ljarrald

i've never worked on VHS systems before but i've been asked by a friend of a friend to take a look at the system at his work. the VCR is a panasonic AG-TL350. after being powered up for about 3 seconds, the buzzer flashes and the LCD says E-5 which means 'trouble in the transport area' before i remove the cover and start fiddling, do any of you know what this means? i had no luck getting a service manual so if any of you have it on a PDF, i'd be very greatful for a copy... i am looking for a cheap DVR for them on ebay, but in the meentime i'd like to get this working... thanks!

i'd go for an NVR rather than a PC. less to go wrong.

Hi mike, how are the data lines of the cameras wired? star, or daisy?

any chance of posting the video up?

i'd go with a hybrid 8 channel NVR that has at least 4 analogue camera inputs. (so you can have 4 analogue cams and 4 IP cams) and then on the other building, either use four IP cameras, or four analogue cameras connected to an encoder, and then connect them to a wireless network bridge connected to the NVR.

i assume the PTZs are wired in a combination of star and daisy, and the 5 PTZs not working are on a daisy spur which is has a fault. sounds like a big site, if you don't know what you're doing it'd probably be better to get someone in...

edit: my bad.

i've used second hand cameras like this in the past that had a hole at the side, what i did was take the 'plug' from the hole at the back, and put it on the side, and then fill the hole at the back with a load of silicone.

iknow, and i often wall mount DVRs too. but that doesn't change the fact that the connections are exposed! i'd like just a plain box on a wall, with a bunch of cables going into it, which are then terminated on the inside of the box! no connections visible from the outside! it shouldn't be about what's easier to install. the install takes what? a day or two? and then the system is in for years and years! i'd rather do a proper install and it take a little more effort, instead of doing a half arsed install and it looking cr@p for the years to come... but i find it a lot easier to make installs look neat when terminating cables into wall mounted boxes rather than desktop DVRs anyway.

iknow, and i often wall mount DVRs too. but that doesn't change the fact that the connections are exposed! i'd like just a plain box on a wall, with a bunch of cables going into it, which are then terminated on the inside of the box! no connections visible from the outside!

its about time that bloody DVR manufacturers made them in WALL MOUNTED BOXES! like intruder alarms and fire alarms and other such security equipment, especially the high end ones - having sometimes up to 40 cables terminating to the back of a 'set top box' is horrible!

i love how hard the crappy Chinese factory sellers try!

first of all, where in the UK are you located? s this forum has a few engineers from the UK on it (including myself) secondly, you get what you pay for! it seems to me like you're going to be looking at at least £300 per wireless bridge! and with 15 cameras, that's not going to be cheap! don't forget though, you can get bridges that can do up to four cameras at a time, so as others have said, if you could get wired video connections from four cameras close together to a single point, you would save on the cost of three wireless bridges! stay away from that ebay stuff you posted. that'll cause you nothing but problems. by 'four channel' it means it has four different wireless ranges that can be selected on installation to avoid interference, it doesn't mean it can send four lots of video at once, plus, if you use these, you'll only be able to have 4 cameras wireless before you start getting interference from the others! how close are the cameras to each other? as it may be more cost effective to have the DVR out with the cameras in an IP rated box, and then all you'd need is one wireless network bridge which would be a far cheaper way of doing things! as others have said, a google maps screenshot with drawings of where the cameras will be would be useful!

i acquired an old dennard PTZ CCTV housing, seems its about 20 years old, and decided i wanted to do something interesting with it. a few relays, lights, and a cheap lazer later... i ended up with this! k-cc54lTdCo i then decided to try my luck at getting into a few music festivals with it... its already been booked by two, earning me £150 from each :biggrin: it will have a 'control panel' that will be mounted about 20 meters from the camera its self, so that punters can move it and interact with it.

i use these (but not from ebay) and they work great! best thing is no screw terminals to faff with!

got this camera from a mate, i know its a VCL but not sure on model no. think its quite old. it was an indoor housing, but i took it out for the photo. can it be controlled on RS485 does anyone have a manual? thanks in advance!

has it been doing this ever since it was installed? or is it a recent problem?

get yourself a PTZ. a housing type, not a dome. and attatch a shotgun to it with a remote trigger

get a 220V relay and connect the coil to the bell input on your bell. then when the bell rings, the relay will click. then connect the contacts of your relay to your DVRs alarm input and setup as either N/C or N/O now you have nice dry contacts and won't be putting damaging voltage into the DVR!

have a look at the dedicated micros DS2 DVRs

Hi, we have a site with a 9ch DS2 DVR and keyboard fitted, 8 statics, one PTZ. - none of it installed by us. we need to mask off some of the PTZ's view. every single PTZ i've come across so far has the option to do this digitally so i assume this one does too. the PTZ is made by dedicated micros (DM) (as is the DVR and keyboard) but i'm unsure of the model no as its impossible to get to it without erecting a platform. i couldn't even find a way to get into the cameras menu (assuming it has one) let alone program masking! is there a way to digitally mask areas, or will we have to put some gaffa in the housing (which would be a pain to do)? Thanks in advance! -Luke

the other day my dad mentioned he likes the idea of a camera inside his car. his work means he does a lot of driving, he has been hit by other cars a couple of times in the past (two of his cars have been written off) i know you can get dash cams that just sit on the dashboard and record to an SD card. one of these would probably be fine. i'd like one at the rear too because he has been hit from the rear in the past. ideally i'd like the two cameras to be linked to each other but if they both have to be stand alone then so be it. if i had it my way... i like to over engineer things. i'd get a mini 4CH DVR and hide it in the car along with a camera looking out the front window, back window and one looking at head level of the driver or something along with a microphone and a mobile internet connection with GPS incase it gets stolen or whatever. but it is just a car... it doesn't need to be complicated. budget is not really a problem, i'd like it to be cheap but still good quality gear so quality=/=price i'll hard wire a 12v power feed into a spare cct from the car battery. i can wire it to 24/7 power, or the power so its only live when the ignition is in. i'd like it to record 24/7 so that if someone breaks in or damages the car whilst its parked they'll be on camera. this means i need either cameras with really low power consumption so they don't drain the battery when the engine isn't running, or a camera with built in backup battery that can last a good few days. thanks in advance...

my current CCTV setup uses multiple 12V PSUs. the kind used for access control systems with backup batteries. one PSU powers four cameras, i have 10 cameras so that's 3 PSUs for cameras. another PSU powers the DVR, and one other powers the alarm sounders. this means i have 5 PSUs. i would prefer to have only one. i have a 110AH 12V leisure battery and charger that i would like to use. the charger will be constantly connected to the battery, and all the cameras, alarm devices, microphones, and the DVR will also be connected to the battery via fuses. BUT. this means that EVERYTHING on the system will share the same PSU (the battery). i am using blauns on every single one of my cameras to transmit video. will all the cameras sharing one PSU create ground loops? and if so, how can i stop it effecting the video? Thanks in advance.

i unfortunately can't afford that. its not fully installed yet. at the moment i only have two power supplies powering the cameras already installed. i would need to buy more to power everything else. but i would rather have one battery that powers everything via a fusebox. i also already have a battery and charger, so this option would be much cheaper. i do have ground loops on cameras that currently share PSUs i have used ground loop isolators to stop it on some of the cameras, will ground loop isolators work if everything is powered from one source?