Razer_SE

What is a recommended brand or source for great quality RG59 Siamese cable for analog runs? I'm using cable now that I feel is not the best, on longer runs, and at times even short ones, I think the image is not up to par even when just ran. Been using it for a long time and I'm having to repull wire as soon as a year later for the cable going bad, that is getting really old. Other runs are fine, so I'm thinking the QC is suspect on what I'm getting locally. Cable is almost always ran in conduit, but I'd prefer direct burial grade just in case is has to run in the open somewhere along the way. Cost is a concern, especially when I'm going to have to pay for shipping a ton of it to me! On CAT5 cable I've finally settled on Ubiquity cable and that has been noticeably better quality and reliability than locally acquired cable so I'm hoping someone has suggestions on equally great Siamese! Any help appreciated, thanks all! Edited to add - I purchase through ADI for many of my cameras so if they have it great, if not I'll purchase from wherever.

As the title states, just looking for insight on Brivo as an access control solution. We have 80 locations that we need to manage and are doing so now, but the system is not really designed to work as we want it to. We are only controlling one gate at 90% of the locations, sometimes two. The access would all be via pin code not via card or anything like that at this time. All locations are centrally managed at one loctaion, all have internet. Brivo seems to be a good solution - but thought I'd ask peoples opinions. I'd buy them tomorrow if we were not still rolling out our busted solution..... Spent so much on current system I can't see us spending the 2k a property to get the new hardware seeing as we've just spent that on many of the properties on the old stuff! Need a great price and a trade in program lol!

I own 7 of the Acti B45 cameras, and have just installed the first one. I am now moving to these to replace the KCM-5611 cameras, the night shot is as good and it seems to be more waterproof and robust in general. I have about 40 of the KCM-5611 cameras and they have been okay, but the new B45 is working just as well if not better for me anyway. My first day after coming in and reviewing night footage I actually called someone else in to look at it because I was that impressed with the improvement from the camera that was in the same location before. I replaced because of a lightning strike, now I'm glad I had to. The camera that was there was the ACTi KCM-5211, and that camera was not good at night at all in comparison.

The cameras will be scheduled off until you set a motion or two window for the camera, then it will automatically move to motion.

Totally depends on the software really, but what you have should be more than enough. I just built 8 more servers for my systems and they are all i3s with 4gb, Samsung 128gb SSD for OS and 2tb WD enterprise drive for storage. No issues at all with up to 14 cameras on there, say 20-30mp total in cameras. The vast majority of my servers are i3s with only 2gb of ram and they still run fine, where I live I have a system like that with 3tb of storage total. I have nine 3mp cameras and one 2 mp, along with 5 analog, all on an i3 with 2gb of ram. It's very busy with a lot of motion recording and I'm still at 120 days of footage. With cameras on screen I use around 35% CPU, with client closed down it uses about 2%. Software makes or breaks whatever system you have, but if you have hardware motion detection on your software then you should be more than fine.

Not sure what was up with your setup, I just opened up 4 3mp cameras on my two year old i5 laptop. Along with 5 other programs open on my dual monitor setup and my CPU only sat at bout 10%, random drops to 1%, spikes to 17%. That is super lightweight, when I'm looking at 18 3mp cameras at once on an i3, while its recording many of those streams, and I'm only at 30% on a i3 I'm super pleased. Same cameras on other software will max out an i7! I do not use laptops as a default, just saying I've used a couple of them successfully with no problems so far, two years non stop and counting!

There should be some type of rubber gasket that touches the front glass to separate the IR lights from the lens. It appears that yours it not touching the glass, thus letting in the light. Check that it is touching fully on the glass and that should fix your issue I would expect. This is true of any camera, domes are even worse!

I use Exacq, for a basic 4 camera system it would cost $200. In my eyes it's worth it as I can use such an inexpensive computer to as my NVR. The cameras vary, all are at a minimum of 8fps, none higher than 15 at this location. All cameras record at max resolution, day to day they usually rotate 4 cameras at a time on a monitor running 1920x1080, but you can display them all at once no problem. In this thread not long ago I shared a couple of screenshots of different configurations in hardware and cameras. Towards the end of the first page, and on the next page specifically. I normally do not display all cameras as with as many as I have the views are very small. Some sites do not run the client at all, so they sit and basically idle all the time. I have a couple NVRs that are i3 laptops recoding to an external drive though. No issues so far and am well over a year, and they are in a unheated and uncooled area! Surprised even me lol. I did it to test if it was a viable solution, and it sure is. Makes for a nice compact setup, screen and all. $349 laptop connected to a $150 2tb drive. $500. That's hard to beat, and I have screen, keyboard, mouse, everything needed other than a POE switch, Exacq software license, and cameras! I might swap out the normal internal HD for an SSD if I do this in the future, seeing as that would only add $100 or so. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=39346&hilit=razer_se&start=15

If the NVR software is working correctly you should have almost no CPU usage. I can connect 14 of them to an i3 and not even use 2%. I have other cams like that running on old dual core Pentiums with no issues at all, it all depends on what software you have. With the right client you can run on Atom based machines easily, if power was really a huge concern. I'll soon have 11 3mp Hik, one 2mp ACTi, one 1mp ACTi, a 5mp Vivotek, 4 analogs made IP through a Axis encoder, and 12 other analogs all running to an i3 with 2gb of ram. It will run fine with no issues at all, even with the client displaying all at once I'll only use about 30-40% of the CPU. With client closed down it will use 1-3%.

So, I'm in the market in the future for a new gate/access control system. I need to control this gate system from a single location, but I'm going to have say 100+ separate remote locations. Locations are spread out over a multi state area, and a system that just connects to the network via Ethernet is a must. Each system will only be controlling one gate for the most part, but some will control two. Access is via a keypad, with usually only one or two keypads per location though there are exceptions for more keypads. Keypad will need to be a simple enter the code type keypad, seven to nine digit code for example, no card access just simple codes. All keypads need to be weatherproof as they'll all be outdoors. Any ideas on where to look for a system of this style? It seems most systems do not scale to this size very well. I have a system that works now, but we are outgrowing it I guess. Ideas on where to at least start researching would be welcome. I'm a while out from a purchase, but starting to look.

Each person has a unique code to access the properties, and the code will only work at their specific property. Anywhere from 50-500 people may have unique codes for a single location. If these people are paid up and such they can access fine, if delinquent then access for their code is suspended. This is all handled automatically by our customer system, codes are sent to a text file that the current gate system picks up and then sends to the correct locations gate controller. If suspended, they have not paid, then that too is written to the file and code is removed. All automatically. 24/7 365 access, so it's all or nothing and very simple from that standpoint.

If it was my guess, I'd guess it's a 2006ish Infiniti g35 sedan. Look at the headlights at about the 46 second mark where you can see them even though the car is facing away, with a tall profile like that g series does. Just watching full speed even small the body style seems right for the g series, but I think its the 4 door, but it's hard to tell. It could be the newer body style g also, but it's just a guess.

This is for vehicles to enter an outdoor gate into a stand alone property. Cards are a non starter, as with anything else physical, as there would be an average of 25,000+ cards or whatever a year need to be given out and retrieved. That will never happen lol; so a keypad is our only option. People will have multiple vehicles enter almost always, say 4-5 per person at times so LPR would be rough if not impossible. Then there are rentals and other concerns in our use that would greatly complicate it.

Old post I'm aware, but I also wanted to say thanks for doing these photos and taking the time. I'm looking at moving to these cameras over the ACTi e31 and e32 cameras as I'm having too many issues with them right now. Now I'm off to find a good place to purchase a bunch of these...

I have used several 10-12 Optex security sensors now with good results, and I'm installing four more here soon. At this new location though I could use two more, and really the only option would be wireless. I know that Optex has sensors with Inovonics transmitters built in, has anyone used these or have any idea of the transmission range to be expected? I know buildings and such will greatly affect this, but in general are we talking 50' range or 300' range? Inovonics also has a newer long range transmitter called the EN1252 that promises "five times the range" but no actual examples of range estimates. I have contacted them to ask but am still waiting on a reply, and I've read every datasheet on these now and I still have no clue on range. Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated!

I have not used that one yet anyway, the longest range version I've personally used is the SIP-100 which works out very well. I need that long narrow beam to cover fence lines usually and other than the occasional animal setting these off they work great. I have used about 4 different types of PIR from Optex so far, and I'm ordering a couple more new versions (to me anyway) later today. Not had any failures yet, and with this super harsh winter I'm very pleased so far as all of my installs of these are outdoors. I did get an answer back from Inovonics and they stated open field type range is 1500 feet, and they have a new transmitter that is supposed to be 5x that. I may end up trying this out at some point yet, still deciding.

If you are a computer guy, then I'd look at moving to IP. Get some Hikvision cameras and some $60 Zyxel switches. http://www.amazon.com/ZyXEL-ES1100-8P-8-Port-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B005GRETPO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392212324&sr=8-1&keywords=zyxel+poe Then pick a software package, easy as can be really. You only have to do CAT5 for wiring, so no separate power supplies, no coax to mess with. Plus a much, much better picture than analog cameras. You have no capture card to mess with, and you can try our several different software packages. It gives you many more options and you're not locked to one package that only works with a specific card. Head over to the IP camera subforum here and read up on the software options and ask away, it's definitely worth it. You can have your switch hidden away wherever so all your camera feeds go there and you only have to have the computer on the same network, so one cable vs. having 8 coax cables and power supplies and such mess behind the computer. it is amazing how much neater, as in actual neatness, not cool factor, an IP system is. Most IP packages are much more flexible in the ability to link more than one system, sitting directly to my left is a desktop right now doing a rotation displaying 6 cameras at a time, from 74 separate locations. Very, very nice. Open one client and see all the cameras, or just one, nice feature for sure and easier for the end user.

Sorry.

I have around 1000 cameras on 74 Exacq servers and really love the software and it works very well for me anyway. I too use Vivotek, along with several other brands and I've never had issues like what you are experiencing, but who knows where your troubles lie. Anything can be an issue, and they can be a bear to track down I know. I've had contact with support a couple of times and each time it was something unusual and a new bug. In one case they patched it in the release coming out in the next week, the other time it was a web server bug that they sent me an immediate engineering version to fix and the full official fix was out in about 10 days. I know when I looked at many, many different software packages it really came down to just a few that I liked and really seemed to be on the ball with changes and features. The only other one that I would go with right now for my needs is Avigilon - There are a couple of others that might meet my needs but if you think Exacq is expensive believe me it gets much worse! Exacq ended up being the cheapest for our needs, but everyone's needs are different. I would check out the Avigion demo that was linked above and see what you think there. Oh, one more thought also, have you used the new Archiving feature over the auto export? You can schedule that to back up wherever you want, you could rent space in the cloud like a simple FTP server and just archive off the data easily now. Might be a good option for long term storage without risk of it getting deleted?

Milestone is a good option but will require a lot of server. Are you looking to have your analogs and IPs on the same server, or are you leaving the old DVR in place as you move to this new one? If you are looking for IP only then Exacq Start would be a nice software package. You could run all your cameras on a basic i5 with no issues at all. Most other software really requires a ton of hardware, Exacq seems to be unique in how little it needs. I have 10 3mp cameras for example only using 33% of an i3 even when all displayed at once. Exacq also includes a very good web server with remote viewing and you can get apps for android, ios, and even windows phone as needed. Exacq start would be about $1400 in licensing for 14 cameras for 6 years total. $50 per camera, 10$ for each extra year beyond the first. Not super cheap, but also not expensive when you can run it on a way more inexpensive server/desktop. There are also hybrid options if you want to have all the analog and the IPs on the same server, but it does get more costly. Nice to have all on one box though, and in some locations IP may never really be needed and analog will get the shot you want so you have the flexibility to use both types of camera. There are a lot of options out there that is for sure, the more details the better everyone will be able to help! Camera brands will not always work with certain software, or there are known issues/bugs so once you narrow down what you'll be using it will be easier. Budget for software, server/desktop and cameras? Seeing as it is indoor it should be pretty easy (compared to outdoor anyway) to use motion on the cameras you want with minimal falsing. Motion will save you a TON of hard drive space. How many days of footage do you want to have? 10, 100?

I also use the Zyxel switches, I have at least 40 of them now. Both the 8 port and the 16 port and they are working great. I have had to RMA one of them as a single port went out after the camera was hit by lightning. The other 7 ports were still working though which surprised me. Easy RMA, sent me a whole new switch. I've also used Cisco 300 series business class switches and have RMAed 8-9 of those before I quit using them altogether. They also fix them, but I'm over the failing. Replaced them with Zyxel as they fail and the Zyxel switches have not failed in the same locations as the Ciscos. As a note, the 8 port Zyxel switches are silent, with no fans. The 16 port could be considered loud with a couple of fans on there. If sound is an issue near your rack get two 8 port models over the 16 port.

I'll send you a PM, no need for CTPAT in our case, and though a code can be shared it is the only cost effective solution as we'd be churning through 1k-2k access cards a month and that would just become insane quickly.

I know there are plenty of options, but when we looked and selected Exacq they were the second cheapest option by a lard margin, the cheapest was Luxriot but they still missed out on a few features we wanted. In the end the features were needs and not wants so we went with Exacq. Avigilon was the next choice that met all needs and wants, but they were much more costly. For virtually all home users an Exacq start system would be fine. Really anyone with only one NVR/DVR would work fine on start outside a few cases. A 10 camera system with all updates for 5 years would be $1000. $50 per camera and $10 per camera for each extra year. The NVR to run this on, and run well, would be what, $500-$600? I don't think $1500-$1600 is all that bad a all. With a great web view. Ability to even do playback and such in web view. Android and iOS apps free. Note that this is MSRP, and you can do better than that price on the licenses. Start would work fine for us in fact, the only real ability I need is the ability to connect to more than one server at a time. You can have as many as you want in the client, but only one actually connected at a given time in the checkboxes. I want a rotation of all 75 servers so that will not work for me, but then again most would not need that. Other than that one thing we'd be on the start version and be just fine. Then there is standard, and enterprise. I'm on standard and it meets our needs in every way right now. Also, it will run just fine once expired, you just can't get new versions. They certify new cameras in the new versions but usually new cameras from a supported brand work fine. New ACTi cameras have an fine for me even when not "supported" so a new version may well not be needed. We might not upgrade after our years run out as we may not need to. Also, after 6-7 years and I want to upgrade there may well be better software out there, a new company, who knows? I know tyco has purchased exacq so now I'm worried about what the company and pricing will look like in 5 years. We may well move on, who knows?

This is in the client. The server running only of course uses literally almost nothing at all. The client for Exacq as seen here in the shots is the exact same client you use remotely. Same installer, same program. In fact, in the main office I have the client streaming a constant rotation of shots from all locations, so anywhere from 6 to 24 IP cameras at once streaming all the time in the client. This is on a Pentium D at 3ghz and it sits right at 33% usage. With 24 cameras it gets closer to 45% usage, but still totally acceptable for a dual core old machine! This is all the machine does, for 16+ hours each day.

I have used a many of the 3911 ACTi cameras with good results, in hallways, in office settings, in entry vestibules in the same office, and in one area in a area with three glass walls around it so the lighting varies greatly in all these areas and they have worked well. My biggest complaint is the heat these generate, man they get HOT on the back side. I think you could cook an egg on the back after it's been on for an hour or so. I've had many installed for more than a year now with no issues with failure though so they must be made for it. I also have an Axis m3007 and 5-6 of the Vivotek FE8172 cameras. The Axis is my least favorite and I'll not get any more of those, but where it is installed it is working just fine. It is indoor, but has windows behind it and the entire view to the left is garage doors that open and close as needed. No issues with that lighting, I can see the people and vehicles outside the doors in the bright light when the doors open and indoors is only lit by a couple lights. In comparison for picture quality and general end user friendliness the Axis comes in dead last from what I've used anyway. The Vivoteks I've only used in hallway intersections and as it has no built in ability to output the four separate views I just record and view in the default bubble view and it works fine. For example one hemispheric each in of two intersections in a long hallway replaced 8 analog cameras in the same hallway. Really the cost is even a wash, as the two IP cameras are close to equal the cost of 8 analogs. But, you only have to record two cameras, review footage from two cameras, and the quality is much, much better than the analogs that were removed. Plus, one cable to a switch nearby for POE, then one cable to each camera VS 8 siamese runs from 400 to 500 feet each. That alone is priceless lol. Lighting has so far been no issue in these locations but motion detection is odd on these. I have to set the motion on the Vivotek to be way, way less sensitive than other cameras I've used to get the same motion results. Most cameras I set to say 90% sensitivity and 5% motion for example. I've had to set these as high as 80% sensitivity and 80-90% motion in a large window to get what I would consider normal motion detection and not constant detection. Odd, but the images look good, no noise that would appear to be anywhere near that high to require settings like that. I'm guessing it's a firmware bug, but it is something to note. I sure wish they would send the quad view I can setup in the web view of the camera to my NVR, but no. Oh well.