Tisko

I dont think we are going to use any PTZ's honestly. Though thanks for the advice.

I work for a major university whose housing is growing at a very fast pace. We want to network all of our cameras into one system, Milestone. (This is a standard set by our own Police force.) Our newest building will be built with Milestone and Axis IP Cameras already installed. However we need to redo our largest building. The wires have already been ran, and now we have to put together some specs for cameras to replace the old analogs. Working for a state means that I cannot just choose the cameras that I want unless there is a specific state contract, and in this case there is not. I am not new to the surveillance camera world, but when it comes to IP cameras this is a new adventure for me. Besides one Axis PTZ camera we have actually broadcast to the web to show off our new green roof my experience is nil as far as IP cameras go. I want to use Axis cameras for the most part to keep with the standard also set by the police, but I cannot specify a specific product. I can however build specs to point purchasing in directions where it can only be a few specific cameras. I am wondering about a few brands that I have not dealt with in the past. I purchased a couple of Axis and Arecont cameras over the last few months to test out. While the Areconts image quality was great there are some quality control, configuration and security issues that I found with the few that I bought. I do not want to be stuck with 100 cameras of a different company with similar issues. The only limitation that I have for this project is that all need to use H.264 for bandwidth and storage issues, and I do need about 40 of the hundred cameras that I need to be High Resolution quality be it Axis's HD cameras or anyone else's megapixel cameras (1.3 is fine). Pelco IP Camera (I used their analog cameras for years and years and had no problems) Any known problems or issues on the IP side of things? Sony - the one analog camera that I had from them was prone to overheating, any opinions on their IP Cameras? Lumenera - never used them in the past Panasonic - had some of their analogs in the past and there was never an issue. Vivotek - never used them ACTi - never used them either Any other companies that I should be looking into? Thanks in advance to anyone that replies.

Enterprise.

What about single port H.264 video encoders? I really can't find after just a cursory glance anyone that makes them besides Axis.

Thanks. I know the Arecont that I used did not have an auto iris. I am looking at some Samsung Techwin anyone have any opinions on their products. Their higher quality cameras do not offer H.264 which is a problem but for some of our low traffic areas the lower end specs will work for me. Looks like they are releasing a H.264 2 MP camera in Q3 of this year though.

Its just a camera brand.

Make sure that your Milestone software is up to date. I purchased an encoder not to long ago to work with a Milestone Trial software because it was listed on Milestone compatible devices, but the software was out of date so I could not get it to work until I updated.

I am in the middle of massive upgrade from analog to IP, and I have been purchasing/borrowing a few cameras to test out to decide what cameras to go with. I bought some Areconts and though the image quality was impressive overall I was less than impressed. The lens that I purchased was broken, and the actual camera itself was missing screws. Besides the fact that I was shown how to easily hack into a live one.

I work for a major university and we are switching from analog cameras to IP Cameras. I am thinking of mostly using Axis' products for the Cameras and depending on the bidding process, hopefully, Milestone or NetDVMS. Our elevators however create a problem, currently we are using a board camera with a corner housing mount that we use a series of baluns and a spare pair of wires in the traveling cable to get the signal to our DVR, but I cannot find a similar IP camera. Any suggestions? We have a drop ceiling in the elevators so dome cameras on the ceiling are out of the question, and I would like to avoid dome cameras mounted to the wall. Is there any camera out there?

Isn't there power on top of the car already? Yes. That is what we are planning on using, but either we use a transformer which I have in the past that tends to fall out of the receptacle or we hard wire it in or use a 1-port PoE encoder.

Neither of those are options that would work in this application. Though I might be able to use that dev kit elsewhere. Thanks everyone for your help!

I am not really seeing an easy solution to this problem until a company develops an IP Board Camera. I agree the untwisted pair is not as large of a problem as the numerous baluns, but in one of our towers for some reason the traveler is slightly different and has an unshielded untwisted pair which creates all sorts of noise. The money for the project is there so adding a Cat6 to the traveler and just encoding on top of the car might be the best option though we would have to purchase a PoE switch and use a PoE single port encoder.

We use Coax to the Elevator Car Controller which is where the spare untwisted pair ends where our first balun is, then another balun at the elevator controller to coax again where it meets up with a Cat6 to take down three separate feeds and then again there is another balun to coax which takes it to the DVR. Not my design, but its what I have to work with, and why I want to change it. The cameras themselves are excellent, high quality board cameras but it is all lost with all the baluns.

The flexibility is a concern of mine too, but unlike your experience we have a full time elevator contractor here that is easy to work with. It was through his company that we realized this was a possibility. They have done this with a couple cars elsewhere, but no where close to the amount of floors we have here. I am working with a company to find the best fit wire for this job as well. Soundy, have you used those ACTi dome cameras? And, if so how is the connection between the Ethernet and the camera made? I imagine that will be the biggest hurdle to overcome when modifying these cameras.

We are not really thrilled with the quality of the picture now, but the way the system is setup we use numerous baluns and an untwisted pair in the traveling cable so we realize that the picture will not be great. We got approval to tie on a Cat6 to the traveling cable so we will not have to use preexisting cables. We will most likely re utilize the existing localized power source on top of each car as well so no PoE necessary. Originally we planned to use encoders at the top of each tower, but would really like to cut out as many of these splices and baluns as possible. These cameras when they go down are nearly impossible to troubleshoot and most of the time requires an elevator company tech to be present.