HDguy

We have customers with over a thousand GE Storesafe DVR's which are having hard drive failures. We had good luck replacing drives till most IDE's were discontinued. Does anyone know (not guess) what drives available today (Aug 2011) will work with the Storesafe units?

We need a total capacity of at least 500 GB. Sata converters have been very unreliable on these units. Machine will work for a few days, then on a restart will not be able to find the hard drive.

HDCCTV cameras based on HD-SDI are coming out NOW. In Septemeber there will be several major players with a full line of products. Currently SG Digital seems to have the most success stories. This technology is all good. Cable required is RG6, currently about half the price of RG/59. There is no change in the installation as compared to analog.

Seems to me that's what we heard last year. I take it back, this can't be Todd... not articulate enough. Sounds more like Scott. That's great, good stuff. If you want to talk, send me a PM. Don't really need to be rude, I don't think.

No. They are (according to the marketing hype at least) high-definition digital cameras (hence the "HD" - they use HDTV protocols and specs) that send uncompressed HD video over a single coax line by using SDI (Serial Digital Interface), a standard that's been used for years in the broadcast industry for digital data. When I worked at a tech school a decade or so ago, one of the old U-Matic tape machines had an SDI interface for the audio output. IIRC one of the newer Betacam SP decks had SDI in *and* out for audio as well. Their main claims of "superiority" are for the live video (realtime, since there's no compression/conversion happening in-camera, thus no lag time; plus being uncompressed, it's higher quality), and the ability to simply plug them into existing coax (which as you see here, some have had varying success with). So far, aside from this thread, I've seen NO claims of the ACTUAL cost of the new cameras (I have asked directly)... only that it "will be cheaper" than IP. Some of the things they gloss over or simply dismiss when asked about it, are the facts that in addition to new cameras, you need new capture/interface hardware (you can't just plug them into a standard existing capture card)... and that to get any sort of realistic retention time, your PC has to do all the compression, since it's now not being done on the camera and uncompressed 720P video will eat terabyte drives for breakfast. I've seen no claims on the cost of the interface hardware either, or whether it will do its own hardware compression, or require the PC to do all the work (expect cost savings on the cameras to be offset by the need for more powerful PCs). At this point, there's not really anything on the market (that I've seen, anyway), just promises and glossy ads and lots of marketing hype. I see tests published by the manufacturers who've signed on, but have yet to see any third-party, REAL-WORLD tests, comparisons or samples. The uncompressed part is between the camera and the DVR. Once the video is captured at the DVR is works just like any DVR today, applying the compression codec at the DVR. We are able to achieve better compression than I have seen with similar IP NVR solutions. For example, a DVR with 4 720P30 cameras (120fps total) on the gaming tables stores 10 days on 2 terabytes FULL TIME RECORD. That's an average file size of just over 20K. Remember DM DVR's s the the jpeg recording they sold for years has a file size larger than that for a CIF recording.

HDCCTV cabling. Hopefully I can clear up the cabling issue here. Just like VHS - Beta and many other technologies there have been two different core groups with different concepts. The first version, "C" I will call it is based on a modified SMPTE259. It was completely proprietary and has some limitations. It can send 720P30 video around 100 ft on existing RG59. However, by changing to ANY lower noise cable (and we tested a lot) the distance can go up to 800 ft. 800 ft was achieved using very inexpensive RG6 ($80 per 1K). Now the official version that is currently being released is based on a Gennum 7600 HDSDI chip, which we have currently been using on standard CCTV RG59 at 450 ft. This is the HDcctv first version. This is what will be flooding the market by year end. So now they are working on the next generation of HDSDI encoder's that will reach the 300m figures. There is also some missunderstanding about the RG6 requirement. The recommended spec for the version C HDSDI is: Less than 6db loss at 1Ghz per 100ft. Most RG59 is towards 18 to 20db, but we have found many other sizes of cable readily available which have acceptable specs. Gennum had a demo at ISC Vegas of thier new encoder sending 1000ft over "standard" RG59. This is why I keep saying that if you understand the application, there really isn't much of a cabling issue at all. How many real installs out there fall under 450 ft? Clearly there are still issues with larger buildings, but this covers most retail already.

There are many ways to look at this. We don't see HDCCTV as a "replacement" for IP. If you have an application where IP makes sense, then you need an IP camera. This is a third transport now available to the CCTV industry. As time goes on, it will more likely replace higher end analog systems as well as some IP. The target for HDcctv is to cost about 30% more than analog. That means those who are now paying $200 for an NTSC "600TVL" dome camera should be able to pickup an HDcctv 1280 x 720 version for $260. Then as competition and the pricing from our friends across the ocean.....watch.

So I see a long list of reasons why NOT to use this technology. So does that mean that we are all happy with the status quo? No reason to push for advances? So if you want better than analog or IP, what is the next logical path? How about looking at the Broadcast guys,,,, you know, they have been sending broadcast quality video down a coax cable for years. It is a solid existing technology that has already shown major price drops and new product developement for the CCTV side. UTP video transmission was a "work around" technology. Don't understand why anyone would wire up a new installation with it..(except $). Us old school guys use coax for video unless it's just not possible. If you insist on using UTP for video, this technology is not what your looking for for quite a while. We surveyed over 500 installation companies and found that less than 10% had techs who could do an IP system on thier own. Less than 50% had techs that could install an RJ45 plug. That's the reality of this industry. So if you could upgrade to 1080P video without much re-education, why wouldn't you? On the same survey, the majority of camera replacements and new installs today are with cable less than 400ft. (banks, retail, qsr's, pharmacys, etc) The new products are reaching 450ft on standard 95% copper RG59. But can go further on higher frequency cable.

no

Does anyone know why the input impedance on all channels of a geo system with a GV-loop card is dropped to 37 Ohms?