MetzLyov

As for our friend in Australia, anything is possible in the world of computers and as long as it is made by man, it is guranteed to fail no matter what you do... What is also possible is that I can fly to Australia in less than 10 minuts and have a bear with our friend, possible yes, probable not really What you are stating as a "possibility" is so remote (even you state one in the million) that if someone figures out how to flash a bios and replace it with their version of the code, then we will have complete world wide Internet destruction, which bring down the most of the world economies as we know it. I think from practicality stand point, lets stay with the facts and not fictions. It is a fiction that it is possible to do it, but not probable and lets not get Casey or any other end user scared on decisions to protect themselves... I am an engineer by the profession and I know that I can write a code in low level machine languge and I can force my will on any PC based machine out there. It may take me a day or a year to figure out the correct distructive code, but where is the benefit? If you see any benefit, please let me know and we can make some money together. Levon

Rory, picky picky picky... I did not say all embedded system

Data, you mean GE Security DVR right? Levon

ricochet, we can get very technical here, but I rather not... I know which formula you are referring to... Here is one from Panasonic called Lens Estimator and Voltage Drop Calculator - http://panasonic.com/business/security/resources.asp Dependent if you choose 1/3" or 1/2" cameras, you can pick up varifocal lenses going from range of 2.8mm - 12.0mm and they will work. In the areas that you need wider shots, then those cameras need to use wider angle lenses, i.e. 1.8mm - 3.6mm range... Levon

Our friend in Australia, I do beg the difference... If it is a true embedded system, how anyone can get in via Internet and cause any damage? If that is the case, then someone can get into the system and change the BIOS content??? Please pay attention to the word "true".... I sure hope Bosch DVRs with XP embedded OS do not have this type of problems! Levon

Welcome to our forum... You have good questions and a very specific needs and we will do our best to help... Few questions: 1. Do you want color or B&W cameras? 2. How many cameras? 3. Are the cameras to be installed only outside or your need one inside? 4. How many days of recording do you need? 7 days, 14 days or more? 5. What is the approximate distance from camera(s) to your office? Present recorders will give you ability to record video, playback locally (at the DVR side) or remotely or give you access to the same video outside of your construction area. The part that will be very difficult is to capture license plates as a hardware required for that type of equipment is very expensive. However, if you get a high res camera equipment and have a decent light in your area, then chances are that you will see a lot, but may not see the license plate... You can view content of your DVR locally or from home via Internet. Do you have a DSL in your construction area? Price points are very much possible if you can answer the questions above. I am sure that some of our members will give you a quote for hardware. Levon

Guys, cool off your horses Lets keep the original question on hand from Casey... Lets debate in the Dealers section if you want, but lets get Casey the solution that needed... please! Levon

Casey, we very much apologize for going in tangent here and it does happen sometimes and that had nothing to do with your original request... Looks like your first question was answered by Rory regarding to KVM switch. Another option is to connect your notebook or laptop to such DVR via your router.... This way the need for KVM switch is not required. You are connecting to the DVR via your local LAN through your router... As for your second question "can anyone make a recommendation of a quality system that will provide real time viewing and playback? Finally I would like to run a camera into an outdoor building that is 150 feet away, which I would run through conduit with the other powerlines.Would this be alright?" The answer is yes, you can! We need some more information if possible please. 1. How many cameras do you need? 2. Color or b&w? 3. How many of these cameras are for outdoor? 4. How many days of recording you would like to retain in the DVR? Number of days recording will determine the hard drive capacity of the DVR. 5. What is the approximate distance of the camera vs. control location? Based on the answers, a proper power supply, cables and lenses will be recomended. I am also sure that several of our members will give you a quote accordingly.. Please let us know. Levon

scottj, I could not have said it better when you state "the application will best dictate the solution chosen". By no means we state that "all" windows based system are bad - heck we sell Intellex systems from American Dynamics that are still based on windows 2000 and I will say with their latest changes, it became much more stable than their previous revisions... I may agree with you on problems with ATA hard drives and specially if they are from Maxtor, however we have been using ATA hard drives (both 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM) from Western Digital and from Seagate with no problems reported in the last 18 monts. This is compared to Maxtor's 80+% failure rates... Also, I will disagree with you that you get more with SATA, SATAII or even SCSI hard drives. DVRs do not need "fast" hard drives, rather for basic storage. I peronally prefer 5,400 RPM hard drives that operate much cooler and are more reliable than the faster ones. Casey are you bored yet? Levon

Rory, you used the keyword "cheaper" - and knowing what you mean, you are referring to second or third tier product line, most of which is garbage... You should try the latest Sanyo and Ganz embedded systems. They are as simple and easy as the GE DVRs and sometime lower in cost (in case of Ganz and lately Sanyo). I have seen the latest Bosch and even Sanyo embedded DVRs based on XP barebone OS (everything is parked in the BIOS and not on the hard drives). Even American Dynamics started testing their latest DVR based on XP barebone OS. As long as the OS can not be tampered with via virus or worms or by an user error, setting changes that most of the time is not recoverable, then we will see how well these latest ones will perform. It is too premature if these ones will do well, however the initial results look very promissing... Levon

jisaacmagee, excellent explanation about the differences on PC vs. embedded... I personally like embedded better all in all. It comes with everything you will even need, FPS settings, resolution setting, Internet settings, hard drive increase capable and besides, no updates ever necessary and much more.. The only reason someone may want to upgrade the firmware it to take advantage of the same DVR taking even higher capacity hard drives (manufacturers purposley restrict it based on bios version) or activating certain features, i.e. USB connections, etc. It is like setting up a glorified VCR Not sure which embedded system you use or used in the past, but your assessment on "What is best for my customer not neccessarilly means has the most features, bells, whistles, etc" is not exactly accurate. I can speak on my knowledge and experience on embedded system from majors.. They never shorted on features. Actually, I think it comes with more useless features that majority of end users do not use or ever will... By the way, have Masters in Electrical Engineering from USC and MBA from Pepperdine Levon

Thomas, I concur with your assessment with a few twists if I may... "1. Upgradable." In the embedded system the only thing you can upgrade and for a good reasons are the hard drives. You need no upgrades on anything else! In case of the PC, there are so many that you must upgrade for it to keep up, updates, service packs, anti-virus software, etc.. "2. Can be intergrated into a network with more ease." I beg the difference! It is much easier to program embedded system in any network. The only pragramming you do is to apply the internal or external IP address and the gateway. That is it! "3. Replacement parts are much cheaper." If you are getting the embedded DVR with 3 years warranty, why would you want to repair it beyond that? The average life expectency of any PC is 3 years anyway... Levon

Scott, Your point is well taken and I respect that. However, can you please give me any advantage that the PC Windows based system may have vs. embedded systems? Or better yet, can you please clarify for me what are the "cons" in embedded systems from your perspective? Considering the fact that you have to puchase PC and operating system sperately, then add the video capture card along with its own software, program, setup (major labor costs) and then go live... vs. embedded system that works right out of the box.... I can never understand the cost effectiveness of the capture cards. Can someone explain to me where the costs saving really are? May be I do not see it because we went through quite of few of them in the past and realized that it is not a security solution, rather learning how such hardware works. Does anyone really making any money on this type of setups from Geo and others? With all due respect to all the manufacturers and dealers using such cards and systems and I am sure everyone will have their own observations, but where are the advantages? Is it the cost? Is it the ease of setup and programming? Is it the warranty? Am I missing something here that I do not understand? Levon

Few, will give you the info tomorrow.... In the middle of setting up my new FreeBSD workstation on 64-bit AMD procesessor based system and with the latest KDE GUI... So far it looks perfect and it is runnign the apps much faster than Linux.... Levon

Now we have something to go on Lets take a look at the cameras first - I take it you will use B&W cameras (from previous posts). Obviously you will need wide angle lens, as your viewing area is around 8 square feet. Dependent on if you intend to use 1/3" or 1/2" cameras, select a autoiris lens with 1.8mm-3.6mm range (you can get varifocal version to give you more flexibility) Obviously 4 cameras will not give you decent coverage, therefore you want 16 cameras? You have a choice to get Microsoft or Linux based DVRs or embedded DVRs. The first series, if you choose Microsoft based, then you have all the inherent problems that Microsoft comes with (virus and worm attacks). In case on Linux based system, that is minimized temendously. However, if you go with embedded system, none of this type of attacks will make it to its final destination, as embedded system are not prone to these type of problems. I will suggest using embedded system that gives you great performance and ease of use and basically, you progam it and let it ride... Many to choose to from - Mitsubishi (probably the most cost effective with 60 FPS), Sanyo, Ganz, Bosch and GE Security (you see I do not suggest Panasonic, as you will need a lot of knowledge to program their version of DVRs). You want 15 days of recording. Well, it becomes tricky when you are trying to calculate hard drive space when using motion only feature, as recording takes place only when the DVR senses motion from the cameras. I will suggest to have specific cameras record always (cash register areas mainly) and the rest with motion only. With 16 cameras attached to any of these DVRs, I think you are safe using from 250GB to 500GB hard drive to accomplish this task. As for FPS or IPS capability, well that is another consideration, but I think it will be an overkill if you go with 120IPS or 120FPS box. Here is my reasoninig: If you were to select a box that comes with this type of frame rate, then your maximum available per port is 7.5FPS. Well, you will not see much of difference going from 3.75 to 7.5, unless if you push it to 15FPS... What is important is the resolution of the recording using FPS setting going from low to the highest. Each manufacturer will give you FPS setting and resolution setting. Because your FPS is higher does not mean by sellecting lower resolution will give you a sold picture quality. The industry standards that we work with is 3.75FPS with medium to high resolution and it works... Calculate the longest run for the cables between the furthest camera position to your record and monitor station plus 20% extra. This way, you will have enouph cables and ability to move them as you choose at a later time... Will recommend using siamese cable non-plenum (unless you building code requires plenum). Connectors are dime a dozen, therefore if you will do the instalation yourself or with your coworkers, I will suggest using twist-on bnc connectors. It is great that you already have the DSL service in place. What are the specs, up and down speeds? If you have a lower up speed and the DVR side, you will have slower live video view and ability to play back already stores video. The key is to have at least 256KB of up speed at the DVR side or higher. Price range in my opinion is within what you are trying accomplish and can be lower dependent on the model of the DVR and its hard drive capacity. Regardless what you choose or end up getting, make sure that all your hardware comes with 3 years warranty and anything less should not be considered. Levon

richchet, tell us exactly which cameras you got (your starting at the begining of the thread that you already overcame this issue) and then tell us exactly what you are trying to do with the DVR. 1. What is your application? 2. How many days of recording to you want (regardless if you want motion only or record always)? 3. How many channels DVR do you want? 4. Does CD or DVD burner important? 5. OS based on embedded? 6. Price points (I noticed several big names and models in the thread)? 7. Do you already have the monitor, the cables and the connectors in place? This thread started with some questions on DVR and then turned into cameras Once you give us the info for the above, I am sure everyone will have their say on their recommendations, pros and the cons... and then you will have your options to decide! Levon

Military, NASA, government, oil rigs in the middle of the ocean and others...

Ok, fine... ExView is a decent camera, but I think GE had to do something to compete with Bosch XT series... Not the same results, but GE is on the right track... They never had a good cameras anyway, as when they bought all the companies producing them, they inheret all the problems... Nowadays they are working on a newer technology cameras and they suppose to be better - do not know what it means, but I guess we will find out when we get one on hand... Levon

Rory, kind of - sort of... I do not particulary like the GE's ExView series... A lot of hype and least amount of substance... and with high pricing..... Levon

If you read carefully, first of all it is a 540TVL color camera. With this feature on, it is trying to match up with day night, but it is not, as its specs show it to be higher res color and lower light capable... The XT series is not a true day/night camera, rather with digital filters, trying to operate as such. If you were test it with Pano's CW-474 counterpart, it will fall short... But then again, price points are not the same, so it is not a fair comperison... If it is being compare to Pano's high res color mini-dome series (200 series), then it does kick where it hurts the most - Performance.. It is also close to performance of the comparible equipment from Sanyo and Ganz... Levon

Here in California, we are averaging between $2.70 to $3.00 per gallon... We do charge per mile and travel hourley charge (both ways) and minimum one hour at the location... Most of the time the travel overal charge is more than the hour spent at the customer's site.... Levon

Data, this is the FlexiDome XT series model and it comes with "NightSense" feature... However, FlexiDome I and II series do not have this feature... rather come in B&W and color variations... Here is the url for spec sheet for FlexiDome XT series: http://www.boschsecurity.us/pdf/EN/LTC%20136x%20Series%5F%20LTC%20146x%20Series%2Epdf Here is the url for spec sheet for FlexiDome I and II series: http://www.boschsecurity.us/pdf/EN/Flexidome%20I%20and%20II%5Fen%2Eqxd%2Epdf Hope this helps. Levon

I have not used anti-virus or anti-spyware software in a longest time and no problems with my setup... You see, any linux user does not have to worry about these Microshaft induced problems. They purposely make their OS fairly bad, so that they can create other businesses, jobs and their own opportunities... In the last few months I am using FreeBSD version 5.5 stable on the GUI and it actually works even better than Linux (it is a much cleaner kernel)... It works with all the Linux based applications and with over 20,000 apps in place, I am never shorted on anything I want to do... I should completely move to FreeBSD shortly... Just bought another AMD 64-bit based system and started to setup it up the way I like it... My last setup (using the same computer) is over 2 years old and I am always looking for newer gadgets and products. Eventually, I'd say in the next few months, I will have all our workstations converted at work, if I see the defenite benefits on FreeBSD vs. Liunx... By the way, regardless if you use Linux or FreeBSD, you can take the full advantage of the 64-bit apps, which are more in these platforms than Microswifts latest 64-bit os... Heck, it is great to be on the edge of latest and greatest technologies and as long as we are learning something new everyday Levon

Hey Guys, What do you know about I3 DVRs?? Has anyone ever used them and if so, please give me your assessments... Can you tell me who the manufacturer is? Thanks, Levon

Several companies... Let me get back to you on who makes tham, which products and their specs... Levon