wezard

Pull the cover, power it up and load tape while observing. There is a big ring that actually pulls about a foot or so of tape out of the cassette and wraps it around the heads and a bunch of capstans an rubber rollers. Usually that error means the loading ring either is not going all the way to load, or is not going all the way to park. Its often dust or dirt in the gears, or drive belt. Old tapes that don't pull out easily enough will also cause that error, putting pressure on the drive ring. clean all the rubber with isopropanal, (can't even remember how to spell it!) and clean and lube the gears with a light weight grease, vasoline will work, don't get it on anything else, and not enough that it may migrate. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, light a green candle, (yes it's gotta be green) and try again. Most of those rubber pieces and belts start to get hard after a year or two, we used to replace them every year minimum.

Very common in retail, starting to get common in financial, I'd never seen it in resi, not that I do any resi. And most homes homes don't lend themselves to it, (that is if you want to keep the little lady happy) my house just happened to have a perfect layout for it, (and my fiancée likes it). Very discreet but effective. Everybody thats been here has commented, even the UPS and pizza delivery guy, all positive. Years ago I did a small Credit Union that had a small budget, one cam at door, one in the ATM with transaction interface and 2 behind the teller line, one cam per 2 stations. 6 months later I came back to do PM and they had labeled the cameras, not big labels, but you could definitely read them. The one at the door said 'CAM 1', which it was, the two behind the line said 'CAM 7 and CAM 8'. Manager said "The bad guys are going to wonder where the other 4 are".

IBM, and some others used to use 92 ohm for token ring and LAN networks. Might still do for high security networks, but I haven't seen it in 12 - 14 years. Europeans used 60 ohm for broadcast at one time, but that was way back, doubt you ran across that in a state side office bldg. You really need some way to go straight from camera to monitor with known good connectors, disconnect everything, start at the camera, then connect each piece one at a time. Any chance of laying your hands on a scope? My money is on 92, (or 50 ) ohm connectors, but I'm not betting big. Could be a ground loop issue. Again, you need to disconnect EVERYTHING, start with one good signal and reconnect one cable/device at a time till the problem presents, that includes power.

I wanted a small monitor, so anyone looking in my carport door would see themselves, the door is windows from the waist up, so this is THE place a bad guy will peek in before entering. Regular CCTV monitors are big, ugly and expensive, the smaller ones cost as much or more than full sizes. I finally stumbled onto some 7", thin, monitors designed for mounting on the back of headrests in automobiles. About $65.00, so I ordered one. These things are great, come with a flush mount trim, about 5/8" deep, look good and are incredibly easy to flush mount, with a pretty damn good picture, (aspect is wrong for a single camera, but even that isn't too noticeable, several aspects to chose from). I mounted it right beside the alarm control. I'm liking it so much, I'm going to order another and mount it beside the thermostat at the end of the hall, by the bedrooms, and display all cams on it. That way we can see without being seen, or going into the basement where the head is located. I can see lots of possible uses for these, one source is Sonic Electronix, there are others. No idea how long these will last running 24/7, but for that price I can afford to replace them every year. If anybody else has done this, I would appreciate any feed back.

Guess I should recheck the specs on my DVR, (Nuvico EV-8000), 4 of the cams are new and the same, gonna run them on single AC supply, they should be in sync. the 5th is a brand new 12 year old high end Sony box cam with full sync adjustment, I'll sync it even if I don't really have to. The 6th is installed and blew me away, (it's DC and can't be synced). It's a tiny board cam in metal box with mount with cheap looking fixed lens. Not sure what the rules are here, so I'll put the info on a single line in case the moderators want to remove it. SecurityCamera2000.com #PZ047-N with 6mm about $65.00 It's inside the house, looking through the carport door, which is windows from the waist up, looking east, (into rising sun). So about 60% of the frame is natural changing back light. It took me a while to figure out the onboard controls and get it dialed in, but it works great. I've seen better shots, but this is good all day and night, without IR illum. Back in my day it would have cost well over $2,000.00 to even get close to this good, and it would have been BIG. If you enter through this door, you would have the side end of a cabinet wall directly in front of you at about 5', bear left into kitchen, right into living room. there is a bulletin board on the wall, I mounted the cam above the board, almost not noticeable, below the board is the alarm control. I got a 7" LCD, thin, designed for the back of a headrest in a car, and flush mounted it right beside the alarm panel. It was about $65.00. This is THE door that bad guys will peek into before entering, so the first thing they will see is an alarm panel and a live picture of themselves. I'm pretty sure this will convince them to go on down the road, maybe even pick another subdivision. Given the cost of these little LCD's, and the ease with which they can be flush mounted, I'm thinking of putting one at the end of the hall by the bedrooms, right beside the thermostat, and letting it show all cams. That way we can see without being seen, or going down to the basement where the head end is. Not sure how long these LCD's will last running 24/7, but for the cost, I can afford to change them every year.

I've been out of the industry for a long time, but even 20 years ago banks required a data interface with ATM cameras, showing at least the transaction #. We, and other company's that did that had special mounts engineered for most ATM brands and styles, many required right angle cameras, of course cameras were a bit bigger back then. I can't imagine things are any less stringent now. You will need really good back-light compensation and an AIL, if you want ID-able footage.

I've soldered my share, then we went with 2 piece crimp on, hated those, I'd rather solder, then the one piece crimp on, loved those. I still call Burle RCA half the time, is Burle still in business? Any opinions on Nuvico DVR'rs, the EV8000 in particular? Already bought it, so I'm gonna use it anyway, but nice to have input. Mike

I'm hearing really good things about the Chinese digital scopes, Rigol, (not 100% sure of the spelling) in particular. You can get a new 100Mhz dual trace for less than $500. Then there a couple of good USB scopes that plug into a laptop, clunky hard to use interface, but the data is supposed to be accurate, less than $300 for 100Mhz dual. I've been doing industrial automation and control for quite a while now, I find my old basic model 50Mhz dual to be helpful for checking noise on lines and VFD outputs. A 4 channel would be really nice, so I could see all 3 phases at the same time, but I cant justify the cost, yet. Back to Horz sync, I did not know that all inputs were being procesed and recorded independently, apparently most of my knowledge and skills are obsolete. Need a camera re-tubed and tuned? I can do that. Mike

So the cameras are still changing frames at different times, the switching equipment just waits till it sees a pedestal before it starts recording or displaying again. You're loosing some information there, but I guess not enough to worry about, though back in the day, a few of our clients would throw a fit if they knew they were missing a frame between cameras. Guess that also means the techs don't have to carry around scopes any more?

Why is not a problem any more? Does every camera on the market magically switch frames at exactly the same time?

I've been away from CCTV for about 18 years, used to do a lot of really high end stuff. The only available 12Vdc were toys. We often had to use cameras from different manufactures and/or power cameras from different sources. It was necessary to sync the cameras, all real cameras had sync adjust pots. Now I'm putting some cameras in my house, and seeing lots of DC cameras with internal sync, and a lot of the AC cams have internal sync. How do you sync these things so the switcher or recorder know when to switch, and so monitors don't roll when switching? I've searched here and elsewhere, and am not finding anybody talking about it.