ssnapier

The customer owns a hotel and this hotel has a large indoor pool. The pool closes at 9 or 10 pm, but he has people sneaking in there after hours and using the pool. Apparently they are doing much more than just swimming too. He specifically asked for a camera to watch the pool, but he wants it to be inconspicuous. The pool area is not very well lit, and he has cameras covering the walkways aroudn the pool, but the pool itself and the 15 feet around the pool are basically unlit. There is a GIANT skylight above the pool so during daylight hours there is plenty of light, but after sunset there is pretty much just light on the walkways and thru the breakfast area (which is near the pool in a shared open space). That skylight also prevents me from just putting a camera on the ceiling. When I originally put cameras in this place he told me that he had liability concerns with putting cameras on the pool itself so we made sure that no camera would have any chance of seeing the pool. Now (over a year later) he has changed his mind and wants it covered, but he only wants a single camera. I am using a Mobotix D-12 for this, so I have two lenses to work with (one day sensor and one night). EDIT: I should also mention that this is in the center of the hotel and the rooms all have a sliding door that leads directly out to the pool area walkways. The second floor has a balcony overlooking the pool area too. Here is a picture that might help:

You read my mind - I am planning to put a painted "something" at the bottom of the tub and see if I can make it out. EDIT: I do plan to move to a larger pool at some point too and play with the light angle, intensity, and distance. I am very curious to see what role the camera itself plays too. The bathtub test would require at least 5 different camera types to be even a little bit valid. I have a Mobotix, Panasonic, Axis and "china-cheapo" IP cameras right available pretty much all the time, I also have a few Pelco and Panasonic analog cameras, and a few off-brand analog cameras that would be considered more consumer grade stuff. I think that is more than enough to start with, but I have no cameras that are considered to be low light super stars. I am going to talk to my primary camera supplier and see if they want to get involved with this because it would make them smarter on this stuff too. Perhaps I can get them to loan me cameras and IR gear out of their stock since we have a very long running relationship already.

Yeah, visible light ranges from roughly 400nm to 70nm and I was very confused by this as well. I think it has more to do with the camera lenses ability to interpret the light then it does any actual reflection. I am going to do a lot more research and probably a few tests with varying IR intensities and wavelengths to see what I come up with. I am sure the camera itself plays a huge part in this too. If anyone has a camera that would like to donate or loan to me for the performance of these tests, I would be more than happy to include it in my findings.

After a little research on photography forums, I have discovered that this is a very challenging process. In pure scientific terms the light breaks down like this: Infrared Spectrum wavelength= 750nm - 1mm or 405 THz - 300 GHz. Since the frequency is so high, the light's ability to penetrate anything other than open space is very low. Some photographers have tried diffusion to spread out the beam, but most of them (even with a ridiculous amount of light) were only able to get about 8-12 inches of usable depth. Given the fact that most CCTV IR lights are relatively low power, this does not bode well for the odds of them working. I am still going to give it a shot, but basedon these findings I am not going to get my hopes up too much.

Did you ever get an answer to this?

As the title states I have 2 brand new Axis 233D PTZ's for sale. These are not the cheapest camera on earth, but they are a rock solid workhorse that will last you a very, very, very long time. Retail for this camera was well over $2300, but since it is a discontinued product I am offering them for $1850 each. Here is the Axis page for this camera: http://www.axis.com/products/cam_233d/ The Mobotix mounts are very simply mounts for putting a Q24 in a drop ceiling or even in drywall if you want to. They make for a very clean, nearly flush, mount and they are brand new in the box. These are being offered for $110 each. Shipping will be via UPS Ground unless you specify another method, or if you are close enough local pickup would be fine too. We are located in Hagerstown, MD.

Do they not offer an SDK that would lead you in the right direction? I an not familiar with this particular hardware so I am shooting in the dark, but it seemed like a logical starting point.

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If you can manage to wait a few months for it to get released the Mobotix S14 would be PERFECT for you. I think it is scheduled for August.

I have seen that movie and based on how many different things I have brokend or dislocated, I am certainly NOT indestructible.

LOL... I have been on no less than 25 airplanes this year alone. We have clients in Puerto Rico... and several places up and down the east coast. I figure if that is what will happen why worry about it. I have thought about apologizing to folks when I get on the plane, but I am sure that would bring a very unpleasant line of questioning... LOL

I have had several dreams where I died in an airplane explosion...

That logic seems sound to me.

I use a lot of Planet stuff, they are pretty dang tough.

I really had no clue what these were about until I got a look at them at ISC West. This is a very interesting thing to me because I now have a very simple way to move folks looking for a better image into what they are looking for at a VERY low cost! If you had an established analog system running, you are literally just swapping out cameras and DVR... DONE! The other cool thing is that most of the HD CCTV DVR's I have looked at have a Java based remote viewer instead of the silly Active X train wreck that comes with most low end DVR's. I am not sure why, but this is a very exciting to me!

Crap, I have a contract that calls for 12 of these. I guess I need to grab them as quick as I can so I don't have to get the stupid contract modified.

I am getting ready to buy a new label maker, our company has been making due with junk for quite a while but I finally got permission to buy a nice one. What brand/ model do you prefer for use in the field? I would prefer to use self laminating type labels and not the heat shrink kind. I was looking at the Brady BMP-21, but I wanted to put it out there to the masses and see what you might suggest. I hate shopping for stuff like this, so I am hoping you can save me some time too!

Something like this: Click Me! I buy from these guys alllllllll the time, and they are generally pretty quick and very reasonably priced. There are of course local sources for stuff like this (Grainger, Rexel, Capital Tri-State, etc.) but a j-hook is a j-hoo. I like use the poly coated hooks just to keep a little extra stress off the cables. Here is a picture for those who don't click the link:

You can staple it or you could do like my father in law did and use J-hooks on every truss. He liked the idea of being able to replace wires or add wires easily. Actually he has two rows of j-hooks, one for power and one for... well, everything else (surround sound, network, phone, etc.)

true!!

I am going to try RAID 6 on our next install. After reading this chart, I agree that seems like the best option. The current RAID 10 setups are being used for recording and accessing recording from a 65 camera Mobotix setup. We are running 16 disks in each one of them (2TB WD EURS disks), so there is a fair bit of wiggle room for failures. They were originally running RAID 5, which was killing the system. I could never review video and the CPU load on the NAS was over 90% all the time. WHen we moved to RAID 10, it was like a magic wand was waved over system... it was beautiful! EDIT: I should probably explain this a bit more. There are 2 QNAP TS-459 units and 2 TS-859 units in this setup. Each one was added at a different time, and the folks that did it had no real plan. When I took it over we aggregated everything to make them all essentially one big unit. Because the CPU's on these were not exactly up to the task, that is why we chose RAID 10 over RAID 6. If I had a new project with things spec'd correctly, RAID 6 would surely be my first choice.

no one else likes RAID 10?

We have been using RAID 10 on QNAP devices for about 15 months now with GREAT success. It is a good way to squeeze a bit more out of a low horsepower NAS if you need to, plus it saves a lot of writing when you take away some of that parity overhead.

It sounds to me like your sensitivity number is set way too high (not sensitive enough)

Send me your phone number or email, I have know some folks that might be able to do this (for a fee).