C7Installer

I've done it before, but it's a bit of a pain because of the very small gauge wires. if you must splice it, be careful when stripping the jacket. Since the wires are so fine, you can end up loosing strands if you're not careful. I soldered the wires after twisting, then used shrink tubing to seal the deal.

Ah, of course. I think I was viewing a cached view of this thread because I didn't see any of the second page replies... My bad.

cctv_survivor: From my experience, you only need to open a maximum of 3 ports to get the Geo system to work over the web. If you're "forwarding" those ports to a specific IP address on the router (which it seems you are) then that will only allow traffic on those ports to go to *that* computer. Your other computers are not affected. If you open the port to the whole subnet, that would put other computers on the network at greater risk. Technically, you shouldn't have to turn off your WinXP firewall, but you would have to "open" those ports as well within XP's firewall. If you opened any other ports for remote administration (remote desktop, VNC, etc.), you should close them when that service is no longer needed. This will pose a much greater security risk than the Geo ports. And, as always, no web browsing on the DVR computer!

What is the make and model of you PTZ camera?

Here's some info I found: France: 20Mbps for about $32 USD Hong Kong: 10Mbps for about $19 USD / 1Gbps for about $215 USD Japan: 100Mbps for about $50 USD / 1Gbps for about $90 USD Sweden: 100Mbps for about $40 USD

Checked around the forum but I haven't seen any posts about using the Geovision cards with more than one "register". We have a customer that is planning a new POS system purchase. They have several "register" stations that employees use when ringing up customers (retail). Has anyone seen the Geo cards work in this way? How would it be connected and would it be possible to overlay the text from each register on a separate camera feed (one camera for each register)? The planned POS system will likely be based on the "Retail Pro" software. The "register" stations are PC based (obviously). Any thoughts?

I think what rory meant (please, correct me if I'm wrong) is that the cameras are mounted in different locations. The first cameras look like they are mounted facing a light source (windows?), whereas the second pictures are facing away from the light source. I would think this would have a significant impact on image quality/brightness/clarity. Clearly, the second set of pictures are better.

Sounds like you got it working, but I'm not sure you needed to add all of those folders. In my experience, the Geo system will not let you use the 'root' level of the hard drive to store data, even if it's a second drive, which may have been your problem. If Windows can see the drive (you've installed, partitioned and formatted it correctly), the the only thing you need to do is create a folder on that drive. For example, on one of my drives, I simply created a folder called "Video". Then you can select that folder in the Geo setup and it should work fine. The Geo software will create its own "cam" folders as it needs them.

I came across Skyway Security (www.skywaysecurity.com) a couple of months ago and passed over them because I didn't know anything about the company. I've had a couple people ask me about them recently so I'd like to know more about their products... Does anyone have any experience with their DVRs? Do they actually make them or are they just rebranded?

For testing, I would skip using the domain name and just use the external IP address until you are sure it's working. Example: http://111.222.333.444:8888/ If you don't know what it is, you can use http://www.whatismyip.com/ If you still can't get it working with the IP address, you probably have a routing problem. You'll need to setup port forwarding or an access control list on your router. You could try the seting up your router to pass "pings" to the PC (instead of letting the router respond). If you can successfully ping from the outstide after doing this, then you know you're forwarding properly.

I agree that creating a site like the one dcresource.com has would require a significant time commitment. Of course, if someone were willing to take on such a responsibility I'm sure that many of us would be very grateful. Since it's unlikely that someone has the time and resources to do this, it might be useful to create something that is still useful, but not as in-depth. For example, create a section/site for people to illustrate their experiences. One could go to that section/site, search for a specific camera or situation and see what other people have done. Putting pitctures up shouldn't be that difficult. Just give me a place to upload them and a way to describe the specifics. It's not perfect, but at least we could see what others have done and what we *might* expect in similar situations.

I know what you mean. With all the specifications floating around out there, OEM products being rebranded and general marketing misguidance it can certianly be tough to make sense of it all. And, considering that the CCTV market is much smaller than the consumer electronics market, there isn't as much of a need to compete (among manufacturers). Funny though, the components for these devices aren't that expensive. It's not considered "new" technology and can be easilt mass produced. So one still has to wonder, why am I paying $500 for a CCTV camera when for the same amount of money I can get a 5 megapixel camera that has a card reader built it, takes video at 640x480/30fps with sound, comes with an SD card, battery, charger and about a hundred other features. There's no denying that all other things being equal, more money will get you a better CCTV camera. I, like many others, just wish that I could actually see the value comparison before plunking down big $$$. For example, here's a site that has litterally hundreds of camera reviews for consumer digital cameras. They even include some sample pics: http://www.dcresource.com/ Just my two cents. (Sorry for ranting)

That's a good question. I can tell you from my searching that spytown seems to be right; there is no place to get unbiased reviews of cameras and related CCTV equipment. I guess nobody can prove that a $500 camera is better than a $150 camera (although I suppose it's true... Anyone care to prove it with a picture? It would sure help people/customers understand the value of quality equipment...) Actually, this forum is the best thing that I've found so far. People are pretty helpful and there's a lot of good information to be found.

This might seem like a silly question, but have you tried connecting to it from "inside" the router? If you can connect locally (not from the DVR itself, though) then you know it's a routing problem. If you can't then you know it's a DVR/setup problem.

CSG, What are the rough dimensions of that garage? I'd like to try to duplicate it and test...

Wow. That's not exactly perfection, is it?! Thanks for posting this, I'll be sure to think twice before purchasing one of these. Has anyone has the same experience with this camera?

How about drilling some nice big holes in the concrete, use anchors and bold a vandal proof dome in there. I did something similar and it seemed to work out well. If you wanted to go nutz, you could put some sort of contact alarm that would trigger if the camera were removed. Not sure about that one though. -C7

Those are some nice looking speed tests. After using each (several times), I seem to get consistantly slower numbers with the Wugnet speed test. The SpeakEasy and PCPitstop tests are fairly consistant. The Yahoo/SBC test doesn't even run for me.

The reason that it didn't work is because there is a comma after it, which some browsers think is part of the link... It was my grammatical boo-boo. Sorry. You can just type www.pcpitstop.com and that should work. - C7

Try the full domain name: http://www.pcpitstop.com/

If you don't mind paying a little extra, you may want to look into business level services. Many ISPs allocate a higher priority to business accounts than residential accounts. This applies to both DSL and cable. You will also get better support and sometimes get better features (like included static IPs), though not always. Another thing to keep in mind is the quoted bandwidth is not typically what you will get. One ISP in my area offers DSL at typical speeds, but only guarantees about 10% of what they are offering. This is VERY common. Read your service agreement to find out. In my experience, cable operators offer better service, particularly when using business grade services. Every single business line that I have (about 12 accounts) always EXCEEDS the bandwidth they have quoted me. -C7 PS - If you're wondering what the actual speed you have is, you can try going to www.pcpitstop.com, and use their Internet Speed utility. It's not 100% accurate, but it can be helpful...

I would have to agree with davidlaska. It's not very often that you can use brand names as an indicator of quality. One simple explanation for this is that many brands offer an assortment of product lines. Just because it says Sony on it, that doesn't mean that it's the best product that Sony can make. Also, Sony doesn't seem to mind OEM's using their name to sell non-Sony products. How many products have we all seen that advertize "Sony CCD"? I think we've all found that this doesn't always make a good camera. In regard to brand names having something to loose, I both agree and disagree. Whie I'm sure it's important to some brands to maintain a high quality image, others seem content with marginal products sitting alongside their better products. Specifications can be misleading at time, even if they are accurate. Example: Just because a camera can "see" something in low light, that doesn't mean it's a useable image. What I would like to see are some real-world comparisons of thsese products and/or some genuine reviews. I completely agree with Jasper that experience is most important. The only trouble is finding someone with both experience AND the desire to share that experience. -C7

Thanks for all of your input on this! I think everything is working as it should right now, so I'm going to stay with what I have on this system. Next time, I will search for a low cost card that has a fan, supports DirectX 9, supporting DirectDraw overlay. -C7

Does anyone have any experience viewing Geovision avi files on a Macintosh computer (OSX)? I have tried numerous codecs that I've found online but nothing seems to work so far. I can view them on a PC with no problem. If not, can someone recommend a program to convert the avi files to another format (mpg or mov)? I suppose this would be an acceptable workaround. Thanks!

I think a big problem is that unbiased reviews are seemingly few and far between for CCTV cameras. If I were looking for a camcorder or standard digital camera, I could find hundreds of reviews and sample images to base my decision on. In the CCTV world, it seems that the only information you can get is the mfgr. spceifications which obviously tell you nothing. I can find simple dome cameras with the same specifications that range in price from $100 - $500+. Does anyone know where someone could find such comparisons online? If not, wouldn't it be great if we could somehow create something here? For example: could someone show me an example of how much better a $500 camera is than a $100 camera? (Two images from two cameras, same position and lighting conditions...) -C7 PS - On a side note: I respect and appreciate the fact that brand name cameras come with great warranties and support. However, if someone doesn't need the support or warranty, why can't they just buy a good quality camera at a good price? You'd think there would be at least one company out there... (If someone know's that company, please let us know!)