Kawboy12R

PMed you on possible sources. Just for scale, here's a pic of my Escape that I backed out to roughly 43 feet (paced it to the plates) in the driveway. 1.3mp Axis P3364VE (1280x960) with varifocal zoomed out to the maximum of 6mm. Lighting is from a streetlight on the pole you can see plus two not very bright fixtures 40 feet away and 15 ft up on the soffit above my veranda. Plates are easily readable with lights on and off at night. Faces aren't very good at that distance at night either in colour or with IR. The pic IS modified a bit. I dropped the jpg quality a bit to keep it under the 250KB filesize limit and I erased the first three digits of the plate.

Is the modem a combo modem/wireless router?

They've got a 2mp minidome but it isn't a day/night camera. The 2mp "new" cameras available either very recently from some sources or shortly should be the ones marked "new" in the attached link. http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products_category/2-megapixel-32.html

Write a FAQ or pick a thread with good explanations and get it posted in the FAQ section. Might cut down a bit on the number of requests. At the very least then someone could link them to the FAQ after they ask.

Not necessarily, but the only time I've read a mention of someone using a non-Dahua camera with a Dahua NVR they had only so-so results (took a bit of time to get it working and the video was a bit glitchy). Dahua NVRs and IP cams are popular on here but I haven't read a single time where someone has spoken up and said they've used some other brand of camera with 100% success. I'm far from a Dahua expert though. I'm just a guy who has home and work systems and a bit of a cctv hobby. Maybe TOMCCTV will speak up. He's sold Dahuas from before they were called Dahua. Hey Tom, got any practical experience and a non-Dahua camera recommendation for this guy's NVR?

I'd buy a couple of ground loop isolators and/or a new power supply for the cams and see if that fixes your problems first. Not saying you don't have some bad cables but noise in analog cameras from ground loops through their power supplies is pretty common.

Not hardly. Casinos usually have manned surveillance rooms. Users often zoom in tightly on an incident to capture subtle actions that overview cameras would miss. I'm not saying that 180 and 360 degree cameras don't offer some possible benefits, just that they often sacrifice pixels on target for their ultra-wide-angle views. It would require a gigapixel 360-degree camera just to replace a well-placed PTZ where you have trained operators. If Aria doesn't record their PTZs, shame on them. That's why it was interesting when the guy in the video said that recording the PTZs was a waste of money. Personally, my first thought is why NOT record them? Storage is relatively cheap. Maybe he meant they don't record ALL of the PTZ footage but hit a panic record button that records a pre-event buffer when the PTZ operators see something shady? They can't be showing all of their secrets and every feature, etc in what's basically a promo video. It does go against what I think a casino would want for evidence though, but then I'm not a casino guy. Maybe just PTZ footage older than, say, 4 hours isn't considered valuable and that's their pre-event buffer? Don't you find the gaps in the big picture as presented in the video interesting as well?

I think I'd skip everything mentioned so far until I got a quote on a smaller version of the 360 degree system installed at the Aria in shockwave's video. At the very least I think I'd have a few 360 degree ceiling cams installed along with PTZs and fixed cameras if a big casino system totally blew the budget. One of the interesting parts was that they don't bother to record PTZ footage. Waste of money with the rest of the system working as well as it does.

If you've got a Dahua NVR already then you need Dahua IP cams. If you want the camera to remain invisible while still being able to see the intruder in complete darkness then your options are limited. Dahua's HDB-3200 (not the HDB-3200C) paired with a 940nm IR illuminator is probably your best bet. I use a CMVision 940nm illuminator. Simple, reasonably cheap ($80), and invisible at night under my really dark deck. Dahua has other cams with built-in IR but they all glow red and can't be turned off.

Sounds to me like you need TWO things. One is an alarm system with PIR motion detection. That's probably the best solution for idiotproofing the alerts. You can get them with landline or cellphone notifications. Cell is the best if you have coverage there- they can't cut the phone lines and the internal battery backup would enable it to notify the alarm company before the batteries died if they cut the power. The second would be cameras. Having a network cam with internal SD card for recording motion events would be my first step. If you're on a budget, some of the Dahua 2 and 3mp domes and bullets do 32GB flash card storage. The HDB-3200 (not the C model) is day/night WITHOUT infrared (stealthy at night) and would probably be my first Dahua choice. Not sure how good it is at capturing plates at night with headlights on though. My Axis P3364VE (also no IR) does quite nicely at getting plates at night in dim lighting in colour (?!) mode with headlights on or off and does in-camera storage up to 64 gigs. It also works with outboard PIR motion detectors, driveway alarms, or whatever. Add a cheap dvr running in the house with one or two of the cheapest nastiest IR bullets you can find mounted outside and then they'll most likely find it easily, steal the DVR, maybe vandalize the obvious cheap IR cams and leave the good unlit network camera with the evidence sitting on the side of the house. Inside the house, I'd stick covert cameras (alarm clocks, smoke detectors, etc) with SD card storage in a few key places near 24hr lamps for lighting. If the alarm system calls you or the police then hopefully they won't have enough time to wreck or steal a solidly mounted vandal dome and/or steal the alarm clocks.

That HDB-3200C is a pretty lousy night-time camera but you can order it with a 6 or 8mm lens (no adjustment though- order it and hope you got it right). The HDBW-3200 or HDB-3200 (make sure there's no C) are much better at night and are varifocal (adjustable zoom). The 3200C might be all right for folks who come up to a door with a light on all the time but not good for outside of the bright light pool. Definitely wouldn't stick a 3200C in my driveway hoping to ID night prowlers. The $299/pair cams (you must be talking about the Costco ones, right?) come with 6mm lenses. Good for some things but have a pretty narrow field of view. Stick their specs in the Pelco tool and check out the field of view. Not great. 3.6 is pretty narrow for getting a big picture. Something even smaller (2.8 maybe) isn't bad for a doorway camera. Good enough for faces of those who reach the door but still gives a good idea of what's going on in the yard. You'll need something with lots of zoom for IDing folks touching a truck on the street. Varifocal up to 12mm with 2 or 3mp would be a good option.

I'd stick a dome just over each man-door with maybe a 3.6mm lens. Something over the garage door with a varifocal going to at least 9mm so you can find the balance of zoom and field of view you want for closeups of vehicles, plates, and faces. Pick a dome or their big bullet, but a 6mm or 8mm fixed lens would be a decent all-around choice at a lower price point. I'd lower the zoom and widen the FOV of the garage cam if the front door cam wasn't angled towards the driveway a bit, but that'll leave a bit of a blind spot facing your neighbour to the west. I'd have a cam on both sides of the house and probably facing backwards from the corner nearer the front to catch people trying to get in the side windows. Depending on where your rear door is, the cam for that door might be close enough to be useful to ID someone going into your shed, but if you keep an ATV or whatever in there it might not hurt to have something zoomed in on the shed for facial ID. I like having a good view of my kids and wildlife in my back yard as well, so figure that into your plans if you think the kids might be playing in the vacant lot and your side camera is angled back to include the windows and siding of folks breaking in through your windows. A 90 degree lens gives good coverage but won't identify much at a distance, especially at night. Printing out a picture of your lot and putting a protractor on the possible cam mounting points after looking up the FOV angles from the specs of your various cameras will give a good idea of where and what you'll need. There are software tools out there too if you want to get fancy. Here's a free one- http://www.pelco.com/sites/global/en/sales-and-support/downloads-and-tools/tools/pelco-camera-tool.page Facial recognition distances for camera placement are quite short though you'll be able to tell things like "thin white male in dark t-shirt and light pants with a hat" at a lot longer distances. I wish the tool had a license plate recognition distance option, but that's an inexact science anyway.

Anytime. Just remember that there's a setting somewhere in your software to use the Intel GPU to help the CPU with the math for the Geovision. That feature requires a monitor connected to the motherboard's VGA connector to activate. That'll drop your CPU use down (or at least speed things up a bit at the same CPU load) but when using that option Geovision recommends 8gb of RAM with your 64 bit operating system IIRC. There's a chart showing the varying system requirements somewhere near the front in your 8.5.5 software manual.

For gaming, 3D rendering, etc, a discrete graphics card like your Radeon will display a much higher framerate and smoother more complex graphics at higher resolutions than a slower built-in chip. This doesn't apply to 2D graphics because the math needed isn't nearly as complex. The Radeon is basically just a wickedly quick math processor used to calculate 3D models many many times per second. The onboard Intel GPU (graphics processing unit) does the same thing but is slower for games. Your Geovision card can use the built-in Intel GPU to help with the math needed for the CCTV video streams and ONLY uses the built-in GPU for that. Too many variables when using something other than the known quantity (Intel). Video drivers for 3D cards can also seem like voodoo with regards to what they're compatible with and different driver revisions can change things randomly as well. That system doesn't NEED the Radeon for the CCTV and just adds complexity, cost, power draw, and heat to the system. The Geovision cards are designed to run with the onboard video and have a concrete list of chipsets and integrated GPUs that they work with. Radeons etc are basically only needed for a better gaming experience. When in doubt yank it out. I hope that's your problem and everything works smoothly from here on out. Good luck.

Try finding a Galaxy reseller. Their website sucks for showing what they stock but they're in Canada and rebrand and sell some Dahua bullets, dvrs, etc. I've seen some of their stock sheets with Dahua stuff listed in local stores. They also sell lenses, so if they don't already know which of their products interchange then I'm sure someone at your local reseller or the main warehouse would be interested in finding out. Check out Smart Vision Direct as well. You should easily be able to find a source that has access to Dahua bullets and lenses in the GTA somewhere. http://www.smartvisiondirect.com/index.php?ca_id=346&it_id=1656&query=item http://www.galaxycanada.com/store/

http://www.etsnm.com/microphones.html

I'm not a fake-Geo expert. I just know what's in that article. Maybe an email to Geovision or a legit authorized reseller with some pictures might resolve the question, but the lack of hologram is a bad sign. You using the GPU to help decode? If so, it is recommended by Geovision to have 8gb when using a 64bit operating system like you are and you've got 4gb installed. Also, do you have a monitor connected to the built-in VGA port? You've got a Radeon card in that machine. Having a monitor connected to the built-in VGA port (not the one on the Radeon) is required to activate the GPU-assisted decoding. After those issues I'm down to maybe bad grounds and/or a weak power supply. Your mobo and OS is supported. I haven't a clue about what aftermarket videocards work reliably with Geovision cards. Maybe removing the aftermarket card would help if it's not required?

Max makes good points. Another one is that cheap IR dome cameras tend to have problems with light reflected back from the dome into the lens. It'd be even trickier to avoid that with a varifocal lens. The Dahua avoids that problem completely by not having a dome cover. I'm not saying that the Gadspot has problems but I'd be happily surprised if it didn't have at least SOME internal reflection. If it has either no or minimal reflection then it's a very good deal. The varifocal feature in a cam at that price point is very nice. I just got off the chatline with them and asked about software and firmware support. The only third party software the chat guy would mention by name that worked was Blue Iris. Firmware updates are available but only by customer request and then they'll send it via email or by download link. They don't announce when new updates are available. Returns for non-defective product are available for 30 days with a 20% restocking fee.

Is it a real Geovision? http://www.dvrkits.com/help-support/identify-fake-dvr-cards

You'll definitely need internet access there to be able to access the video from another location, but you could get by with no dvr by getting, say, an IP cam with SD card storage. Axis P33 cams (not the P3301 or P3304 models though) will do this. Stick an SD card (up to 64 gig) in the camera for storage, plug the cam into your router (with a PoE injector), and then you've got remote access and viewing (use low resolution if you don't have unlimited bandwidth internet accounts) plus higher quality local storage. You'll probably want network storage (a HD shared somehow on the network) for greater storage capacity though. Even a small NAS like the Synology DS112j will handle storage and camera duties for a single network camera for a low price. Just plug it into your router, set it and the camera up with a laptop, then take the laptop with you. The smallest setup would be a cam with SD card hooked to a router (with PoE injector to power the PoE camera) and cable modem stuck in a cabinet somewhere. Add a NAS to the cabinet for more storage. Skimp on storage partially or completely if you have enough bandwidth to stream everything to your remote location and will be recording there instead (no local NAS or onboard SD card). That'll allow the use of a much cheaper network camera. If you just want to be able to see if your employees are goofing off or stealing from the till though, it'd probably be cheaper to just add a cheap DVR and one or two analog cameras. The DVR won't take up much more room than a NAS and analog cameras are much cheaper than higher-end network cameras with some of the features you'll probably want. You'll need at least SOME locked (and preferably vented) cabinet space to secure a cable modem and router whichever way you want to go. Analog will give you enough detail to tell if employees are stuffing their pockets or leaning instead of cleaning. If you are REALLY stuck for space and can't/won't get a good highspeed internet account there, any old network camera with onboard storage would work for complaints or occasional video checking. The camera would simply have to be mounted with power going to it. Have some spare SD cards floating around and swap them when you go to visit. Pop the full one in your pocket and watch it later. Definitely not realtime evidence and it probably wouldn't be my first choice but it eliminates the need for a DVR, internet bill, router, modem, wiring, etc.

Buy one of each and report back with a side-by-side comparison. With screenshots of course...

My preferences run to a minimum of one cam per door, one for each side of the house, possibly two in the backyard, plus a varifocal zoomed into the driveway to get plates and hopefully faces of "visitors" that mess with the vehicles. My driveway has three covering it- the wide angle front door cam, one for my car in the side driveway, and one on the garage facing out zoomed in for a better ID. There's only a 6mm varifocal @ 1280x960 there at the moment. It's good for plates but dodgy for faces at a distance. 10-12mm at that resolution would be better for a 65' driveway that visitors regularly approach to within about 30' or so of the camera.

Nope, you got the cheapo. Not a real balun. To quote the listing for it "This item is a adapter that use the coaxial cable convert to Camera CCTV BNC twisted-pair. With no Balun." That's why you're getting what most likely looks like shifting moiré patterns.

11 days and still no reply from Gadspot on software compatibility for their network cameras. Not looking good...

If they weren't promising Dahua then you weren't "taken" if it turns out to not be a Dahua. If you read somewhere on here that they sold rebranded Dahuas then there are a few possibilities- 1) some of their models are Dahuas and some are other brands and you ended up with one of the other ones; 2) they USED to sell Dahuas and switched suppliers since the post you read was made; 3) the post on here was wrong. Unless they shipped a different model than the picture on their site showed then you weren't deceived by the site you bought from, and maybe not even then. If what you got matches the specs of what you ordered then there's probably no deception, especially if their legalese says somewhere that pics may not match actual product. Where did you buy it from?