musher

Use two images. Alternate writing one then the other. Use the alternate one for display. Use a flag to indicate which one is live at any point for display

Hi, So I'm looking at an altronix 24vac power supply and it comes packaged with a 2 prong plug (no ground) for powering the unit. Most of the reading I've done seems to indicate that folks pull 18/2 or 16/2 to power cameras--no ground wire. Looking at the wiring instructions for a Sanyo HD3500, I see that it specifies attaching a ground wire when powering with 24V ac. I've a couple of questions. Is it usual for the 24vac IP cameras to require a ground? I'm guessing this is a safety issue in case one leg gets shorted to the case? I didn't think code required a ground for 24vac, but I could be ignorant. My first inclination is to sell my spool of 16/2 and find some 16/3 so I can home run the ground wires as well. I can install a grounded plug on the altronix unit and bolt a ground bus to the case of the power supply if I do that. Do I need to do this, or can I ground the cameras locally where ever is convenient? Not sure if this would be a problem for an IP camera. I don't think the camera cases will be grounded by the installation method (not bolting them to grounded steel or anything like that) This is in my home, but it is multiple buildings (3). I'd appreciate anyone who could help me better understand the issues here. thanks.

Heard back from Sanyo on this question. Ground is not required on the camera. It's there for safety if the installer wants to ground protect the cameras in case of a power fault. so there ya go.

I appreciate all the feed back. After listening to the discussion, I think I'm inclined to pull 3 conductors the first time around for camera power. Easy enough not to use the ground conductor, but I'm thinking it could be a pain if it turns out to be needed and it's not there. Not too worried about my cat 5 cable in this case. I'm running gigabit everywhere in the house w/o problems. Don't really anticipate any issues running 100mb to the cameras.

thanks for the input. Regarding the poe enclosures you mentioned, thewireguys, can you mount these dome cameras inside them? Do you just move the guts over or what? If you're willing to point me at a particular product, I'd be interested in looking at them. Are they 803.2at to support enough power to run a heater/fan in addition to the camera or are they just more efficient/less power?

Hi Shropna, I guess we cross posted. The altronix is a transformer based ps. You think the best solution is to drop the ground wire entirely then?

This is more or less something I'm doing to stay off the streets and out of the bars, so installation time isn't a critical factor on this project. I did want to install things more or less correctly though. What do you think about the 24vac grounding? I suppose another possibility is if I could locate a 24->12 power adapter that could do 2 amps, I could run 16/2 and drop to 12vdc for the sanyo as well. It needs 20W to run the heater, so 1.7A or thereabouts for 12vdc. That would produce a little extra heat in the installation as well--not a bad thing up here.

A fair question. I considered poe, but I need the heaters in the cameras. IEEE 802.3af only guarantees 13W more or less at the device. One of the 3 cameras I'm messing around with is an ACTI-7411. The spec sheet indicates that the camera heater is not available when using POE (fan only). Being in Fairbanks, AK, I'm pretty sure I want the heater outside. I had settled on 24v to minimize the effects of voltage drop on the runs and was planning to use a 24-12vdc converter for the ACTI (which doesn't do 24vac) at the camera end. The Sanyo, I was just going to feed with 24vac. If I'm wrong about POE, that would simplify things considerably.

I've found a most effective way to use this site is to start searching on things that you're interested in to narrow your question. For example, if you search a bit you'll discover that somebody always answers a question like yours by asking what you're trying to accomplish, or what's your budget, etc. If you cover that groundwork first, I expect you'll get some pretty useful help.

Hi, Been lurking here a bit and thought I'd throw out a question. I've sent this up to ACTI as a customer support question, but I figured it doesn't hurt to ask here as well. I've got an ACM-7411 delivering an MJPEG stream set to 100% quality. Right now the camera is set up in a garage for testing. When the camera experiences large, rapid light shifts (Like the garage door opens), or drops rapidly to low light, I've been seeing large artifacts (for want of another word) where there appears to be no data. I also am seeing intermittent "framing" problems where the image looks like a 3 or 4 piece puzzle that's put together incorrectly. In relatively constant or slowly changing light, I don't see these problems. I see this in both the acti provided web interface direct to the camera and in video captured by the nvr (blue iris). I've messed around with various settings, but haven't hit on settings that cure this. If anyone has any advice, I'd gladly listen. Thanks. I've attached a couple of photos that demonstrate my problem.

2 computers? Yep 1 dell laptop and 1 dell server Both are running win 7 x64 though. There's a thought.

The profile is the latest version according to Acti's web site. I guess I better suck it up and flash the firmware. That step always makes me nervous about bricking the device, so I've been holding off in hopes I've done something stupid in the configuration. I have tried connecting directly to the camera & see the same results. No difference with 2 different switches in the circuit either. Only variable there I haven't eliminated is the cat6 cable to the camera. Guess I'll swap that out just to be sure, but it seems to me that this has to be happening inside the camera. What are the odds that all the data between two frames would drop and leave 2 pieces to fit so nicely together? I take it nobody's been seeing this in the Acti cameras on a regular basis?

New Data: The camera doesn't immediately appear to have problems with mpeg4. Testing mjpeg at 1280x720 still shows issues. It appears that the output isn't jumbling one frame but combining pieces of two different frames. On the up side, it didn't hurt to get cut in half at the waist. Am I right in thinking this isn't normal for a MJPEG stream? Guess I'll test at 640x480 next, unless someone has suggestions. Still waiting to hear from Acti.

If you really need to do this, you'd have a better chance of actually mounting/reading the drive if you use a linux platform rather than windows, since linux supports mounting a wider variety of disk formats. Perhaps the dvr manufacturer can tell you how the drive is formatted. If you just need an image of the drive (like you're trying to move everything to a bigger drive), you can a) determine the partition format used on the drive, b) look for disk imaging software that supports that partition type. If the files are proprietary you would still need the appropriate software to play them outside the dvr app.

Hi Hardwired, I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. In the acti interface I only see a "quality" setting for the mjpeg stream. When I switch to mpeg4, there are options for setting max bitrate. Profile is the latest. Looks like there might be a newer firmware. I'm a little reluctant to flash it unless I have to. I'm at 3.12.13. Release notes for 3.12.15 don't seem to address my problem. EDITED TO ADD Ok I found this in the server report, looks like bitrate_current is set to the max--where ever one sets it. VIDEO_RESOLUTION_CURRENT = N1280x1024 VIDEO_FPS_CURRENT= MODE1,8 VIDEO_BITRATE_CURRENT= 3M STREAMING_METHOD_CURRENT = 0 ENCODER_CURRENT = MJPEG PROTOCOL = V2.0 STREAMING MODE = Single Stream

Good questions. Too much light out right now to replicate the problem. I'll have to try dropping the mjpeg resolution/changing codec to see if I can isolate the problem.

Thanks for the suggestion, I did mess with the quality setting (down to 50%) while troubleshooting this, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the issue. The camera's plugged into a gigabit switch so any bandwidth limitation would have to be on the camera side. Acti specs show a 10/100 nic on the camera side which matches the status light for that link on my switch (100mb) I've also tried eliminating the switch entirely, just hooking it up directly to a gigabit nic in a laptop. Same symptoms. What I've noticed is that the problem seems worst when light levels go from black (or very low light)->bright (color)->low light(bw). If you look at the framing error sample you can see the garage door is 1/2 closed. This is typical of the scenario that generates the problem: 1. Lights are off (camera in darkness) 2. garage door opens exposing exterior lights and headlights shifting camera from low light black and white to color. 3. Car lights go off and garage door begins to close leaving only a 20W bulb for illumination. In the shift back to black and white, I see lots of artifacts and framing errors. If I black out the scene, then bring the light back up, most of the time the errors disappear. If I leave the scene at the low light level, the errors persist for some time (10-15 min).

PM Sent--I'll take the ACTI ACM-7411 if it isn't sold.