Soundy

Skip the IR - use the cameras you're familiar with and put a couple motion-activated flood lights in strategic locations.

Always sad to see that much work put into something and have it built up, just to be forced to bring it to an end. I never had to use your site, but I think I pointed a few people there over the years. Having done some web design in the past, I know what kind of time and effort goes into what most people think is just a "click-click-done" easy task. Maintaining a single site like yours CAN be a full time job quite easily! Your hard work is appreciated... hope you'll still drop by here from time to time as well! Take care!

Are you able to get into PSS itself, or is that the password you're running into? Remember that PSS has a login of its own as soon as you start it up, before it asks you about logging into DVR, cameras, etc.

http://www.panasonic.com/business/security/demos/PSS-recording-rates.html From the description, it sounds like network saturation may be part of the problem. Sure doesn't hurt to try lowering the FPS. No. Shutter speed defines how long the sensor collects light for at one time. Framerate is how many individual images the camera samples per second. There is no direct connection between the two.

You can't "convert" a MAC address to IP; there's no direct correlation between the two. If you're using a broadband router for your network, it should have a DHCP server to provide client devices with IP addresses suitable for that network. There should be a log or a page that displays the DHCP table or some other way for it to show you what devices have what IP. Assuming the camera defaults to using DHCP after a reset, that should show the MAC address of the camera along with the IP it's been assigned... similar to this:

Was never overly impressed with Neverfocus's DVRs or analog cams... I don't know if anyone else here has used HDcctv at all... it's kind of an overrated niche technology.

"For technical support please email support@udptechnology.com" - bet they have just such a utility. Otherwise, you could try resetting the camera to factory defaults - most will have a button for this somewhere - and see if that makes it switch to DHCP... then check your router's DHCP tables to see what IP the camera pulls.

Put a couple good TDN non-IR cameras on the bottom of the pool and just leave the underwater lights on at night.

And with a static IP, you NEVER have to worry about changes not getting propagated, or a forced change dropping your connection. I had one customer a few years ago, his DSL ISP forced an IP change every hour... and his DDNS took anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes for the changes to filter down to his ISP. So if he tried to connect within that window, it would fail. He put up with it for about two weeks, then ordered the static IP: $35/mo. extra for his business line. Granted that's an extreme, but it happens. I've been using EasyDNS for the registrar for our company website for years; they have their own DDNS service, so I can pop a utility like DynSite on a customer's system, and give them an IP for remote access, like "customername.lps-cctv.com". There have been times though, when one issue or another has meant the DDNS doesn't get updated - a communication failure for DynSite, or someone on-site has closed that service, or whatever. Free/cheap workarounds are great when they work... but are not always ideal.

Hmmm, that's interesting, considering IR is longer wavelength, and thus lower frequency, than visible light. One would expect it to travel better through the denser medium, much the way submarines use VLF (very low frequency) radio waves to communicate around the world, as standard VHF/UHF radio doesn't travel well at all in water. Learn something new every day, I guess!

The spec you want to look for is typically know as bandwidth, fabric, backplane capacity, switching capacity, or something similar. On the ZyXEL, for example, it's listed as "5.6Gbps non-blocking switching fabric"

Residential customers on most if not all of our local broadband ISPs can get a static IP just by asking - extra $10/mo.

I find it's worth it for my own professional use... I'd probably get it for my own personal amusement anyway, if I had the money to spare.

IR with cameras is nothing magical or high-tech - it's just like an LED flashlight, except the LEDs are emitting light near the bottom end of the visible spectrum, rather than white light (the entire visible spectrum), at a wavelength our eyes can't see but camera sensors can. So now imagine what would happen if you shone a flashlight into your eyes... that's what would happen if you shone an IR illuminator directly into your camera.

I would expect it to behave similarly to visible light - the lower the angle, the more it will be reflected, and whatever does enter the water will probably be refracted. That's just an educated guess, of course...

I see Numb-nuts has been paying attention in class Like he says, for a facility that size, and for protecting your business, your best bet it to have a professional come in and look at it. If you're particularly handy with hooking up electronics though, we can provide some guidance here - some photos or drawings or Google Earth screenshots of the building, marked up with your areas of concern, may be helpful. One word of caution: if you want to do this RIGHT, you're going to have to adjust your expected budget from whatever that Swann system was, because I guarantee it WILL be higher.

That one looks alright... we've been using the Cisco SFE-1000P, and now its successor, the SF302-08P (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10898/index.html), and found it a really solid performer. Eight 10/100 PoE ports, two GbE ports for connecting the DVR/NAS or uplink. Web management interface too, allows me to control the PoE and power-cycle cameras remotely. That's not a lot, but it really depends on how much the cameras need; power budget isn't related to speed or throughput performance. Just for example, looking at the specs for the IQEye Sentinel cameras, they state 7W maximum, so seven of those on the Netgear switch would be pushing it. The Cisco can do up to 15.4W/port for up to four ports, or 7.5W/port on all of them.

Pretty sure we've all done that at one time or another...

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=30989

It might have if he hadn't already figured it out 6 hours earlier.

You're definitely not getting the full quality the cameras are capable of. See for yourself: http://www.panasonic.com/business/security/demos/PSS-recording-rates.html I'd send it back and get something in an Dahua, personally. That depends. You're paying extra for a 24-channel machine, for starters, and you know you won't use that many channels. You're paying extra for a PTZ that may or may not be of any real use to you besides "toy" factor. You may have spent money on cameras that won't be sufficient for the various places you plan to put them. You're better off to send the whole lot back and then pick-and-choose the DVR and cameras that will suit your particular needs. It may end up costing a little more... it may actually end up costing less. But look at it this way: what's the REAL cost of a system that doesn't do what you need?

I have an IPVM membership, they have a lot of great info, extensive reviews, discussions, etc. They have a group on LinkedIn as well: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1300007&trk=anet_ug_hm

That's why you have the tight IR shot(s) on the harbour entrance. The thermal overview will let you track all movements in the basin, and when a ship goes through the choke point, you can get its ID.

What are you comparing FT4 Siamese vs FT6 Cat5e or something? Retail Cat5e around here is cheaper than just plain RG59... Siamese is nearly twice the price. Given that the OP will probably be getting his cable from somewhere like Home Depot, rather than YOUR distributor, I expect he'll find the price point quite different than you're used to. And I suppose you've NEVER had a failed BNC or a bad crimp (and if you say no, I call bull$#!t). Oh, and if cost is such a concern... how much extra does it cost to come back and pull new wire in if someone wants to upgrade to a megepixel camera? BTW, Mr. Perfectionist, your line breaks make your posts very disjointed and painful to read.

You don't need to power it separately. Some IP cams that have analog outputs, though, the analog is there for use during setup only, and shuts off after a few minutes, and/or has other display elements like focus aids/meters.