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HiddenMountain

It always feels like..... somebodies watchin me....

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The other day I came to a stop at a red light at a major intersection. The ubiquitous CCTV cams were on each light post, watching....

 

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw one on top of one of the light posts, way up there, doing a PTZ maneuver in plain sight. This one was mounted on some kind of gimble pivot and could spin and tilt very fast.... It didn't look like the usual teardrop style but one of those big ol weather protected ones that are usually on a fixed mount.

 

My question for the gurus here is, what is the actual name of the beast and where can I get one?!

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Ok it looks like this.....

 

SCA0195_07-1.jpg

 

I was looking all over eBay and couldn't find one, until I posted this thread, of course...

 

I still don't know what the trade name is, or where the better, faster, higher res, cheaper ones out there are.

 

This one looks descent, but it has a few things I'm not too sure about, like the PTZ is 24V but the cam is 12V... It doesn't say if it has a fan and/or heater, I'm assuming it does since it's 24V?

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Free ones you want to send me?

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Ok then, so it doesn't have a name?

 

Well, whatever, I would really like to use one of these puppies on the top of the shack. We have a pretty good view of the canyon from there, about 10 miles across, so we'd want to have something that could zoom and focus that far. Why? There is a lower road the ner-do-wells travel on about 1 mile from here that we get a good view of from the top of the house and I would like to see when they, or their loser friends, are coming and going.

 

I doubt we're looking at cheap, but maybe a certain forum member, who is a great guy BTW, who deals in used CCTV stuff might come across one?

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Hi. this is two products. the camera can be anything you like. which you attach to what is called a PAN / TILT head.

 

 

you would be better buying a good PTZ camera

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Hi Jon,

 

We come across Pan/Tilt heads once in a blue moon but they are usually pretty beat up and i wouldnt even want to sell it to you to be honest because they are so beat up. We do not have any in right now unfortunately. We dont ever come across any big time zoom lenses though but every now and then you can find a big hawg on eBay. You would need a pretty darn big lens to zoom in on a mile away. Atleast 200mm or more, I would assume probably more than 200mm though. For those kind of optics, you are talking some big money. That Ultrak PTZ that we sold you is about the most typical zoom range that you would see on a PTZ, but you still wouldnt get good detail at a mile and plus that ultrak PTZ housing is made only for indoor use. My recommendation if you really want something like that would be to find a good box camera that you can attach a giant zoom lens to and put it on one of those Pan/Tilt heads that you showed pictured. I will have to say though, be prepared to get your wallet ready as I assume that its not gonna be cheap.

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http://www.pelco.com/sites/global/en/products/camera-solutions/range-presentation.page?p_function_id=9504&p_family_id=10221&p_range_id=2866

 

doesn't come with the camera as shown in the picture, you put any fixed camera you want on it.

 

only pans and tilts, get a ptz so you can zoom too.

 

we only use these things for thermal cameras now, and even then it's extremely rare.

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The problem is, he wants to zoom in on a mile. Its hard to do that with a typical PTZ. Most PTZ's are at 122mm max from what I have seen.

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Most of the big traffic PTZs I see around the GVRD are Pelco Esprit models:

 

Pelco_Esprit_ES30C_ES31C_BFI_OPTILAS-1.jpg

 

These can hold a wide range of cameras - IP, megapixel, thermal, analog cams with National Enquirer lenses...

 

Those little skinny tubes you see sticking way up above the lights are generally feeding video analytics systems that control the lights... AFAIK they aren't generally very high resolution, as it's not required for the system to simply determine whether there are cars present.

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Hi Jon,

 

We come across Pan/Tilt heads once in a blue moon but they are usually pretty beat up and i wouldnt even want to sell it to you to be honest because they are so beat up. We do not have any in right now unfortunately. We dont ever come across any big time zoom lenses though but every now and then you can find a big hawg on eBay. You would need a pretty darn big lens to zoom in on a mile away. Atleast 200mm or more, I would assume probably more than 200mm though. For those kind of optics, you are talking some big money. That Ultrak PTZ that we sold you is about the most typical zoom range that you would see on a PTZ, but you still wouldnt get good detail at a mile and plus that ultrak PTZ housing is made only for indoor use. My recommendation if you really want something like that would be to find a good box camera that you can attach a giant zoom lens to and put it on one of those Pan/Tilt heads that you showed pictured. I will have to say though, be prepared to get your wallet ready as I assume that its not gonna be cheap.

 

Thanks Sean. I didn't think they'd be cheap... oh well.

 

I had thought about mounting a wifi cam on a tree down by their road but there are just too many problems with that idea, not the least of which would be that when they spotted the thing it would become a new target!

 

I was thinking of building a small cupola to house the PTZ, on the peak of the house, but that isn't going top happen anytime soon with all of the other things to do around here

 

http://www.pelco.com/sites/global/en/products/camera-solutions/range-presentation.page?p_function_id=9504&p_family_id=10221&p_range_id=2866

 

doesn't come with the camera as shown in the picture, you put any fixed camera you want on it.

 

only pans and tilts, get a ptz so you can zoom too.

 

we only use these things for thermal cameras now, and even then it's extremely rare.

 

Thanks fa chris, that looks sweet, but I bet the price isn't!

 

Most of the big traffic PTZs I see around the GVRD are Pelco Esprit models:

 

Pelco_Esprit_ES30C_ES31C_BFI_OPTILAS-1.jpg

 

These can hold a wide range of cameras - IP, megapixel, thermal, analog cams with National Enquirer lenses...

 

Those little skinny tubes you see sticking way up above the lights are generally feeding video analytics systems that control the lights... AFAIK they aren't generally very high resolution, as it's not required for the system to simply determine whether there are cars present.

 

Soundy, that looks exactly like the one at #10 & 176th St. in Cloverdale. The guy driving that thing was just a givin er, checking every car and truck that was stopped at the lights. I'm sure he could read the stuff on my dashboard!.

 

And thanks for the info about the tube cams! That has been making me paranoid/mad since I first started seeing them, everywhere. I noticed that the intersections still have the ground sensors even when the tube cams are used this week.....

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Soundy, that looks exactly like the one at #10 & 176th St. in Cloverdale. The guy driving that thing was just a givin er, checking every car and truck that was stopped at the lights. I'm sure he could read the stuff on my dashboard!.

My guess would be that they were looking for someone or something specific, maybe a car the cops were tracking/following.

 

And thanks for the info about the tube cams! That has been making me paranoid/mad since I first started seeing them, everywhere. I noticed that the intersections still have the ground sensors even when the tube cams are used this week.....

It's likely the loop detectors were there before the cameras were put up - it would be silly to expend the time and money to dig them up. or the two may still be working in conjuction.

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