kensplace

As well as the cost of the cams, you need to factor in the cost of the control equipment for the ptz cams, AND the cost for someone to monitor them all the time. A PTZ looks great to a customer, but fixed cams dont need monitoring - they will always capture what they are pointed at. A PTZ needs someone to watch the screen all the time, and move the cam/zoom the cam. There are auto-tracking ptz's not used those, but they will be more expensive than a normal ptz, and I doubt they will always track what you want them to track....

Not hear of those before, so cant comment on the dvr. What codecs does it support, I have one linux based standalone dvr that uses mpeg2 and the quality is spot on. H264 quality is going to vary from manu to manu, depending on their compression settings (as will other codecs also)

You should focus the cams in low-light (or use a neutral density filter to simulate it, or on manual iris lenses, close the iris enough to simulate low light) as depth of field alters according to light level. Focusing low light means your pictures wont 'drift' out of focus when its brighter.

Was the voltage checked at the camera end with the camera connected or disconnected from the power? If it was disconnected you would get a inaccurate reading, as the voltage drop depends on load, so increases depending on how much current is used by the camera.

I guess in that case, if they did arrest you for filming, then you could add false arrest to the list of charges against them..

Be careful, check legal implications with your lawyer regarding audio / video recordings. Dont give the police the original footage, give a copy through your laywer if possible. I recall reading (but cant recall the link, may have been on this forum somewhere) about a man that video'd police officers breaking the law at his home. When he used the footage to prove this, the police confiscated his equipment, and if I recall, even tried to prosecute HIM for illegal survailance or something similar....

Weird.. Have you tried the camera on another channel of the dvr to see if its just that one channel causing a problem? Does that channel work fine, with the same camera if the camera is plugged in local to the dvr? Are the cams definately getting enough power (volts and amps), is the power supply shared over multiple cams, or not rated enough amps in total for that cam/and any others connected? Any damage to the cable? Water/rodents/vandals etc? Is the cam or cables next to any unusual or powerful equipment/power lines whatever that could interfere? Double check power, cam could be restarting if not enough power...

part two and part three of the original article are available also now. Just had a quick look at part two, whilst in general he is right that a megapixel cam can cover a greater area (lets forget,like he conveniently does, about frame rates, lighting issues, cost of storage / interface equipment etc) the article makes me think the guy has no idea you can change lenses on cctv cams. His lets use 6 conventional cams in the choke point example, to cover a area a little larger than a car, is ludicrous at best, as you would just use on cam with a decently zoomed lens...

Have you discussed the problems with a lawyer? Police harrasment etc? Keep a detailed diary, officer names/badge numbers, dates/times etc.

Whats stopping him from securely locking the cabinet so they cant get inside easily? Or is it locked, and they are forcing entry everytime?

Our local supermarket (a big name in the UK, Tescos) has a box camera that is not even plugged in.... Got to wonder who maintains these systems....

What or who is LP?

If you enhance the image a little, you can see that the lens starts to look a little less like a lens, as it appears to have a outwards curve, looks like a led in a led holder, as sort of looks like it is sticking out, instead of being flat/curved like a normal lens,but could be wrong. What are these meant to be, are they entry/exit counters, beam break detectors for alarms etc? If so it could be a led, that is picked up at the receiving end (or not if someone walks through.)

There should be a utility with the software that you run, it changes the menus to english instead of ????? chars. Cant recall what its called but its on the installation cd that I used to have. See if there is anything in your package that looks like it could be it.

Ok lost me, can you explain how each reason is flawed if you use a single 32 channel hardware compression dvr?

Is it just one cam doing the black screen? Are other cams showing video? If others are ok, then check the camera, it could have a problem,can you view the cam direct on a monitor/tv?

SomeDVR's can be more sensitive to lower signal levels than test monitors,so its possibly a slight drop would not cause a problem on the monitor, but may on the dvr.

Actives can be used to amplify at dvr end, but obviously they amplify the signal at that point, interference and all..... Best to have them at sending end I would think, but not experimented with actives, so just thinking aloud so to speak... Bit lost here, that is what baluns are for, use one balun per cam, you can use all 4 pairs in the cat 5 to send 4 video signals. Or are you after sending 4 video signals down one pair of the cat 5? If so, that *may* be possible at reduced frame rates, if you use multiplexer pairs. But it adds a lot to the cost, not all dvrs would be suitable for that setup, and adds complexity at the control side.

I would guess that that will be terminating as it would have to for people who just have cams and the quad. So if the dvr is terminating also, its got 150 ohms total, not 75. Turn of termination at dvr, leaving the quad to terminate, and hopefully that should sort it.

Whats the dvr termination currently set to? Its possible your getting double termination, ie both the quad and the dvr are terminating. Test by turning of termination at the dvr,see what happens.

Do you get the same problem if you try a camera plugged in next to the dvr, this would let you know if its a problem with the dvr, or if its related to the power/distance/transmission etc.

There are two main types of cctv baluns in general, Passive baluns, which just convert coax composite signals to a balanced signal suitable for twisted pair transmission (cat5 etc) and active baluns,which do the same but amplify the signal. NVT is one of the most well known producers, pricey but good.

Yup,Sounds like termination problems, the multiplexer (and quad maybe) should have some option to set/unset the 75ohm terminator for each camera (unless its done automatically).Check the manual for both devices.

Not sure if this would work, as I dont have any geovision i/o addons yet, but (at least on my version 8.1) there is a camera pop-up option on the setup type menu, which allows a camera to pop-up full size if motion is detected - and there is a option for inputs, but they are disabled on mine as I dont have a input module, so cant say what options you can play with. Maybe someone with a i/o card can offer more help there.. Failing that, if you fancy a bit soldering, you could always do the old mame arcade machine trick and hack a keyboard controller to have your sensors press button 1 for camera 1, button 2 for camera 2 etc... Loads of info on the net for how to do that, but only if you like playing around with electronics and know what your doing! (or buy a premade kit! - may work out cheaper than the geo stuff, but I have ZERO idea how much the geo stuff costs, they never list prices.....)

You can set up geovision to allow individual users different permissions, disable certain cameras per user etc. Sounds like someone has possibly done this, log in as admin, stop monitoring and look in password setup under the menu that gives all the config/setup options. I think its under local account edit, should give tabs for local/multview/remote etc and those are settable per user, users should be on the left in a treeview if I recall.