Nimrod

Auto iris refers to the CCD chip itself acting as a iris by electronically reducing its sensitivity and has nothing to do with the lens. DC iris or “DC drive” is a mechanical iris in the lens that is controlled by a DC signal from the camera in proportion to the amount of light it is getting. This is the most used electro mechanical shutter type. Video iris or “ video drive” is a mechanical iris in the lens that is controlled by feeding the video signal from the camera into the electronics in the lens were it processes the signal and controls the iris as in a DC drive. In a DC drive lens this processing electronics is inside the camera. Video drive type of electronic iris is old style and not used very much any more. Many box cameras still have a switch on them to select either “Video or “DC" drive. EDIT: Some lenses have mechanical user settable irises that stay in a fixed position day and night.

Your question is so broad and open I do not think anyone will bother to answer, especially since you obviously have not spent any time doing the most basic research. Would you go to a car forum and say “hay guys i want to buy a dream car, can you tell me what it is”. To recommend a surveillance system you have to tell people what you expect it to do. Some people just want to know who came to the door. Some people are worried about break ins and want the entire property covered with cameras. Some want coverage good enough for facial and license plate identification. Cameras range from $200 analog 640x480 to $1500 Mega pixel IP cameras 2048x1536, each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Proper placement and lighting is often overlooked for the cameras. The fact that this was pawned off on you tells me that your boss has no idea what he wants, except that he wants “something”, So the quality and usability of the system will depend on how much you want to drag out of him on what he expects or what you think he may want or need.

I have a Iqeye511 IP camera and I can only get 2.x frames per second using blue iris software. Iqeyes spec sheet says this. "The camera shall produce 15 frames per second (fps) at full 1.3 megapixel 1280(H) x 1024(V) resolution. The maximum frame rates are 15fps at 4:3 aspect ratio and 21fps at 16:9 aspect ratio." I am running 1280 x 1024 and only get 2.x frames a second. I tried 1280 x 720 and got it up to 5 fps. In the camera internal settings, I have Motion is turned off, quality is at lowest setting, and i have optimise for speed selected, I also have updated the camera to the latest firmware. In blue iris I have tried 10, 15 and 20 fps settings with no change in speed, I am only using 10% cpu in computer. Can anyone confirm that the Iqeye511 can actually reach the 15fps speed as advertised. EDIT: By closing the web browser and only having 1 stream to Blue iris i can get about 3.8 fps at 1280 x 1024.

Korgoth Of Barbaria, thank you for that IQsenty demo, it answered a lot of questions. The utility has several useful features like live readings of FPS, KB per second of images, and average frame size. What i found was that the IQ511 has a maximum output of 1900KBS and it will adjust the frame rate as needed to stay under this. Only the lowest video quality at 1280x1024 will give 14fps. The highest quality drops the frame rate down to 5.2fps. I accidently stumbled on the super secret live frame rate meter. On the bottom right of the display screen it shows the live KBS of the image, click on it and it will rotate to live FPS in 3 different languages. IQsentry utility IQ511 camera 1280x1024 avg frame size, fps, bandwidth 144kB 14fps 1900KBS quality 0 lowest 345KB 5.2fps 1800KBS quality 10 highest With that said Blue Iris is definitely reading the stream slowly, when IQ sentry is reading around 5fps Blue Iris is reading about .8 fps.

“Can You try to connect that cam directly to Your computer?” I tried to connect the camera directly to the computer with a regular cat5 cable but it would not work, so i ordered a crossover cat5 to try. I will try that software now, thanks.

“There should be a "video clip" button on the main display window in the browser interface, you can record an AVI from there and check the output in VLC (it will tell you the actual framerate, among other stats).” I made a few clips and tried to get the frame rate out of VLC. The only place i could see a fps number was under “tools" “Media codec" were it listed the fps number that was embedded in the file and not the actual number. I did an experiment to verify fps. I recorded a 1 min clip at 5fps setting and another clip 1 min at 15fps. Both clips were 30MB in size, so they had to be the same frame rate. In VLC the clip recorded at 5 fps displayed as 5fps and the clip recorded at 15fps displayed as 15fps in the media codec menu, this tells me that the frame rate number is encoded in the file and not measured by VLC. Also Blue Iris support told me that an anti virus program could be the problem. But i do not have one installed. Also i turned XP's firewall off. Edit: Is there some good NVR software that is free for at least one camera that I could load up and test with this IqEye511 camera.

“We use them on Koukaam KNR-100 and we get full 15fps, same on Qnap VS. How it is connected to Your NVR? Can You post specification of this NVR?” The computer is a 1.8ghz duel core with 2 gigs and windows XP running about 10% CPU. The computer and the Iqeyes511 both connect directly to a Linksys WRTSL54GS router, each run is 20 feet. this is currently the only camera connected to Blue Iris, Cat5e 10/100Mbit, There is no other network traffic. The Blue Iris software is here. http://www.blueirissoftware.com/ This is low end but full featured software. In email’s about general capabilites of Blue Iris with them i was told it can handle IP cameras up to around 5MP, the Iqeyes511 is 1.3MP. I have not asked them for help yet with this problem because I wanted to make sure the camera could really do 15fps as you just verified. I was getting 15fps with a Foscam/EasyN dome camera 640 x 480 yesterday. The last thing i could do is verify that my camera can do 15fps (it is a older 511, 3 to 5 years old) but i am not sure how i could do this.

18 GRAND... Now that is a story I would like to hear. Was this for a surveillance system? Who could possibly afford that, kind of like a couple hundred grand today.

It might be helpful to post pictures of your capture card. Maybe someone here will recognize it and tell you what software will work with it.

No, what he is saying is not true. This thread is talking about RG59 siamese cable with 18 AWG power cables. The skin effect of 60HZ voltage is about 8.5mm or .0984 inches. that means until the wire reaches 10 AWG at .102 inches it has no effect. 18 AWG wire is .0403 inches and 60HZ has no skin effect on it. CCA is not using skin effect to its advantage since solid 18AWG is less that half the required diameter for skin effect to take place. I suspect that the wire is copper coated because joining copper wire and aluminum wire together causes A galvanizing problem. this is why copper conductors require specially rated devices to be connected to them, switches outlets etc. What is worth mentioning is that aluminum wire has to be de-rated about 25% of current capacity from copper wire. And as for Nano wires the problem is making them in any kind of usable lengths. Now they are only used for very short distances like inside of battery’s.

As a money saving solution I may use the indoor camera DFL-20s outdoors under an eve. I want to know how the CNB dome cameras with heaters are heated and were the heater is mounted. Any other details like any fan present, the heaters resistance, or how many watts it uses, would be helpful, as well as a picture.

On the CNB dome camera models with fixed lenses like the DFL-20S and the VFL-20S, do these take standard CS mount lenses that you can change to anything you want?

Chart for CNB dome cameras. Now that I have made this chart, I finally understand what is going on with all the bewildering CNB part numbers. I did not list any dome cameras with LEDS because I do not think you should use them, because of light contamination/fogging. My take on these models is it is dumb to buy the middle model when you get 10x the sensitivity for $10 more. So basically you should go cheap, or for 2x the price go deluxe. CNB DBM-24VF 1/3" 600TVL Indoor true day/night DC Iris 2.8-10.5mm .005 lux CNB DBM-24VD 1/3" 600TVL Indoor fixed IR cut filter DC Iris 2.8-10.5mm .05 lux CNB DFL-20S 1/3" 600TVL Indoor fixed IR cut filter 3.8mm Fixed .05 lux CNB VCM-24VF 1/3" 600TVL Outdoor Vandal true day/night DC Iris 2.8-10.5mm .005 lux CNB VCM-24VD 1/3" 600TVL Outdoor Vandal fixed IR cut filter DC Iris 2.8-10.5mm .05 lux CNB VFL-20S 1/3" 600TVL Outdoor Vandal fixed IR cut filter 3.8mm Fixed .05 lux Chart corrected thanks to Rory.

Well i changed my mind about saving money with a cheaper indoor camera used outdoor after i found this camera. CNB VFL-20S 600TVL Vandal Dome 3.8mm Outdoor•Vandal-proof .05 lux It is only $10 more than the CNB DFL-20S indoor, with the same specs.

Thanks gmguys, that tells me quite a bit.

Regardless if there is room or not I would still like to know how heaters are implemented in domes. I suspect even heated domes do not have fans in them. And it is not a matter of running the camera until it dies from the cold. The cold will not kill the camera. What I have found is that unheated cameras in the cold get a “snowy”/”noisy” picture. And this is for my house, no reason to worry about a cobbled up setup.

Well i am in midwest USA so maybe -20 F wind chill once in a while.

I have tried the demo of active webcam using a good quality black and white camera, an Ever Focus EQ150A/EN with a Tamron 8 to 30 mm F 1.1 DC drive iris lens. With the camera connected directly to a monitor it looks fine. When the camera goes thru Active Webcam I get color artifacts in the picture. I have tried tweaking all camera settings on the camera with no luck. In Active Webcam I have tried all the video codec settings, RGB24 RGB32 YUY2 YVU9 UYVY Y41P YV12 I420 RGB555 (16BIT) RGB565 (16BIT) and various NTSC resolutions like 320 x 240 and 640 x 480. Nothing seems to make a difference in the picture. I am using a 4ft long BNC cable to connect to the camera amd BT878 card (cheap 4 input). And just because I am PaRaNoId, I tried a 10 foot piece of RG6, with the same results. I also tried the other 3 inputs on the capture card with no change in the picture. I also tried using AmCap to view the camera and not surprisingly it looked exactly the same. And the reason I was not surprised is that Many of the AmCap menus look exactly the same as the Active Webcam windows. Clearly they share the same code base. http://www.barcodediscount.com/pdf/EverFocus/eq150.pdf Ever Focus quick specs. http://www.everfocus.in/downloads/manuals/EQ150_manual.pdf Ever Focus Manual. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this problem.

Were is this "hardware properties", I looked in device manager and system information and could not find any hardware ID. I tried all other sugestions with no luck.

OK guys, now I need the computer experts to help. I have contacted Blue iris and they tell me the bt878 card should have its color menu enabled. AmCap also has it disabled. I talked to another blue iris user who is using a bt878 card and he does have a color menu enabled. I now think this is a windows problem. Can anyone think of a reason windows would prevent the color menu in Amcap from working. Windows 7 32 bit ultimate P35 chipset Pentium duel core 2 gig ram Nvidia 8500 GT Pro Video pv-149 bt878 4 input card. Using recommended open source drivers. I tried updating video card drivers. Taking every windows update, different PCI slots for bt878 card, moving Nvidia card to 2nd pci express 16 slot. Uninstalling and reinstalling bt878 drivers. Checking device manager for any errors. Tried all 4 inputs on bt878 card. Tried color and black and white cameras. Tried whistling Dixie twice. No change. Windows media player works perfectly also. I am stuck.

I feel bad about your father in law and I know you are trying to help, but it is not going to help you to sugar coat this. The reason you are not getting very many replies is $3000.00 is totally unrealistic for this job as well as the cameras you tentatively picked out. As mentioned PTZ cameras are only good if you plan to have an operator running it. The only exception would be if you have clear line of site over your whole property and you have specific areas to routinely check. Then you could program the camera for a canned patrol cycle. You say you have 16 acres!!! How much of that do you want covered by cameras. Two night cameras will just about cover 40 feet of fence line. Think of it this way, a good analog camera is 640 x 480, this will give good face recognition on a front porch. This same camera covering a two car garage would be pushed to the limit for face recognition. Now how many front porches would fit on the fence line you want to cover? This is how many cameras you need, and I am talking about mounted near the fence line. The only other way to reduce the amount of cameras is to use IP mega pixel cameras. However these cameras typically have bad night vision unless you spend $1200 and up on them. A 1.3 mega pixel camera is 1280 x 960 and can take the place of two analog 640 x 480 cameras. The CNB cameras you do not like are $150 each 640 x 480 and go down to around .002 lux or so, and are probably the best bang for the buck there is. You have to spend 3 to 4 times more to get just a little better. You have so many problems to overcome with this job I do not even know where to start. Because of the size of this property the 300 feet limit of IP cameras will come into play. For analog cameras I am thinking 3000 feet for RG6 but I am going from memory. If you decide to use both types of cameras I am not sure a standalone dvr is available. This job will get very complex and expensive very quickly. You need to clearly define what you expect the system to do. What areas do you want covered, Do you want license plate recognition, face recognition, and what about lighting. Even low lux cameras need IR or white light. And it is best not to have the IR light on the camera, use stand alone emitters properly placed for best illumination. And do not forget all of the cameras, repeaters for IP, and lighting needs to wired up and mounted. Just burying the cable to the lights and cameras is no small job by itself.

Jeff, I googled around last night and found several people saying the same thing that you are saying about only 1 input working. Hold off on getting a Geovision card though as I think they are all bt878 based. Even if you do get that card to work it looks like no bt878 cad will let you have any color controls or brightness, hue, saturation. Look at my post and pictures here. In fact Active webcam, H264 webcam, and Blue iris all have grayed out menus with bt878 cards. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24567 It may turn out that Philips saa7130-34 cards will give you color controls I am still investigating that.

Jeff, I only see 1 video and 1 audio input in device manager to. The very old drivers used to show up as 4 different devices. Just to make sure I was telling you the right thing I added another camera to my bt878 card, so now I have 2 cameras on it. I installed second camera just as I explained above. Right clicked on screen selected add camera, selected video tab and selected usb, firewire, analog. Then from input drop down box I tried all inputs until I saw my picture. Remember this though, after you select an input you have to select ok and let box close, Blue Iris will reset and try input, takes about 5 seconds. If no picture go to next input.

OK I lucked out, the IP camera fired up with minimal problems. I had spent hours before hand fighting the camera to get it to work in a browser. After I had it that far setting it up in Blue Iris was fairly easy especially because it was a camera with a default setup. I poked around for awhile in Blue Iris trying to find a menu for IP cameras to adjust the video color, contrast, hue, saturation, and brightness. It took me a while to remember that those settings are in the camera and accessible thru the web browser.

Jeff, I just want to be sure you understood me on how to set up the cameras. You have to follow the instructions I gave above four times for 4 cameras. The only difference for each setup besides the camera number and name is that you select a different composite input from the drop down box. They should be labeled 1 thru 4 but they are not. Each one selects a different input on your 4 input card. If you see 4 composite inputs listed then you should have 4 channels available. Also the inputs are not in order they are all mixed up. I select the first one and move my camera connection until I see a picture. These are the instructions from active webcam for installing a capture card. • Run the BtInstaller.exe installation utility. • When prompted, select the "Uninstall any previously installed driver" option. The installation utility will search your system for any Bt8x8 drivers and delete them. • Turn Off computer. • Install the capture card inside computer. • Turn On computer. • Windows detects there is new card and pop-ups the "Found New Hardware Wizard" window. Click the "Cancel" button in this window. • Run the BtInstaller.exe installation utility again. • Select the "Install" option. • Select "Generic Bt8xx with 4 Composite ins" when asked for a card type. • Select "No TV functions" in the TV Tuner list. • Finish the installation. • Restart computer and verify there are at least two items are shown as correctly installed in your "Control Panel", in the "System Properties", in the "Device Manager", under the "Sound, video and game controllers": I will try an IP cam to see how it works. If I have a problem setting it up I will leave you a message.