shockwave199

Sounds like you want to take a snapshot of any cameras channel hooked up the dvr while either in activex web application or CMS remote software for the dvr. I'm gonna guess they all do this. For my qsee dvr, within the activex web application and CMS you can take a snapshot of anything live on a channel, as well as during playback. I would think most, if not all remote capable dvr's support that. If...that's what you mean.

Heh! In other words- why and what are you looking to monitor?

What is sensing the motion? You could be in for a lot of siren and sleepless nights if just the dvr is sensing the motion in outdoor situations.

You could consider these as well, from Gadspot. Drop in these model numbers for good cameras that fit your bill. GS4008CF- 650TVL Outdoor Bullet Camera, Charcoal GS811EF- 700TVL Outdoor Bullet Camera, Silver GS4015CF- 650TVL Outdoor Bullet Camera, Charcoal or Silver GS851EF- 650TVL Outdoor Bullet Camera I don't have those models but I do use a number of their bullets and they have excellent shells, handling the worst of conditions for me. I wouldn't worry too much about the look if they are up on poles. These bullets may seem large in the hand but they shrink considerably to the eye when installed up a ways. Depending on the color of your poles, choose the appropriate color to blend even more. Here's some new night pics of the bullets I own from them, of lesser quality with fixed lens. These are installed approx at the height you might be talking about. Pictures paint a thousand words. People might get sick of all my pics, but I think they help so much more than talking can, either positively or negativly. Yep, they handle snow storms too. Lol. I have no affiliation with gadspot. I use 'em and I like 'em, that's all. Good luck with your choices, whatever they may be. Dan

I'm not suggesting it's right for everyone and if I were a pro installer, I would never use it. But, on my diy home job it's working fine. As I said though, your mileage may vary- YMMV.

LOLOL! I knew you post something about like that Rory! This will end at about 5". I don't like the snow either my friend. AC...ya mofo! Love the blue just before dawn in this shot. Maybe I'll post some more later when it's deep. Gotta sleep before the dig out.

Well golly, I LOVE pics! Here's this mornings snow storm in the early stages, all with the equipment I've been talking about. Affordable doesn't have to mean junk.

100' of cheap stock cable, the thin premade stuff- My picture is fine. YMMV.

Q-see 408 dvr. Around 260 to 280 in cost when you shop around 500gb hd included, and you can put a 2tb in if you wanted. Doesn't sound like anyone in your group is hugely savvy or even needs an amazing dvr. I have this dvr and it kicks butt and I'm sure would offer everything you'd typically need. Let people here crap on it. All I know is I have it and it's excellent. http://q-see.com/products/security-product.php?ProductId=297 Gadspot cameras of any sort you need. You can get 650 tvl varifocal cams for 65 bucks, or spend a hundred on even better cameras. Gadspot? Who are they! My gadspots have been through high summer heat & humidity, 15 F freezing temps, heavy fog, a hurricane, flooding rains, and snow. They continue to kick arse. All I know is I remotely view them every single night- wonderful views. Get just four or five and then fill out the system as funds dictate. It's easy enough to come by a hundred bucks every so often for another good camera. Gadspot cables. 100' is 13 bucks, 150' is 18 bucks. Is it great cable? No, there are better cables of course. But my cable is taking a lickin and it's still tickin. It's an area where you can save some money up front and be just fine, no matter how many people say it ain't so. Gadspot 9 channel power box- 60 bucks. You could hold off on that and just use the power adapters that come with the cameras into a good quality power strip in the beginning. All tolled, an eight channel dvr, eight fine cameras at around 75 bucks each, eight 100' lines, maybe 100 bucks for misc hardware, and you're looking at a very capable system for around a grand or so. And that's a full system. Take some cameras out in the beginning and it'll be less up front. Surely someone in the group can come up with an 15" or 19" lcd for nothing, or cheap. Point being, a system like this isn't that much and will give you what you need- lots of good views, remotely as well, without spending thousands. All the stuff I recommended here, people will hop in a say it's crap. I respectfully disagree. I only know it's all working flawlessly for me. It's not that complicated or expensive if you don't make it so. You just can't go too cheap. At that point you're really wasting your time and money. Just try not to let the powers that be insist you throw up a system for a few hunderd in garbage. You have to spend at least a grand to get something that will actually HELP you for all the effort you put in. That's it- I'm outa bullets! LOL! Good luck.

Ouy. Why do I bother when it goes completely ignored. Your camera choices, although good quality cameras, will do little to ID in most situations according to your diagram and distances. Trying to cover the distances you listed with fixed lenses will do almost nothing in the way of making positive ID- at least not 3.8mm fixed. You'll see the kids, yes you will. But unless you know them well, all you'll do is look at the footage of them doing the damage and say man, I just can't see any detail at all 60' out. In which case, just get one camera and put it up at the entrance and call it a day. Nice and cheap. That's the only camera that you stand a chance at seeing anything useable. Good luck, which you'll need.

I would make certain the MD is off on the cameras and use only the detection on each channel in the drv and set each channel accordingly to the needs of the FOV. It's likely that the MD in the dvr is much more forgiving of low light noise at night, which will allow you to bring up the sensitivity accordingly on each channel. This has been my experience, at least.

Can't do pricing links here. Check out my sig link videos- keeping in mind the vids are screen captures so they are compressed a bit for that format. I also have tons of pictures in the camera forums. Look up my posts to see them. My eight channel system came in at about 1k, installed myself, and is what I consider to be a low-mid line system. I use a qsee dvr and gadspot cameras. Not top shelf, but I've seen MUCH more expensive systems look nowhere near as good as my system looks. If good installation decisions aren't made, even the best of systems won't do much. Someone else suggested varifocals. Very good idea for some of your locations. You should consider an 8 channel system, even if you don't fill all channels at first. You will though, and probably should. You say you're getting vandalized. Cutting corners is not condusive to stopping vandalism. Don't cheap out now. Cam 1- could be a fixed lens cam as it's a choke point. A 1/3" fixed 3.6mm lens would give a good wide view, with the most useable ID shot when they're about 8' or less in front of the camera. Cam 2- [new position] Installed around the same area as cam one, only this one should be more like a 1/3" varifocal such as 4- 12mm, or 9-22mm. This will provide the detail you need for the parking lot out front. One fixed-lens wide camera will not provide that detail out by the parking lot. Cam 3- [previous cam 2] 1/3" varifocal 9-22mm. Make the FOV tight to the playground. Cam 4/5- [previous 3/4] 1/3" varifocal 9-22mm and plan on making the FOV in the higher [tighter] range, approaching 22mm to cover the pool. Cam 6/7- [previous cam 5] These two could be positioned like your old cam 5. One in your old cam 5 spot, the other on the opposite corner. These could be 1/3" varifocals 4- 9mm and they would cover the back by the pool, only the closer foreground areas by the bushes in front of the pool. Cam 8- [previous cam 5] 1/3" varifocal 4- 9mm to cover the side of the building and get another angle of the mailboxes. I am NOT a pro. Just a DIY'r. But this is what I'd consider, taking into account what you want to cover. If you have enough exterior lighting, you can do without IR's in the cameras. If IR's are included in the cameras, get TDN in them as well so your daytime colors are correct. Good luck with your install! Dan

That. No way around that I don't believe. Try lowering the sensitivity a bit.

That's a lot of smack for a name, cause those specs are found in many ptz's I've looked at when browsing lately, at better prices than that.

Somewhere here in a post a while back was an amazing lens calculator. Not the typical one where you plug in numbers to get the calculation, but a photo of a car on a curb that you could zoom into and out of and actually see what each calculation looked like. It was freakin awesome and I can't find my bookmark of it, or the darn thread. Anyone have it, I hope? Thanks. Dan

Guys- thanks a ton for the pics and clarification. Even though I'm considering an effio chip, I don't wish to run without TDN. So I'll go for a super HAD2 with TDN with an acceptable varifocal offering as opposed to an effio without TDN. I currently have one TDN camera and I really like it a ton, so all cameras going forward will have it. I knew this, but there were some features that side tracked me from remembering how important it is, bottom line. Thanks again. Dan

Give and take with everything. I got a qsee 408 last year with a 500gb HD with no fan needed. Quiet as a mouse. We have an open eye dvr at work and the fan so loud it sounds like a vacuum is on- horrid. You'll likely change out all qsee cams for better brand cameras- I certainly did very quickly. They really include total crap cameras with the box packages. I really like the qsee dvr though. It's doing great for me. It's recommended you run no less than two cameras on those 4-way splitter power supplies. They are made to be filled with all four cameras. I would NOT close up air vents on the dvr. You're asking for an early, overheating death. Change out the fan for a quieter one if you must, but do not seal up the air vents for the sake of dust or noise. Put some good cameras in line and you'll likely have a good system. Good luck.

I guess it's all about the camera in question too. I have a number of bullets that don't have TDN and yet the color is perfectly fine on everything during the day, and even great at night when motion lights come on. My original qsee bullets without TDN however were mostly terrible for accurate color- most all greenery was completely off. But I'm really falling on the side of TDN regardless. Thanks for the slight sidetrack in this thread.

The thing for me is though, true TDN compared to a digital menu item for day/night settings. In auto, where I suppose the camera goes from color to BW at night, is there is huge difference between TDN or digital auto day/night setting. And where would the biggest difference be- at night in BW or during the day in color, where the absence of TDN could distort good accuracy. I guess there's no way to tell except to see for myself with the cameras in question. But I'm not looking for beautiful still images. I'm looking for accurate color and BW at night so as to deliver really good ID shots. If digital day/night isn't as good as TDN but not by an appreciable difference, it would mean the difference of a better chip and larger varifocal selection in cameras. Long and short, if it's not a huge diff, I'd go for the better camera overall. Right thinking?

That's the one! Thanks Blake.

Huh- cool. Thanks for that.

So in fact one of their lesser cams with actual ICR removable filter is better than a day/night setting in the menu of one of their more expensive cams?

Looks to be a day/night setting that is either auto or a menu choice- auto/color/BW in all the ones I checked. I believe auto is the setting you'd want for TDN/ICR behavior. I could be wrong but I think that's it.

Rory- your link is just an activeX update? All is working otherwise for me- I'd hate to throw it outa whack. But if it's just an activeX update and would improve things, cool beans.

Ideally yes. But it doesn't work when doing it remotely. You have to set that up in the dvr itself, looking at the monitor hooked up to it. Not sure why it doesn't work remotely except I figure it's a graphics card issue. I don't have your exact dvr but I have a 408 qsee and get the same thing. I've heard others with the same issue, different brands altogether. Not a big deal to me though- set it up locally and it's done. Dan