Razer_SE

I currently have 34 separate exacq servers, been installing over a year or so. So far so good. Literally no issues at all with exacq so far. I have about 30-40 to go yet too. Spread out over 5 states, will have roughly 800ish cameras total when done. Any major issues and I bet I find them lol. Only small issue with with an oddity in the rotation when rotating cameras from multiple properties when a property would drop an internet connection it would start the rotation series over at the beginning every time. It was fixed in the next update after I emailed them about it though. In fact, they emailed me a unreleased update for me to test to make sure it was fixed before the release. That was nice of them I thought. Avigilon Core was missing features that I got built into exacq, when adding the final cost it was a big enough difference to stay with exacq.

With Exacq you can pull an hour or two quickly with no issues. In fact just this morning I was reviewing overnight footage just to check motion detection on a newer deployment of a DVR. I found with my second double click someone on our property that should not have been there. (the first double click was a very bad kitty cat, looked like he was up to no good lol) I was able to get all the footage from 9 different cameras that picked up something and see what all went on in about 5-10 minutes of reviewing. This footage was spread out over three hours total. This was a remote site so I was having to download all footage, it was not a local DVR. If my DVR was local then it would be faster of course. Still, not an issue. A few weeks ago I was pulling footage from a break in, again we know within three days when it happened. I found all the footage I needed in about 10 minutes of looking. I guess that is where it differs on what you need. I'm watching buildings and areas that will not change so missing object and such is totally useless for me. I need to review times that I normally know already, or I just look to see when motion was picked up and pull that. At most I'm looking at a weeks time frame, then in that area for that camera, how much motion do I really have to look at? Not much. I looked at all the other options, the only other that I really liked was Avigilon, but most features that were different from Exacq were ones that we did not need and it cost a significant amount more. Also, Exacq camera model support has been fine for me anyway, they do have a large selection of cameras to choose from. I've also had one case where a new camera was not supported and I made it work anyway. They added support for the camera officially with the next software update so it's now supported better, but it worked fine for me if I set motion in the camera itself and not in the software. If Exacq was not around Avigilon would have been my choice.

I am spoiled by Exacq at this point. For example I just logged into a system of mine to check the CPU usage on it after reading how bad some of these systems are. I wanted to compare it to a basic system on exacq. The computer is an i3 with 2gb of ram. Nothing special about that at all. With 16 analog cameras recording at D1 and 9 IP cameras, the IP cameras are two 4mp cameras @ 8fps and 7 1.3mp cameras @ 8fps. The system is running the web server, and the client is running in a quad rotation. My cpu usage? 9% Ram usage? 45% Not bad at all, the cpu would go almost to 2-3% and spike as high as 16% but I think I can live with that lol. Wish Dahua made cameras that were compatible, then again I've saved a ton on my actual computer so I can now spend it on more expensive cameras!

I also wanted to say thanks to hardwired and to the OP. While I knew the exacq side just fine I'd never had to actually use it. With some recent problems at a couple of properties I thought some more and was able to come up with a solution for a fence alarm using my triggers in exacq, and some relays and such from ELK products. I got the basics working with email alerts and such, and seeing all the info here got me more willing to be experiential lol. More like I finally made the time for it and now I'm working on a timer to trigger a strobe, battery backup and other fun stuff. Waiting on a few more parts to really start building but my basic relay and alarm are working great now.

OK, I need something that I'm sure exists but I've not had need of before now so I'm hoping for some pointers here. I have perimeter fencing around a lot of locations that we're having issues with break ins in a few locations here recently. Just this week they hit a property, cut the fence on us and the property next door to get access at the back of the property. We have cameras there, but they broke the PVC conduit running up the poles to get at the cable and cut them. Hit 4 separate locations and 7 cameras on this property. It is now in metal conduit, but still, that was a first. Soon they'll be bringing ladders... I want something to install on, along, or whatever, fencing to detect when it is cut, or climbed, or whatever. I was wondering if there is something I can use that will integrate with my Exacq DVRs in some way. It triggers, exacq registers trigger and emails out to a set of email addresses, or triggers lights or whatever. I know the Exacq side, just not what I need to get. I guess a stand alone systems is an option too. Just wondering where to start looking for something or if anyone had experience with systems like this? Old school was beams I know, but I have tons of fence line to cover at times so that is a nonstarter I'm sure. Costs would be? Appreciate any info to get me started!

Yeah, but in 95% of our break ins they are cutting the fence as they need to to carry items out that they are stealing. Our fences are 10' and topped with barbed wire so they are usually not climbed. The trick would be to weave it in and out of the fence requiring them to cut the wire to get in. Say 10' apart and ran through the fence back and forth every couple of feet should do the trick I think. I hope they see it and just don't try, I'm fine with that too. For no more than it will cost its worth a try I guess if I can get it all figured out.

So in thinking some more and looking I have a simple solution for some properties that will work perfectly with my DVR. I can run insulated wire in the fence in a loop and run current down the wire. Thinking about a 24v power source. Hook a relay to the loop and when someone cuts the wire woven in the fence then the relay will trip; which the DVR will see and do my emailing out and whatever else we need. I just need to find a suitable relay and I think this will work. Trick will be weaving in and out of the fence so they have to cut it to get in. This should work in any chain link fence and be quite inexpensive. I also found a system that will work for sure using an electric fence, but that will not work in all situations. I think I can use it in a few places though. I have a couple of quotes coming in from the real places using higher end equipment and will see how high or low the prices are. Found some at over $90 per foot. That is pretty high, way out of my range lol. Probably out of most peoples price ranges!

Thank you both for the reply, gives me a place to start anyway. With my Exacq servers I have a couple alarm inputs/outputs on the server itself and then I have some on my ACTi License Plate cameras too so I have a couple of options there at least. The Axis I will keep in mind if I need more though, thanks. I also found an electric fence option that can detect and trigger when it is cut, then there are fiber optic systems too. The fiber looks nice, but if they cut it then I'm out $1000 in cable for one stretch of fence which would suck. Dunno, looking and learning as I go I guess!

I purchase analog cameras from Empire all the time and have got great service from them, I actually installed four of the bullets yesterday. Great cameras for the money, I fully recommend them as someone to purchase from if my experience is any indicator. I like the 2mp dome too, I have one and was shocked at how good the image looked for the money. My only issue is there is no motion detection on the camera so my DVR software will not work unless I set it to constant run. I don't want that, so I cannot really use the camera. I am still amazed at the image it gets for the cost though. Hoping for a future version with hardware motion detection so I can use them. Now I want to see some night shots! I've not had opportunity to test mine at night yet. I really need a system to test with at my house lol. Gotta be one of the few on here that does not have a system at home!

I have used a bunch of the Cisco switches and not had any issues with the SF 302-08P which is probably the one you were looking at. I have several locations with all eight ports being used by ACTi and Vivotek cameras with IR and have never had any issues, but if yours requires more power then there is the SF302-08MP - The MP stands for max power and I think it's 124 watts? I have several of these, and they have worked perfectly for me. I also use a lot of ZyXel switches, but I have never used one of their managed switches as I normally move to the Cisco ones when I need managed. Good firmware, they update it as needed, there are two firmware images so you can fall back to a known good configuration if you "tweak" something and it goes wrong lol. I just ordered three more of the Cisco switch for myself two days ago, and six of the non-managed ZyXel switches so I must like them! EDIT to add link to MP switch http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-302-08MP-Gigabit-Uplinks-SRW208MP-K9-NA/dp/B0044934UG/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1347626087&sr=1-1&keywords=SF302-08MP

Quick question for you all, I have an interesting problem here that I wanted some feedback on. Quick story is that this vehicle has a truck bed full of stolen items, can identify items clearly, got a couple of decent face shots, great video of distinctive truck. Great. The camera shot here he has to drive right by on the way out and it should see his plate at least somewhat. As he exits though just as the plate should come into view it looks like it is masked, it disappears into a black line that when you watch the video looks like it is drawn across the plate as he turns. What the heck. This camera was meant to watch the gate remotely, but not necessarily to actually capture the plate as I use other cameras for that and zoom in of course. But normally you can get the plate anyway with this camera. This location is small and did not rate a full camera system, these were just added this year actually for basic remote viewing of property. I just tested 5 other vehicles exiting and was able to make out the plate with just a little work, no hint of this effect. Not bad for a basic Vivotek 8332 camera. Still, this looks blocked somehow. The only thing I can think of is the photo radar plate blockers/covers that I know are out there, but I did not think they worked this well? Any other ideas? Whatever it was, it was quite effective. First photo is as he is rounding the corner, then as he moves by the black bar appears. Cropped photos close for better view.

I'll try and get one up if I can figure out how to crop it a little bit. Basically the plate is white as in the first shot, then as he round the corner to exit the black appears and "paints" in as he goes around and the plate turns black for all intents and purposes. I tried to get shots of it crossing the plate, seems to happen at as a certain angle from the camera. Seems passive, not like some other plate systems I've seen. Motorized http://www.hideplates.com/products/rear-only-usa-hide-plate-kit Electrically triggered http://privacyplates.com/Privacy_Plates.com/Privacy_Plates.com_-_Home.html http://www.stealthperformanceproducts.com/TricPlate.html Still not seen something like this exactly though as these need you to trigger them. This effect looks closest to what I'm seeing, but the entire plate does this not just the numbers. http://www.amazon.com/Photomaskcover-License-Protector-No-Ticket-Guarantee/dp/B005FMF9DQ/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_1

I knew of the same things, but just figured they were a scam. I've looked at reviews of those products and many say they don't work, whatever this is it works amazingly well. I want one myself lol! Frustrating in this case though. The police called when I sent them video and asked if I had analytics on the camera that blocked the plate, they were asking that I remove the block and I laughed, said I'm sorry, that is something I've never seen before and we were not purposely blocking the plate by any means. They were mystified too, and the guy I talked really knew his security software and cameras.

Last photo, plate looks totally black until out of sight. Thought he just took off plate at first glance, then I noticed the censor bar effect. Plates for trucks are white with large black letters, I pulled off three plate numbers with the same type of plates yesterday no problem but not this one.

You will see the cameras all the time no matter what, the computer will only record the stream when there is motion though. During the normal viewing nothing is being put on the HD at all as you are only watching the camera live stream. If the camera is doing the motion detection as usual with IP cameras then the computer is sitting pretty idle when no motion going on, and when motion triggers then the HD will record the stream. CPU is pretty idle if all motion is being done on the camera side too, even when recording.

In your first screenshot, where you can see your camera listed as Sony on the left hand tree view, click on the camera and it will open up a screen with your camera view, there you make all motion windows, recording times, name the camera, adjust camera settings, quick link direct to cameras web config, ect. You are just a single click away in your first screenshot.

When you click on the green "try exacqvision now" link there is a quick page you fill out with your info, then they will email you the password to download, and a trial key if you need one depending on what you are trying. If you need to test with more cameras and the like then email them and they can get you a custom key, or at least they did for me.

Interestingly enough when I had it set to 1/60th it switched into night mode, but it got grainy and caused motion detection all night long. Set it back to 1/30th and I'll just take the color image lol!

I have my first 5611e installed and working now and I have the same "trouble" where it's getting so much light it's staying in day mode at night. Very good shot, amazing really but I want to see how it looks in night mode. I set the auto sensor setting to 1 and it was still in day mode so I switched to 1/60th today to see if that will get me in night mode tonight, we'll see. This camera catches so much more light than my 5211e cameras that is not even funny. I'm switching to this camera completely for my LP shots. I have one 5211e that is recording all night no matter what I try so I'm going to swap the camera out for the 5611 and see how it looks then. Be an interesting comparison in a challenging lighting environment for sure.

The NVR still does all the recording and storage for me, the cameras see motion and send the trigger and once the NVR sees that it starts recording on that stream. I use Exacq in my case, but there are a lot of available options for the software side. Also as a note, Dahua cameras do not have motion detection on the camera so you have no option there besides server side motion with those currently.

The biggest advantage I'm aware of is much, much lower overhead required on the computer. I can run 12-13 IP cameras on some of my systems and only use 5-7% of my CPU on a Pentium D processor! I hear of other people having issues with 6-7 cameras and an i7 at times.

I have a dome from them here now for testing, and really it does a pretty good job for the price. I was truly surprised by how nice the image was. Same issue though, without on camera motion it will not work for my uses. I can record constant fine, but I do not want to do that. In the firmware there appears to be motion settings, but I've not been able to use them. I'll hang onto it hoping for an update sometime because for the cost there are places I might not normally put a camera that I will just because it's cheap to add.

Depends on what it does for your shot, I have a couple of the 5211e cameras that I've had to resort to manual focus as they could never quite get focused correctly. Test it and just know that you can set focus if you have to easily. The manual focus is in the PTZ menu, I focused with the default 5 point steps to get it close and then focused using the 1 point steps to get it perfect. Some of my cameras seemed to refocus during big light changes and this fixed that too.

I've not had bad luck with Exacq so far, and searching locally works fine, I do not have a problem with the newer versions. Now, searching remote sites can be a pain, but then again it is a remote locations so the upload on the other end is the real issue. Exacq should have a trial that you can get from them to try, if it does not have enough cameras available in the default trial contact them and see if they will give you a temporary 4 camera license or something. We use web view with multiple users all the time and it works very well. Web view was a huge need along with iOS and Android app support and Exacq won out in all of our testing when we went with them. I use start in one location and it would really do everything we need, but you can only connect to one start site at a time in the client software and I need to connect to 70+ simultaneously, so we use the standard version for all of our other locations.

Not totally fair, but still I like to see the shots of different cameras. I use some vivotek cameras and have some really good success with a few models, but I have also had quite a few go bad within just a few months of install too. I have had 8332 cameras work amazingly well at night and giving me some very good night images, but I have had 5-6 die on me now where the sensors go bad. I just got two back from an RMA yesterday in fact where they replaced the cameras. Making me look for some others to try now.