ssnapier

I have seen several grocery stores lately that have the two sets of double doors (one from the parking lot, then a little lobby, then the second door into the store) and they have been mounting a camera at about 5 or 6 feet high looking at the store exit door. This prevents most weird backlighting issues and you pretty much never need WDR since it is looking inside not outside. Combine that with the natural light from outside and the overhead light fixtures in the lobby area should generally provide fantastic conditions for positive identification.

EXCELLENT point! I did not factor in real world conditions, I was simply looking at the numbers that would produce an image suitable to his needs.

I think a GoPro is too thick for his mounting location, it would get in the way.

The only thing that comes to mind would be a wildlife camera, which is neither small or decent quality. The cameras I posted are going to be in the $300-$600 range typically, and you very much get what you pay for.

I edited and re-loaded the graphic above. As for the rest of your post, I will have to read it more closely and get back to you later today.

This is true, but in general terms the height he mentioned is a good general purpose height. Of course you need to understand what is being seen, and if there is something specific to be aware of. I would hope that installer asked those questions, or the owner was at least wise enough to state what he was looking for in terms of a picture.

Yeah that is nowhere near enough information. To start with, what are the addresses of each device and does your NVR accept the VLAN tag?

I wish I could help here, but I have zero experience with FreeNAS. I would really love to know if you get it solved though.

I just noticed that graphic needs an edit for the labels, I will clear it up when I get to work today.

You need to go read some of the other posts about port forwarding, several of us have spent a GREAT deal of time explaining this very same topic over and over on this forum. Here is my diagram that explains how it works. After you read this, please use the search function to see how others have solved the exact same issues. I would also change your primary DNS to the address of your router.

Cacti is so freaking cool... I love that program!

No, the VLAN just divides those from the rest of the network. They will still be routed to the appropriate IP address. Unless there is more to that story, it should not be a problem at all. I have many, many cameras on a single VLAN (50 or more in some cases). Have you setup QoS to go with that VLAN or is this just for traffic management?

Yeah that was actually the last day I drove it... something broke and then I went to Saudi Arabia for work (I was in the Army). My wife sold it while I was gone because we were moving soon after my return and I did not want to deal with a trailer. This is my new toy... not a racer, but still a ton of fun! It is a 1995 Audi S-6 with a full RS2 conversion.

Yeah, you should not have any issues. This won't be a perfect HD image, but it should be adequate for your needs. I used to do something similar just to watch my tires during autocross. Here is my old car... man I miss this old thing:

I would use this DVR: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DSMD-6704-H-264-Mobile-4ch-vehicle-DVR-SD-Card-storage-HD1-realtime-video-audio-recording/581077684.html?s=p and these cameras: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-3-CMOS-Colour-Camera-With-Infra-Red-Night-Vision-Small-Discreet-CCTV/1802194906.html It is all Chinese low-end stuff, but I think it will suit your purposes quite well. The DVR also has GPS so you can map your place on the track to the video.

The advertised lines on a camera are a but misleading. That is ONLY for live viewing. The images is still recorded at 480TVL because that is what a "standard" TV image is produced at. As for the remote view, you probably need to change your streaming settings and increase the bandwidth. Of course, if your internet connection has a very slow upload speed and your DVR is set to stream with VBR, than it will adjust and degrade the picture to allow streaming as best it can.

Is there anywhere in the menu to mount that share?

The thing you need to understand in CCTV is that you very much get what you pay for. Low cost and great picture quality simply do not go together, and there are a lot of very good reasons why that is the case. Based on your needs I would recommend an IP camera for two reasons. 1. It can record to an SD card on the camera. 2. It will generally provide a far batter picture than an analog camera. With that said, if you could afford it I would recommend this camera: http://www.hikvision.com/UploadFile/image/2014041511061652379.pdf or possibly this one: http://pd.geovision.tw/datasheet/Fisheye/Datasheet_IPCamH264FE420.pdf

Port forwarding is not done in the modem it is done in the router. The modem is nothing more than a bridge between you (your internal home or business network) and their network/ the internet. Here is a diagram to show you how this works.

I think my 8100's actually run XP Embedded which is entirely different from regular consumer grade XP and it is still supported for a while longer, since about 80% of the ATM's in the USA are using it.

First of all ONVIF is an inter-operability standard for IP cameras, it has nothing at all to do with analog systems so get that out of your head. NVR = Network video recorder which is also made specifically for IP cameras, not analog. DVR = Digital Video Recorder <---- this is what you are looking for!

That is not quite 8 feet... I see no reason at all not to use that mounting height. You will get good detail and should have clear sight lines for most things. I would not be concerned until you get over 12 feet (3.65 meters). If you are concerned ask him to show you a few sample images first, but in my experience that will be a great height to work from and it will also save you labor time as he is running less cable and making fewer holes.

Hi there, and welcome.

That is called a hybrid DVR and for 4 channels, you can expect to pay between $200 and $400. Most of the once I have used will be 8 analog and 2 IP channels. You could also look at something like Geovision 4 channel DVR card into a PC that would give you the ability to added a few IP channels to that as well.

Please post a screen shot of the camera's page that shows the storage path. Unless it is really weird it should be ip address of the server\recording folder\sub folder... etc so an example would be: 192.168.1.49/recordings/camera1/ I think that some Hik cameras actually have a table that has the IP in one cell and the path on another. Just make sure the slashes as as above and not the other direction.