk space with that setup. 50% of your hard drives store the data and it is faster than RAID 5, but RAID 5 is much more common place and you only have to use 1 of your drives for failover. If you do decide to go RAID to make sure that the card you get is compatible with the mobo. Most RAID cards are PCI-X which are the longer 64-bit slots, but you can get a 4 port for under $100. I have never worked with a non-RAID hot swap setup and thought it didn't exist, but it apparently does: http://www.cooldrives.com/ex4drhosaenw.html

After looking at this, it looks like nothing more than a solution for fitting 3 Sata Drives in (2) 5.25 slots. The backplane will have individual "outlets" for each drive. You don't "have" to run RAID, but that's the intended use for the target audience of this product. Certainly this setup is not ideal for raid as there are an "odd" number or slots. They are recommending 3ware, but I'd check out what Promise has first. Or if you are looking on the cheap, try and find a Mobo with onboard RAID. But then again if you are looking to install in an existing setup and want to run RAID, you'll of course need the controller card-- but it would be cheap since this is a cheapy RAID setup (750GB Max with 1 Hot Swap drive if you go RAID 5 because you'll drop a drive for striping).

I realize that, I was just comparing their "top of the line" models.

Antec PSU's are nice, probably the most reliable I've seen. I've replaced a lot of the Enermax PSU's so stay away from those. MSI Mobo's used to be the bomb, although they fell off a couple years ago. Now I only use Asus, and only their top of the line stuff. A good motherboard is just too inexpensive as far as the rest of the system is concerned, to get a cheap one. What I can say tho, stay away from Gigabyte. I used to have good luck with them, but now I've had nothing but RMA's 90% of the time (with 3 different model Motherboards). And if you ever have to RMA anything through Gigabyte... well... enjoy... The hot ticket right now are Core 2 Duo's (Tunic cooled) on Asus Mobo's. You can overclock like crazy and it's still rock solid reliable. Ahhh I can smell the voided warranty now.

I would use directional antennae for the AP(s). Probably sectors. 1000' feet isn't much distance but with an omni, you are going to be picking up noise from a 360 degree horizontal plane, not to mention the gain isn't going to be as high. Get yourself some 90 degree sectors (amplifier should NOT be used). Amplifiers only amplify problems. If you have a high noise floor, an amplifier is only going to: amplify the issue. You are proposing an "unbalanced" system, which is Ok as most PTMP systems are unbalanced, but an omni with directionals on the other end will not be a good solution. Also, I would use a dedicated backhaul (PTP) for your server to communicate with the AP's.

So your server that will handle all the cameras will be wireless to the AP as well? If this is the case, you could have performance issues unless you get maximum signal on every single connection, which is unlikely with a omnidirectional antenna.

Seems like everyone likes Seagates. Really anyone who has built enough computers or dvr's knows that one of the most unreliable components of the system (after the power supply) is the hard drive. If you are running Seagates, your cpu fan or memory will probably fail first. Anyhow, good thread.

I'm confused. Do you even have a wired LAN?

I don''t know if I'd say any of those are "leaders" in wireless video. They do make wireless radios, but a lot of people do. Video is data, and all radios send data. The companies you mention do wireless, but you're paying a fraction for their equipment, and all the rest for their brand name. When trying to find a "leader" in wireless for video, just look for wireless radios and then look at their specs. Do your homework and then narrow it down to 2-3 different radios, then go off price. By the way, I've noticed a lot of wireless providers at ISC, ASIS bagging on the other people at the show saying that their "solution" is the best. Then I ask them what their stuff can do, and how much it costs. They tell me their stuff can do XXMbps @ XX Miles for X amount of dollars, and then I realize what a rip off they are.

The cameras would be on whatever LAN that your AP(s) are connected to. If your existing LAN is is not really saturated or utilized, then you can just connect to it, otherwise you can do seperate LAN's. That is something you'll have to figure out for yourself. It would be a good idea to have a Network admin do a network assesment before you get started to make sure you don't leave yourself high and dry. Milestone is great software, so is ONSSI. (They are pretty much the same). If you are in the USA, you'll want to go with ONSSI as they are located in the States and support calls, etc. will be an issue if you go with Milestone as there is a big time difference. Not all wireless equipment has to be expensive to be good. In wireless, you get charged for what you don't know. That is, if you don't know how to program through a command line, know router settings, etc. you'll pay more for equipment that has a GUI for people who are ignorant to wireless configurations. Just an FYI.

Spectra III SE 23X: 3.6-82.8mm Spectra III SE 22X: 4-88mm Spectra IV SE 35X: 3.4-119mm Interesting. I learned something there. So there is a mild gain with the 35X, but not quite as much as expected.

It doesn't mean that you have to use cheaper cameras, it means that any camera that can connect to a network, whether it be an IP camera, or an Analog camera that has a digitizer hooked to it, will connect to any radio. The radio is for all practical purposes: a router. The radio/router will send your signal to another radio/router which has a cable that connects to the LAN. No special cameras needed. I'm not familiar with Intermec, but I went to their website and it all looks like Cisco stuff? Just make sure that it is newer Cisco stuff that is using Atheros chipsets. Old Cisco wireless equipment is not nearly as good as their newer Atheros gear.

I think I have seen dual voltage PSU's from Altronix.

Thanks. 5Ghz is will do what you need easily. Just remember, weatherproof everything. In a PTMP system, the AP is going to throttle to whatever your weakest Client's signal is. So if you got a 54Mbps signal on 6 out of 7 Clients, but your 7th is getting noise and only has a 6Mbps link, the AP will lower it's speed to 6Mbps for all clients, and then you'll run into problems. Always test, test again, and test some more before installing your equipment, you'll be glad you did. You can use any IP camera or Analog camera that has been digitized. For costs sake, I'd find the cheapest IP camera you can get and see if you like the results.

We have been monitoring Wireless feeds for ~4 years now. (I'd be surprised if any privately held corporation does more than us). I can tell you that the infrastructure to do it correctly is quite expensive. The first reason: It's wireless. A lot of companies spend thousands of dollars in R&D money to find not only the best wireless gear for their money/application, but also on the camera setup that streams most efficiently over them. What I can tell you, is that you need to pass on 2.4Ghz. It does not have the required throughput to handle anything more than 1 camera. This is fine for PTP setups, but PTMP setups will be scary on 2.4. Hope this helps.