CollinR

Thats pretty bogus, they should use the set screws. Now it's also possible they used basically a hot glue gun, in that case they should send you the damn set screws and you can break the glue loose without much trouble. They probably did focus the cameras though.

Yup you are tring to access the LAN Ip from the WAN side that won't work. On your linksys router look at the status page, there you will find your current WAN IP, you that IP:8080 and you'll connect. That IP probably changes so you might consider setting up DDNS.

It's out of focus, while you are focusing in the evening using the spot monitor focus on that blue sign and try to straighten it out. You should be able to imporve this quite a bit but recognition or identification with this camera in that location is totally out of the question. You would need 2-3 more cameras to get any real evidence but this can be made workable for observation.

Box cam no doubt,

I'm with thewireguys, if you want bad@ss run fiber to the top floor and put a switch to brand out your 7 cams. Otherwise just homerun the suckers if you are under 330'.

Well I think you have skipped the crawling and walking and went into the full blown sprint. #1 Camera enviornment. Do you live in Syberia? Do you live in Pheonix? #2 Lighting Do you have too much, too little, too adverse, too back lit? #3 Cost Thats the correct order, if you put cost at the front you will certainly not be happy. If the enviornment is wrong the cam will die, if the lighting is wrong the cam won't work right. The is regaurdless to how much you spend, you can spend $1k per cam and fry them all in Phoenix.

Try our google streets on a major city near you. It's the same concept but the camera used by google is megapixel. EDIT: Here is a link for Dallas, TX the blue lines are streetview capable. If you point the cam straight down sometimes you can see the car that has this thing strapped to it's roof driving around street by street.

Are you looking for an Ip cam with a Radius client? That one I haven't noticed before. If I were you... Head out and pick up a cheap linksys wifi router and and put DD-WRT firmaware on it. That will give you a test server for Radius on the uber cheap, then you can start playing with how to find a camera with a Radius client. (DD-WRT firware only works on certain routers, all wifi even though you don't intend to use the wifi side. It's just a $45 WRT54G is rock solid stable and runs Radius so I don't think you can get a better server cheaper. You will be able to shut off the wifi radios to disable all wifi insecurity issues.)

Adjust your color saturation to 0 or the lowest setting for the time being, then you'll at least have a half decent picture but it'll be BW with color cam low light performance.

The card it's legit your problem is with the software so remove Geovision and start tring some of the generic softwares.

All CCTV DVR compression techniques are pretty lossy but those setting will significantly reduce your time to export when compared with the MPEG option.

Oh I see now!!! Well yeah you would want stranded coax! You need it to flex as the car moves. Or stranded Cat5, I think you had high voltage too close for too long.

You know some wireless might be worthwhile, as you could have inexpensive laptops in the cabs. Just run IP cams and put an bridge on each machine. Then the boss man can also watch from the office assuming they stay in basically the same areas all day. Otherwise I'm with survtech.

No problems however odd location and completely jacked finish.

In My Humble Opinion Yeah you have an issue if UTP is causing troubles like that under a couple hundred feet. I have never had interferce on my Cat5 I may do a little test of this as well as I have one of those whole block transformers in my back yard.

Never seen stranded coax but I guess it's possible, I would not suggest using it as terminating will be a complete pain. As mentioned, copper core and copper briad at least 95% coverage. Really though I suggest you start looking at Cat5 it's all together easier and lets you combine cameras in a single cable or upgrade easily to IP cameras when thier cost comes down. If you do it right it can actually do both too. It does cost more for smaller installations, but it's worth it IMHO.

Costco does not use those systems themselves. Double your budget or it will be easy to evade capture if this guy can complete a thought. I have a customer in Pheonix I may be able to arrange a demo but the $1500 budget is out.

I dunno know about that... You saying I cannot rip pages from a book I own?

Keep in mind the unit itself is linux based, so you should have decent odds on swapping the HDD. However I would still assume the video to be in a private format for security purposes. You might try for shell access to it, you may be able to get it to transcode from the shell. I dunno, wish you luck!

This is a simple means for me to quantify how much performance per dollar spent to get it. For instance you have 2 cameras with identical specifications and performance, however one is less expensive. The less expensive unit has the greater "bang:buck". This is all things being equal, same warantee same everything but price. I do this weekly, however no need to set IPs in the cameras. Just install the DVR and give me a call I can do the rest. Agreed $4k more must have beet a pretty small system, most of mine comparing to Axis (as I get the request all the time) it's much more. Then again my systems are designed to provide a bunch of coverage, no 4-6 cam jobs. My customers will capture intrusion from 360*, there are big benefits to having a bunch of inexpensive "worker" cameras. Better resolution is better but the system designer has control of when/where they can be of use. For most of my customers I have a camera within about 48" of every entrace/exit. When you are 48" from the camera even CIF resolution will provide facial recognition. Yes I do it all the time, and I remotely support systems bought elsewhere, this has nothing to do with analog vs. IP. Elimiating the coax isn't so much an up front cost savings as it is preventing you from rewiring in the future. IP will mature and you will be able to get decent performance for decent money in the future having the Cat5 in place makes it a no brainer to upgrade. You log into 1 DVR and whatever you are allowed access to you can adjust from there. Same for cameras on RS485 network. Email on motion??? This is a basic feature all decent DVRs can do this. How do you do object of X size traveling from this area to this area emails Y? My analogs can! You add them, being analog doesn't mean being not upgradable. This is the BIGGEST factor, any goof can hang a camera. It takes some knowledge to design the system to be maximized in every way. Using 4 cameras is probably not the ticket, putting a $1k multimegapixel camera 48" from the target is a waste, spending $600 for a fake day/night VGA camera also waste. Agree with you 100% in concept but leave resolution out of it, sometimes you can swap multiple analogs for single megapixel and your bang:buck is improved. Resolution is CRITICALLY important, this why comparing analog to IP is in contrast. If megapixel cameras were $350 we wouldn't be having this discussion (yes I know 1 exists, it's not all that either). Example I do some work for a nationwide wholesale club in this region. I continually tell them to go megapixel at the main entrance and exists and they just won't due to the $. The reality is the bang to buck on those locations make it totally worthwhile. I have no problems admitting where IP is the better choice, as my goal is the best most cost effective system. Thats because they often do not, (right now in 2008) someday for sure they will. No corrosion, but he is talking about what I call "fluff". Extras that cost more that really aren't needed. I don't agree with any of that. I also provide streams to websites from my analog system and multiple access to a PTZ, in both cases a single users actually controls the PTZ functionality. THAT IS GOOD BANG:BUCK! Putting a megapixel where a $100 bullet would suffice is not. With VGA IP cameras you are comparing a Cobra SVT to a Ferrari, the performace is similar but one is sustantially more expensive. Although I have never had a client employee murdered on video (thank god!) I have captured my share using facial identification from analog cameras (20-30 convictions using my analog captured video evidence). If I designed the system then only a disguise/mask would help to prevent facical ID, I have you from every angle not just a couple. Although they do not exist as of some old school analog tricks work, still they are substaintially more and perform worse in most cases. This is actually an Axis product too! No thats the whole point it's called access control. When you fire the manager you only need to change 1 login in 1 place, not a login on each camera! Come on nobody wants to do that, in my systems IP/analog makes no difference. How do you install covert cameras to catch the manager stealing? Forget about price we are talking image quality. A. My customer NEVER "forget about the price". B. If the camera can't capture anything you have no video quality. Before when I mentioned good bang to buck I was thinking three "megapixel" cameras replacing 12 NTSC cameras, I cannot imagine the situation where 1 "3 megapixel" would replace 12 NTSC cameras. I also don't think thewireguys was suggesting that either. We havn't even gotten into WDR and whatnot, some IP cameras are totally incapable in dealing with bad lighting. I don't even know of an WDR IP camera under $1k (retail) and I know of none that are megapixel. In 5 years both will be readily available and cost effective.

The export tool is not transcoding if you choose avi as output format and had MPEG4 selected as the compression in the recording setup. The compression is selected in the setup>recording, the choice is yours. There is no such beast as "lossless" video compression, it's not like audio all video compression even DVD MPEG2 is lossy. I do not know of a codec to allow dss files to play however I do assume one exists.

It runs on 12v but takes it specs a full amp.

Older cards you may need to plug it into the 2nd port but if that were the case it would not allow cameras 5-8. In setup>cameras I assume you have checked the enabled box? If both were the case I would RMA the video expander as that would also cover defects in the ribbon cable. Paying a little more may get you things like 100% inspections where I would have caught this before it shipped.

I suggest you pick a dealer from here and quite a few of us are. Keep in mind support after the sale basically insures you cannot be the absolute cheapest. You get what you paid for still rings true.

I still advise analog for bang:buck factor unless megapixel is in order or required. Sometimes indoor applications with good lighting IP that don't want recording can be done on a reasonable cost but for the most part it's bang:buck is pretty bad. However I do promote Cat5 and baluns homerun to allow for a transition to IP without a big rewiring cost. IP is coming I have no doubt, it's just right now I think it's in it's terrible twos rather then matured products. Since I put all the IP cameras on a dedicated network the big gain of using existing cabling is often lost. It is my understanding that this will be mandated in OK in the next few years along with a variety of other things I already do but marketing hype To overcome the IP ignorance I just do head to head comparisons with pricing and let the customer choose. There are just too few outdoor true day/night IP based cameras. So to get one you'll need to spend x2 to x5 the $ compared to an analog equal. Then I show them how a quality DVR can provide the same functionality in addition to a consolidated access control. In both cases only the DVR can connect directly to a camera.