SambaNoodles

Hi. I have been asked by the police to provide video footage of a camera we have that happens to face outdoors at a certain time of the day. They need the footage to help in their investigation of an armed robbery that took place nearby. I am using Geovision v8.3, with GV-1480 card installed. Camera in question is a 1.3MP Geovision camera. I am noticing that for any given video clip, the video footage starts working o.k....but then suddenly freezes after about 10 seconds of footage. This is only the case with this particular megapixel camera (the rest are just regular analog cameras, and the footage from the analog cameras doesn't stall or freeze). I originally thought this may be an issue with the database. I tried to run the database repair tool, but i keep getting a message that some other program is using the database and I must close it before i can run the tool (however, i dont think that this is the case....Geovision multicam is shutdown, all Geovision related services are stopped, and yet i still cannot run the repair tool). Any idea what this issue might be? I have been given about 24hrs to provide them with the footage they require, or they may send someone over to "assist me".

o.k...tried that, and it seems I cannot even copy the .avi files from that time period onto a different computer on the network. I got a message saying something about data being corrupted.

Hi. I am using a 16-ch (analog) +2 IP cam Geovision system with 1TB of storage space. I am running v8.4 For some strange reason, after runnning flawlessly for a few days, the monitoring (recording) of all cameras stops by itself. In the system log, they refer to this event as "Monitor Stop". I have no idea why that happens. And, unless I manually start monitoring again, (or restart GeoVisioin), then no recording happens. Anyone know why that might be? Might it have something to do with the recycle threshold limit I have (default value was set at 1450MB for me)? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Wow...I can't believe someone actually has the same problem as me! I have experienced the same issue on v8.4, v8.3, and also v8.2. I am using GeoVision's own cameras. Oh, and this problem occurred whether I was powering the cameras on PoE or directly through a power adapter.

Hi. I need to purchase a PoE (Power Over Ethernet) network switch to handle around ten IP cameras. At least one (uplink) port on the switch needs to be gigabit. I will be connecting 1.3MP IP cameras. Any recommendations on a stable, but cost-effective switch. I'm not really looking to spend $1000+ on swtich, but i do want something that is going to last 5+ years.

Damn...I SEE IT....and yes it is enabled.....So that explains it....and it also officially makes me an idiot.

Hi. I have a PC configured as a DVR running GeoVision software. I am running v8.4 of Geovision, under Windows XP. About once every week or so, it seems the machine mysteriously reboots itself. I am trying to figure out why? I looked at the Event Codes under Windows XP Event Viewer, and based on those codes, it seems that the reboot is desginated as a "normal shutdown" event (code "6006"). That seems to indicate to me that this is not an "out of the blue" reboot, but rather the Operating System or some application is initiating this reboot. Which app is doing this, I cannot say. I know that GeoVision is, by default, enabled to send a reboot signal if a particular analog camera loses its signal...but I turned off that feature and still get reboots happening roughly every week. So, I am not so sure that the GeoVisioin software is the culprit. Could this be a hardware problem? The PC is powered via a UPS backup power supply. I believe this UPS can force the machine to shutdown gracefully, but there are no logs being generated that indicate that this is happening. Any other ideas? I am kind of clued out here. I don't want to start replacing components (Video Card, Motherboard) one by one until this problem goes away. So maybe others have seen this happen before.

there is a big fat menu item that should stick out .. "auto reboot setup" or maybe "system reboot" in newer versions O.K....so maybe I'm blind or going senile or something, because the only thing I see is an option to auto-restart[or shutdown] if you exit the GeoVision application. I don't see any option to schedule reboots for any specific time. So, does this feature not exist in v8.4?

More just curiousity...I don't like things happening that I did not intend to happen. How would I find this mysterious feature is enabled? I don't see any obvious place to look.

Just to give some feedback, I got the Netgear 24-port PoE switch. Been running it for about a month, and I am quite happy with the way it runs...fan noise is a bit annoying...but for $300, can't really complain. Cheers.

why don't you just upgrade to v8.4, and add another cheap 16 IP cameras + gigabit switch?

I have a 16-ch GeoVision system based on the GV-1480, and the 8.3.2 software. As it turns out I need another 4-5 cameras, at least. I am torn between whether I should add another GV-1480 card, or just add additional IP camears to the system (no new card required). Apparently, you can add up to 8 IP cameras at no cost to the exisiting system. I am assuming I will need to purchase a more heavy duty (Cisco) gigabit ethernet switch to the system as well. What is the better option? Another GV-1480 card is going to cost $1000+, while the new gigabit switch is probably about $300-$500. Then there is the cost of the cameras. Any suggestions?

Hi. The time on the PC upon which the DVR software is installed appears to be inaccurate. Changing the time on the O/S (Win Xp) fixes things temporarily, before it again gets out of sync with the real time (in a matter of days it is noticeably off). Changing the time on the BIOS is equally useless. Things just get back to being out of sync as the days go by (in less than a month, the time is 15 mintues off). Of course this means that the timestamps on the video footage recorded by the DVR are innaccurate. So what do I do here? I am wondering if this means I got a faulty motherboard (i.e. quartz crystal) that is not causing the clocks to be out of sync. Can this be fixed without swapping out the motherboard?

A word of advice to GeoVision users. Buy an I-Phone. The GeoVision software is easy to setup and works almost flawlessly with the GeoVision DVR (at least on v8.3). As much as I hate Apple, the I-Phone will definitely go down in history as one of the greatests consumer devices of all time. The BlackBerry is quickly becoming yesterday's news.

Just contact USAVision (google it), and talk to their online tech support crew. They will hook you up.

Also, be sure to check that your GeoVision card is securely attached to the card slot. I had this same problem, which I seem to have fixed by just making sure the card was securely fastened to the slot.

I have installed a GeoVision based DVR in retail store, and they want me to overlay the date from their POS terminals onto a respective camera. I undertand many DVRs (including GeoVision) have this type of fuctionality built it. The retail store is using Microsoft Retail Mangement System (Dynamics 2.0). Anyone know if this particular POS system will work with GeoVision DVRs? if so, how does one configure it to do so? FYI, Microsoft Retail Management System uses OPOS drivers to print to a receipt printer and open a cash drawer. The printers are EPSON TM88iii thermal printers. Each POS terminal consists of a computer which connects via parallel cable to the EPSON printer. There is no other port on the printer to connect to the GeoVision system.

What I've learned thus far after talking to Microsoft people and Geovision people, is that nobody has any clear answer. That is kind of strange considering how widely deployed *both* Microsoft Dynamics POS and Geovision are in the field. Actually, in this case GeoVision TechSupport seemed a bit more aware of the capabilities of their software in integrating with various POS systems. But they really need to know how the POS system outputs transaction data to its output devices (i.e. receipt printer). The best answer i got from the *free version* of Microsoft Tech Support (user community based help) for this product was that they *believe* that the output to the OPOS printer is just a graphics image. In other words, there is NO text data for the GeoVision DVR to extract. However, they did mention that most Pole Display devices take raw text as input, so likely I can grab the output from the pole display and connect that to a GeoVision Text Capture Box. Geovision says to test this, I will need to get my hands on a Female-Female RS-232 crossover cable, then use that cable to connect a test computer to the COM port of the POS terminal (the same COM port that is supposed to be connect to the Pole Display). Using a Windows application like HyperTerminal on the test computer, you can capture the output from the POS terminal. If you try to Tender a transaction on the POS terminal and if it appears to be text on the Hyper Terminal application, then that means you can go ahead and use a GeoVision Text Capture Box to implement your Text-Overlay solution. In fact, Geovision, in addition to providing you with a Text-Overlay on a camera of your choice, will also log that text data seperately, so you can do searches for events (transactions) occuring within the POS terminal. Just take everything you read above with a grain of salt. This is only what I've been told. I'll get back to you all if and when it works.

YES! SOUNDY and Cglaser are correct! The problem was indeed the backfocus. Basically, in this Geovision Box camera, The backfocus is controlled by adjusting the posistion of the brass ring that the CS-mount lens attaches to. In order to adjust this position you have to turn a small screw using the "backfocus" connector provided by GeoVision. This will loosen the ring, and thereby allow you to pull it out as much as you need to. By adjusting the position of this brass ring, you adjust the coressponding distance between the sensor on the Geovision camera and the CS-mount lens. At first adjusting the backfocus didn't do anything. It was only until I also removed the GeoVisoin C-mount adapter (that they specifically tell you to put on the camera before connecting your lens), and then started playing with the backfocus, that things got right. None of the above is explained in the GeoVision manual. I only learned how to adjust the backfocus after talking to GeoVision tech support. Keep in mind I've never even bothered with this backfocus thing ever in the brief past i've dealt with CCTV cameras. Anyway, thanks to everybody who helped out here. This one website forum has done more to advance my education in CCTV than any book, manual, or even experience ever could. A special thanks goes to SOUNDY who should be awarded a medal for all the great advise he offers on this board.

Hi. I just bought a GeoVision box camera 1.3 Megapixel, Day/Night without lens. I attached my own standard CS-MOUNT 2.8mm-12mm lens onto the camera. However, at any level of ajustment, I cannot get any legibile image! The Geovision Box camera comes with a plastic C-mount lens adapter that needs to be screwed on before you can place your own CS-mount lens. This is my first time using IP megapixel cameras, and I paid a pretty penny for this camera. Anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

. Camera has an auto-iris connector in the back. So I attached a standard 2.9-10mm varifocal lens that comes equipt with an auto-iris cable. Just plugged the cable into the back connector as I would normally do with an analog camera. On a side note, I also noticed the Geovision box comes with a small pin that they describe as a "back focus" pin. I have no idea what that does or how i'm supposed to use it, so I never bothered with it. They don't even describe its purpose in the manual.

There is a picture, but its all messed up, just looks like one big blur. The degree of blurriness changes as I play with the focus, but the picture still remains blurry - never comes close to being in focus. I should also mention that being a Day/Night camera, there is a mechanical I/R-cut filter on the camera.

Yes i did, and no luck. What could I possibly be doing wrong here? I am able to connect to the camera over the LAN without problems, and have full access to its configuration interface, but the live video on the screen is totally unviewable. I can't believe the camera could be D.O.A...any other way to test these things?

Believe me, you are not alone in being confused about this issue. The CCTV industry is notorious for confusing customers and in many cases, outright lying to customers about the capability of their products. You really need to read this thread as it will answer most of your questions: http://www.cctvforum.com/about10415.html&highlight=