CollinR

Thats always the killer, you can't have abuse of it but it hinders the community's flow of information if the users feel they can't link to other websites/forums. Obviously linking back to your own website without a banner ad is a no-no. Thats pretty much universally accepted, people who do it should know better. From my experience from other boards it's really nice to have a manufacturer's rep as a member, I don't think it should be discouraged. They often have key insight that nobody else has access to. I think the balance here is pretty weighted towards dealers/installers but I could be totally wrong. You see an end user from time to time but they make their thread, get their support and move on. The personalities here and active day after day will be what make or break this place.

I don't do anything but DVRs, so I can't give you anything on stand alone multiplexors. To get the video out you have a couple of options. A BNC to RCA adapter, this one is from radio shack, hopefully local to you. Wherever you buy your other CCTV parts, they will for sure have these. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102688&cp=2032058&pg=1&f=Taxonomy%2FRSK%2F2032058&categoryId=2032058&kw=bnc&kwCatId=2032058&parentPage=search You can then connect to the TV as you would a VCR/Camcorder, game machine... You can also modulate it to a UHF/VHF frequency and inject it into your cable or antenna TV system if you have one. http://www.channelvision.com/index/47 You would need basically the cheapest Channel vision you can get, CCTV doesn't need stereo or surround throughput. You only need 1 channel as the DVR or multiplexor will combine or switch the camera veiws on a single channel.

Get specific, what hardware and which distribution?

As long as you are using FAT32, not a member of a domain and Geo is okay as admin account you might as well save your $. XP Pro doesn't have anything over XP Home in that situation.

How many square feet in the daycare and playground areas? If you can limit the number of cameras into the 4-6 range a Geovision 250 card would probably cover you pretty well and it's cheaper then a color multiplexer if you have a modern donor PC to put it in. If the donor PC has a TV out you can modulate the signal and add it to your TV channel list so it's available from every PC or TV in the church. A better solution would be a geovision "combo" card, it has integrated TV out that doesn't show stuff that's not needed on the TVs, works better but more $. If you have a resident computer geek in the church they will have no problems getting this going, it's not the concern that most people give it.

Why not remote veiwing? Most of the daycares I have seen tout the abilty to check in while your at work/on the road. It's a good selling feature. Also the first lawsuit you have you will get a DVR so you might as well get it now.

I would love to say Debian but its XP pro SP2.

I have a customer who this happens to as well, be glad you aren't having to run service calls to it. Luckily for me hers will go months rather then days.

I was getting over 17, the interface looks good. I think I'm going to try one of these.

Yes you can have wake from [depends on mobo] and if the PC is in hybernation it will wake. I don't think those will actually boot a PC that is shutdown. All the UPS needs to do is flick the power off to the PC's outlet when normal AC is restored. This will make power on restore work like it should. Some of Abit's moberboards have features under "intregrate periferials" that allow you to do some funky things to boot but I think it would be too much trouble to get it working.

Another thing... How do they show the video on a PC monitor without deinterlacing it? PC monitors are all progressive scan and every analog camera I have ever seen is interlaced. It's getting deinterlaced somewhere or the captures would be every other field instead of full frame as they appear. It wuld be nice if a GV rep would show up and fill us all in.

The answer to that question is yes. My question is, is there one thats under or close to $100 USD?

Oh I understand how it works, I was doing it 10 years ago. I just don't fully utilize a 2 Ghz so running the risk is not worth it. In the media servers that would fully utilize it and already have the cooling to support it IMO it's still not worth it. My 7 yo has a coppermine 550 running XP stable for about 3 years at a little over 850Mhz. Taking something that has already been used up and recycling it into something worthwhile for no cost... Thats where I'll overclock. Heck this PC I'm on now is 1.6Ghz and isn't stressed by surfing the web, or 99% of the other stuff I do. Transcoding video on the other hand...

The problem is if the UPS doesn't get drained down enough it will continue to supply 120v to the PC the PC will never see the power failure and hence it won't restore from something that was never lost. The UPS needs to kill the power to the PC when it wants it to reboot so that BIOS setting will work. I guess the problem is in the name Uniteruptable Power Supply We need it interupted! Right when the power comes back on. EDIT: What UPS are you using Rory?

Yup thats it. From APC's website. http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm Only the "Smart UPS" model has the feature called "Automatic restart of loads after UPS shutdown". I'd be willing to bet that's the problem, too bad thats a $300+ option!

No once the battery is exhausted when power returns you will reboot due to the BIOS setting. From my research this AM I think this might be a UPS specific problem. It's ~supposed~ to owrk like this: Power lost Battery used until predetermined battery capacity left UPS sends shutdown command to PC PC begins shut down Last function of shut down sends a "soft shut down" to UPS UPS waits and kills the power to the PC's outlet .... .... Power restored UPS restores power to the PC's outlet The PC sees this and reboots due to it's BIOS settings Belkin UPSs seem to specifically have issues recieving the soft shutdown command. This might be a feature only available in server level UPSs, I don't know but I'm looking.

Ewww thats a badboy. I think I'm gong to drop this now, the humor has been played.

No I have been lucky, but I did by my Grand Cherokee sight un seen on eBay. Any of you guys ever bought a car on eBay?

That just sounds funny.

AMDs have always been the overclocker's chip, you can change the multiplier and thats a huge advantage. I'm not saying people aren't still doing it but it's not like it once was.

A big UPS and a little PC might work. http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4454&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 Especially if embedded without an optical drive, just make it draw the smallest amount of power possible. As a bonus the PC shown in that link can be wired to the camera's (12v) power supply, that would keep the whole CCTV service running without AC until the UPS gives up the ghost.

Start researching, there are hundreds of ways to skin a cat in the home gadets arena. If you get tied into AMX or Crestron then yeah the specialists often get involved but really those systems are mostly marketing hype now. They only have a few cool hardware devices that aren't readily available elsewhere, it's just like the structured wiring panels you have to conform your customer to them. I try to limit my use of them at all costs. Get an Elk M1 Alarm control and start tinkering, it can do a significant amount of automation. The only difficult areas are copy protected digital video, I don't think anyone has a good solution for distributing it yet (aside from STB (set top box) at each display. Normal TV you can capture/modify>distribute without much trouble. Current DVDs can pose some issues and IIRC AMX has the best available solution for them but you can get it done eventually.

I was about to point that out, it flat out doesn't work correctly for most motherboards. The BIOS rarely sees the power loss, that is unless the UPS exhausts it's battery power. The PC was shut down and so that is it's last state. Thats why On on restore and last state don't work. I have seen a BIOS with an always on setting but thats still not going to work correctly. Maybe we can come up with a timer relay using the high voltage as a trigger method to hit the power on header on the motherboard.

Or do you think they were making use of progressive scan? Geo supports IP cameras remember. Obviously content that was never interlaced will be better then the best interlaced content deinterlaced. EDIT: I guess geo still doesn't support IP cams so I have no idea why they list their qualities like that.

I drink too much coffee, smoke too much too. Anyone else take their coffee via IV? I think I'm gunna push the button naowwowowow....