Thomas

It's odd that you see it when the .exe starts up. 1. Have you run Windows update or updated any other software recently? 2. What processes are running in the background? 3. Are you running as admin or standard user? WAGs off the top of my head: 1. Flaky virus definations. (They could be seeing the app as a virus.) 2. Windows update changing some core file the program uses. 3. Registy corruption. 4. Corrupted app or .dll it uses. Differantal diagonosis time: 1. What software is in common? 2. Are they the same age? 3. What hardware is in common? 4. Were the machines from the same batch? 5. Do the machines have the same users? And anti-virus programs don't prevent infection (their claims otherwise are bunk) but they can clean up afterwards.

The max for RS-232 is 50 ft in theory. I've never pushed it that far. But if you need longer you can do RS-232 to 422/485 (depends if you need half or full duplex) and convert it back on the DVR end.

Okay, some major issues with that theory of moving the partition. Swap file: You'll have to put it on the same drive as the Geovision stuff or go without it. Preventing Trojans/Viruses: You still have a machine that is taken over till reboot. If the machine is exploited once, it will be again not long after you reboot it. You haven't solved the fundemental problem of network security. Patching: Patching this machine is going to be a mother PITA.

From previous experance (Who's farking idea was the registry so I can beat them.) your back up should be exported to external media as well.

Make sure it's Geovision stuff you're repointing in the registry. If you do that to a windows key you can cause some serious issues.

First of all, Geovision does buy from one of the companies mentioned. Choice is a wondeful thing but you keep applying the PC method of production and assume it is the correct one. For most companies this is a mission critical app. So you think about what runs mission critical apps. Big Iron, Custom systems from companies like Sun/IBM/HP/etc. Real mission critical apps are not run on clone boxes. Your scale is wrong for the aftermarket analogy. It's not a filter but an engine. Try putting a Hummer engine in a Honda. Sure it can be done but it is the best way to do it? Nope. Have you looked at outsourced software? It sucks. And what are you going to do when you need support for a bug?

You miss understood my posts. Geovision and Us and other companies buy thier cards from manufacturers. In some cases we have input on the firmware and features. But those companies have thier own costs that increase the pricing. First of all, many of the companies like UDP and Comart do release new boards every few years. And they release firmware updates. They also offer SDK support for the cards. All of those are the costs I've mentioned. And as far as patents go, Phillips holds a number of them in this field. And the reason you don't see alot of software that supports multiple boards is that differant boards give you data in completely differant ways. So now you have to add another layer of abstraction, which is going to add more processor overhead, and more troubleshooting overhead. Add to it that people won't get support from the card makers but expect the software companies to support thier hardware and you are creating a tech support nightmare. So you are left with a choice. Write software for every card and trade developer time for features or write to one card and be able to add features. You assume that all boards are the same. Or at least I'm assuming that from your "PC industry locked to one OS" comment. Unfortunately what your asking for is MS to write Windows to every type of CPU simply because some share the same type of ram.

Except you fail to take into account the following: Some boards do have extra hardware on the board. Multiplexing chips for instance that aren't software based. R&D for the boards. Drivers for the boards. Obeying patent law. Support for SDKs.

Eh, sign shop can make the sign cheap.

I watched it a bunch last night and I can't see any ghosts. Perhaps a bird?

The LCD monitor systems I have seen have generally been cheap Dell LCD TV's with a camera tied directly to it.

Yep.

You asked if it existed. You didn't ask if it was reasonable. Now the fun part. How from a software connection are you going to make it look like a com port? Mostly these are used if I want to see the serial port output.

It sounds like sales BS to me. If you're doing enough to know when to adjust frame rate then you've done 95% of the job.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=serial+to+parallel+port+converter&pid=4864865321103415749&oid=10938974927797324538&btnG=Search+Froogle&oi=froogler&lmode=&addr=&scoring=p&hl=en

Eh, pay raise plus change of pace. Plus phone support is tough to do for a long time. It helps alot that when you're dealing with dealers they understand that you aren't trying to be a jerk but trying isolate the problem. And if you think I'm good, Phillip is better.

Yep, Star-Tec makes some serial (DB-9) port PCI cards and they make RS-485 port PCI cards.

They do understand that with the way interlacing works, looking at fields will not let them see a whole picture? Or that it is very rare for encoded media to even have fields since PC monitors rarely use interlacing?

A point to clear up. I was never the lead support person. Phillip, is our lead support person. And I'm now on the sales rather then support side.

Do you mean 50 fields per second or 50 frames per second? 1 frame is 2 fields.

Ditch the internal modem and go with an external modem. You'll be happier.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc Is the actual page they will want. The mac page is mostly Mac Office on the main page. The MSRP for the XP/2000 verisons is about $250 dollars.

You can do it via emulation on the MAC....but it's not cheap. And it's a PITA solution for this kind of problem.

I'm not sure if I'll be there or not, but I'm going to try.

I'm guessing that you wish to keep the exisiting systems and simply have software to manage all of them?