wvanthony

Now we're talkin'. Thank you! I like the sound of $20 for a scan converter much better. I guess I'll just need to figure out a way to default the camera views to display the way I want on the TV's especially in the event of a power outage or something. I haven't found a way during a reboot to have the Geovision software automatically log-in and go to full screen with my eight cameras. Has anyone done that just yet?

Thanks for reply however these seem to be very expensive options for simple tv/monitor out. The quad card is around $600. Any other way to use either the dvi or vga out from my graphics card to route video over to my a/v distribution? I thought there was a simple GV-TV out card but maybe not.

I have two lead kits or pigtails of which one is black and other is blue. The black pigtail has 8 video and 4 audio and I the blue pigtail has 8 video. Is there another lead kit that is supposed to have a bnc monitor out included?

I recently built a PC with a GV800 16 channel card and noticed that when hooking up the cameras I didn't see a BNC for monitor out like on most non-pc security dvr's. In the past I would use the BNC-Monitor out and route that to my a/v distribution block that simply outputted the camera views to all the tv's in my house over RG6 Coax converted to composite video at the TV end. I would then just change the TV input to view the cameras albeit I really didn't have a way to control the camera views. Without a monitor out on the GV800 card what's the best way to get that signal to the A/V distribution block? Do I just get an adapter for the video card I'm using to convert from VGA or DVI over to composite video to feed into the A/V distribution block? Thank you for your help. While I'm at it is there anyway to use an extra COAX I have available at the TV end to send IR somehow back to the PC-DVR to control the camera views from the TV's?

The Advantech models you mentioned doesn't interface to HAI home automation controller serially which the original poster was asking. I think most PC based dvr's support integrating to I/O cards serially (COM port). AFAIK, I don't know of any PC based DVR that can integrate to HAI thru serial connection. Great info supplied by all. Anyone willing to throw a brand/model and ballpark cost to accomplish the summarized below: * PC DVR to allow for future proofing, upgrades etc. * 16 Channel Hybrid (analog/IP) * Ability to record on schedule, motion, continuous (INDIVIDUALLY per channel) * Ability to interface alarm output to HAI Omni Pro II INDIVIDUALLY per channel) I'm not as concerned about the interface (Serial, RS-485 as long as I can pass the relay output per channcel over two wires per channel to a separate zone on my HAI panel) * Rock solid software interface as well as Smartphone software for BB, Droid,iPhone * Rack mountable would be nice as I already have components in Dell enclosed rack. * Video analytics would be cool but not necessary if it drives price way up. * Modest hard drive space as I was thinking about gangstering up a QNAP * Although not necessary it would be nice to utilize the system for light duty PC work (internet browsing) * Although not necessary - I know HAI has a 4 port camera server to serve up analog cameras over IP to display within the HAI software framework. Is there any other way to interface the cameras to work within HAI home control software (Home Control, SnapLink etc.) I'm from the USA-WV. Thanks again to my northern friends.

I am using Netvision PC dvr integrated with my HAI omnipro II. All of the functions you stated above are supported except for serial communication of alarm I/O board to HAI. I use alarm output relay from the I/O card to trigger HAI auxilliary inputs. With this method I was able to create a rule so that whenever my outside motion activates and HAI auxilliary input becomes unsecure, outside lighting turns on. I apologize.. My integrator did the same thing. It wasn't a serial port. He used the I/O port (RS-485-I forget the two pins he used) and tied it into one of the zones in my omni II pro controller. He used zone 15 and in automation i check if zone 15 not ready and if dark I turn on outside lights. In the new system I'd like to get I want to be able to control alarms individually. Have you been able to do that? For instance, I'll have 8-10 different cameras so if the dvr senses motion off of Camera 2 I'd like to turn on the light(s) that are just for camera 2 instead of all the outside lights. What kind of I/O card do you have and does it have isolated alarm out for each camera channel?

Thanks for the replies. I'm not familiar with either product lines. I looked at the links you provided and tried to familiarize myself a little. I probably needed to provide a little more helpful information as some of those products looked quite expensive. I am using this for residential security for a 3600 sq. ft. home in which I plan to use around 10 cameras. (Several may be IP but most will be Analog) I was wanting to replace my Speco DVR8TL which seemed to be too limiting for my plans. I was also hoping to stay within a price point of $1500-$2000. Regarding Vigil, are those considered to be PC based such as the Micro-MVR series? Can you add/replace cards etc? I may not have interpreted your note correctly. I was thinking along the lines of a regular windows PC with a Geovision card. I wasn't sure of the best way to handle the software/hardware setup for speed and reliability of the data storage. I liked your idea of the QNAP as these seemed somewhat affordable although when you outfit it with 3-4 hard drives the price gets close to $1000 which is very reasonable for what you all you get. So the question would then be can I build a PC DVR with a Geovision card that has enough ooomph to fit the bill and hopefully my price range. Perhaps its not fair to include the price of the QNAP as it would function as a host for other applications besides CCTV video. So... back to the hardware side: If I did run Windows 7 I'm assuming I can't just run the OS straight on the QNAP correct? I'd like to at least have the OS in a protected RAID such as mirroring. Do I put two hard drives in the PC and configure with software RAID 0 or is there a way to connect the PC(without hard drives) directly to the QNAP and use the drives on the QNAP for both the OS and video storage? I guess there are a lot of ways to do things but ulitmately want the best speed/flexibility for the primary task which will be video recording. The exacQ stuff looked very nice but unless I missed something it may be way out of my price range.

I'd like to buy/build a system with the following but would love to have your expertise in assisting me: * 16 Channel card with latest bells and whistles * Would like to have motion sense capabilities * 16 Alarm in and 16 Alarm Out - Reason being: I want to interface w/serial connection to my HAI Omni II controller (Home Automation lighting & security controller). Once I can ascertain which camera triggered the alarm I can then individually control lighting scenes specific to that camera area. * Would like to be able to control recording times indvidually by camera or groups of cameras. (For instance - I may only want to turn on motion sensing and recording on interior cameras at certain times of the day or perhaps just when I put my HAI system in alarm mode.) * Would like the card to be able to handle both IP and Analog cameras. I currently have all analog cameras but I wouldn't mind future proofing. Or do I just buy separate video cards to handle that. * Need to have DDNS and nice mobile interface through smartphones. (Black Berry, Iphone, Android etc.) I would love to use a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device w/RAID to store all of my videos, music, etc. Would this work okay for cctv video recording? What would be the best way to connect the NAS for this type of application? Is it possible to have everything including the OS on the NAS or should I have two disk drives in the PC for just the OS that are mirrored for protection? What type of PC would you recommend? Win 7? How much memory? What processing power do I need? Any pre-built systems that anyone has seen that are a good value? Thank you in advance for your assistance! Very much appreciated.