woodyads

I replaced an analogue system with the DVTel encoders and Recording system. The cameras were the same. But I did upgrade the zoom lenses on them. We are using them to view trucks and shovels 2km away. So there are some major differences to using them in an indoor environment. Our main problem are light direction, dust on the housing, dust in the air, camera movement and distance. Hence the requirement for the highest quality picture in order to view numbers on the sides of trucks. However The change in quality was insignificant, barely noticeable. No the filters will not take out numbers. And the system does not drop frames with high image movement and PTZ movement even at highest frame rates, no throttle, highest resolution, no filtering and low compression. I did take the time to push the encoders to their extents so I could calculate the impact on the network. You may be using different encoders, have network issues or have your setup wrong. One thing to watch for is alarms in environments with varying light sources. You can diagnose encoder / network issues by changing the key frame interval. An encoder will only drop a frame if it is on its key frame. Stretch this out to its maximum at 20 seconds and if you drop frames in the middle then your issue isn't an internal the encoder bandwidth issue. If it is an internal bandwidth issues then you will get a blocky picture.

Haven't had any experience at all in this area. But this may still be helpful. Make sure whatever you use has IP and Port filtering. Same with your switches. As it is in open space I wouldn't consider unlicensed wireless LAN. You could however consider Unlicensed Wireless LAN Bridges for backbone. For wireless bridges look at Orthogon, now a Motorola product. 300MB/s. You can also look at Laser Links. You could quite easily place a laser links under the bridge for backbone that way it would be out of rain. easily GB/s bandwidth Another product to look at is Fibreflow. Or any other blown fibre product. Fibreflow is a self contained fibre conduit. Its outer casing is made from Urethane and inside it contains many plastic tubes about the size of a drinking straw. Each straw will hold about 12core of fibre. (they have 3 sizes with a maximum of 96core in one tube). The number of tubes in one cable is between 1 and 24, up to 2304 fibre in one cable. However they have some product they don't advertise with more than this. There are numerous connectors for the Fibreflow Y branches T junctions etc. After installing the Fibreflow they then come along and blow the fibre though the tubes. The big advantage is you can blow up to 1000m in one hit. No pits for 1000m. Pricing. I just bought 2km of Direct Bury, termite resistant 7 tubes for $11k AUD. Because we are a mine we pay top $. I can put a total of 96 fibres in this cable. They have different outer sheaths direct bury, fire resistant, termite resistant, UV resistant and Direct install www.emtelle.com If you create a loop with it you can withdraw the fibre from one segment, make a diversion and reblow the original fibre. You can also break into it at any point. So if done properly you can achieve a redundant loop that allows for modification without loosing connectivity. Worth a look into.

DVtel encoders do the same 30fps 704x480 (4CIF) in NTSC (or 25fps 704x576 in PAL) But they do not have the DVD encoder which would be sweet. They have 4 input filter settings. a scale of 1 - 10 for compression, Key frame from 1 to 25 seconds, 1 to 30 frames per second and bandwidth throttle of up to 4096KB/s. Can't really give you a framerate to data throughput that would mean much as the cameras are looking at objects 2km away. So a bit of camera movement and the bandwidth goes up. So here is the setup. PAL 4Cif no input filter Best quality compression (low compression) Key frame rate at 4 seconds 25 frames per second 1500Kb/s throttle This ends up giving me about 5-7 frames per second with a bandwidth average of about 1000KB/s. But as I said a bit of wind and the bandwith goes up and drops the frame rate to about 5 fps. I know it perfoms much better with compression but my dispatches need to read the numbers on the sides of the equipment.

I am using DVTel in a mine environment. It will sync playback of 16 devices per screen with duel screen option. We also use it to record 2 way radios. So audio and video is all on the one system. Bit over the top dedicating an encoder to a radio with no video but its only the cost of the encoder. So we can review up to 32 cameras and audio tracks synchronised. You can also playback multiple images of the one camera or audio track to find the time frame you are looking for. All 32 frames can be played back at different speeds. Audio doesn't playback at high speed so to find that point of time you are looking for you open 10 frames of the same audio track at 5 minute intervals and play them together. That way you can cover 50 minutes of playback in 5 minutes. Playback is up to 20x which is quite handy to find video incidents.

I have spent many years dealing with poorly supported IT systems and Video on IP is not on its own in this area. The problems are spored from many areas. Lack of IT savvy from managers with influence over the IT department is the biggest. If IT is subordinate to other management structure then it tends to be poorly run. Then the age old problem of the customer believing the vendor. Rule #1 never trust the vendor. Rule #2 where is the reference site. Rule #3 when talking to the reference site talk to the guy who supports it technically. Not the guy who placed the order and forced the system on everyone. Because of the above reasons, I do agree with you that in most cases analogue is the better alternative. Other mines are keen to implement the system I have, but I put them off due to poor IT support. One thing I tell other mines is if you cant achieve synergy then you are not technologically ready for IP on your video. What do I mean by synergy. We have a slope radar system that cost $3m per year to run. There are 3 trailer based radars that scan the pit walls and warn of any movement. The system saves lives and if it is down we can't dig. Cost of standing up a truck is $5000 per day multiplied by 50 trucks. The system is on a hideous 500Mhz radio modem link. So I put in a proposal to install 3 camera trailers, 2 cameras on each trailer, 54Mb/s links at 5.8GHz to each trailer, Auto failover and a 2.4GHz link between the Radars and the cameras, converting the Radars to IP. We also run two other slope monitoring devices on the 2.4Ghz channel 11 network. By doing this I have eliminated nineteen 500Mhz radio channels. and two 2.4GHz links that was competing with my Heavy Vehicle Real time system health system worth $4m. All the slope monitoring devices share channel 11 while the Heavy Vehicle system uses channels 1 and 6. The big advantage with IP is centralisation of management and control as well as synergy with other systems. For instance I can now install SNMP services over all the devices including the cameras, trucks, shovels, drills, servers, switches, wireless bridges a total of about 160 devices. I can also use Spanning Tree Protocol and other types of redundancy to ensure availability. These types of management just aren't available to an analogue system. In the big picture IP is far better than analogue. I installed the DVTel system and I am impressed with the software engineering and the maturity of the system overall. It is much better put together than my $4m Vehicle Monitoring system (granted it must be backward compatible to a 15yo legacy database) or the $3m Slope radar system with crappy telemetry. Bandwidth: Here is a hint. Group your cameras by network port address. Use Layer 3 switches to control port flow. Block any video traffic travelling away from the desired viewing areas. Split the output traffic to the desired machines on the switch servicing the control room. Find all 10Mb and even 100Mb devices and eliminate them or port filter them from camera traffic. Cisco 1410 wireless bridges do this perfectly. I would imagine most layer 3 switches particularly Nortel and Cisco would have some very powerful filtering functions. We are a Cisco site here but in general Nortel have been the bomb in switch technology. Do look at the backplane bandwidth of your switches. Redundancy: Learn about Spanning Tree, Put in redundant links Qos: Quality of service. you can use this to ensure your video stream is given priority over other traffic. Synergy: Get the IT department on side and get them to sell redundancy, Gb to the edge, Voice on IP, SNMP, and other advances. Serviceability: Now your IT department has a legitimate reason to hold the spare they have always wanted but been deigned. Availability: Now your IT department has an argument for putting in manageable switches, decent UPS's and backup Gensets. Servers: Your IT department should build and support the server. The corporate IT department should supply the following services for your server. SNMP to monitor the server send out auto notifications of alerts. Constant service pack updates and virus updates on a daily basis. These should be tested in a lab not on your server. The correct build with Logs and Database on separate physical drives, (I see this one stuffed up all the time). and Domain integration. To supply all this the server support team most would need at least 5 dedicated staff. The server should be a stock standard build. It they aren't already supplying these services for your other servers then they are probably to immature to handle the networking or support the IP system. Most CCTV integrators are incapable of offering this level of support. If this is the case, and you have non corporate build servers, then they should not be on the corporate network. As is the case with many of our 3rd party build servers, they are kept on the other side of a firewall. We then standardize their databases and move the database to corporate build database servers while the collection and telemetry services stay on the other side of the firewall. I cannot fault the system I have put in and I am sure many IP vendors have systems that are just as good. I just don't think many of us can supply the level or service or understanding required to intergrate such a system into our corporate network. In most cases it is the customers fault for not understanding and manageing IT and its function. After installing a full IP system to replace an analogue system I don't think its a case of IP is not ready for us. Its more a case that we are not ready for IP.

I asume you mean record localy at the camera. If so what is the Memory capacity?

So at what point do you move to IP? Between the Camera and the End Viewer, Camera and Recorder, or Recorder and End Viewer?

Advantages of IP are massive in certain environments. But you do need to understand your networking. In other applications CC is a better technology. My environment has few cameras and may viewers spread over a large area. We also have issues with too many RF devices in the area where we require remote cameras. (in excess of 130 devices not including 2 way radios) IP Alows us to reduce the RF useage. Combine it with other devices. Slope Radars, Siesmic Sensors over one link. Have failover by using Canopy network devices and using Spanning tree protocol. And at the end of the day uses much less cableing. On one hand bandwidth is an issue but if you are delivering to many users broadcast over IP is more efficient than closed curcuit. We also have a security over who can do what, and view what, to each camera and recorded stream. Another advantage is we have intergrated the Voice recording of 2 way radios onto the same system. You can play back and syncronise any number of camera's with any number of 2way radios.

I am looking at installing an IP based vidoe system on a mine in West Australia (hot 55c+). I am new to CCTV and am reseaching the gear I have been quoted as I can't find many high temperature reference sites. Some of this gear will be mounted on trailers in the middle of an open pit exposed to the sun etc. Remote trailers Ikegami ICD-828p camera HZCG12240 Lens Esprit PTZ DVTEL 7501E IP encoder Cisco Aironet 1410 5.8Ghz link or Orthogon Systems Gemini 5.8Ghz link IP Software and system Dell 2850 server with 900Gb drive space DVTEL Latitude Classic Matrix Software Questions How does this camera system rate for quality given the harsh environment How does the DVTEL software rate. and what is the best way to set up the server on the network (duel 1GB network cards) Anyone used either of the 5.8GHz links Anyone put a 7501E encoder in a box in 55c environment Setup is 3 trailers with 6 cameras. There is other equipment involved but it has been tested and works in this environment. All comments welcome Cheers Adam

So about a year later. The PTZ's are power hungry and so are the links. Couldn't use solar but I had lighting plants that can charge the system fine. DVTel released an extended temperature range encoder. They work fine under the high temperature environment. Bandwidth could be an issue but the links (Cisco 1410) has port filtering. Make sure all the encoders are using the same port and block back traffic over the link. Again get all 10mb devices off the network. Most network devices support GB/s to the edge anyway. This is a bit tricky make sure you know your networking and network before attempting such a system. This is not a security system so the comments about IP being inferior are irrelevant, It is far superior for this application. Let me explain. The system is in an open pit mine and is used by more than 50 users on site. A total of 200 desktop computers can view the images and have the option to move the PTZ depending on their login and security settings to the camera's. Further more the users are spread over a 2km area. IP is far better than Closed Circuit when dealing with that many end users. The users may be Geologist checking their dig tapes, Engineers auditing shovel dig rates against other production monitoring systems, Trainers evaluating operators skills and practices and evaluating and reviewing safety issues. The Cameras in question must be mobile so they can be moved away for blasting and there is no possibility of getting fibre or any cable to the area so they must be on some form of wireless connectivity. Due to the excessive use of RF in the pit IP can be used to cut down the amount of RF traffic. I also use the 54Mb/s backbone to transmit other data out of the pit. Moderator came up with the point of using the server as a gateway to eliminate broadcast traffic. Not a bad idea or the other way is to use layer 3 switches to control the flow of traffic. I have gone with the latter option. Thanks for all your input. The project has been a huge success

Looking at useing one of these to connect up to a DVTEL IP converter. HZCG12240SPIW Lens on an Esprit PTZ. Will be used in the mining industry in a hot environment (55c) Does anyone know how this gear ranks?

Dell do a very good rack. 608mm x 999mm footprint. Leaves loads of room for cable organisers, etc Casters, moveable vertical rails, Built-in vertical cable organisers, Split rear door. PC compatible racks. Split rear door, lets you put the racks close to a wall and still get past with doors open. PC compatible. PC servers need airflow front to back. Older Unix systems require bottom to top cooling. PC compatible have vented front and rear doors. Put a HP/compaq, Dell, or any other type of PC server in a solid door rack and you will cook them. Cable organisers. Panduit have the best I've seen Power boards. I am experimenting with APC 42u vertical powerboards. They arrive next week, Let you know how they go. Sliding trays. Got 20 coming from APC next week Generic Cable arms. Again 2 weeks away from APC.