SEANHAWG

That looks overly complicated. Get some regular twist, crimp, or compression BNC connectors

Dang! And that is all I have to contribute to this thread.

I agree that the picture looks pretty good. If it looks different than that on the monitor than its probably a monitor issue. But just note, that you will always get a little bit of noise at night during low light settings, its usually never as clear as daytime.

Sure. Look up on Fleabay and search CCTV decoder. Mine cost $26 I think, from seller "SecurityCamera2000" They said it would ship from Hong Kong, but I got mine in less than 3 days because they actually shipped it from California. The decoder board works like a champ. The only thing that I didnt like was the decoder board makes a clicking sound whenever you move or do any action, no big whoop though. Whats cool is that it accepts 24 VAC and has 12V DC out power. I was really pleased with it for the price.

I got some Lekson's coming in that I am going to test out that came out of a large retailer. I'll let you know how they are. They look aesthetically nice but not real sure how they are performance wise but the retailer that it came out of does not use shabby equipment. Should be here next week, I'll let you know how they turn out.

Screen Shots would be great. It sounds from your descript that you have enough light to not make the picture noisy.

if u decide to get a new hard drive, I recommend the Seagate SV series. Havent had a problem with one yet.

have you done what Tom said? He knows his stuff when it comes to stuff like that.

Hopefully, if they are both Avtech's, you will be able to access them both from the same CMS software.

I guess I was wrong. I have gotten several emails from suppliers saying that they are in shortage of CCD's and that shipping times are longer than normal. Prices on some cameras have raised to $2-4 already. Its amazing how much of an economic impact this is going to put on the entire globe being that Japan is such an export rich country.

I have some salvage PTZ's here with burnt up pan motors but have perfectly good zoom modules in them. I was hoping to create some good zoom cameras with them. Anyways they have sony zoom modules (yeah actual sony cameras, not just the CCD) I cant remember the model of the module right now but anyways I did get the pinout for this little "wire strip" or whatever you call these things. I was hoping they make an adapter type thing where I can plug this strip into the adapter and there would be terminal screws on the other side where I could put wires into. Do they make such an adapter. I dont know what the correct terminology is for this strip so I dont even know what to google. If someone could point me in the right direction, that would be the bomb diggity.

I guess it would help if you knew what the heck I was talking about. Here is a picture that I forgot to leave out on the first post:

The problem you are having is with the power supply that you are providing to the mux. We have the same model and if you do not use a power supply that has atleast 2.5amps, then you will have the problems that you are stating.

I agree. Putting motion based email alerts in areas of high traffic is not recommended in my opinion. It gets to be almost a pain in the butt. Perhaps come up with some alarm related email alert instead to get the more "legit" emails.

Excuse my ignoance in this area but I am so used to using RS-485 controls and PTZ protocols that I have never had experience in this area. Basically, we have gotten from time to time, some cameras that not only have RS-485 controls, they also have extra wire connections that are labeled "Zoom", "Focus, "Menu", and "Iris. So basically it gives you the option to use RS-485 or just direct wire them to the labeled wires if you want to use a seperate remote. Also we have some cameras and lenses that do not have RS-485 controls, they just have the direct wires on them as previously described. I need to learn how to control them. I have a few good zoom lenses here that I need to get fired up. Am I correct in assuming that these wires are controlled by increases and decreases in voltage? For example, if you hooked a wire up to the zoom and there was an increase in voltage in that wire, the camera would zoom in, and if there was a decrease in voltage, it would zoom out. Is that basically how it works? If so, what type of controller would I need to google in order to control these. I am not sure what term to google. I talked to a guy who rigged up a remote control off of a remote control toy to operate his zoom lens. But I was looking for a little bit more professional way to do it

UPDATE: The $22 decoder board came in and works like a champ.

Ha, I thought I was the only one who did that. They have to think that we are trying to plan a heist by surveying their surveillance systems. My wife really thinks I am nerd when I walk into a store with her and start blurting out the brand and model numbers of the cameras. Well she say's I'm a nerd, but I'm sure she really thinks I'm sexy when I do that.

I would love to see some images of your camera that can shine 200 meters of ir. A model number of the cam would be awesome too.

I would guess that its a ploy, a good one at that. But I could be wrong.

I think I bought the same decoder that she has on Fleabay, gotta wait for a couple of weeks for it to show up . I also have the same Ultrak PTZ controller that she has too, I just never bothered to hook it up.

I used a different DVR but you may need to change your port settins. See this thread for example: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23708&hilit=email

So after reading that, it looks like I need a decoder eh?

Thanks for the information. That does help. So what kind of controller do you use to operate a zoom lens or camera that does not work off of Pelco protocols? It does not utilize the RS-485 connections. Is there a cheap controller out there that basically increases and decreases voltage?

Sounds like a crappy DSP. I have bought cameras from China as well that do the same exact thing.

try giving swann a call to see if they have any ideas. I am sorry I couldnt help you on this one.