fa chris

good luck! Hopefully Lenel support is a lot better than GE's and get it talking to the micro's soon. Worst part is you can't even swap out the reader with a weigand reader without rewiring the whole door to add a controller above it.

Well I won't say anything outright bad about them then... but we've been running into similar scenarios thewireguys posted above. It's cheap and available to any company out there at ADI. The problem with any company being able to sell it is you never know if you're getting an expert or a random hack, which I'm sure contributes to a lot of ONSII customers asking us to switch the system out with something else a year later (once their warranty runs out). I've never personally used the software so I can't speak to how well it actually works, we only get called in to replace botched systems. There might be millions out there with happy customers running perfectly for all I know.

For ethernet extenders: POE: http://www.veracityglobal.com/products/ethernet-and-poe-extension/outreach-max.aspx Non-POE: http://www.veracityglobal.com/products/ethernet-and-poe-extension/outreach-lite.aspx

GE's end of life is around 5 years from what we've seen (for the micro 2000/3000's, basically all of the old CASI stuff), so your migration to Lenel is a must. We're slowly heading down this direction... but haven't done so yet. Lenel is just a software company who OEM's Mercury boards, exact same boards Bosch Readykey Pro (and many others) use. http://www.mercury-security.com/ I really think it's a lot better than the GE stuff, over the years with zero updates to the hardware it's become extremely limited compared to other systems. With the mercury boards you'll have a lot more flexibility, but if you have a lot of the proprietary F/2F readers in the field it'll be tough to switch existing systems over. Going forward you'll be better off using any industry standard weigand card reader like HID. You'll have a box mounted above each door (similar to the direcdoor interface or a wui-4 interface) for all the controls. From a business standpoint, the only issue with Lenel is because it uses OEM hardware, anyone can come in and take your system by simply replacing the Lenel head end with something else. Nobodies ever going to take over your GE systems except for another GE dealer.

Are the pelco NVR's already existing? if not, don't bother with them. buy any off the shelf server to be your NVR and simply put the VMS you choose on it. this way you aren't locked into any proprietary hardware and can swap out the VMS to whatever you need.

A lot of it applies to both IP / Analog, but it seems to be heavily focus'd on the shift to IP. Not really anything new or interesting in the analog world.

Looking at the floor plan layout and the screen shot of the camera (Camera 2), it looks like a normally placed camera to monitor the hallway. Probably hard wired back to a DVR with 8/16/32/whatever other cameras used only for the hotel security staff to look for incidents after the fact, not to actively monitor everything. The only odd part about this set up is it's not a standard camera but a board camera in a custom enclosure. It might be the typical way of doing things in South America, or it might just be a budget job as it'd be a very cheap set up. This could be easily verified by walking around the hotel looking for similar enclosures in the corridors.

Do you have an attached garage with a garage door opener they could be using?

Don't worry, it is. Try the tape to narrow down what anyone could be doing. Also, do you have wifi? Could be an easy way to get into your systems.

Yea, sounds like you have a ghost. I would recommend one of these maybe. ak357, mythbusters have defeated all types of security sensors on national TV. if you know how to bypass one, might as well let us know so we can use something else.

even though win95 handled everything itself, it was still 100% tied to DOS and couldn't do anything without executing DOS first in order to maintain 16-bit backwards compatibility. Pretty poor way to go about it.

have a floorplan layout by chance?

if your dvr is attached to a network with wireless capability, they could be breaking into it. if you think they are picking your locks, you can put tamper proof security tape over them before you leave. While every locked can be picked, only a few people can pick certain types of locks (like medeco) but these locks aren't cheap. alternatively you could install door position switches in your doors (your intrusion system could already have this) and connect them to an alarm point in your dvr so you know if anyone has been opening your doors.

Get a video server, like this: http://www.axis.com/products/cam_291_1u/ to convert the analog cameras to IP, run the encoder into a network switch next to it which has a fiber uplink. This will future proof your system by creating a security network with a switch in each location, allowing you to add additional IP cameras or easily replace the analog cameras with IP cameras over time. Run single mode (or multimode, for 2km distance it doesn't matter), to a switch capable of fiber on the other end with your NVR hooked into it. For your NVR, you can use any off the shelf servers as long as they meet the spec's of the software you're going to use. Dell, HP, whatever... you can have multiple servers can scale it accordingly for your storage requirements. 100 cameras is no big deal. The hardware is the easy part. What you really need to focus on is the software you want to put on the servers, which will handle all of the cameras and all of the recording, playback, and everything else.

Good assumption. And given the nature of our business, we're obviously cautious when people start asking how to tamper with equipment used to put away criminals. I'll play the guessing though. Let's assume it is, in fact, a covert camera. The covert camera is a custom job, no way of knowing the exact equipment inside of it. To take the cover off it's simply 4 screws, possibly 4 tamper resistant screws but doubtful. Why are you asking about this? Do you think someone tampered with it? I assume the box has since been removed? Do you have access to it? What was the box mounted too? Does it look like conduit could be stubbed into the back of the box with wires running elsewhere? I can't tell if it's on a door header or what. A highly portable covert camera set up easily moved to focus on a single persons door would most likely have power and recording ability inside of it, which could be why there's such a large box. If you want to speculate who put the camera there, if it was someone, like lets say the FBI, the camera would be a whole lot more covert than a 12x12 box mounted to a wall. If the hotel owns (or leases) the camera, even if it's not connected back to their main security system, it's still apart of their security system. To speculate on the equipment used: The camera in the picture you showed us is also named Camera 2. If there are two cameras in the box, it's probably connected to a small DVR instead of recording to SD cards. I'd be very surprised if the thing was wireless. We often use board cameras (for a randomly googled example, a board camera is something like this: http://www.huntcctv.com/p-bc-htc-2h6.asp ), which we mount in a small box with a hole in it, and tinted lexan covers the hole. The camera is mounted behind the lexan so it's protected. I don't do covert cameras, but we sometimes use this set up for gate pedestals with cameras, intercoms, card readers, etc. I should also note since it's such a deep box, a normal cctv camera might be mounted in it too. To meet the requirements of highly portable, some type of power supply running off of batteries would need to be in the can powering the camera and the recording device. If there are no batteries, then it'd need to be plugged in somewhere, but I didn't see any cords (unless they're coming in through the back). Anyone else want to give it a go? Could camera 2 be recording to an SD Card? Would an analog camera record it like that unless it's connected to a small DVR?

Are you a PGI shooter? I don't run into other pyro's to often.

Not everywhere has working 4g, not even in North America And most still wont trust their data to the "cloud" Also recall CCTV = Close Circuit Television - not wireless Although this thread is not about CCTV but rather DVR cards and software, so you could be right. that's how it is NOW... 10 years from now... or 20 years... 4g, or it's predecessor, will be better (my city was the first to get it, network is decent here), people might like the cloud, cost of a closed system compared to a potential security breach on the "cloud" might make people more favorable of it. I'm not in anyway saying it's going this way, I'm just saying it's a future possibility.

i already scratched the bahamas off of the list of places i'd like to someday visit. actually being american, there's a very short list of places we can actually go where the local population doesn't automatically hate us. there's also very few things we can't do inside the US though.

This thread took an ugly turn somewhere. I don't pretend to know what type of world you live in Fiona, we are just sharing our thoughts and opinions pertaining to the gray area of what might be too much surveillance (to the point of invasion of privacy) or too little, of course the line in this gray area shifts depending on you're location and situation. If it's on your own property, film everything from every angle at every zoom level if you wish. You need to understand we aren't attacking you, so there is no need for you to be offended or get so defensive at everyone's comments, you seem to be taking things personally.

Well sorry to disappoint, but you're not going to stop a dictator and his military with any security. So far I've seen you get upset over a lot of victim less crimes. Good on you for capturing the perv's and the violent offenders, but while I can't condone riding a dirt bike in a park, kids will be kids. The wanted posters are an awesome way to get it stop though! " title="Applause" /> Have you ever considered relocating?

Any large international company has encrypted communications via any smartphone now anyways, so governments can't tap into them anyways. More so the encryption and servers are controlled by the company, not canada. RIM is dying for many reasons, this is another one of them.

Quit being so defensive! I only pointed out the window thing because an excessive amount of people often put $200 worth of locking hardware on their front door thinking it's secure, and they have nice ornamental windows going down both sides of the door which are completely unprotected. As for the neighbor comment, having surveillance is one thing, you seem to be actively watching everything in a 250' radius though. I'm actually amazed at how many incidents you've managed to capture. I also don't live in the best place in the world, I just try to go by unnoticed and keep plenty of guns around. I'd like to think I'd shoot first, but I'll never know until I'm actually put in the situation which hopefully never happens.

Fiona, I think you're a little more paranoid than most people. Can't decide if you'd make a good neighbor or a bad one. I do like the idea of posting shame posters up though.

Is that door next to a nice big window though?

For what it's worth, I've used a lot of Axis 241q's and have never had an issue with them. I can't find any information on Plustek, their site says "coming soon"... as a rule I try to stay away from being the guinea pig for new products unless they have a feature I absolutely need. The vivotek records video on the SD card. You can set it up to start recording when the network fails, on motion, periodically, etc.