SEANHAWG

I still have a flip phone. I am starting to feel outdated. I jokingly call it the jitterbug.

are you sure you have your network settings correct on your swann?

Or better yet, whats the TVL on the breeze and does it have an IR cut filter.

I find the best method is to get a good set of walkie talkies, or 2 guys with a cell phone, have one at the camera and one at the monitor and do the following "Zoom out a little.....no, too far, go back........awww you went to far again go the other way......no! now your way off, what are you doing!?!?.......okay now, screw in your set screws.......Aww man, when you were screwing it, it got out of focus again......okay you got it in focus now, shut the housing up.......... what the heck are you doing, you totally bumped the camera out of the field of view, start over" I find that thats the best way.

Yeah we get some tube cameras in every now and then. We dont even test them or sell them, we usually just trash them because I dont have the appropriate connector for it and plus, I cant remember what its called but its the big screw on connector, not the F-type, bigger than that. Plus, like you said, they go for nothing on ebay so its not even worth our time to even auction them off at .99 on eBay. Anyways, if you pay for shipping, you can have them. I usually get one in a few in with every load, I just looked and I dont have any right now but whenever I get some in, I can email you, just shoot me a PM with you email address.

There is no one all purpose camera. Give us some details about what the camera will be viewing in on, the viewing distance, is it in or outside, the lighting scenario at night, and any other detail you can provide would be great.

Check the CNB line of cameras, they are well accepted on this forum and should fit within your budget. I would recommend that you get a vari-focal lens as opposed to a fixed focal lens like you got, this way its a little more versatile for your field of view.

Get something with a 1/3" sensor too.

Sorry, I just re-read your post about the Altronix power supply. I would still bench test it though.

The very best way to troubleshoot the problem is to take it down and bench test it with short cables and wire and plug it directly into a monitor. You gotta start from square one to start ruling out and doing the elimination game and go from there. If you bench test it and dont have the problem, then its gotta be your cable or power wires or power supply. What power supply are you using by the way? I know you changed some of this stuff out but perhaps something is inferior in the system that is causing the problem. If you still have the same problem, play with the dip switches while you are bench testing it. After playing with the dip switches and you still have the problem, then likely its a bad camera.

Sounds like your DVR is defective.

I think 20VA is the most commonly purchased 24VAC transformer. But 40VA is the next step up and then I have seen 50 & 60 VA as well. These can all be found at online stores.

I am setting up multiple PTZ's at my house and I want to control them with my 4 channel DVR. I really do not want to use a seperate PTZ controller as I like the way my DVR has mouse driven PTZ controls. My DVR only has one set of RS-485 connections. I know I can daisy chain my PTZ's but I really dont want to because that will be a pain in the butt to install because my PTZ's are at opposite ends of the house and I have to run all my wire on the exterior of my house as attic access is not an option. What I am looking for is a hub of some sort that will take 4 seperate sets of RS-485 connections and take it down to one RS-485 connection to input into my DVR. Is there something like this or can you recommend something else that will achieve this. I was thinking about trying to squeeze all 4 sets of wires into my one RS-485 connection on the DVR but I didnt know if this would cause communication issues to the other PTZ's, my initial thought are that it would not since each PTZ would be assigned its own CAM ID but I thought I would ask first. Yes I know that I will have to go into the DVR's menu and change the CAM ID everytime I want to switch a PTZ but that is not a problem. Any suggestions.

What type of cable and connectors are you using? And what connection on the TV are you putting it into.

I thought the CD came with a full client software but whenever I installed it, it was just the same exact remote viewing software for over the internet. There was some other program on the disc that I didnt install but I think it was a program to help view AVI videos. So no, I dont think it came with a full client software.

I think this has been reviewed before on here but I thought I would give my personal review as well. I know this DVR is sold quite often as a bundle package with some other cheap Q-see cameras and cable and such but I was able to pick this DVR by itself for a real nice price in the US. I agree with many other people that if you buy a package from Q-see or any of the other budget surveillance companies, the DVR may be decent but the cameras will be junk. This is no exception on this DVR, the DVR was not too shabby in my opinion. Please note that when I rated this, I kept in mind that this was a budget DVR and I rated it accordingly. Overall Look and Feel of DVR unit and contents: The DVR unit itself is pretty Ghetto looking. Yeah I know this has no bearing on performance of the unit but man I wish they would have re-thought their design a little bit. The unit comes with a very easy to understand manual. The front of the manual gives numbers and emails if you need tech support which I would think be pretty helpful in a first time surveillance consumers eyes. Unit comes with a mouse, remote control, a disc which contains the media player and network viewer. even comes with a short Cat5 Cable. Recording Quality Options Will record CIF at 120 FPS, HD1 at 60 FPS, D1 at 30 FPS. There are 3 bit rate quality options Normal, Good, and Best. It doesnt specify at what Bit Rates these are. It also has continous, scheduled, manual, and motion detection recording. DVR GUI Very basic and fairly easy to understand. The recording searches are in 30 minute intervals but they are pretty easy to search. Everything else is pretty straightforward. Playback Quality This is what suprised me out of this budget DVR. The first thing I did was check to see how the recorded video looked at D1 with the best quality. I have to say that it wasnt too shabby and it was actually pretty decent, probably the best that I have seen out of a low end DVR. There was a little bit of artifacts on far away objects that were not in the line of focus but nothing hideous by any means. I do have a camera setup that has alot of snow at night and the DVR really didnt do well on processing that but thats partly my fault for having that camera setup like that. CIF recording looked as it should but I never really record in CIF so I didnt analyze it too much. Also, it has 4 channel simultaneous playback which is sometimes not an option on all budget 4 channel DVR's. Internet and Network Viewing Very basic yet easy to understand. It gives you the option to view the substream "internet" or the full bit stream "LAN". I think I have seen this similar Network GUI on another DVR. The only thing I didnt like about this is the interface did not stretch across the screen. Here is a screen shot: Backing Up Files Kind of funky but not too bad. You have to sift through a days worth of files and save them to a flash drive. It gives you the option to save in 15,30,45, or 60 minute intervals. Pro's -Easy to understand -Good explanatory manual -Good Recording Quality Cons -Does not have internal cooling fan which may not be good if put in warm areas such as attics. -If put in well ventilated places, shouldnt be a problem. Wish it had more flexible file backup, not too much of a big problem. - Wish the web GUI was a little bigger, no biggie - wish it had customizable bit rate. - Will not let me adjust individual channels recording quality, if you change the recording quality, you change it for all channels. Overall, this is a good DVR for a person on a budget and for a person who needs just basic recording capabilities. Not too shabby at all.

true

I see this happen sometimes if you are using housings that have heaters and fans in them. If your housings are thermostat regulated and if the temp gets too hot it makes the fan kick on, Same thing when it gets too cold, the heater will kick on. Perhaps when the heaters and fans are kicking on, it is pulling more amperage out of your power supply and is not able to power both the camera and housing simultaneoulsy. You may try using a "higher amped" power supply on one of the cameras to see if that solves the problem. This has happened a couple of time recently for some of our customers who were using a 24 VAC 20 VA transformer with a 100+ cable run. They switched out with a 40 VA and it solved the problem.

Agreed. It will look fine.

All you need is a simple solution. Get an RCA cable and get a RCA female to BNC male adapter. Plug the adapter end into the BNC out on the multiplexer. Plug the RCA male end into the TV. This will work with any TV with RCA connections on it. Depending on what type of flat screen you have it may look like junk or look pretty decent. I was a firm believer that tube TV's always looked the best for Analog CCTV cameras, but ever since I started hooking up my home system to my 32" Samsung flat screen, it looks pretty good too. The bigger the TV, the better it looks when you are farther back from the screen, but that pretty much goes without saying.

For 16 cameras it would probably be cheaper and less troublesome to replace it with Cat5.

Here is my contraption that cost me under $35 Brand New. I bought a flip up Rear View LCD 3.5" Screen From China. The thing takes 12V DC power, while the screen is flipped down, it will be protected when rattling around in your pocket or tool bag, Cost Shipped from China: $23 Simply push the button to make the 3.5" screen flip up: But Sean, How do you power it? Well I just bought a cheap rechargeable 12Volt batter and charger from China for $12 Shipped!!! I then glued that sucker on the bottom of the LCD unit. Now I will say the cheap battery is starting to poop out on me and doesnt last long anymore, so if I were an installer who would be using this thing all day, I would probably buy a better quality battery, but the flip screen is still tickin and a tockin. The whole thing fits in your pocket. Of course you will need to make sure you get the RCA to BNC adapter but who doesnt have those lying around?

Thanks again!

Sounds like a cry baby. I am sure you will have those in that business. Move on to the next job and forget about it. I think your price was reasonable.

Why not get a super long range spotting scope?