photys

ditto. It annoys me that there are very few demo camera images available from camera manufacturers. Also, that there is rarely a DVR specification that tells you how compressed the final image is. I adore the Arecont site. They are proud to show their final results.

Gregg's?

Also try playback in real time, not frame by frame.

So others can view remotely. Try changing the webserver from 80 to a high number. Then port forward to that number. Some routers have webservers on port 80 for remote management. If you try to connect locally, remember to add the port number, ie http://192.168.1.200:8080

I have read in this forum that mixing different brandnames of cameras can cause issues with geovision cards. Never experienced this myself. I have stripped many OEM bullet acams and played with the boards, also have cams running 90 degrees to 230V power. Never with those results. So, its either the geo card rejecting that mix of cams. - It interests me that the frozen image stays on the screen. Or a camera issue, (that is, if the cams are being power cycled with the computer). - Overheating? I wonder if there is a dry joint thats affected by heat.

Just to confirm, is it always the same camera that freezes or the same channel.

Im looking for tips on running hidden co-ax wiring in a home installation. The houses and villas here have small ducts running 230V cables to each electrical socket and light fixture. I read that running Co-ax through the electrical ducts would cause interference or ground loop. How do you guys do it?

No attics. Very few have basements. All walls and ceilings are constructed of cinder block/foundation block (known as breeze blocks in UK) and plastered over. I have seen people gouge out tracks through the plaster and blocks, then plaster over.

Can you explain the term "crossbar". Cheers.

EU. Spain and UK in personal experience with Police. All those cameras London is reknowned for have permission from the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry). http://www.ico.gov.uk/Home/for_organisations/topic_specific_guides/cctv.aspx

Theres a licenced product to be made here! BMW, here I come. Shock proof 4 channel DVR in the boot. GPS overlay using a POS device. 1 Wireless cam to take shots after the accident (skid marks, close up of driver and licence plate) All possible and straight forward with budget devices. Or stick a 6 foot pole on yer roof with a 360 degrees Arecont megapixel cam. I imagine the reason this product doesnt exist, is that you would be recording public places. Which needs special government permission in most countries.

I second that. I've installed 10 - 15 Geo systems. Not a single problem with the cards. Only issues were with bad computer configurations. Stick to recommended specifications and your fine. Just discovered one of the GV-650 4 camera cards was running for 3 years on a Celeron 2.0 with 256K RAM. Not a single problem with it.

Good move. Doing this gives great confidence on-site when dealing with the inevitable issues that arise. Have you done a site survey to work out your lens sizes?

That supplier sells Geovision GV-250 PC cards and the Avtech 760 standalone DVR. Thats about as cheap as they get. Both appear to be effective budget solutions. The geovision card will give you 25 frames per second over 4 cameras. Or 6 frames per second per camera if 4 cams all recording motion at the same time. Thats acceptable for a home installation in my opinion. A camera mounted at 7m will give you great pictures of peoples foreheads. High mounted cameras are good for overview. You need a close up. I try to mount my cams from eye level to 3m in height. Aim for the person to fill at least 100% of the frame (head to foot), or there is a good chance you will not recognise them again. Police will not accept any less as evidence. Consider mounting it lower, or buying a vandal proof dome and mounting at eye level as Rory recommended. Bear in mind, this is only my opinion. CCTV can be a bit of a dark art

Good points. UKCAM, Rory has years of experince in this. Bounced IR works so much better that direct IR in my experience. Even if you dont get the results you expected from an IR cam, you can always try and catch the subject off center, or tape off a few IR bulbs. Or spend a grand This is all camera dependent. But that model did have excess IR for lens size. The supplier told me they were expecting a new model that rectified this. Im assuming its the new one he's selling. Check that with him.

Hey, unless you got someone 10 foot tall working for ya, point the camera down a bit Sorry, cant help regarding the colour issue. Hope you get it resolved.

Yes, If you position the camera correctly. The 7100HVIR dome is a better buy, but only has 10m IR. This 9040HIR is a reasonable budget cam. Its an OEM camera named that way by that specific supplier. Better known as CD9040D3P http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=cd9040d3p&btnG=Google+Search&meta= Typically from an OEM camera, some data sheets say 15m IR some say 30m IR...... It switches to black and white at about 5 lux, not 1 lux I bought 8 of these for a project last year. At the time they were 4mm lenses and 20m IR Crazy really as there is not much detail at 20m on a wide angle lens. Your supplier agrees with me. However, I now see that they are 8mm lenses. That should make a difference. My biggest gripe with buget IR cameras is this: If the IR is not bouncing off something, the image is dark. Introduce a person to the image. Now the IR bounces off his body. The CCD takes an average over the whole image and opens the shutter accordingly. Leaving the backround underexposed and foreground overexposed. Meaning the person is bleached out, very white, no detail. In statistics, they remove the highest and lowest result and work an average from that. Higher end cameras open up the shutter in a similar way. Or by regions within the image. So find a sweetspot 10m down the driveway, mount the camera at around 3m in height and point down at the sweetspot. Some of the IR will bounce back giving a nice b+w image. Introduce a person and the average exposure will be good enough to make out detail. PM me your email and I will send you sample images.

In my limited experience, using Geovision cards, they are saved as 2 individual files. Independant of FPS. It will be model dependant. In most cases your going to need a powered, pre-amped mic.

Using Geovision and h.264 transmission over the internet I get an estimated 10fps with a 300k upload. Viewing an image at 1CIF (320x240). Based on that, 768k upload would give me 25 fps, or 3fps for 8 - 9 people. Overheads: If there is a lot of movement in the image, the FPS can be cut in half. Im sure there is an overhead for several people viewing the one system. I imagine, to get the best efficiency, upload the live images to a webserver. People could log into their part of the webpage and view at up to 25fps. Have the webserver limit that to whatever speed you want to reduce costs. The webserver could even monitor each clients usage and allow you to bill accordingly. Discuss this last option with geovision (or Rory) and a web designer.

Could be bad RAM? Try switching the RAM to the other computer. Check your event viewer to see what the real errors are: Control panel - Administration tools - Event viewer.

A Geovision client of mine has a 4 port router/modem, 3 computers and 1 basic server. He is adding 6 computers to his system. These will all be in an office located 30 meters from the existing router/modem So: Room A Router/modem 1 computer 1 Geovision system Room B 1 basic server 5 computers Each of his computers is only used for an hour a day. Rarely more than 3 at any one time. The Geovision is the only computer that is used daily on the internet. Im thinking 2 connected STARS. One with server and switch, one with router/modem. Am I right in thinking it makes sense to place a switch by the server and run short lengths of cat5 to each computer. Then run a 30m cable to the Router/modem. This reduces congestion to the server but increases congestion to the modem.

Congratulations. Sorry we didnt nail it for ya.

The gv-1120 to gv-1480 series is more picky about hardware. Confirm yours meets the minimum specifications. Strip out any old gv-250 software. Check Control panel - system - hardware - device manager to see if there are any gv-250 references Check the event viewer in your OS to see if there are any problems there.

Hi lt1240z. I am a beginner in this business so take my advice with a pinch of salt. First rule of installation for me is location of camera. Zoom in on entrances or bottlenecks. Try cams at eye level or even below. To catch staff, get a fake cam in their face and the real cam in the dark corner where they pocket the goods. Whatever you choose to do, change the position of those cams. The doorway cam will be a killer as the foreground/background lighting will cause problems. I have never needed to use WDR cams but they are designed for that type of lighting. You could have the camera pointing at 90 degrees to the door, catching the profile of people entering. Or even mount it above the door catching people walking out. Regarding the other cameras, fake a robbery. Walk the path you imagine a thief would take, and reposition the cameras to cover that path. 3 overview cameras are fine if you can guarantee a great face shot with your 4th cam. On the otherhand, you may be more interested in covering your staff. If thats the case, walk their path. A 16 cam solution would be to mount a $50 board camera in each of the floor cases pointing up, 1 door cam and 2 overview cams. Get creative, but get the face shot.

The general view among computer technicians is that there is no purpose to Vista as yet. I would not be a good idea to create a security device with untested technology. I know government departments that only adopted the Windows 2000 range in 2005 and XP/2003 in 2007. If thats anything to go by, Vista will be rolled out in secure envirnoments in 2009/2011 XP is selling better than it has for years I hear. Vista comes pre-installed and people are buying XP to replace it. Dell and Acer were given financial incentives to adopt Vista early. Now they are going back to giving the consumer a choice between XP and Vista. The people have spoken mmm rant over. /me wanders off waving his red flag and singing socialist songs. Man these painkillers are good!