AMI

Ok here goes, I'm building my first system and I am stuck on what DVR to buy. The end user likes the Digiflower interface. They were really impressed by the timeline at the bottom that shows when the system recorded data. Unfortunately I wasn’t entirely impressed with the software as a whole. I was set on the I-View software, but have heard it is quite a bit less user friendly. I did really like the remote viewing demo. I’ve heard great things about Geovision but for what I am looking for, it’s a good $200 more. I was told that the timeline is a feature in many of the cheaper software/dvr setups but not in the more expensive ones, seems kind of stupid to me since it really is a good feature. I need a software suite that is fairly user friendly. This particular end user is in her 60s and only uses a computer to collect dust. Rumor has it she cant has trouble remembering how to operate her TV. The timeline feature would be nice but isn’t necessary. Good remote access is an absolute must! I need to see it as if I were sitting down at the very same desk. I don’t have time to sit in their office 24/7 but I do have an extra monitor here that I could throw the live view on. Quite honestly if I could set it up to send me a text message when there was motion or something of that nature after hours that would be really neat too. I’m thinking the Geo GV-800 will get the job done nicely, but since I have never physically used any software but Digiflower I would love some advice. Regards AMI

Good evening all, I've been trolling this forum for a while and decided to pop my head up to say hi. I recently started a small business to build Home Theater PCs when I decided that I could, in theory, expand my market a little into the CCTV and maybe high performance areas as well. My basic systems are as follows: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1gb PC3200 DDR Ram 80gb main hard drive. I have been looking at mostly Geovision and I-View DVR cards but I am open to any others When it comes to mass storage I like to run Raid 5, and with the board I have I can get 1.2TB of data with 4 western digital 400GB hard drives If I need more I can run a couple of options with raid cards and get upwards of 6TB Obviously I think I am way over doing my hard drives but then again, I've never built one so I'm not sure how much space it takes. The system I will be building first is an 8 camera system for a local business. Obviously if it fails I am out a lot of time and most importantly, money. I will also be posting an advice thread in the cams section because that is where I am really lost. I'm pretty sure I-View will be my DVR card assuming their software package is half as good as the one I got to test drive today.

got my DVR board and software about a week ago and hooked up this old B&W pile of crap I have here its AWESOME This software is FAR more then I expected and was worth every penny If anything beats Geo I would be amazed

thats my thoughts Basically here is what I will do, I'll stick in a 400, and if I need more, we can always add 2 more 400s and make a raid 5 out of it I'll get 800GB out of it and should do just fine... if more is needed I will up it to 4 Anything above 1200gb I will need an extra raid card and that starts talking serious money in HDDs and cards... so yeah

I am asking a lot of questions today, and I thank you all for helping me. I’m trying to get this right the first time, so I need to make sure all my ducks are in a row. The system I am building should have 8 cameras on a 120fps DVR card recording at 640x480. Assuming these cameras record 24/7, how much hard drive space should this use per day. Does it depend on what brand of DVR I have due to proprietary compression agents or does it all come out about the same. I used some of those online space calculators and I get space requirements of up to 1200gb for the 14 days I would like the system to record. Another local company says that their 160gb system should record 8 cams 24hrs a day for over 18 days and I find that really hard to believe. I can build a single logical volume hard drive rig from 80GB to 6000GB; I just need to know how much space I should expect. I also figured that if I have a “Câ€

Thanks again Is the I-View easy to go back and watch a range of footage? That is the important part. She needs to be able to go back and watch a selected range of time to check in on her employees while she is out. They are a fairly lazy bunch and like to sit on their backsides if she isnt around. Theft isnt an issue because it rarely happens, and when it does, nothing is ever done about it.

Greetings CCTV Camera forum dwellers! I come to this forum once again in search of advice. I building a CCTV rig to be installed in a local business and the CCTV world is fairly foreign to me. I found a great deal on Ganz CLH-401 cameras but I wanted to make sure they worth the money. The CLH-401 comes out to $205 with Camera, Auto Iris Varifocal lens, Mount and Power supply. I think its an absolute steal but I hate to buy 8 of these things only to find that they are pure junk. The Sony CB25 also crossed my desk as a decent choice. I am fully open to any other suggestions on cameras. My price range is right at 200 for camera and lens. The lens needs to have an auto iris and needs to be varifocal as well. I don’t have enough money and patience to stock 30 different lenses just in case the lady isn’t happy with the coverage area which I’m sure she wont be. I also know there is a lot of reflective surfaces in her store and I don’t want a stray reflection of mother natures heat lamp to fry a camera. I know one or two wouldn’t hurt but I think one or two per day would start to hurt the camera after a while. This lady wants a budget system that lasts 30 years, has cameras that will see everything at all times, call the police when the store is being robbed, apprehend the suspect because the police wont get there in time, record in high definition quality with full sound and sweep the floors and scrub the toilets while the shop is closed. Unfortunately I can’t give her that, but I do fully expect to give her cameras that will out last the hard drives in the DVR which I estimate at a good solid 4 years, and provide a good quality picture. Thanks for your help AMI PS if there are any vendors out there that want to work with me, I will be doing this more often assuming this initial systems works like I think it will.

Anyone know who makes this stuff?

I am not 100% on the systems yet I would like a 120+ fps card going either 24/7 or motion only The shop owner isnt the most observant person in the world and I suggested that they allow for a full month of recording just in case anything came up missing. God knows I use hard drive space like its my job, so I told them I would buy back any hdds that were not needed.

Thank you very much rory, you are awesome. The software had their own logo built into it but I figured it was easy enough to do. The customer asked who the software was from but he wasnt about to give that information out.

Yeah im starting to really like I-View I am really at a loss here as to how much HDD space will be needed. I know raw video is huge to the tune of 30gb/hr. Obviously this is encoded but even still, video is large. I already offer hard drive packages from 400GB up to 6000GB at around $0.80/GB for extra storage which is darn cheap. I could probably go beyond that but with that much storage, finding a case to hold the 16 storage hard drives, an optical media drive and a main OS hard drive becomes tough. As it is right now my standard case can only hold 2800GB. After that I am looking for something even more massive and and extra source of power I also have a contract to run this system and I will be able to use windows remote desktop which will be nice. As a student I have access to the campus wireless network which extends to a rather large portion of the city so in theory I could watch it when ever I want, where ever I want. Depending on how well this works, I may get the go to build two more much smaller and easier systems for their other retail locations. Not to mention the money I make off this will go towards my newest security investment, a Sig P232

Negative I had a meeting with two local CCTV shops and a customer. I turned in my bid 3 days ago and ended up being almost a grand less with a much better backbone computer and twice as many cameras. The owner was very impressed with this software, and to be quite honest I was too. I would love to know how this software compares to the I-View software. It had some neat features like only recording motion and stuff like that, but the frame capture rates were really crappy to the tune of 2-3fps where I am shooting for at the very least 10