Seedigital

Has anybody else had issues with GV900 based systems running windows 7? I've got a few systems which are locking up randomly, and its a tried and true formula that I have at about 10 other sites (admittedly they are running GV 650 16 cards (some systems 2x A type (VGA plug), 2x B type (DVI plug) in a dual configuration). I've had Geovision look at it and they have given me a fix which has made it occur less frequently but I have at a wits end trying to get them stable. Specs are as follows, Win 7 Professional 64bit Gigabyte G41m s2p motherboard Pentium E6600 Wd Black 500gb Sata 3 HDD for the primary 4 GB DDR3 Running Geovision 8.5 (which unfortunately is the only version available for this card so far)

Good Afternoon/Morning to all you gents, Customer has come to us with a doozy, and wants a PTZ in a Blast Freezer. It gets things cold, Damn cold like near cyrogenic cold in order to bring cooked food from 60-70 degrees down to 3 degrees (in order to stop bacteria growth) in as short a space of time as possible. To do that the air surrounding the products is lowered to super low temps (one report i'm looking at says less that -150 degrees Celsius for upto about 90mins). In short the environment is hostile, So i'm hoping some of you boys in Alaska or what not can share some knowledge nuggets with the class and see if we can come up with a solution. I had an idea of putting a heat band around the camera, trying to find a way to keep this as close to the operational temp as possible. While it is cold, this is a controlled environment indoors and we can cable up what we like really. Any suggestions?

Since your running with Geovision kit already, use a Geovision Video server (They are little encoders), you won't have to purchase any licences with NVR if you use those. The switch, well any half decent switch will do you really as long as it can do 100/1000mbps, I'd push for Cisco based kit (as you have more control but you need to know what your doing), but whatever floats your boat really. If your looking for PoE switches to power your IP cams that's a different story though. Also there is a lot more to think about with this kind of setup, It can be done, but if your looking at 12 NVR's with x amount of cameras per NVR your going to be using a fair amount of bandwidth. You really wanting to look at decent networking equipment and good cabling (Cat6 maybe 6a) If you use the right stuff, then you will thank yourself later!

Its a linux partition, Pretty much all of the standalone drives run some kind of linux variant. Sounds like you have to reformat the drive as ext3, (you could download a 3rd party app to do it in windows or download hirens boot cd and use its mini linux installation to sort it for you) but if this drives causing issues like this its probably buggered. Dollars to donuts says if you throw a new hdd in there the issues will stop and you will be able to navigate to a system format/ drive format menu which will allow you to format the new drive as ext3, with all the appropriate partitions and everything automaticly. Hope that helps

There are a few other threads on this topic, For the main part, with stand alone DVR's you really want to be looking at mid range speeds and low heats. Spindle speed really doesn't matter your not looking at fast seek or read times, your looking to record in bulk. The WD Green series I wouldn't bother with the drive parking features on them are wasted on DVR's that are constantly recording. Out of all the HDD's we use they have the worse failure rate, "The Raid Editions" are kind of an inside joke as they fail so often you better keep em in a self building raid array or else your screwed. The Blues are very good value, they don't get too hot, and they are solid performers. The Blacks are performance drives, they are great for many applications, stand alone DVR's are not one of them. Seagate has some cool low power drives if you can find them with a 5900 rpm spindle speed which run a lot cooler. Heat kills drives, http://www.dtidata.com/resourcecenter/2007/01/27/hard-drive-failure-heat/ There are way better articles out there, you've got google you can search for them, but its pretty much all the same. Heat is a killer of HDD's and a lot of other components. Most stand alone DVR's are linux based, they don't have page files or hdd based swap files, so the only writes and reads will be footage and its mainly sequential. so you don't need a super top of the line boot your os sub 60 seconds type of drive here. Also asp previously noted in this thread a lot of the new stand alone systems now don't come with fans, buuuuuut some of them still use the same cases, which means you can put in fans in the spots. Why take fans out?, cost, or sometimes motherboard revisions which don't require them anymore. cost to replace fan $4 maybe, DVR running issue free for longer > $4

Hey Guys, I'm looking for info for Ethernet over coax (for IP cameras), I found this: http://www.sct.com.tw/IP01K.html Which is a perfectly reasonable product, and will probably do the trick. But I was trying to think a bit outside the box in terms of networking equipment, as back in the day Ethernet traffic was Coax based, I was wondering if there were any companies which still product Coax based networking equipment and whether this is a path worth pursuing. Considering that some sites which have existing Coax which could be utilised, why not try to make the best of it? What can we stretch from this cabling? I know that the old standard was a 10mbps (10Base2 and 10Base5) but was once again wondering if anybody has implemented anything better on a smaller scale. Obviously larger enterprise end have DOCSIS which is how most cable broadband is delivered. Anybody heard of anything like a DOCSIS media converter?, like a point to point solution? At the moment this is all purely theoretical, but if a solution crops up that is economically viable then hell why not? Anybody tried anything like it? What kind of speeds were you getting? distance limitations?

Well it should work if the IP cameras are compatible, might test that out in the office first.

Great suggestions guys! Yeah I only though about the daisy chaining after I posted, and had fond memory's of T Junctions and terminators. In terms of trying to replace as little cabling as possible that SC&T solution looks good as it doesn't need the daisy chaining element. But at the end of the day CAT6 cables are going to be better for IP cams, but if they are in a tight place which you've already tackled with Coax its nice to know that it can be done in a pinch without re-running cables. I do like the Idea of those point to point solutions!, if you already have Coax between buildings it could be a really cool option. I've also seen VDSL Point to Points over a single phone line between buildings, never done one myself but i've been wanting too.

How is that web user been setup? Go to the local account edit and make sure that your allowing that user web access to the camera/s

Also a little off topic, But much like any cabling, you use the right cable for the job, and if its in an area which damage is probable you put it through something to protect it. We have sites which forklifts operate all the time, so if we can't get concrete cut to lay the cable (generally entrances to warehouses or what not) then we lay down protective rubber/Polyethylene strips to protect the cabling. Don't get me wrong Rory you seem really defensive about Coax, and that's fine it has its place. If your trying to run 20 or so cameras back to a DVR between buildings, A concrete cut with a conduit and a draw wire, with 5 CAT6 cables is a hell of a lot cleaner than trying to run 20 Coax cables. Its more economical, It has an upgrade path to IP if the customer wants to upgrade later on, you can run POS data or rs485 to PTZ's Run and I/O for detection for Alarms or I/O on the DVR's. Yes Coax has its place if your running purely cameras, and you can get some cool adaptors which allow for a lot of different applications, You can run 10mbps data down coax as well with not to much equipment. In a CAT5e/6 vs Coax argument, It depends on the job as to what is best. For our applications CAT6 all the way we need the versatility

And when that feeble little cat5 cable gets knicked, you loose 4 cameras. Great You don't use conduit?

Baluns are awesome, After reading the forum nobody has actually explained what they do and why they are important. They essentially match impedance on pairs (Cat 5,6 speaker wire whatever) to that of coax. You can even get ground loop isolating baluns (my personal fav), Low Loss Baluns and other flavours as well. Advantages! you can run 4 cameras over Cat5/e/6 because it has 4 pairs, really good for long runs with an active receiver. You can power the cameras locally, run the cat back to the DVR and hey presto! no need to run 4 long coax cables. I personally don't recommend power over Cat, the wires are not really thick enough to supply cameras which are going to drain a lot of juice (IR or PTZ), I'd find yourself a cheap supplier of 12v dc or 24AC power supplies and run with those over separate cables to the camera. In terms of price standard baluns are cheap, $2-4 us each depending on supplier, Low loss are a lot more expensive at the $10 to 15 us each. Good Cat5e/6 is pretty reasonable (at least in NZ), Truth be Told DIY CCTV around the house is reasonably cheap and easy the net provides all the info you need. That said, at the end of the day DIY's sometimes hit a wall whether its poor equipment, lack of knowledge or lack of skill. When you pay an installer you pay for service. You normally get a year or two guarantee/warranty and you have a single point of contact for any issues that you may get. Over and above that (as long as you get a good installer) you can rest in the piece of mind that its going to work when an event happens, and your not going to have some half assed fire risk of wiring. DIYer's go for it, give it a shot its a good hobby and you can get decent results for inexpensive equipment. Only a fool sells on price, and you know what there is always somebody who can do it cheaper. I'm all about finding bang for your bucks, you don't always need high end, or mid range in some places, but in others you do. Don't buy cheap knock off exterior housings with next too no seals in them, they kill cameras! (and cameras are expensive) Don't buy cheap cabling (or coax and BNC's), or you'll end up with a crap picture. Ok rant has gone a bit off topic now. Baluns are cool, active receivers are cool.

yes if you want to view via IE you will need to install all the files on the pc your working on. Most of the time you need to right click on the IE logo and run as admin to install them. Easier way is to install GV Multi view software which is on the install disc on the pc your trying to view the cameras from. it gives you an similar interface to that of the main gv software system and in my opinion is far better at view the cameras from a separate location on your network.

I would go with 64Bit, Its stable and you might want to go about the 4gb Limit. Super easy to config, install all the cameras, once they are powered/cabled then run the geovision IP detection utility, Within minutes you'll have it setup (in terms of camera mapping) In terms of cabling and what not browse the forums, soundy put up a really good configuration with 10/100mbps PoE switches linked to a 100/1000mbps line back to the switch the NVR was on. Using a switch with combo speeds like 8x ports 10/100 PoE and 2x 100/1000mbps ports means you can keep costs down while keeping total network speed high. Most of the info you need for Geovision comes with the manual, If you have specifics post them on here and i'll give you a hand when I can. One thing is your system is very light on storage, you may want to drop another few TB's in there to beef it up.

hmm they are old, as something to keep them limping, try upgrading to 8.xx most of them have the AGC (auto gain control) feature which generally really helps keep pictures up on the screen, Whole bunch of reasons why it could happen, but its weird they are happening at the same time. Hope it helps, even if its a temporary measure till you replace them.

I did a bit more research not just limited to Seagate drives!, apparently there is a whole bunch of options I never knew you could do with hdd's

In short for some reason the installation in 8.5 doesn't put the codecs in there, dunno why but you just copy a working set of codecs in that folder and away you go. But your right its been recording the whole time its just a nuisance, I was hoping that 8.5.0.1 was going to fix it but it doesn't its just a driver update for the new cards, software is almost identical.

Oh yeah i've had this one, You got to replace all the kit in your geocodecreg folder. PM me and i'll email it to you

Also my good friend google reckons there something called Automatic Acoustic Management on seagate drives and the seek sound level can be adjusted using AAM. also known as that clunking sound you sometimes hear when a drive starts its read write arm shifting about, so there you go random tid bit no idea how to set it up but there you go.

I had a really bad run with the Green HDD's with Western Digital (its pretty widely known that they had firmware issues for a looong time), I found the Seagate Green Variant a lot better (but they recently scraped their Green initiative). So your kinda stuck for choice, WD or Seagate. WD Black is awesome but they run a bit hotter (which can be a very bad thing if its in a hot or stagnant environment), Blue is a good compromise Seagate you've got your barracuda line up they are pretty solid, same deal ignore the performance parts due to heat. Seagate do some brilliant single platter drives (which are half the thickness) and run pretty cool and are full speed <-- If you don't need mass storage I think they do a 750Gb single platter which is pretty awesome. In short WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda

Analogue is a bit of a mixed bag, and in my experience your not going to get face recognition unless you by a high end camera, and you've got it zoomed with the appropriate lens, in the right area and sometimes even with the right lighting. Its a brilliant and inexpensive way to general movements, and getting visibility as to what's going on in a given environment. Also at night Analogue is generally better, that said i've seen some really nice 5mp messoa digital ones which are changing my mind on that. I'd recommend looking at a hybrid system, analogue to get a general idea of the situation and then go digital mega pixel (IP/ for facial recognition). IP is brilliant, but the cost is high, so it depends on the job at hand as to what's the best.

In the nicest way possible though, I think you haven't quite grasped what IP cams do in term of how they get the signal back to the NVR. They turn video into IP traffic, data, like an email or video online its all ones and zeros that the systems converts back into visible data. Once its in that format its treated like data, it doesn't need baluns, or seperate connectors that plug into a card anymore. It is now more awesome, And can head straight into the NVR via the network cable which the software now handles its decoding and separation into a video file. So you got to think a little differently, Software essentially becomes the heart of your beast and instead of buying cards with physical ports you generally buy licensed software capable of decoding x amount of channels. There is a whole lot more you can do with IP video signals because you can treat it like data, Yeah Higher resolutions are a large part of that but there is so much more. Hope this helps Also Soundy is spot on, Thats a friggin brilliant way to do it

1. Yes that is right, 2. Uh no not really its a network plug, the cameras become part of the network there is not card, all the video feeds come through the network connection. 3. For 10 cams you want a 1000mbps connection (pretty standard) I'd check all the components in your network to see if they are capable running at that speed. 4. A seperate network.... well a separate IP range? change your ip's and open up the subnet to accommodate, Look online its standard network stuff. or Segregated network, you use different equipment, just run it all through the same patch panel, not all that hard just keep tabs as to whats for the cams and whats their internal network. 5. yes depends what service your running as your NVR software but yeah ddns that mother, 6. I'd build the NVR personally it would be cheaper and better than anything off the shelf. stick graphics card in it with DVI or HDMI out.

You don't need a separate network, But i'd recommend it if they don't have good networking equipment. If they have a decent 100/1000mbps then you could use say 4 cams without any noticeable impact, if you know they have a 1000mbps network then yeah you can probably have 8+ But you would want to start heading into your own network about then. Also I'd look at using a different network IP range, that way you can segregate it out from the customers (if your running it over the same network). Hmmm, In terms of that blur, that is one of the first model cameras they produced in early 2010, (not making excuses it isn't the finest example of IP cameras) And it uses well lets say an infant cmos sensor, which does blur a bit (due to the rolling shutter) but since then there have been a lot of changes. If your looking for something without blur look at some ccd based ip cams, there is a good thread somewhere on here on ccd vs cmos. CMOS is a newer tech that with R&D will eventually surpass CCD. Mpeg4 vs h.264, that depends they are just codecs, and depending on what your looking for you can spec but to me its much a muchness. They both can do high res's at decent compression rates, and most cams will support streams of both codecs. I say h.264 others may debate mpeg4.

Lot of questions, And I'm sure you'll get a bunch on answers, IP isn't cheap, it is a premium product any which way you look at it, The cost which you would generally pour into the DVR you really put into the cameras and some. There are very few scenarios where IP is cheaper and better. A good example of this would be covering one area with a high res camera as opposed to multiple Analogue, But to be honest it doesn't happen often and you'll probably prefer the multiple angles that analogue will give you. IP Fish eye cameras are awesome for this and sometimes can completely replace bunch of analogue cameras covering a room. The NVR/NAS is pretty much just a big old storage box as majority of compression is done on the camera (well that depends on the model), but Having NVR software/hardware really helps keep information in order and avoiding wasted space on your hdd's which once you run with IP you'll realise is always in short supply the storage requirements are a big jump from analogue systems. NVR's can be made to record 32 Cameras plus there is no real limit short of networking speeds and how much your willing to spend to build a system. Little stand alone NVR's you get off of ebay are generally crap, (there are exceptions) most of them have power saving hard drives that crap out after a 12 months and lose important footage, or are devoid of features. They have there place, and can be good but if your serious about investing good money, then invest it in good kit. I'll push you in the direction of geovision because its what i'm familiar with. the NVR software is free if you use Geovision cameras, they do a whole range on models are super easy to setup. I think its "the Wire guys" on here that push Avigilon I haven't played with it but some of the guys here swear by it. You really save your money on being smart with cabling and POE injectors. you can use a single cat5e/6 cable to carry a lot of video feeds as opposed to running a lot of coax or multiple cat's' with baluns. Motion blur?, depends on the image capturing technology you want to use, and the frame rate you want to use. most new cameras motion blur isn't an issue. I'm just spamming thoughts between emails, but its all food for thought!