SunnyKim

If it is marked as BT878A, the chip itself nearly 20 years old. Conexant closed its operation. All of chip set suppliers for PC Card are now gone except a small one, in Korea.

You may check the menu of your TV monitor, for setting its video input mode as HDMI, which is connected to your DVR output.

There once were more than 100 suppliers in each Taiwan and Korea. Most of them have been gone away. About 40 of them have survived out. Some of them supply OEM/ODMs to Samsung or some big players in Taiwan. Their competing edges are in their quality control and tech support, though they are small sized. If you hit into a right partner, many of troubles can be avoided.

KW, IP Camera. HD Camera, MegaPixels may easily lead you confused and wrong selection for your app. Critical Factor is Lens Quality, Focus, and Lighting.

GodG, 1. You can reduce the number of cameras by placing "FishEye" 2. Google "Panotools", where you can find some solution. Good luck.

That seems a wrong set up of camera parameters that you can not do anything about. You can return or trash if you do not like the color.

Search & buy the DVR supporting 2 monitors' output. Or Buy another separate 4 ch DVR.

You can tie incoming wire(from camera CVBS out) with 2 outgoing wires (also TV signal). The outgoing voltage level will be halved. But do not worry. The TV monitor can still capture the video signal successfully.

telljcl, 25 / 30 FPS may imply the camera's analog. If the camera is IP camera & with 3M pixel sensor, then the CPU chipset inside may be very limited in power, compressing video at the given frame rate (30 FPS). Not quite sure it is tested for shipments for USA. Please note that Monitors require at least 60 FPS. So displaying videos are duplicated from 25 FPS or 30 FPS. Even Hikvision-China OEMs low graded products from its local factory/vendors. I would recommend Taiwan or Korean products. They are, at least, more accurate over their printouts.

JohnSmtihh2, It is a good guess. But let me add. RGB is related to camera sensors. The unit is the pixel number. One pixel needs R-G-B, 3 components. That is the side of sensor. But the signal you get from analog camera is the TV signal (NTSC or PAL). So your resolution shall be limited to 480 Lines X 960H X 30 Hz Frame Rate or 588 Lines X 960H X 25 HZ Frame Rate. If they claim 1280X 960 per camera, it should be their displaying size with scaled up. You are correct in that their CPU lacks power to carry out full channel X full frame recording and full channel X full frame decoding and playback at the same time. The DVR seems overstated. So you better buy a new one with a good brand name. TV signal has 4:3 aspect ratio. But 960H is almost 16:9 aspect ratio. But even Sony's 960H sensor did not bring 16:9 ratio. That's why you see the video horizontally expanded. But it is true that 960H carries more resolution. Hoping cleared.

srtdodge, around 1200 ft, most of analog signals from camera get severely distorted. Most of analog video decoder in the DVR card fail to capture the incoming video signals. Amplifying signals without channel equalizing feature, would not solve the problem. There is only one video decoder solution for this. I can not name it.

The issue is not related to Techwell who no longer in operation. Please check out the supplier of the DVR card that you bought. If not, you can buy a new one, less U$ 50.

denis1, Any DVR system would do good for your application. Main hurdle would be placing camera and wiring camera to your DVR and your monitor.

JohnSmtihh2 The video quality of CMOS sensor has improved a lot with recent deployments on smart phones. Not many complaints over its video quality from the smart phones. It would keep moving up, being driven by such a huge market. CCD sensor has, in fact, disadvantages in reducing Fab cost for mass production. Even Sony may have dropped R&D for CCD sensor for a large Mega pixels, as far as I understand. It may follow the same fate as Plasma TV against LCD/LED TV.

ak_camguy, Let me ask you why we all should go for IP camera. I honestly do not know. In IP camera, just a single bit loss, we may lose at least 1 or 2 second duration of video frames, which can be very critical for a certain application. The display is time lagged with compression artifacts as well.

Yes. No AC is needed for operating DVR and Camera. They need Adaptor (AC to DC) for AC power source If camera is set for NTSC (set for 60Hz) and your fluorescent lamp ons and offs at 50 Hz, the brightness level of video would keep fluctuating and appearing as noisy video.

Andred, If less than 100 ft and analog cameras are being used, get rid of those baluns at both ends.

Wozzza, DC has no effect because it just drives camera chip and system. AC mismatch can cause some problems because fluorescent lamps on and off at 50Hz. You would get some noisy(wavy) video.

Timb, As long as electric power is there for driving camera system alive, cold would not matter. Heat and Hot Temp always kill electric system down. As to analog camera, 960H would be recommendable, just because they are new.

Dear PRD, If you live in the country where Karaoke is being popular, say East Asian Countries, your problem can be easily solved. Go and get the old /used analog video distributor(multiplexer) in the Used Electronic Market. I am designing chipsets for CCTV industry and I need those systems to emulate 16 or 32 video channels with a single analog camera source. That's the way I found mines, currently 6 of them. Or you can google "CCTV Video Mux or Multiplexer", these look like DVR box.

30 FPS means 30 frames per second, which is NTSC standard video frame number. 25 FPS is for PAL standard, being used in China or most of other countries. I am not quite sure, "200 + FPS "??? My guess is it for 200 FPS (8 Ch X 25FPS) or 8 Ch X 30FPS. In the same way, 400 +FPS are probably for 16 Channel Camera system, 16 X 25fps for PAL or 16 X30 for NTSC

Let me add my 2 cents. You can turn off WDR feature at the front end of camera side.

I guess network video capture cards and analog cameras would fall within your budget, if you do install them. I know the card can provide remote access to recording file as well as preview, on your smart phone. You can search Ebay or youtube.

Yes, Correct. It is D_Sub what they call.

mikevrichardson, The reason why they use sub DVI type (15 pin, 25 pin,etc) interface is just because they are cheap and readily available for the mass market PC components. There are no standards which pin is for which video connection or which pin is for ground. Some card suppliers may kindly put video channel labels, or not. In your case, you must find out for yourself, with trial and errors.