ssnapier

Ok, I have a few Mobotix cameras (M-12's) that will be placed on roughly 35 foot high poles. These poles will also be getting LED lights, and the point of all this is to watch a fence line and the approach to that fence line (ideally I would like to see 60-100 feet beyond the fence). The wattage of the LED is unknown at this point, but I am looking at the 300W model from LEDtronics as my primary choice (link to that light). For my question I don't think that matters a whole lot but it might after I get my answer. I have done some playing around in low light conditions to try and determine just how much real light you need to make a camera like this see well in the dark. The cameras can report on screen how much illumination it can see in each lens, and based on that figure combined with 7 or 8 attempts I have come to the conclusion that 2 lux is enough light to make the camera useful... not perfect, but useful The lenses used were 8mm focal length with F value of 2.0 which gives me 45 degrees of horizontal viewing and 34 degrees of vertical. I understand the effects that lens choice has on clarity and distance and all of that, and my tests were all done in what I would consider the "ideal" range of the lenses that were on this camera which was between 50 and 75 feet away from the camera. Like I said, this was simply me trying to understand the point at which there simply isn't enough light to be useful to the camera and 2 lux seemed to be the cutoff point. Also, just for the lighting nerds in the house 2 lux translates to just under .18 foot candles. After all of that, my question is simple. Has anyone here done and type of testing or playing around to figure out something similar and if so were your results anywhere near my figure of 2 lux or is this 100% camera/lens dependent with no measurable way to compare apples to apples?

Awesome, it is good to know that I was coming up with useful info because this was a VERY unscientific test! I also discovered that playing with the exposure settings made some big differences too. The sweet spot seemed to be 1/5 on the low end and 1/4000 on the high end. I also told it to use the entire image when evaluating for adjustments. Thanks for the feedback!

I am looking at a job where these are my two options (customer requests) but they appear to be two VERY different animals. The Paxton stuff seems much more sorted out, and has a centrally managed software client. The big advantage I see to the Alarm Lock stuff is the wireless install. This system would be going in a rather large warehouse, and I am not sure the wireless would be adequate for the sheer size of this place. I have no problem overcoming the wireless issues... I am looking for feedback from anyone who has actually used this stuff in terms of reliability and support after the sale. I think I am leaning towards the Paxton stuff right now, but I am open to any and all feedback.

I typically don't use conduit to drop it down. I will use threaded rod screwed directly into the beam clamp and simply zip tie the cable to the rod. The only time that is an issue is with a PTZ because the motors make the rod shake. In that case I will use a rather healthy size rigid conduit for stability, but the rest is pretty much the same. I have also just attached a piece of sheet aluminum to the face of a 4 gang box on the camera end (much larger than the box) and mounted camera looking in multiple directions to one sheet of metal. Just food for thought I guess... good luck! If looks are an issue, you can even paint the rod or box or all of it... whatever's clever!

Ok, so my guess was pretty close then... sweet! Thanks for the reply!

I saw both from a few different makers, it was pretty dang good.

I don't recall seeing this... was it IP or analog? Any idea where it was or what exhibits were nearby?

I never got to meet anyone... next year will be a different story.

I thought he told me it was 85K for the whole package... maybe I missed a "1" in that figure.

Thanks to my gimpy ankle, I did not get to see everything. I did like the show and I fully intend to return next year. The one thing I was just flabergasted by was the gigapixel setup that IpConfigure was putting out. I can think of several uses for that thing. If you did not have a chance to see their demo, you missed out on something truly amazing. They were using this camera from Lumenera and a full on DSLR lens somewhere between 100 and 400mm focal length. They use their software and are constantlystitching together a bunch of images to build a new panorama every minute or so: http://www.lumenera.com/resources/documents/datasheets/industrial/Lm11059-datasheet.pdf

I am @ Bellagio.... just wandering

I am staying at the Ramada on Flamingo... got here this morning. I am leaving on a red-eye Thursday night.... uuugh. The guy I came with wants to see some of the strip at night, so we will be out and about tonight.

That Mobotix T24 is a VERY cool piece of kit. I was just at the Mobotix Int'l Partners Conference in Germany two weeks ago, and got to play with it. They also have some other pretty slick cameras coming out in the next few months that would be EXCELLENT for a door... stay tuned!

Is there any way to increase the refresh rate on V8.1 of GV-DVR? I have a friend who needs to view his cameras on a MAC, and one image every few minutes simply isn't going to cut it. I actually just tried it from my PC and it is doing the same thing, just a single JPG image every minute or so.

correct

If I use DMMMultiViewer it runs flawlessly over the LAN or the internet.

Well, it is a FIOS connection and the upstream is 8 megs (tested and confirmed). If I run it using the MultiViewer, I get all 4 cameras with no issue. I wish they would just publish a real MAC compatible client and get it over with.

We are accessing this using the http port (in this case it is set to 82). If there is something I am missing, please let me know.

Just saw a few of these, and I was thinking they might be useful as a semi-covert camera as well. I know I might be thinking way outside the box, but does anyone have any experience with these type of cameras that come on a big reel?

Well, I had a bunch of leftover cable from a project so I decided to see just how far you can really take this stuff before you start getting data loss. I used one Netgear POE switch, one D-Link POE switch and two Mobotix cameras (one at each end). This is obviously not a perfect test because I had to use multiple connectors, but close enough. At 402 feet, my link speed dropped from 100 mb/s to 10 mb/s, and at 426 feet I could only see the ID of my camera, but I could not connect to it. Just a silly an completely un-scientific test, but if you need to go 401 feet and it is uniterupted, you can probably pull it off pretty easily.

Glad you got it working, no clue on the phone issue. Have you tried downloading one of the free camera viewer apps? Maybe the one you are using is just a bit wonky.

If the DVR is set to DHCP, your poet forwarding needs to be tied to the DVR MAC address so the router knows where to send the traffic

Yeah 80-80 means 80 in and 80 out, so you need 80 as the port on the end of you IP.

Those are pointers, so let me see if I can help you think about it another way. You have port 80 knocking at the front door (your WAN port coming from the internet), you answer the door and direct him to the back door (your internal network and more specifically your DVR) and he is able to do his job. If Port 8080 knocked at the front door, he would be directed to the shredder because that is not the port you have allowed to pass thru the front door. EDIT: While I am thinking about it, is that port directed to the specific IP or MAC address of your DVR? If not, I don't think you are in the right area of your router's menu.