Thomas

Also keep in mind some states have a "backyard" rule. If the bid is in Texas and an installer is in texas and the other bidder is in CA then the Texas bidder has 5% leeway in the bid (If his bid is within 5% of the lowest bid then he wins.).

Don't bother with QoS packet schedualing unless your upstream provider is a serious provider. If it's comcast or mom and pop ISP then they are going to ignore it. (There is no requirement in the IPv4 or IPv6 specs to honor it and they are going to shape your traffic anyway. It's a Cisco only spec and some other providers don't support it completely or at all. Your Linksys and Netgear routers don't.) It has zero use for home users and just adds to packet overhead. I swear to god I'm going to find the person who started spreading this idea to home users and throttle them. Bad things that can come from this: Increased packet overhead. QoS conflicts if your router supports QoS. The TCP/IP stack in Windows doesn't have great QoS support and depending on your hotfixes then you can create an unstable system.

Cisco certification is overkill and frankly only the network admins should be touching the router. That doesn't mean that the CCTV guy can't know what ports are in use and why. Or understand how deploying the IP cameras or DVR affects network traffic.

It goes beyond just Axis, although they were one of the first ip cameras to market. There has been a massive influx of cash into this industry and alot of people are trying to figure out how to get a piece of it. This includes IT departments which are looking to justify thier budgets. Opposing IP simply takes a potential tool out of your box. There are situations where it can be the right tool, like cheap wireless jobs. But IP about more then just cameras. Look at large campus jobs in which you can't get trenching done but there is a network between the buildings. So wire the DVR's together. Or a large college campus with tons of Fiber but all of it located badly for your needs. In these situations IP can be a great option. Dismissing IP as completely worthless is a simular attitude to the IP guys dismissing analog as worthless. Ignore the hype and just add a tool to your belt. I've seen intresting deployments of IP and analog systems. The hard part is convincing both sides they have something to bring to the table and teach.

Check the modem, see if it's one of the ones with a built in firewall.

Keep in mind that this is something I do in my off time. If someone is willing to go that far then great but I can't.

I do try to filter for it and it takes time. The hard part is I can not absolutely prove you are who you say you are.

To be honest, both sides need education. There are alot of network types that can't do what many dealers can do here. And vice versa. The problem Cooperman is marketing rather then the IT world per se. I can point out examples from certain distrubtors of specs that make me wonder about what illegal substances they might be smoking or ingesting. (150' for an IR Bullet? 28 Leds with a retail of $200?) Some of this comes from a flood of people entering the market, both in the low end of manufacturing and in resale. All they see is .01 lux but no understanding of what kind of lighting that is. Or what 500 lines of resolution look like on a testing chart. And add to this the online sites that convince people that any monkey can hang a camera. Combined with a dash of the IT arrogence and you have problems. At the same time you have some dealers who dismiss the IP world all together.

Please elaborate on that. I don't see alot of consultants here but it is something to think about.

I'd recommend the generic Intel Server boards. They tend to be fairly durable and not alot of extra bells and whistles.

My major problem with the "seamless" intergration is that most of the time they just want to sell analog converters to go at the camera end. That's not really intergration. That's selling more parts. The line that bothers me is when they throw out "no recorder needed!" about NVRs. All an NVR is a DVR for IP cameras. Here there is a lot of hype about the cameras but not alot to support them. That doesn't mean they don't have some ideas that can't be learned. One of my favorites is what Toshiba does with some of it's cameras. They put an SD slot on the camera itself and give it limited (and not very bright) DVR ability at the camera level. Now you're only talking a days worth of resolution but it does allow for much more redunancy in the camera system. The really intresting part of this will be when companies like Pelco and Gantz start really pouring money into IP cameras rather then the toe dipping they do now. When you start looking at the realistic potential for IP (Not 500 cameras on a 10/100 network) combined with a company that understands the reality of how security works....well that is going to be very intresting indeed. The amount of money entering the industry combined with the potential conflict between the IP and analog world and the backlash from groups like the CCC (Chaos Computer Club)....well the old chinese curse "May you live in intresting times" is starting to apply. In the intrest of being honest, I do have to point out that the company I work for does Hybrid systems and it may have an effect on my viewpoint.

There is no Kool Aid Distro....G22 is the closest we have to a forum troll.

Yep, it's a hard line to walk. I would perfer not to see reps discussing other peoples products and I would perfer reps to not start "praise" threads. I want there to be a honest discussion but I want to keep the signal to noise ratio high. Frankly I would perfer all of the reps and distrubtiors to treat this as an off duty type of place.

Any chance we could shift it to Wednesday? I'm comming in wednesday morning and leaving Thursday night.

It's all about application. There are certain situations where an IP camera may be a better option but with most applications analog is going to be cheaper/better then IP. The IP section of the industry needs some time to mature but I suspect if we ask Cooperman about getting dome cameras in the Vicon tube days he might note getting a dome then wasn't an option. Some of this comes from how IT is growing. It's switch more from Computer infrastructure to general technology infrasturcture. IT got used to large budgets in the 90's and many departments are trying to justify those budgets now. So the PBX's get taken in, then the DVR's, and the access control....it's all tech and in thier domain. That doesn't mean they are good at it but the IT industry has been very seat of the pants since Compaq cloned the PC. The intresting part of that is how this is going to interact with CCTV. The IT world is very much into disruptive techs, things that leap forward. The CCTV world is very much evolutionary. This year it's 420 lines, next year 440, the year after 460....so that means the Pelco's of the world will have to fight against the IQeyes. So analog cameras will either die to the CSI tech cameras or move forward. How about bullets in HD? Box cameras with progressive scan. How about more intellgent cameras? You start seeing some of the tricks that Covi does with Analog and it starts looking impressive.

Sorry, it was unmarked sarcasm.

Why is it when ever I say that moderating this place is generally not hard, someone has to go do something to try to prove me wrong?

I posted in that slashdot story (user: ThomaMelas) and the amount of raw stupidity I saw in those posts simply amazes me. So you want a Unix based system: Do you want it for Solaris, HP-UX, BSD, Linux, Irix, SCO Unix, or one of Novell's verisons? In saying Unix do you actully mean Linux? If so would you like it for Mandrake, Redhat, Debian, Gentroo, or the flavor of the month?

It's easy to make, cheap to make and can be sold at a good profit. It's users tend to consume alot of it and don't tend to burn out as quickly as crack users. Given all of that it's not suprising the stuff is a growth industry.

I thought I had sent Larry a note on it but I'll double check.

When it comes to thread hijacking, my thought is that the posters need to moderate themselves about it. To be honest, I try to moderate the least amount possible. The more I'm moderating, the less info actully comes out. When I moderate I usually try to state why I'm moderating so I don't have to do it again. Most of the time this place isn't super tough to moderate. Discussions can almost always stay civil and I think I've deleted maybe seven or eight posts all together. 90% of the headache is dealer pricing and Rory handles most of that .

Remind me to tell you all about trying to compile "Hello World" in C......

They are just calling D and P by differant names.

Hrm, looks to be the same camera as the IQeye 501. And you pointed out one of the many reasons that you just don't see as much IP camera discussion here. The Camera tech is great but extremely expensive. For the cost of the IQeye 501 you can get a couple of really good analog cameras, use all three with smaller FOV but all three together to get the same effect.

Do a google search for "Pelco D Protocol". I know there is a .Net app that does it and you can find the commands online. Or you can also Pelco and they will send you the spec sheet.