bubba64

Hello to all and I hope I have the right thread. I put together a dvr security system using an old pc running an Athlon 1800+ running 512 mb ram. I purchased a really cheap DVR card off of ebay, I think the model is a 9810. It's a 4 channel PCI card. I'm using the 12V from the PC to power my cameras. At first I was running one camera and all was fine. I hooked up a second camera and it seems that both of the cameras video are eithere jumping or shifting up and down every second or so. I tried an external power supply on one of the cameras thinking that maybe the 12 v from the pc was low....no change. Could it be an issue with the DVR card itself. It looks to have only one processor for all 4 channels, where as the better cards have at least 1 processor for each channel or one for 2 channels. I'm going to try another PC to see if that makes a differnence. The software I'm using now is PICO2000 1.8 which came with the card. If anyone has any input or ideas, let me know. Thanks

If you read my previous replies, I did try external supplies......no change, maybe I did leave that one out, I did try two external supplies and no change. Each supply was capable of 2A+. Brian

I've found what causes the issue. It seems that if I turn the recording on, the video starts to have problems. When I shut the recording off, the video stabilizes and is OK. When the recording starts, the video jumps up and down and the lighting goes up and down as well. I'm leaning toward the cheap dvr card, I have another PC and will give that a shot before I buy another card. From what I've read the card can do 30fps on 1 camera, adding more cameras, the bandwidth gets divided for each camera, so the recording may put an extra strain on that as well. If I slowed the recording frame rate down, it seems to help a bit but not much. We're getting camera installed at our workplace, so I asked one of the installers if he's seen that before and asked me if I tried it with the recording off. Smart guy.

never run cameras from the pc power. buy a 4 channel power unit. you will then get the right volts and amps for the camera. Thanks, I'll try two external supplies, but I did bypass the power to one camera and nothing changed. Any other ideas out there if it's not power related. I'm leaning towards it just being a cheap card, but will try the external supplies and a different PC before I order another card. It looks as if the cameras lose sync.