Birdman Adam

I suppose whatever CNB does to test their cameras... I do know that they like to fudge the numbers, so I list what they say then underrate it.

You should really ask him for the serial number and ask geovision to check it out. Then again he could just give you a number from a legit card to throw you off..

Another thing I just thought up is to play with the day-night settings. There should be a number that sets at what level it switches from day to night mode. Right now it may be thinking its still too dark to use the day (color) mode.

A picture of this situation would help a lot. You see black and color pixels? Sounds like somethings wrong with your DVR or cabling... If everything was working properly in a very low light condition, you'd just see pitch black. By default the VBM-24VF will show color in day, and switch to black and white at night. That's why its called a True Day/Night camera. If its not doing that then you need to check the settings. I would just set them all to default, and see what happens. If its still not working right, sounds like you need to return it. In terms of seeing in the dark... This camera can see down to 0.005 Lux, which is realistically 0.05 Lux. If it can't see anything (then its real dark!), you will definitely need some illumination. I would try out a motion-detect flood light. Its cheaper and makes the snoops look at the light when it turns on, giving your camera a good picture of their face.

Actually that number is the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The higher the signal to noise ratio, generally the better the picture. Simply put, the picture will have less noise. A camera with 52dB is preferred over a camera with 48dB. Some cameras, like wide dynamic range cameras (WDR), have higher SNR ratios. Thats part of the reason they are more expensive.

For example, some of the images in the 'Feedback on CNB' thread were captured at like 320x240, through a streaming player, then stretched to 640x480 or whatever. If we had a true D1 picture from a DVR, then it would be much nicer. Your images are in 640x480, however thats the quad view. If you could post a picture of just each individual camera view at D1 I think it would look much better.

Any 'digital' pixelation stuff your seeing with the CNB's is because of what the person is using to record them. If we could see a true 704x480 picture, I can guarantee you it would look way better than all the ones posted so far.

Yea, like every barrel plug I've ever seen has been positive in the center, and negative around the barrel.

I think this would be a great idea! I would add that the page on each product should have some test pictures/video showing how well it performs.

You can measure the how good a camera is at seeing in low light fairly well by its minimum illumination. For example, the VBM-24VF, which is a True Day/Night dome, can see down to 0.005 Lux in night mode (B/W). That's quite good! It can see that well because of it's IR cut filter and very sensitive DSP. Then take a DFL-20S, which is just a normal indoor dome. It too switches between color (day) and B/W (night), although it doesn't have the IR cut filter. It's minimum illumination is 0.05 Lux. Not bad... Also be aware that if specs for a camera say 0.0 Lux, that could be anything between 0.00 and 0.09. So don't just look at the zeros and be fooled. Now minimum illumination isn't the only factor in how well a camera performs in low light. Other factors include the size of the sensor, be it 1/4, 1/3, or even 1/2 inch. Also, what the resolution is: A 480 line camera may do better than a 500 line camera in low light, because each little pixel on the sensor is bigger, and collects more light. There are other things like lenses and such that have smaller effects on low-light vision as well..

To tell what chips they are using, just look at the writing on top of the black squares (the chips). Maybe someone else can help you with finding software that will work with them, because I only know about Linux.

It looks like this card uses BT848, BT878, or similar chips. That means Video 4 Linux probably supports it. Basically, almost any Linux distro like Ubuntu will work with it out of the box. So if your up for it, you can use Zoneminder as your DVR software. I would only try this if your technically oriented and you've worked with linux before. Once you get it set up, its amazing, and supports like everything. The motion detection is wonderful!

If you want to access from the internet you will probably need to set up port forwarding on both the modem and the router. Maybe also on your switch. For example you would set the modem to forward port 80 (normal http port) to the router's address. Then set the router to forward to the CCTV cameras. When you say "CCTV's", do you mean a DVR, or are the two items IP cameras?

Well no one can tell you whether you've bought a piece of crap until you give us more specs, like what CPU, Mobo, RAM, and other things are listed. From what you've said, 2 TB HD and a DVR card that can do 8 channels of D1 resolution at 30 FPS (I looked it up), your off to a good start. I don't know how good the software is... There should be a way to maximize the software window to fill the whole screen. Isn't there a 'maximize' button?

My prediction on the wiring: I would think that red would be positive 12VDC, and black is ground. Yellow is almost always the video signal, and the video ground is again the black wire. The green wire is probably audio then, and once again the black is ground. To really be sure of the wires I would open up the camera and see where the wires go. For example, the red + black may go to a voltage regulator (then you will know those are the power wires). Or maybe the wires are labeled on the PCB. (They do that pretty often). Maybe you can see the yellow wire coming from the processor of the camera? Or maybe the green wire is coming off a circuit with a small microphone (will probably look like a button battery).

Your replacement doesn't put out nearly enough current. You can take pictures of the power supplies if you want and we can look at them and tell you if your reading it right.

There is a copyright and probably a patent on the exact connection of everything on those cards. When the copiers reproduce them they choose the cheapest components. Like substituting a 1/4 watt resistor for an 1/8 watt one. Yea it will work, but once someone uses it in a computer that runs too warm, the resistor pops and they wonder what happened. Or using cheaper electrolytic capacitors that have a flawed design and pop in a year. I can't tell you how many things I've fixed because those darn caps keep popping! When someone buys a genuine card, they are paying extra for the properly engineered design that won't do odd things.

Sounds to me like there is interference from the RF emissions of the motor (that moves the elevator). Only thing I can think of is if the shielding for the signal is connected to a ground, to protect the center from the interference?

The problem with clones is that the actual schematic of the card has been copied, then manufactured by cutting corners and choosing the cheapest components available. It kind of like gambling, because its not guaranteed. A genuine card is guaranteed to work perfectly. If it doesn't, return it and get another! You can't usually do that with a clone.

I almost fell out of my chair when you said that... Good job on keeping your .htaccess and .htpasswd files protected though. I can't stop myself from looking into things like that. I'm just like paranoid about security.

Soundy you might wanna disable anonymous FTP on your server.

Soundy is that you beating that DVR? Oh and your server is pretty cool, I've always wanted to have my own domain name. Are you just using a computer at home?

Reading this gave me a good laugh...

Yes, you can forward your camera to the internet. You can also set up a dns hostname for your camera. For example, instead of going to '74.242.246.217', you can go to a domain name like 'blahblah.homeip.net'. This can be done for free (and I actually mean FREE) from Dyn-DNS. Now I don't believe the camera will do email/sms by itself... I have never heard anything about 'consumer-grade' HD's not up to the task of recording 24/7. When you say consumer-grade I'm assuming you mean something from like Newegg? If it helps I have several consumer HD's constantly reading and writing, for about a 2 years now, and they have been just fine..

Here's a thread about the CNB Domes: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=21952&start=0& Quote from Soundy about painting them: