Jasper

I did that, but I can’t connect. I have the DVR computer setup and it is binding to 192.168.1.103, my computer the client is .101. I get cannot connect message. The DVR computer is connected to my computer via a linksys router and has an active internet connection so I know the DVR PC has connectivity.

Ah, now your just poting to be posting.

Well if I had an encoder that would encode in Wavelet I would encode some high quality DVD video in both formats and you would see that the MPEG-4 is better quality. It just takes more processor power and more hard drive space that those other codecs. By the way, your off topic

Yeah, I'll have to get back to you on that Oh editing your post when I'm not looking EH?

I have to disagree with you there. Maybe MPEG-4 isn’t good for security applications, but it is fantastic for ripping 4.7GB movies from DVD to MPEG-4 files that will fit on a CD. The quality is almost as good as the DVD. Many people can’t even tell the difference unless they know what to look for. Yeah the Geo Codec is good. And computer processors are getting cheaper and more powerful. The H.264 wil work out. It just still takes more space than the GEO codec.

Well the eyes bilking thing is the least of my concerns. That could be eliminated, but it could be more hassle than it's worth. Have your heard anything more about when 7.1 will be released? I would like to try that H.264 codec, although I think I have it already in the newest release of Divx 6. I just haven't had enough time to encode a movie with it yet. It should be good though. The quality of MPEG-4 is already good, but it still takes up a lot of space compared to GEO’s proprietary codec, which isn’t too bad considering it saves a lot of space. It will be interesting to see how small the files get with the H.264 and how much quality is retained of the original image?

Those blinking eyes really drove me crazy when I had no video source and that annoying sound kept repeating itself. Fist thing I did was disable the sound. Hopefully version 7.1 will have the ability to have those eyes gone and perhaps some interaction with GUI customization without having to resort to programming. Like the personal logo that could easily be replaced with a graphic if the graphic for the eyes was stored in a directory and read dynamically by the program. What kind of modifications would you want to do? just the skin or actual software modifications for different functionality? If that is even possible, I don’t know anything about what can be done yet.

It's too bad you couldn't have had some of the customers in front of the bar with their faces blurred on the OEM Camera without the IR filter. Then you could really see the distortion of the colors, especially with the flashy colors that the customers wear. Then some customers at the bar where the Sanyo is installed. Plus since the resolution of the photos had to be shrunk down in order to post them in the forum you really can't see how good the quality really is.

And using the CentralV software installed on the DVR PC you were able to retrieve video files to your client PC? Any special software needed on the Client PC in order to receive the video and process it into directory or whatever it does? Well I read a little bit anyway. It looks like CenterV is really setup for atachements? If you are recording video from the DVR site to the PC it must be degraded somehow. It would take enormous bandwidth to record live video streams?

ClosedCircuit, Have you figured out whether you need the dispatch server or not as I don’t see that answer provided here? I am going to install the CentralV2 on my DVR system and was wondering if you had figured out what you needed to do in order to enable what you’re trying to do? I figured you read through the manual and it didn’t help so I figured I won’t bother reading it either. I will be doing it the hard way also, trial and error. Although I may just stick with remote playback, but what you’re trying to accomplish would be good to know. I’ll will set the situation up to test it if I know what software I need to install. I can’t emulate all the clients that you want to handle though, just the basic function. Let us know if you have come up with a solution to your question or are still looking for some help?

If you want a larger hard drive that performs almost as well as the Raptor buy a Seagate 400GB (SATA or EIDE) drive as they have broken the 100GB per platter barrier. They use 133GB platters which speeds up data transfer rates. I own the Hitachi 500GB drive SATA drive as well and it just uses and additional 100GB platter to increase the capacity to 500GB. The Seagate 400GB 7200.8 (8th generation) drive performs better. If you need the Native Command Queing features than the SATA version is your best bet. The Seagate actually outperforms the Raptor in a real world benchmark test conducted by Maximum PC. I bought an inexpensive PCI card for SATA support which provide onboard RAID 0 support if you want to increase your hard drive throughput performance. Let me know if your interested and I will get you the information on the card, it is a combo card with Firewire 1394A and USB 2.0 support as well. I use several drives through daisy chaining external firewire drives, though in the near future external SATA drives will be introduced with all the benefits of SATA. In addition the Hitachi drive runs hotter and the Seagate has a longer warranty.

I don’t know your budget for these cameras; I should have asked that also. Well without pictures it is hard to give a good opinion, but here it goes: There was good information in the previous posts regarding the technology. I don’t know if you want to see well during the day and at night. If you do than I would be looking for a Day/Night camera with a low lux rating on the B/W end. Nuvico has one with a .1, which is good. But the Sanyo is .04, which is much better. I like the Sanyo and that is what Rory just put in one of his places. Check out his example pictures. If you want to be able to see an image descent enough to make it out (depends also how close the camera is to the subject) you will need additional lighting for the evening. Cheapest way is to have motion lights that come on after darkness. If you don’t have that option you can buy IR Illumination where you really need it the most. Like your front porch if the porch light doesn’t provide enough light. They are expensive though, so I would be looking for away to introduce light there any way I could before doing that. I used to use a Remington Wireless B/W camera with a low lux of .005 for years. It worked great at night, saw better than I did in low light. It would have a hard time during the day because it was so sensitive to light. I am not recommending wireless. So the Day/Night camera is your best bet. Good color during the day, fairly sensitive at night, better with some minimal lighting. Otherwise for good night vision for night time use I would look into a good B/W Camera. That Speco CVC-325WP B/W camera that Rory uses looks good. See his post if you want to see a sample picture. I don’t know how sensitive it is at night because they rate it at 0 lux, because it has IR. And I don’t know if anyone mentioned this to you, but the IR in a low end camera is not effective anyway and it can reflect off the lens giving you a halo effect. Unless you had some real IR with something for it to reflect off of you’re not going to get a good enough picture to possibly identify a person. Hope that helps.

Exactly, that's what I was typing up, but Spytown is a faster typist. I do think that B/W cameras are a lot more sensitive to light though and are best suited for low light situations. Gain just boosts the signal and the video noise along with it. What type of situation are you going to be using the camera for?

I think he was referring to which camera I was talking about? I haven't run across that camera again, but I think it was just a BLC function of the camera. I saw a side by side comparison of a regular Dynamic Camera? And then one that had better technology? It was a guy on a forklift in a warehouse with lots of light coming in a warehouse door. The after photo let you see the forklift better and cut down the amount of light so you could see outside better also.

No comparison and that club is the perfect place to test a good camera with an IR Cut Filter. Look at all the different colors in that place. That is an IR OEM’s worst nightmare.

Let me be the first to say: I’ll take 2 to start. Good Job, that’s the kind of examples people want to see.

You can standardize your testing methods like they do for testing digital cameras. We all know you just want to play with as much stuff as you can at one time. Who wouldn’t

I am surprised that the casinos are not using something better. I would think they would want the highest resolution cameras available on the market. It’s not like they can’t afford it, especially the Bellagio I would think they would be using a product like this company: http://www.covitechnologies.com/ or some other top of the line cameras. With storage prices dropping and greater storage capacities available that were not available a year ago, storage should not be a factor. The new perpendicular recording method being introduced into the newer hard drives should easily double today’s largest capacity drives. So storage shouldn’t be an issue. Even if it was, if there is one business that can afford the best money can buy, it is the casino industry.

Your right, I got them mixed up. Shows how much I know about that stuff I like that Arkansas accent “I bet he goes no were in lifeâ€

Don't get that started. Pretty soon we will have medication comparisons going on. I wouldn’t worry about the people with the large pupils, at least there going slow, it’s the ones that have those beady pupils that can really screw stuff up.

Is it better to buy a Wide Dynamic camera that has a low lux rating before it switches to color or a little higher so it switches faster to B/W and avoids picture degradation? Do some camera companies rate their cameras with a lower min. illumination rating for the purposes of selling. In other words are they having the camera stay color longer than it should in order to give it a lower lux rating. What is a reasonable lux rate for a camera to switch over to B/W from Color? And do all Wide Dynamic camera have the dark and light balancing feature?

Well that is the case with most magazines. Those who pay the advertising dollars are the ones that get the beneficial reviews But in this case I would say test the cameras (CCTV Products) you think to be good anyway based on your product knowledge in general and report the truth. You will build trust in the industry and more people will count on you for honest opinions. I know that the "Tom’s Hardware Guide" guy did it like that. Not to mention several otheres. Of course they are doing it on the internet and getting advertising dollars that way. He does honest reviews and those who choose to advertise he takes their money. But it doesn't effect his reviews.

Rory, start your own magazine. You can write reviews on the products you have tested. The companies that you give high marks will buy advertising space, which will help you expand your circulation and make more money. Of course you’ll have to lie to them about your initial circulation figures to get them to advertise, but it is probably done that way a lot anyway. There has been more than a few that have started out this way. It’s a passion of yours, so you would be good at it.

The other thing you have to look out for when you find a site that does review cameras, is it an affiliate site? Many sites are created with the sole of purpose of writing up bogus reviews. Then they have a link with their affiliate id which is then sent as a variable to the site that actually sells that product so the affiliate can get their piece of the action. Don’t know how much of this is going on with CCTV products, but it is rampant on just about everything else that is sold.

I will make it work, somewhere, if it won't work where I want to put it. I could use it in place of an old BW camera that is rated at 2 lux and works fine. But because of the inherent sensitivity of a BW over color I guess I’ll just have to test it and find out. If it works out, maybe I should try to find a dome it will fit into so I don't have to deal with the lens cleaning issue. It is a basically an inexpensive camera for me to experiment with anyhow. It is quite a bit cheaper than the never model, which has better specs but it also has the higher price.