Birdman Adam

What I meant is that the cameras are continuously recording, but disk utilization (amount of time it is writing/reading data) is only like 10%. So if the drive can record 100MBPS, its only doing 10MBPS. WD Blacks are great drives, but yes, they do cost more. Its like that extra bit of money adds in much more quality control.

Toaster I get them for much less. Well now that my project is done, I can 100% recommend Samsung's SRD-1670DC. I used the 8-channel version (SRD-870DC), loaded it up with 3.5TB of space. It works wonderfully, NO glitches whatsoever.

I'd just take out the IR cut filter, and let the camera resume normal operation. It will flip the filter over in color mode (which isn't there), and still see in color. It will just be washed out some, depending on the percentage of IR to normal light you have. I have done similar with a cheap cam, the colors are washed & somewhat inaccurate, but you get color!

I'd be scared running drives in RAID 0 - what if one fails!! If your HD can't record 8 cameras at once, then something is wrong with it. I have a single Seagate 1TB, 7200 RPM SATA HD for recording 4 D1 cameras. Its writing about 10% of the time. Recording is done on an oldish P4 with ~400MB of DDR RAM! I would feel a lot more comfortable with 2 drives in RAID 1, or even better 4 drives in RAID 10!

Might try formatting the USB sticks as FAT. Some DVRs are dumb and can only understand old and simple file formats.

WTF? Why do people do stupid things like that??? I haven't used this particular camera, but I definitely say YES to the 5-50mm lens. Zoom that thing way in - right around your bike. This way you'll have a wonderful identification, the face will take up 1/4 or more of the image. Keep in mind you should keep the framerate recording HIGH, because with this tight of a zoom, the subject won't be in the camera view for long. Oh, and you will want the BBM-24F, you definitely don't need a WDR function for this cam. Monalisa chip is amazing!

Yea, I'd say each client should have their own account. You can always keep their account info stored somewhere in case you need to log in and change something. I feel kinda lucky being one of the people who had an account before they reduced their free hosting name choices.

Looks great - I love the one in the door!!

Turn up "quality" settings any where you can, that should compress it less.

All I can say is it takes a bit of practice. A lot of the problem people have is in getting each of the 8 wires into their own little slots, in the right order. Once you've pushed them in, check the order! -Making your own patch cables is much cheaper than buying them. No doubt about it. -Make sure you use the right crimper for the right plug. -Make sure you use solid-wire plugs with solid wire, etc. -Always double check the wires after you slide 'em in.

Huh, does sound like a mobo-specific problem... Are you sure the PCI card wasn't bad/malfunctioning? P67 has OC enabled, and cannot use the built-in graphics. H67 has OC disabled, and can use the built-in graphics. Z68 is supposed to be the best of both... If you go with P67, remember you will have to use a separate graphics card. For DVR systems, I don't see any need to OC - H67 or Z68 seem to be the way to go, and I'd lean toward H67 because you won't pay extra for the OC ability.

That is a very good point Notorious - Wireless IP cameras are very limited in terms of selection. Buy an awesome IP camera, and connect it to your wifi network with a bridge. Dont forget WPA!

Sure, perfectly possible. As long as you keep the distance down, and make sure the wifi network you connect to is secure (use WPA!!), and is on a channel separate from other nearby routers, you should be good to go.

I'm a DIYer as well... CNBs are good, no doubt about it. Mainly because the quality they offer for the price is hard to beat. I stick to the Monalisa ones, and have used many vandal-domes from them. The last 8-camera setup I did was with 6 VCM-24VFs for outdoors, and two DBM-24VFs for indoors. VCM-24VF: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1073 DBM-24VF: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1066

It is totally worthwhile, and saves money as well. I used one pair for video, two pairs doubled up for power (12VDC), and the fourth pair as a tamper loop going to the alarm system. When the load are under like 1-2A, your good to go with voltage drop.

Odd, sure it didn't get bit by something??

Yea 'green' drives are horrible for constant recording. Could you tell us what type of drives you have? Brand? RPM? SATA or IDE? Are they in a RAID? Whatever monitor program you use to watch cpu load, see if it can show disk IO. Maybe download a disk speed test like bst to see whether you've got a hidden bottleneck. I just did a quick test and I get 35MB/s write speed to my 7200RPM SATA HD in my laptop - and that is with Truecrypt (the whole drive is encrypted AES). Only uses ~3% CPU to do it. Desktop HD with proper mobo and sata controller will do better! I have my recorded video on separate drives from the OS so that there is no other requests to annoy the disk while its recording.

It is very much possible. I will say that zoneminder is not very forgiving for people who don't know their way around linux. Right now my machine is running Ubuntu w/zoneminder installed. Got 3 cameras at ~5 FPS each going. Its an older Dell desktop with 1GB of DDR RAM, a P4 processor, and a 1TB SATA drive for storing pictures. Once you get it set up - it's wonderful, but getting there was somewhat hard. The capture cards from Bluecherry work great - make sure to order the optional heatsink for the BT878 chip(s). I have the PV143 = 4 channels at 30FPS total. They have versions in PCI for older mobos and PCI-Express as well. Make sure you narrow down results by 'Video4Linux supported' - these are the plug&play ones for linux. Also, they record in 640x480, so you don't quite get the full 720x480 of D1. When building try to use at least a dual-core processor - ZM will benefit from this a LOT. Since ZM is constantly working on streams from each camera, being able to chew on 2 (or maybe 4) at once instead of 1 (and not have to jump back and forth between them) will help. Make sure you have good airflow, those chips get warm (too hot without heatsink). You need as much RAM as the streams of video (they are held in buffer), and more on top of that. If your recording from HD cameras then youll need more RAM!

I will try to upload video from my recent project this afternoon...8 cams!

IMO the WDR helped a lot from the first pic to the second - compare the mans clothes in the second to the ladies in the first. It's certainly not perfect though. What I would want there is the WDR + medium BLC!

With some motions they have jumpers that can be set for different ranges. Like 25' or 15'.

Nothing really useful... The disks on the inside are cool (like mirrors). Then there are some strong (but small) magnets in there. If the head still works you could make a hard drive speaker: How to do it (the actual site is down): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Sq43j8NdpFQJ:www.afrotechmods.com/cheap/hdspeakers/hdspeakers.htm+http://www.afrotechmods.com/cheap/hdspeakers/hdspeakers.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com Basically take the audio output from anything & amplify it so that you get 3~8V, hook that up to the coil that controls the head. You can even split the audio so that smaller drives can be tweeters, & larger ones can be midrange or the subs.

Yea, auto-iris can help a lot to keep sensor from getting too hot. Basically, as long as it isn't getting outright baked, it will be fine. If it will be in direct sunlight with very hot temps, you should probably have a blower in the enclosure.

I'm a DIYer & have installed 1 large & 2 small DSC systems. Two Power 832's and one newer 1832. For someone who has never programmed before, it may be hard at first. After that it's all good.

I'd leave the motion detection to the alarm system. Just put in 1 or 2 PIR motion detectors & wire to alarm system. I don't believe in camera motion detection, it always seems to miss things when its needed most. Make sure you've got all the doors & windows with contacts in them wired to the alarm. Maybe set a glass-break detector in there too if you've got windows.