personalt

I run a ACTI ACM1231 that I bought from the wireguys a while back. I really like the camera a lot. I run it with milestone xprotect. I am using a lot of masking in milestone for the shrubs on the side of my driveway but I still get a lot of flash motion detects. I realize when cars turn around in my neighbors driveway and the headlights shine in my yards it is going to detect a motion. But I am wondering if there is anything I can do to lower the falses, especially for things like when a cloud passes overhead. From what I can see the camera then adjusts the exposure(makes sense) but that in turn appears to set off milestones sensor. I tried setting the white balance mode to 'outdoor2' and have checked and unchecked 'lens compensation.' I assume I cant fix the exposure mode since this will cause issues as the lighting changes. Is there any settings that might help motion detection falses? On thought i had was to try to use the motion detector built in to the camera. It appears that I might be able to pass events from the camera to xprotect. Should I expect the cameras motion detector to be any smarter?

Does the fact that differnt cameras have differnt requirements as far as the voltage? I think some of my cameras are 5volts and I know others are 12volts.

Would anyone have a better suggestion then FD7132 or FD8161 in that mid $300 to mid $400 range? I am looking to use this in a babies room. I originally picked these because of the built in IR.. but based on another thread the IR pointing at baby is not likely the best idea. Is there something else in that price range that would work good for a indoor low light(prefer with support for audio). Looking for IP so I can watch on my droid tablet without setting up a full DVR that has network support.

I am an end user bought the software back in 2004 for a construction job I did. PAid about $2000 at the time for the professional version - 9 camera. At time I bought it becuase it was one of the few IP softwarew packages that could play back multiple camera streams at the same time and keep them in sync. I needed to watch my workers move from floor to floor without losing them. I cant say anything bad about the software. It worked really well and is gentle on the CPU. One thing I didnt like was that your license key was based on mac address. You add/deleta cameras from the website and you only get so many adds/deletes before you have to talk to customer support. What I think they are trying to do is keep you from getting a 8 camera license, loading up 8 cameras, generating a key and then delete them all from the website and generating a new key for another 8 cameras that you put on another server. When I had a few toshiba cameras fail after my PMA ran out I had to ask them for more deletes. They did it for me but I never got a clear answer on how they treated camera deletes/replacements after the PMA expired. They being said, they since backfilled with a few cheaper versions - essential, basic and free version since I bought. The PMAs for those versions are much more reasonable. They even have a free version that is up to 8 cameras, with a 5 day retention limited to one concurrent user. I was looking at using this for a rental building that I own. It seems like this could be a good deal for installers that have customers that the software pushes them over budget. But not sure how you figure out the markup on free software But I guess if I was a dealer and could put a guy into 8 cameras when he wasn't going to buy anything before it could be win/win..

I had a question in regard to the FD3184 not having 'auto iris' like most of the other vivotek cameras. I was looking at the Vivotek FD8161 and the FD8134 caught my eye. It loosk similar to the FD8161 except resolution is 1280x800 instead of 1600x1200. http://www.vivotek.com/products/model.php?network_camera=fd8134 It is is a fixed length lens - 3.6 mm, F1.8 which I dont see as being a problem at least for my application. During the inital install I can move camera foward/backwards as needed to get the shot I am looking for. The one feature that was missing that I was concerned about was 'auto iris.' Most of the other Vivoteks are auto iris. Does not having auto iris mean it cant adjust to changing light? This is a camera with IR emmitters so the assumption that I would have is this camera can work is day or night. How does it adjust to the time in between? Anyone try this camera?

Would anyone have a better suggestion then FD7132 or FD8161 in that mid $300 to mid $400 range?

I had no idea about the IR being bad for eyes but it makes perfect sense. That leaves me looking for a decent indoor low light camera recommendation. I want to keep it under $500, under $400 would be better.. I think I would like to keep it ip based rather then going with a networkable DVR

This is for a babies room.. Crib is about 10 feet from the camera. I want to be able to take a look when I hear him screaming his head off. Would like to stay ip based since I can then pull it up on my android tablet. *how can I tell how useless the IR is? *what kind of lens should I be looking for * is there a better solution for a low/no light setup, indoors, close range that is sub $500? thanks.. Going by the specs, the IR is pretty much useless unless in a really small area. Its a CMOS chip and its really high res and it has a F:1.8 lens so its low light capability is probably next to none. Dont expect much from it, better off buying a lower res CCTV camera which will actually see something if Day Night IR apps is what you are after.

I inherted a few Toshiba IKWB15A http://www.toshibasecurity.com/products/prod_camera_detail_ikwb15a.jsp We used them on a construction site, the inside units seemed to last a while but the ones I had outside failed often. Can anyone recommend an outdoor enclosure for these? In a perfect world I would like to find a enclosure that allows me to mount these in a soffit but would consider other opitions. the only enclosure I know that fits is rather large and rather expensive. http://content.etilize.com/Thumbnail/10510311.jpg It seems to be priced at $300+, at that price I might consider dumping these cameras and getting some box cameras but I would really like to make these work. Are there any recessed dome mounts that would work for outside and fit this camera?

The visor does come off.. Thanks for your help, I was really hoping to find something that i could soffit mount. Most/all of the soffit mounts seem to be indoor only setups.. the Solution Dome Series (SD6) might work but best price I saw on that was in the $400 range. At that price I might be better just getting a new bullet style camera rather then spending $300 plus for an enclosure for a used camera. is there anything cleaper that anyone can still recommend?

I have 4 Toshiba http://www.toshibasecurity.com/products/prod_camera_detail_ikwb15a.jsp I really like them, they take a really good shot in low light. I am looking to soffit mount them at a house I am doing. Any reason why I couldnt mount it in a dome like this? http://www.videolarm.com/content/com.videolarm.productmodels.ProductModel/16780/f_MR5C.jpg [edit by mod, replaced store link to manufacturer link, rk] Is there a cheaper solution? The way the thoshiba comes out of the box is that it is weather resistant as shown in the picture. But even after you remove the sun visor there issnt an easy way to semi recess mount it that I can figure out. The can is 7" diameter...I figure I can fashinon some bracket so the camera sits just behind this mounts glass dome.

Can you access Geovision if you are behind a proxy server? At my jobsite we have a proxy server between us and the internet. When I go to the geovision demo sites I can get the menus to load but when I try and display live video I dont see anything. I was thinking about getting a geovision setup for our other office location but we want to make sure we can connect from the other office. We dont have any lans between the office so we would have to go out over the internet. The use of the proxy server is mandated by another group and I dont have the power to change that.

I am demo'ing milestone xprotect and love it. However I need it for 5 cameras and for 5 cameras I need a 9 camera package which is about $2,000. There are plenty of products that I have seen that can display 4 cameras live on the screen but is there any software that can do a sync'd playback of 4 cameras like xprotect can? I am doing some construction site monitoring and I want to review video from the day but I want to be able to keep the cameras in sync so I can follow a working from the main work area to whereever he goes.

I am demoing milestone xprotect. The software is just great. My issue is can run the remote client from the pc running the server but I cant connect from any other PC. Even PCs inside my firewall and on the same subnet. There is a config that says to allow remote access and asks for an external IP address. I tried using both the PCs 192.168.4.101 address and the 72.71.120.250 external address in that spot. Neither work. Is there some trick to this? I thought it was a firewall issue at first but when I couldnt connect from another PC inside my network I knew it was something more. Anyone have any ideas? I sent a message to milestone support but I figured someone here might know.

I was looking at this geovision card GV-600-8 Geovision 08 Channel 30 FPS DVR Card At first I thought that was 30FPS per channel but then I see they have 60 and 120 FPS cards. I am assuming the FPS is total across all channels? And if I bought a 60 FPS cards I could set one channel two channels to 5 FPS each and 4 to 10 FPS and still be under the 60 FPS?

I am looking for software that I can put 4 cameras up on the monitor and review past video for the 4 cameras while keeping them in sync. I want to be able to follow a worker as he moves around the jobsite during the day. I have been demoing milestone xprotect and it does it but I was wondering if there is another product I should demo. right now I have a few IP cameras but I would consider starting over with new non ip cameras is the right software package came along. Does geovision or any other DVR based software that that offers multi-camera playback?

The online one that I found that would do that is milestone xprotect. There are plenty of others that will record 4 cameras and let me play them back one at a time. But I cant find any others that will allow me to play back the 4 cameras at the same time speeding up and slowing down together. that does make sense that you would have to record 24-7 to make this work best. can you provide the name of another product that would do this?

I am looking for software that I can put 4 cameras up on the monitor and review past video for the 4 cameras while keeping them in sync. I want to be able to follow a worker I have been demoing milestone xprotect and it does it but I was wondering if there is another product I should demo. right now I have a few IP cameras but I would consider starting over with new non ip cameras is the right software package came along. Is there any other software that offers multi-camera playback?

Is there a website that has a working demo of the geovision software?

That demo looks good but what about playing archives? Right now I have been demoing xprotect and that has a client which allows me to play archived video. Also could I use the geovision software with a mix of analog an IP cameras? I have some IP cameras that I dont want to toss..

I have a two Tohsiba IK-WB11A IP PTZ cameras. Right not I am just playing with active web cam unless I find some software I want to shell out the big bucks on. I am looking to add 2-3 more cameras. As far as I know active web cam pulls up the jpg images produced by the camera? Some of the new cameras I am looking at have mpeg4 compression built in. Does that help me with software used to record from the camera? Right now I have active webcam record in its native format and then convert the files to AVI/DIVX format to keep the file size down. But I was wondering if a camera with MPEG4 built in will lower file sizes or lower the demand on the computer CPU.

I was looking at it further and I think I have two issues. 1. Is stringing the AVI files together. On some days I set the file size really low like 30 megs. So some days I have 20 files for one day. I would want to rebuild those into one file. 2. reworking the files to decrease size. Either by removing frames, reducing size or a adjusting quality. These cameras watch a construciton site, my goal is to have good video for a week or so to watch for theft etc. However the goal of archived video is to just generally track the guys progress so at the end I can work through the videos and figure out how long in days it took to do certain tasks. If there good software for stiching avi files, adjusting framerates/compressing all while not messing with the date code. I would prefer if the dates dont get changed but since the dates are in the file it is not a super huge deal, just something I would like.

I am running two toshibas and a panasonic ip camera. Right now i am using active web cam while i review other software. My issue is file storage. I am running a 640x480 picture at .5 frames I am running about 330 megs per hour per camera if i record to straight avi. I was having the program recompress with divx when in 200 meg blocks but i am wondering if there is a better solution. My problem with divx via active web cam is it only allows for one pass. if i run in multipl if i record in straight avi or mpeg is there a program i can run later that will resize the files down to something smaller with a lower framerate? What I want to do is keep the full size files for a week and then archive them at a smaller size and lower framerate. Is there a program that i can re-compress these files with. a bid concern is not losing the original timestamp. that would make my life a lot easier. is there a good way to do this? is there a better codec to use?