Fiona

I am glancing out of my window at a recent installation of IR Dome Cameras at a neighbour's house. The IRs are inside the Dome and they emit red light which is obviously visible. From a distance of 50 feet or so, I can't see whether the red light is emitted from the IRs of from separate red LEDs. I spent a moment wondering why a manufacturer would go to the trouble of adding a visible light to the camera before the marketing angle dawned upon me. What if the red lights are there simply to placate the buyer? In other words, the red LEDs (or blue for that matter) indicate to the customer that (a) the lights are on and (b) that they are working. The fact that the red LEDs are easy to see at night works to the advantage of the criminal because he or she can see in which direction the cameras are pointing. The addition of these coloured lights seems to be motivated by these marketing reasons which are entirely independent of the Infrared function.

The OCZ Vertexes appear to be optimised to function as Boot Disks on computers. I use Windows XP SP2 on my OCZ SSD and it dramatically improved the speed and performance of a Quad Core 2.4ghz. For DVRs I'd stick with the HDD because there is no practical benefit to be gained by using the SSD. They are still way too expensive for general storage and recording purposes. And they are only marginally more reliable than the best Hard Disk Drives which are the Hitachi Ultrastars.

Lovely cameras indeed. Made by Matsu****a in Japan; RS485 control; 24 VAC (also 12vdc); and .08 LUX at 1.4 BW These may be the cameras you are referring to: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-WV-CP484-Surveillance-Security-Camera-/220920480050?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item336fe30132 Certainly a bargain for any NTSC application.

That may well be the case. The issue of MTBF is taken very seriously by Banks and Financial Institutions and other facilities which may be devastated by the loss of data. If it could be proven that a Hard Disk manufacturer exaggerated the MTBF of its disks, the liability for data loss would be subject to litigation. If anything, I suspect that the MTBF is a very conservative figure. Controller failures from an onboard chip would have to show up in the MTBF figures, so that when SSDs have controller failures, these anomalies must form part of the overall MTBF. A manufacturer could not make excuses if any part of its HDDs or SSDs failed. On a slightly disquieting note, Hitachi has sold its hard disk division for $4.3 billion to Western Digital so the era of the great Enterprise Ultrastars may be almost over. As the performance, price and reliability of SDDs improves, the future of storage looks bright. The SSDs use less power, have 20X the shock resistance and much faster access speeds for read and write. The high price of SSDs in conjunction with their higher performance has seen their widespread implementation as Boot Disks.

Disclaimers are common even amongst the most diligent studies. For anyone who has a clue, it is a waiver that legally indemnifies the report against litigants. The MTBF is also an area subject to litigation due to the sensitivity and duty of care impiled in critical data storage. The Vertex SSDs have a MTBF of 2,000,000 hours. The cost of SSDs is about 15 times that of Enterprise drives per unit of capacity. i.e. per megabyte

As I am sure somebody will argue the point, here is the study: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html

There is a general misconception about MTBF Mean Time Between Failures. The hands down most reliable Hard Disks are the Hitachi Enterprise Ultrastars. Independent tests have placed them about three times more reliable than the next best. If anyone disputes this, I will hunt down the report that specifies that stellar performance. MTBF for the Ultrastars is as high as 1,200,000 hours. This does not mean that the average Ultrastar will last that long. What it means is that, if you take 1200 Ultrastars and run them for 1000 hours each, that statistically, one of them will fail. Put in that light, even these most reliable Hard Disks appear vulnerable to random failure. As a side note, I imported 2 A7K2000s (2 Terabytes) from the US a while back, and one was DOA.

Moving on and back to the question. Essa, you didn’t say if the acreage has HID area lights installed such as pole mounted mercury or sodium vapour or is it an entirely unlit expanse? Bosch have produced an interesting pamphlet on an IR company it acquired. Bosch GMBH warns of the degradation of IR over time but perhaps the German Electronics Icon got it wrong? See: http://stna.resource.bosch.com/documents/Data_sheet_enUS_1770432523.pdf This is not the original Aegis document, however Bosch does acknowledge the degradation of IR which would have a larger affect over the maximum distance you mention of 100 metres. Actually, here is the original AEGIS document I referred to: http://www.cbc-cctv.com/uploads/tx_n21download/AEGIS_INTELLIGENT_IR_261007.pdf

Originally, I mistook this website for a Public Forum that discussed the minutiae of closed circuit television. I didn’t initially realise that it is not really a public forum for the free exchange of information so much as a profit making scheme intended to expand the private fiefdom of one man (and his disciples) on his Holy Grail of grasping for money like Ebenezer Scrooge. Anyone who dares to disagree with Bruce Lee is then personally belittled or attacked. If it were a genuine forum, then discussions about CCTV would not be stampeded by the Thought Police (Bruce) wielding his num-chuks. If a person wants to discuss the merits of any particular camera, then he should not be automatically hit by a robotic caveat which reads: “If It Cannot Make A Profit Then Shutup.” (Then imagine a flying side kick, a vocal squeal and spinning num-chuks.) Imagine a Hi Fi Forum or a Computer Forum where every issue was evaluated by the cheap criteria “How much can I sell that for?” And where every comment was picked apart for profit. An enthusiast is a person who takes an interest in a subject or an artefact for reasons that are not pecuniary. So a CCTV enthusiast would be a person who is interested in the historical development, design, construction and application of surveillance camera technology.

I think the point is that IR does not surprise burglars like PIR activated visible light - the Deer in the Headlights Scenario. With IR, a typical burglar, graffitti artist or junkie etcetera will slowly continue to try and prise open that window; work the locks on your car; climb over your back fence; and take his or her time trying to break into your property because they do not know they have been detected. The point others have made is that the invisble IR offers ZERO deterent and may in fact assist the criminal element because they are not consciously interupted. Rory, I think there is a disparity between CCTV Enthusiasts and CCTV as Commerce. CCTV for commercial, profit making applications will always have to crunch the economics and balance costs against any customer's expectations. You will always have to give the customer what he wants no matter how stupid the request. Enthusiasts, on the other hand, do not reduce CCTV to economic expediency. Enthusiasts may try to build elegant systems that are not determined by the bottom line. You, however, always reduce the argument - and I mean always - to economic expediency. If an enthusiast wants to instal low lux cameras and PIR activated LEDs then so be it. It is my opinion that the folk behind the 25 camera installation ought to approach the problem in a certain way, while you argue that, because you have installed thousands of cameras, no alternative approach is unacceptable. My alternative approach is certainly acceptible to me.

Of course they do Stanislav. We seem to have two concurrent arguments here. (1) The value of IRs and (2) Power supply issues. I have tried to raise awareness on this before. The IR 'spruikers' have never justified the use of IRs on any rational basis. (i) The cost of power to run the IRs is seldom mentioned. (ii) The capital investment of adequate IRs is ignored. (iii) IRs in bullet cameras typically have a limited range and therefore limit the camera's field of view. (iv) What actual advantage is there in using IRs over visible light? (apart from blindsiding a perpetrator) It seems to boil down to a psychological 'need' in the customer. They get a little thrill seeing the dark lit up by invisible light for the first time. They don't consider the ramifications of such a camera. A spotlight of invisible light surrounded by darkness. A sharp criminal would go out with an IR camera to locate all the IRs on a job and simply work around them.

Rory said: I believe that the Aegis IR company was acquired by Bosch. The 20 page Aegis IR pamphlet states on the very first written page: "A common problem with ALL LED BASED ILLUMINATORS is the continual degradation of the optical output level and therefore performance over time. The optical output of a standard LED illuminator will degrade by up to 10% in the first few months of operations and this will continue to degrade further over the course of the lamp." Aegis have taken this deterioration into consideration to produce IRs that they claim maintain constant IR output.

Well since we are talking about 'acres', the voltage drop seemed like a given. So what? Are you saying that anyone contemplating a new 25 camera installation should honestly push ahead with a 12 volt DC setup? Also: This is where it always comes down to the devil in the detail. When I started out with CCTV I threw myself in the deep end with a PTZ installation. Others said it took a lot of moxie to do that and, sure, there were more than a few sleepless nights figuring out how to get some very expensive equipment running. I used a 12 VDC power supply and this was the beginning of months of problems which were finally resolved when I threw out the 12 volt transformers and went to a Pelco MCS1620-SB. What a beautiful unit this is – 110/240 selectable Inputs and 24-28 switchable VAC Output with Circuit Breakers. The DC power issues were implicated in frying two backboards and I ended up buying a lab power supply to adjust the voltage and increase the amperage. All of that didn’t matter, because it never fixed the problem. The minute I installed the Pelco, all the power problems disappeared. That was about a year ago. I estimate that the power problems caused by those 12 volt power supplies ended up costing me 4 or 5 times what the Pelco MCS1620-SB cost. Simple fixed cameras may not be so sensitive to power supply problems. Perhaps they will take anything thrown at them or keep running well below 13.8 volts DC. I dunno. And you could argue that if any client can get by on 12 volts then so be it. But what happens when they want to put in a PTZ or other sensitive equipment without 24 VAC? They’d end up with a pig’s breakfast potentially with 12 volt cameras on one set of power supplies and 24 VAC PTZs on another. It’d look like a high school science project gone wrong.

Why would you put in IR floodlights in preference to other visible light floodlights? Cheap IRs will give tiny patches of 'light' while the remaining acres are pitch black and unmonitored. There has to be a compelling reason to use IR light. As tomcctv mentioned in a previous post, there are few institutions which bother with IR (other than prisons, airports or other light-sensitive installations). The use of IR light has to work to the advantage of the surveillance setup and not to the benefit of the criminal or interloper. IR also has a rapid drop off in efficacy. i.e. the IR lamps begin losing their strength from the moment you switch them on. Expensive IR solutions take this into account and build in design solutions to compensate for this. On this 'several acre site', presumably it would already use photocell-activated sodium vapour or metal halide area lights. If so, there should be sufficient lighting for low lux box cameras. Also, what's with the 12volt installation? The first item on the budget ought to be an industry standard 24-28 vac power supply. Unless you want to become an enthusiast or an aficionado, don't even mention the word 'cheap' on this forum. Generally speaking, the so-called expensive solutions end up costing far less in the long run through greater image efficacy; durability and less down-time. What starts out cheap inevitably costs three times what it would have cost if you had followed the advice of the experienced forum members here who graciously educate all of us on Good Solid Solutions: Solutions which deliver images that can stand up as Evidence in Court.

It's bound to be some minor oversight. Let's do a systematic diagnosis of the problem. (1) Have you established that the keyboard KBD300A does work by hooking it up to a separate Pelco dome? if OK then: (2) Check the RS485 wiring. then: (3) Check the wall block terminal to see if it's wired correctly. Were the PTZs working recently with another controller? i.e. What is the history of those PTZs? How were they controlled? Have you checked the switch settings inside the back board? They may have been set for an entirely different controller.

Some cowboy installers have just sold a $7K system to a trophy home built by local drug dealers. My cameras are picking up IR light emitted from inside their domes. I was pretty certain that IR would bounce back from the inside of the perspex interfering with the cameras? The question is: Can IR light be emitted from inside a fixed dome or will it bounce back off the perspex? Also, even if it did work, wouldn't watermarks and dust on the outside of the dome cause the light to bounce back eventually?

tomcctv wrote: That's a neat observation. Two problems with full blown IR (apart from the cost of separate IR 'luminaires' like the AEGIS Intelligent IR) is: (i) the additional cost of electricity to power the lamps and; (ii) the lack of deterent because the perpetrators don't know they are being lit up into a ghostly image. Not letting the 'perp' know they are being videod must have its advantages in prisons or in 24/7 monitored situations with a chance of apprehending the blighters before they run away. Other than that, decent LED floodlights (Whelen 24volt?) with dual scan motion detectors would probably be a better combination for domestic and unmonitored commercial applications. That would also extend the use of standard quality box cameras inside enclosures which, as Soundy and Rory mentioned, are useless in pitch black situations.

When you live in a new neighbourhood inundated by heroin addicts looking for their next victim, every action by an addict or a drug dealer is a concern. Many of us have cameras because addicts run around with jimmy bars looking for opportunities. So the subject of heroin is at the forefront of CCTV application. Personally speaking, I have collected hundreds of close-up events of addicts sticking needles into their arms at the front, side and rear of my house. Heroin use is reaching an epidemic. If you took away heroin, the need for CCTV would dramatically diminish.

Thanks Rory for the detailed remarks. No doubt about it. It is always about Horses for Courses. i.e. specific solutions to specific problems Infrared is obviously needed when there is no ambient light.

I didn't realise IR was being fitted inside domes. It seems like a pretty severe set of compromises to manufacture a dome with internal IR so that, as Soundy said, they can be marketed as 'night cameras'. The idea striikes me as junk. Hard to beat a Low Lux, Hi Res Camera with an Auto-Iris Lens fitted into a proper enclosure. Expensive, but solid 24/7 performance year after year after year...

Thanks Soundy. That's very well explained. I hadn't realised there was an attempt to isolate the IR from the lens by using a foam gasket. I can see how the gasket should work in principle, though it does seem to be a mickey mouse solution. Are any reputable companies using this method?

The UK riots have resulted in a greater appreciation by the public for the power of CCTV – and with that a newfound respect for what we do. When the news media blitzed the airwaves with hundreds of ‘events’ recorded at fair distances they demonstrated the immense reach we have with our cameras. It is the ability to record a crime as it happens; to capture facial images; to record number plates etc.; and to catch other details that makes CCTV an anathema to ill-prepared criminals. But incredibly, there is a large demographic that believes all cameras are dummies or that no one is actually watching them as they commit the crimes. And I think there are still many Police who do not realize that we have dozens and dozens of open and shut prosecutions on our hard drives just there for the asking. Instead of ‘pounding the beat’ officers may want to liaise more closely with CCTV people and be handed the crime, the face shot and the number plate for many open and shut cases.

'Spitting on the sidewalk' refers both to the arbitrary enforcement of the law, on the one hand, and the creation of a more elegant, civilised society on the other. In many Western nations, we acknowledge the general collapse of social standards and degenerate public behaviour. Many of these anti-social behaviours are anticipated by the laws I mentioned. With the enforcement of the seemingly trivial laws, the thug element in our society is forced to lift its game. I dare anyone to visit Singapore and spit publicly. And the goons that stole LC475's laptop may have thought twice if the full force of the law had picked them up for past minor infractions: hence the goal of Zero Tolerance.

The British Government just argued for Zero Tolerance. A police concept originally implemented in New York. With Zero Tolerance, any infraction of the law results in an arrest. Spitting on the sidewalk; jaywalking; loitering; public nuisance; public disturbance; etc, may all lead to arrest and prosecution. The increased prevalance of CCTV is an inevitable prelude to the shape of things to come. The Roman Empire collapsed in good measure because Rome could not support the Million Man Army to 'protect' Rome and its Dominions. With CCTV, when the opportunity for crime presents itself - images are recorded and a simple bureaucratic process is implemented to hunt down the perpetrators. It's all very efficient and a Million Man Army is, in good measure, replaced by England's Two Million CCTV Cameras. What is missed by the cameras is provided by permanently recorded SMS, Twitter, emails, and phone GPS tracking. What anyone thinks, where anyone goes, and what anyone is, is subject to complete evaluation. We are on the brink of this new and exciting moment in history: the absolute and complete surveillance of society.

Does not auger well. Maybe the VBM 24VF will soon become their 80th superceded camera.