ssnapier

I recently received a beta of MxServer that support a few more camera brands, and that was a HUGE help to me since they added Panasonic. The biggest problem I see with MxServer is that it just sends a stream of data... I cannot used motion based recording at all so I have to have a LOT more storage available.

Ok, so I am using MxServer to feed 13 Sony RZ25N's into Mobotix Control Center. This setup has been in place for about a year, but there have been a LOT of issues to sort out. Part of that was my learning curve with the system, but part of it is just hurting my head. Last month I thought I had things all sorted out, but now I have MxServer telling me that all 13 channels are recording (in the application screen) but when I go to the config page, it is a different story. The radio button for recording is set to ON, but if I click "off" and hit send, it comes back and says "no changes have been made". If I click the "ON" radio button, which is already selected, it then says "event recording activated". The problem is that it is not really recording, because nothing is being saved to the NAS. None of this makes a dang bit of sense to me, does anyone have a suggestion?? I have uninstalled and reinstalled MxServer, deleted and rebuilt all 13 channels, and even deleted the entire windows profile and did it all over again on fresh profile. I am very confused and discouraged here...

Anyone ever done this? I have been asked to "develop some ideas and quotes" to do this for a local police agency. My first question is what power do most helicopters use, and what systems are considered both user friendly and reliable. I am going to do my own research, but I figured a post here might not be a bad idea.

I am having a bit of trouble with this, hopefully someone here can shed some light on things. I am bidding on a small project that involves a subway tunnel and they are specifying that I must use "tunnel rated" wire. I have never heard of this particular rating and cannot find any information on it. Is this really a special rating, or would direct burial rated wire work just fine?

I plan to ask, but the meeting is not until late next week. I was trying to get ahead of the curve by getting most of my costs figured out ahead of that meeting.

As long as you have the gear to climb that thing safely (or you have a lift) you simply do it with a plain old plumb bob, but you do it one section at a time. You also plumb all of the studs and concrete slab before you start building. Also make sure you check at least two legs, I would personally go with the overkill and check them all but I am kind of anal like that.

I know I can scour the interwebz and get this answer, but I was hoping to save a bit of time. I know that Mobotix stuff is 3-4 watts and most of the Axis stuff is as well, but are there any other cameras out there that use something other than POE class 1? EDIT: Ok, so it would appear to me that most of the cameras that have an IR ring around the lens are rated at POE Class 3, that is interesting. Let me change up my original question a bit.... how much planning do you put into your systems when it comes to POE and have you ever used or not used a particular camera or device based on it's POE rating?

yeah, we use the Fortress ES-520 for a lot of stuff and that is limited to 36W total, or 16W per pair of ports (8 ports total). With Mobotix cameras I can use all 8 ports, but with some others I have to pay attention.

very interesting, that changes things quite a bit! what sort of batteries run those giant spotlights? I clearly need to do a lot more research on this subject.

I have been asked to find a fixed camera (he said a dome, but I doubt it needs to be a dome) that can zoom in and out with a REAL optical zoom. Does such a thing exist? If so please point me in the right direction, if not is there just no demand for this type of product?

Agreed, you rock... this is seriously valuable information, thanks!

Any idea how that stacks up to the overlay device offered by Super Circuits? https://www.supercircuits.com/Loss-Prevention/VSI-PRO

What is the appx. price on that Honeywell piece?

This customer wants to be able to zoom in and out on his cash register. I tried to convince him that a PTZ was a better option, but he is deadset on a fixed camera. Thanks for the recommendations... my next question is and POS overlay. How tough is it to accomplish, and what hardware/ software would be involved? This will be the only camera in the facility (for now), but I anticipate a few more being added over the next year. I would estimate no more than 10 cameras, probably 5 or 6 total.

The choppers we are doing already have the giant spot lights in place... so that is the good news. ummmm.... huh?? so everything needs to be battery powered??

I figured it out, the directory where these are being stored on the NAS became corrupted and essentially had NO permissions to do anything. All better now... but wow was that messing with my head! I don't like the behavior of MxServer in this situation, but at least the log file lead me in the right direction. It would be nice to have a bit of feedback from this thing, but at least now I know how to identify the issue.

I see that... learning is a good thing!

If you have read any of my other posts, I am less than pleased with Mobotix Control Center. Can you guys recommend a piece of software that will allow me to view, record to NAS, search and export video clips from these cameras? I would say it needs to cost less than $400, but I really have no idea what this type of software should cost so I might be way off base there. I have been trying to get my boss to move to 3VR boxes but for now I have a customer that is VERY unhappy and I need a solution!

I have a need to run two copies of MxCC from one machine, but every time I try it one of two things happens. I either get multiple crashes or things slow down so much the computer is unusable. This is an intel i5 desktop with 4 gigs of ram that was intentionally downgraded from Win7 to WinXP. The logic there was to free up resources and basically "give" them to MxCC since that is all this machine is for. This machine also has a video card with either 1 or 2 gigs of on board RAM, so these bogging issues are not making any dang sense to me. My next step is to go back to MxCC 2.4 and see if that makes it any better, if you have any thoughts I would love to hear them!

Does 3vr offer any kind of software only solution? We have a pretty healthy setup on an Army base (500TB of storage, quad Xenons, 128GB of ram, etc.) that could pretty easily handle the software, but is that an option?

I have a client who would like to try and view a Parrot Drone camera view with the rest of his camera feeds. He is using Nuuo software in one place and Mobotix Control Center in another. Has anyone ever messed with these things to see if it is even possible?

I am not familiar with the HOTspot you are referring to, what do you mean? On a slightly different note... but did you know it is illegal to fly one of these things without visual line of sight with it? I have a friend who works for a UAV manufacturer and he was telling me that one of his people got in big trouble for flying a parrot around the corner so he could see people coming into their parking lot. I guess the FAA is chasing a bunch of folks who are building pretty sophisticated UAV's and flying them 3 or 4 miles away. Obviously not the same as a little parrot, but still interesting to know.

Yeah, this guy is a little weird... he is going to attempt to use the Linux control software with a super high gain wifi setup. The goal is to get a 1/4 mile range. I did the calculations and it is theoretically possible, but I told him it is not likely to work at the limits very well and there was a real chance that the batteries would die before he could get it all the way back home. What camera are they using on this thing, and how do I grab the feed?

I just installed one of these at the entrance of a children's home. Other than the fact that I think it needs to be physically lower to see faces better, the image is fantastic and considering the fact that I am used to dealing with Mobotix cameras this is a tiny little thing!

I will certainly do that in the very near future.