SEANHAWG

Which model did you get?

Are you talking about showing all 5 cameras up on one screen? If so, your DVR does that. But you will most likely have to get an 8 camera DVR because they usually only make 4,8, or 16 channel DVR's. Somr DVR's have a Spot out that you could use specifically for the PTZ camera or use a splitter as the previous poster said. Also, are you having an electrician install this because you want him to do the labor or because you think he may be knowledgeable? If its not knowledge, that is not always the best thing to hire him for. We have had a few customers who hired an electrician to install their system only to call me and say that the electrician told them that our equipment did not work or the electrician would call me directly and tell me that, come to find out, the electrician just didnt know what he was doing. If you want good work done, I would recommend hiring a CCTV installer. It may be a little more expensive but atleast they know what they will be doing and you can ensure the work is done properly.

Did you try hooking the cameras up directly to the monitor and bypassing the DVR totally to see if its a DVR problem or a Camera problem? If not, you should and try to see what the culprit is.

There is probably not a certified AD specialist on this board but several of us have probably worked with them in the past. Please state your problem in specifics and we'll try to help.

Get an RCA cable with BNC adapter and hook it up to a TV. Now that you will be able to see something, go ahead and reset the DVR to your previous VGA settings or reset the whole machine factory Default .

How many cameras do you have in your system? If its 8 or less, then why not just take the GV-CMP163R out of the equation? Whenever you had it hooked up to your old VCR, did you have the multiplexers VCR settings set at "User Define"? If not, you should. Also, when you are playing your recordings back, do you have your multiplexer set at "playback mode"? It is the little button that is second to the left that looks like a tape. You have to push this button before you start viewing playback. We carry this particular mode. I sent you a PM to our instructional site on how to get these things hooked up, they can be kind of tricky sometimes if you miss a small step. It may be a little tricky to get this to work with you DVR but it should work if done correctly I think.

There is no way that can be D1. It just looks crappy if I am being honest. If your DVR is set at D1, then there is something wrong in your system, whether it be the camera, DVR, cable, connector etc. I would agree with a previous poster that that doesnt even look as good as CIF. Before you sell your CNB domes, I would do a bench test with the camera and take the DVR totally out of the equation. Take the CNB dome down, get an RCA cable with BNC adapter and plug the camera directly into your TV or monitor and see if you get better results.

Did you try hooking the cameras up directly to the monitor and bypassing the DVR totally to see if its a DVR problem or a Camera problem? If not, you should and try to see what the culprit is. If its the DVR, it may just be a ghetto DVR. Do you have the DVR model? We have had some DVR's that just completely wash out the picture and make them very grainy looking. It may just be a bad video processor in the DVR. But I would try to hook the cameras directly up to the monitor to see if its the cameras first. You can also try resetting the DVR back to factory default to see if that clears it up a little.

Just curious as to why this would make the voltage drop? As I thought Voltage had more to do with distance and amperage had more to do with "power current pull". So the higher the amperage pull the voltage will drop as well?

Gotcha. What gauge would you recommend?

What happens if these are used?

Well what I meant was if he used 24 VAC cameras and he used a 28V power supply to power them.

Toms suggestion looks interesting. I wonder if a 28 Volt power supply would work for this as well. What do you think guys?

Yeah I seen those but I was hoping to just get some cheap converter or adapter to make this work if possible. Something that would split into a Y with RS-485 outputs on one side and Coax cable on the other side or something like this.

Will all 8 cameras each be 1100' away from the power supply?

Yes but it doesnt have to have infrared lights to be a true day/night.

If you are saying that you are not seeing the high resolution during playback then it could be that the advertisement was somewhat falsely advertised. I have made this mistake when we first started buying and testing DVR's myself. We have purchased alot of DVR's and we have seen it all, Here are some things that I look out for now when looking at specs: If the specs dont state it, ask the seller What resolution is each channel recorded at if all 4,8, or 16 channels are recording simultaneously? Some DVR's claim to have D1 Rez but it can only be for one channel recorded at one time. Or they may mean that the D1 resolution is divided up in between all 4 channels which would be CIF for each channel if it is a 4 channel DVR. You will also want to ask what each channels frame rate will be when all channels are recording simultaneously at D1 because quite often it is lower than 30 FPS. One of the worse false advertisements we have seen is they claim to have D1 resolution but that is only for live viewing. During recording it will be something like CIF. That will tick you off. If the sellers cannot answer these questions, then I would move on.

OK Thanks!

I didnt really think it was a rumor, actually it was an electrician customer of ours who told first me this when this problem started happening. He had the same problem, called me up and told me that the multiplexer was defective, in which he was using a 5 amp DC 12V, I told him that perhaps it was overamped, he then replied what you just told me. So I sent him out another multiplexer and the same thing happened. He then tried a 2.5 amp and it worked fine. I am not denying the amperage draw theory, I was just wondering why they did that. It happens on our little quad processors that only require 1.0 amps too. Perhaps it is the regulated and non-regulated thing you were talking about. Also, here is a question I have been wondering about. Say there is a camera that is installed in a thermostat regulated heated and fanned housing. The power supply being used is a 24 VAC power supply and the power supply powers the camera and housing simultaneoulsy. Whenever the fan or heater kicks on, I assume it pulls more amperage out of the power supply, but is there also a voltage drop as well when this happens?

I have heard this too but we have some multiplexers that require 2.5 amps 12V DC power and we when plug them in with a 12V DC 5 amp power supply, they just act real funky and the alarm beeps constantly. We sell our multiplexers without power supplies and we get about 2 or 3 reports a month of people using power supplies that have too much amperage and when they use the power supply with the correct amperage, it solves the problem. What could be causing this?

Probably like most other people on here. I would prefer to use a higher resolution with lower frame rate. So if half D1 is the highest rez your DVR can be set to then use it but if it can go full D1 I would do that. I prefer to use atleast 15 fps and I prefer to never go under 7 FPS though, but thats just me.

Sounds more like a DVR problem if the cameras clear up on quad view. The only true way to test the cameras clarity is to connect the cameras one by one directly into the monitor. If it shows up clear, than can be assured that it is your DVR causing the problems. Also, are the pictures grainy during live viewing or just playback?

so is the consensus that you would prefer to have D1 with a lower frame rate as opposed to a CIF DVR with 30 FPS. That is if you had to choose?

12V DC electrical system? How many amps is it putting out? I think that would be the thing to find out to see if you can power multiple pieces of surveillance equipment or not. I did run across a thing the other day that allows you to view cameras over a telephone line. But you would have to have enough amperage to power your: your camera DVR or VCR (if you want one) and the Phone Line Transmitter Device You would have to make sure all these devices run off 12V DC. And then the problem you face is trying to jimmy rig their power cords to your 12V power supply. My initial thoughts are that your solar powered power supply will either send too much or too little amperage to power everything correctly.

What are some of the chip solutions that you recommend to look for?