tweak'e

reminds me of a job we did once. small gated community with around 40 town houses. centralised aerial system with amps etc all housed in a big box that had vents etc. all the vents face downwards so even horizontal rain can't get in. a few weeks later it all dies so go out and have a look. the whole thing is full of water ! (btw its 240v wired). i spied the grander and had a quick chat. turns out she put an upwards firing sprinkler at the base of it which fired all the water straight up the vents ! ! ! a couple of grand $us damage ! of interest is a 3KV transformer 100 yards away which also has air vents.......

where abouts down under are you? the camera itself is digital but the video signal is sent as analogue.

if its meant to have air flow through it then it will have vents in it. otherwise the fan would be a just a stirrer to keep the air in the housing moving and not let water condense in the housing.

i would seal housing up and even throw a couple of bags of the stuff the catch moisture so the housing doesn't sweat. air gaps always let water in not to mention insects (eg ants). electronics shops usually sell rubber grommets.

any recommendations on what mini plug to use for a covert camera. BNC is to big. current one is soldered to coax but would like a small plug that can fit on the pigtail and coax. coax will probably be RG59 unless i can squeeze RG6 in there somehow.

yeah quite common. first poster asks for products, 2nd one answers with recommendations. usually you find the IP addy is the same for both. getting a lot more people spamming forums instead of the usual bots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M

1/3 sony ccd means bugger all and you have no way of knowing what CCD is actually used. the DSP used is important and very rarely ever mentioned. you won't know without taking it apart, assuming the chip is correctly marked and not a knock off. you will need to do your homework on all the various DSP's in the market place and the differences they make. end of the day you still need to test them to find out what they are like. lens, variable is easier both from installation and businesses point of view. easier to install, no need to have a box full of different lens, you have less excess stock and end up with less old stock. as i'm finding, even from an amateur point of view, there is a lot to learn, lots of little things and if your doing it for the budget market it will be a lot of work for bugger all income.

i have not used one but from what i see advertised its a colour camera with IR cut lens and a B&W camera with IR for night vision. sounds like two cheap cameras to save having one good one with mechanical IR filter.

the dvr will format the drive into its own format. as an amateur who has started with cheap crap (i would say moderately expensive crap) a lot of what you see for sale will leave you disappointed. i think the big problem is expectation. people expect far more for the price than what they generally get. they don't realise how poor the quality is until after they get robbed. they get plenty of footage on HOW it was done but not any footage of WHO. there is certainly a market for the cheaper stuff, even if its good 2nd hand gear. lower quality gear can be used, IF its used in the right place. eg at close range with consistent light like a hall way, rather than trying to view an entire yard. the problem of course at the low end there is so much rubbish, you really need to know your stuff and test an awful lot of gear to find gear that is good enough. the problem i have here is lots of crowds are selling top end or bottom end crap. its hard to find reasonable gear at reasonable prices.

plasma screen are nasty things for emitting interference. however easily checked by unplugging the power. any pics of the interference? have you tried swapping the cameras around? and also just the leads on the DVR? ie is it faulty cameras or faulty DVR. also check voltage at the cameras in case power supply has dropped a little bit.

what i found the hard way was that if theres a fault on either leg of the T it will knock out both. in my case a problem with the screen knocked out the camera so i had no recording of that channel. using an active splitter fixes that problem.

is this cable ok to use for a couple meter run (6-7 feet) ? loose any picture quality compared to rg59?

don't forget a lot of those other countries are back doors to china

i would expect most of the big brands are all made in china. what isn't these days.

to make that clear, solid cooper. not cooper coated steel which is common in the tv aerial trade.

+1

quite right. sorry forgot the IR is built in on that cam. the IR is pointless on the front anyway due to very limited range and when its dark you have the headlights on. would be interesting to do some testing and see if sideways pointing IR would help, eg light up some of the darker areas out to the side of the headlights. my rear camera has IR, but i removed it and fitted IR externally as the IR kept reflecting back into the lens. also the IR tends to turn off due to lights from other vehicles, so i blacked out the sensor and connected the IR to the rear lights.

Good work! Doesn't the IR reflect off your windshield at night? one of the problems you do get is any light from the inside reflecting off the windows into the camera. ideally the cameras need to be sealed up to the window.

dvr man.......what lens is that camera using ?

google dm1704h and you will probably get your better results.

typically apartments run one aerial system for he whole building. i its has one then only have to use one rf mod and splice it into aerial system. if each unit has their own aerial system then you will have to wire the dvr to each one. if its only door cam you want them to see then spit off the door cam feed, not the DVR output.

fairly easy. for a standard analog tv setup just put an active split on the door cam, feed into an RF modulator and insert that output into aerial system. for cable setups i thinks there special gear that pretty much does the same thing.

i wouldn't call that a mobile DVR. the big thing its missing is regulated 12v output for the cameras. i'm running an older AVerDiGi MOB1304, http://www.avermedia.com/averdigi/product/Products.aspx?cid=16 which is probably one of the cheaper good mobile recorders around. i've seen some odd unknown brand 2 channel "taxi" camera setups floating around the net. the big thing is how much detail do you expect. very easy to get a rough overview but may not give you the sort of detail your expecting (ie show a person but not a recognizable face) depending on cameras used, which is relative to cost.

have no need for higher resolution and keeping the resolution down usually helps with low light. WDR would be nice, tho i don't know how much difference it will make in this kind of use. this is for my mobile DVR. just trying to reduce the effects of fast changing light. just trying to find any half decent mini cameras is not easy.