rory

What exactly do you mean???

I dont know if they did or not, but in my experience with Geo and a WD green drive, the playback was choppy, or it would jump. Switching the drive to any non GREEN drive fixed the problem, including a 5400rpm USB drive. Perhaps their Seagate drive was similar to the WD greens.

I used the gamma with one camera on a job, changed it to lower as it wasnt seeing as much at night, extra glare in the day was okay, was more important it see more at night. Wish they had equalize setting on the camera example of digital enhancement with image editing program: (opens in new window) http://www.bahamassecurity.com/go/NormEqualGamma

basically makes it brighter or darker example with the VBM, night with low light, turn gamma down will be able to see more but brighter in the day. In day with too much sunlight, turn gamma up gets rid of alot of glare. Unfortunately if you need it for both day and night then well .. leave it default then digitally enhance it.

Should be clearer in BW mode if they are TDN cameras. I have some domes now that just wont switch to BW and in color they try to compensate too much so they are too pixelized, when they are forced into BW they are much clearer, as for example in color they are 0.1 lux in BW they are 0.01 lux. This is pretty much standard with TDN but can still differ from one to the next especially depending on what other features the camera has.

Been busy but for starters here is a screen shot of an extra stripped down LIVE only version I threw together last night for a client with a slow connection - trying to playback remotely crashes PSS and locks up the DVR's network for a while, they are stuck with local playback until they get a better connection. This has limit of up to 16 way view, full screen, PSS device and user settings, auto login, and logout only requires clicking ok, and remembers last screen setting. No video window buttons so it loads quicker between multi views and full screen etc, can just logout to close all or use CTL-R to make a snapshot of a video window. This one geared towards a netbook or other slow computer.

Well I have to be honest, not too happy with a current batch of VCM-24VF Domes ... I dont know if it was a bad batch or not yet, going to play with the settings a bit more tomorrow and default them also .. though its pretty much defaults anyway .. appart from the bad quality compared to the VBMs I used in the past, they wont switch to BW due to there being a very little bit of light and hence they are pixelised like mad .. then ofcourse it rains so cant open them up for a couple days to adjust them .. time to move back bullets.... BTW the DFL-20s at almost 1/3 the price gives a better image even under low light! And yes I focused these VCMs, same way I have done the others in the past, just didnt have time to do any major testing outdoors or anything. BTW ive used 2 of the CNB IR bullets in the past, their entry level True Day Night IR bullet and their more expensive model .. both sucked. Now I stay clear of their bullets. Seems the DFL dome is the best thing they have, never let me down yet!

Thats better than the CMOS Qsee camera but still its a really cheap camera, no True Day Night (ICR/IR Cut Filter) so colors in the day will be off. Basically no matter the brand or cost there is no way for us to say without having actually used it or seen a demo video from it. That said, going by your latest post you want a PTZ with Infrared, the PTZ alone will be $600-$2000 depending on the quality and brand you get .. infrared extra or some chinese ones come with it built in .. either way it is way out of your budget in this case. You budget allows for a Color IR bullet as even the TDN IR Bullets cost well over $200. You could however look at some of the non IR cameras like the domes from CNB but then still it will not see much under extreme low lighting, hence the need for IR or other lighting, but at least they have a good day image and colors are rich ... and will switch to BW under extreme low light so you could add IR separate later on. I want a porch but I can only spend $1000 So if I really want a porch for $1000 then I guess my best bet is to look for a really old 2nd hand one.

unfortunately I havent found anything yet that can convert Geo .. except from uploading it to Facebook or Youtube .. then downloading it again from there - facebook is better quality BTW. Ive tried VLC, Virtual Dub, Handbrake ... if anything you get the video upside down which is useless. Im sure there is probably a paid program out there though that does it.

if the network cable was loose I would check for other issues like loose BNC connectors. Maybe the DVR was hit and damaged. Also make sure the power cables are all connected good.

Im sure it is fine software as far as mobile phones go, though the manufacturer has free software available as I posted in the link, nothing to do with DM.

Welcome back!

What operating system is giving you this xfat partition? Anyway .. make it FAT or FAT32 thats it. If it doesnt recognize either of them then there is a problem. We use FAT for installing Windows XP from a USB drive BTW. Here is a tool from HP that formats USB drives as FAT: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

I dont have a bb but I take it you have the latest version from here right: http://www.dahuasecurity.com/download.aspx?p=fwyxz&p_kind=4&c_kind=17&c_kind2=139

DMSS is a mobile phone software by Dahua for their line of DVRs http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dmss-pro/id408829868?mt=8

Good to know that, another way around it Also you can download unsigned activeX controls just change that setting in the security settings from disabled to prompt. When I get a chance, maybe tonight, I will do a write up about how to hack the PSS software (legally). There are a few hidden fields which are not in the config but are in the ini file. Also I will explain how to make the skin folder go from 60MB to 20MB as in the latest version 4.04, never having to login or use a password to exit, all without the software crashing. BTW 4.04 has a time line now on the playback with multiple cameras, works okay, although it could use some improvement still. Also instead of having to add each camera for multi playback there is a hidden check box that ads all cameras. There is also a way to make the actual GUI faster and that is part of the skins but also by removing a few resources such as the icons that are seen on each video window, that makes say 36 or 64 multi view load much faster - yes 4.04 has 64 way multiview now. Im actually working with the SDK for my own custom software and thats what I generally use to view live video, even compiled some for a client today, but for playback and config I use PSS. Another thing, when encoding is set to D1 the remote video from these DVRs is really high quality compared to some others. If you have a really slow connection, as do my clients, the video can seem to hang or just be very slow, setting any of the PSS quality or fluency settings makes little difference, same with the SDK. BUT, if you setup the substream on the DVR (under encoding) to CIF on all the channels, even if you uncheck the video box for it, we can still connect to that stream which is good enough for remote video and makes the world of difference on a slow connection. Inside PSS just right click on the camera under the device you want to view and click Extra Stream and it will stream from that instead. Im adding it as a feature in my own software as simply high quality (main stream) and low quality (substream). If using the SDK it is type 3 of the RealPlayEX function. On a DVR I was trying to connect to last night, I could barely play 4 cameras, when I changed over to the substream I was able to now view all 8 like its on the local network and the quality is still good (enough). There may be some other settings like network bandwidth etc but I havent found those yet (in the SDK). There are some network settings in the PSS config file but I havent fully tested it yet to say whether that makes a difference. On a different topic but related to these DVRs, on the local DVR itself, I have found that in 9 way view there is some strange video issues like the video is vibrating or something, I wonder if anyone else is experiencing that, with the 16 channel DVRs? I noticed it on another 16 channel but just put it down to the monitor, but now Im using a couple different PC LCDs and its still doing it. I guess its time to post on Dahua's site and see what they come back with, or get a firmware update and see if that fixes it. Major flaw if you ask me, since most will be viewing in 4 or 9 way since 16 can be very small on even a 19" wide screen LCD.

Q-see doesnt make the DVRs, but it may vary as they use DVRs from multiple manufacturers. Most would likely be a form of linux possibly embedded or RTOS.

not really.

Why arent there cameras on planes, one for every seat?

Ive emailed Geo USA and Taiwan and never got a response ... a couple times.

I imagine the big companies have insurance but most small businesses here at least dont or the ones that do have it would have very limited insurance. As for the installation company thats rare here also, unless they spent the big bucks and got limited. Ofcourse if one is selling several $10,000 cameras a year then they could probably afford to get some good insurance, question still arises though, is there such a think as lightning insurance, acts of god, etc, for things like cameras placed outside on a pole? BTW I dont know if its the same elsewhere but on cars a certain age, I think 10 years or older, down here one cant get theft insurance anymore its just third party (no idea if it covers fire anymore either), AND they wont even let you pay more for comprehensive.

$300 would probably include his markup. Doesn't the MSRP already cover that? No thats just a suggested price. For example they may charge more depending on what if any warranty they will provide, such as direct replacement of the camera in the case of failure instead of just the user paying to ship the product back to the retailer/distributor or manufacturer warranty, all that time costs money, generally more than the suggested retail price can provide. Also, if they live in another country for example such as myself, we pay say $250 to ship 8x $150 (first cost) cameras from the US to here which would be UPS and Customs at 10% duty, but sometimes they charge us 40-50% duty and due to the time it takes to get them to sort it out we generally just pay it, and that has to be rolled over to the customer in the end price, so the camera would cost 2-3 times the suggested retail sometimes to cover ourselves.

You should have stopped recording before removing the drive. Unfortunately the video is probably corrupt.

Yes just 12VDc. Ive use ones without jacks and make my own connections to plug into the DVR. Going by their site they dont look like that big a company. Also their Client software leaves little to be desired and most the web pages are .. blank

never heard of them, is it a chinese or korean website? As long as it has no prices on it (eg retailer/wholesaler) then feel free to post the link.