AVCONSULTING

Yee Haw, get my hat and boots and go line dancing. Not the greatest picture.

I've gotten their catalogs recently and just today a new SuperCircuits catalog. Those guys are really hitting the end user market. Very slick marketing.

Your situation is indeed unfortunate in that the board is probably ok but the computer platform is inadequate. This is an ongoing problem in the security industtry with the easy availability of DVR cards being built by uninformed dealers.

This is one reason why embedded systems, although not as feature rich as PC based systems, have taken off like wildfire and are starting to become the defacto DVR for most simple installations. DM made their fortune by selling an albeit simple and even expensive embedded system but one that worked and they blew away the base of poorly constructed PC DVRs that were out at the time.

Perhaps you can upgrade your computer and there are people on the forum that are very good in analyzing problems with a compter and helping you to find the right components to make your DVR work.

Hermin is trying to keep the forums from becoming a self promoting posting board by dealers who instead of trying to solve problems do nothing but endlessly promote their own products and prices. Unfortunately on some other security discussion groups this has happened and some less than honest internet dealers have dominated the discussions with myriad posts touting their products and prices with no real regard as to what is being discussed. Many of these other boards have denigrated into nothing more than flame wars between rival internet sellers and most legit people have just given up.

Luckily this forum has avoided that pitfall and hopefully will remain an excellent source of information on CCTV and other security related issues.

PS: one of the worst examples of an unregulated forum is alt.net.security which is nothing more than anarchy.

There are no such restrictions in the CCTV distributor world about giving out costs but you will find that the majority of well established distributors will not reveal their costs to dealers or end users or each other since factories cut special deals based on volume or closeouts, etc.

Some dealers are large enough to deal with the factory direct and can get better pricing or even the same pricing that they would get through a distributor. There are cases when a factory will even sell direct to the end user if the end user is large enough. Case in point is when Panasonic bypassed their reps, distributors, dealers, and sold equipment directly to the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas.

Pricing is only one issue when considering a product. You also have to figure on the source of the product, how well it will be supported, what technical assistance you will get, etc. You can actually end up paying more by having to add on extra time just in getting things to work properly, especially on less well known suppliers who are your best bud's when it comes to selling and are no where to be found when you have a problem.

Just look at some of the threads here by people who have bought questionable DVR boards on Ebay thinking they got a hot deal and in reality ended up with a useless piece of garbage. Same with some of the cameras. The forum is littered with stories of bad purchases. If you are an end user it is sometimes better to buy through a reputable local dealer than by buying from an unknown and untested internet supplier.

This company has been doing extensive work on multi channel audio/video recording. You might want to give them a call and see what they might have to fill your customer's requirements. Listed below is a link to their site.

http://www.silicor.com/

If you look at a lot of the threads there are numerous references to sites that post prices. Plus any search on Google or Yahoo will bring up hundreds of places that sell CCTV products at dealer prices direct. No one is keeping you or anyone else from reading these threads or going to those sites. I'm not really sure what you are saying as far as not being able to access a myriad of places to compare pricing.

Regarding distributors selling to end users, that is a different thing altogether. Distributors such as ADI, Alarmax, Tri-Ed, VSSI, etc will generally not sell to an end user. This is their policy and has nothing to do with the forum or the dealers posting on the forum. All distributors maintain web sites but most have password protected pricing for their dealer base only.

With the advent of internet based selling, there are more sources for low cost CCTV products than ever in the history of CCTV. And that doesn't even include the stuff listed on Ebay. In reality the number of places you can buy CCTV at close to cost is overwhelming.

The best course of action is to first find out what products are best by looking at the discussions here and then finding that product through an internet search. The forum is primarily a place for evaluation of products, and also help in planning systems. Pricing changes almost on a daily basis and the internet search engines, or Ebay is the best source for pricing.

Capture is the in house brand for Richardson Electronics, Burtek in Canada.

Good line of products, Korean made. If you are a dealer then check with your local Burtek branch.

Hmm, not sure on that one but to cut through the semantics both the Vitek and Nuvico do a live view of 30 fps per camera so their 4 camera DVR is 120 fps, 8 camera is 240 fps, 16 camera is 480 fps. Recording is 60 fps total spread over total number of cameras.

There is some confusion between frames per second and fields per second.

It takes two fields to make one frame. Images per second is another way of saying frames per second. Why Vitek says FPS and Nuvico says IPS is not really important since both come out to the same thing and both units are identical, made by the same company Pinetron in Korea. One gets a Vitek label and the other gets a Nuvico label. Each camera in live view gets 30 fps so if you have a 16 channel unit you will get a total of 480 fps live view (not to be confused with recording which is 60 fps). Here is a link giving the definition of FPS.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/fps.html

They are identical units just different ways of saying the same thing. One is frames per second, the other images per second but it works out to real time on each camera in the view mode. On record the maximum would be 60 fps/ips.

True, but in this instance we are talking about cameras. For CATV wiring then aluminum is better than copper. But Rory, this is the "CAMERA" forum

not the "CABLE TV" forum

Go with the motion controlled light, cheaper, better lighting, and lights scare people off. IR is good for covert or when lights cannot be used because of neighbors, etc.

To simplify matters, only use coaxial cable with copper braid and copper core. No aluminum at all. 95% copper braid is best but short runs are ok with 70%. Very important to get copper braid.

Power wire should be 18 ga. Short runs 20 ga ok. 24 ga is way too thin even if you pair some together. Your voltage drop will be terrible and will result in bad video.

Looks like a balloon to me, eh. I'll down a few Molson's and see if it turns into a UFO, eh.

Is that 30 fps per camera or 10 fps per camera for a total of 30 fps? Here is a link to a storage calculator which might help narrow down the problem.

I don't know much about upgrading to 4.13 but most of the time the problems have been with the video cards and drivers. You might also try emailing Jason at Say Industries (there is a banner ad now on this site). He is pretty knowledgeable about the Kodicom software.

http://www.adscc.tv/calculator.html

Depending on your recording settings and if you are only using a 70 GB hard drive then most likely you are filling up the hard drive with 1 day's worth of video. Are you using motion detection only recording? Also what frame rates are your cameras set at? My guess is that nothing is wrong with the system itself except for your recording settings.

Even with Vari-Focals this is a handy device to have and it makes you look more professional on a job walk.

http://www.cbcamerica.com/cctvprod/computar/access/access_pdf/VM300.PDF

http://www.cbcamerica.com/images/computar/access/VM300.jpg

Rory you are going to sink that island with all of your websites. Besides it is 3 in the morning over there and you posted minutes after me. Don't you ever sleep? Sorry you aren't going to the show. I would have bought you a super American sized steak.

I think there should be a limit on the number of websites Rory can have.

Too many too look at for such a tiny island.

VSSI in Burbank is having a sale on Sony products in their latest flyer. You might want to check them out.

www.vsscctv.com

If you have a smoke alarm that would be a good place since it is located high up and usually in the center of the room. Drawback would be trying to run the wires back.

Behind a wall plate with a small hole cut out is also good. You would only need a very tiny hole in the plate. You might even be able to hide it behind an existing wall outlet.

Oz, you have Paul Hogan to blame for all that. BTW we Septics don't do all of those things you listed but there sure were a lot that hit the mark.

I talk to a lot of Australian hams and they do say "No worries" all the time. I'll have to jot down some of the other common sayings next time I'm on with them. And we didn't invade Iraq for oil. Actually if we did it would have made a lot more sense but since we didn't no one here can figure out why we did. Don't all Australians wrestle and hunt crocodiles?

Rory, did they just introduce Microwave ovens into the Bahamas? I knew you guys were a little behind the rest of the world but didn't think it was that bad. Have you gotten fax machines and answering machines yet?

Too right mate, no worries there. Gday to you. I'm learning Australian from the ham radio operators I talk to down there. Oh, and put another shrimp on the barbie you old ocker. Make sure there are plenty of shielas around next time I drop in.