rory

SSD for the OS but not for the video recording, thats just more unreliable.

His parts list includes an additional 4GB of RAM. Best, Christopher ahh missed that thanks. but still vista, yuck!

not to mention Vista and just 2GB of memory for half the price of that dell one could build a killer system that blows that away.

the WDR should be better than the XWDR as its double scan.

Im still looking. The VCM is a little bigger due to the extra base, but not that much of a difference. Im looking for a bullet camera right now to match it, so far found a KT&C TDN IR Bullet im going to test, it has alot of the same OSD features of the 24VFs, and is 2.8-11mm. Asked someone to order one so I can test but they havent got around to it yet. Cost is almost double of the VBM-24VF, but alot less than double of the VCM-24VF, but that seems the way it is with bullets. CNB dont seem to have any bullets to match their own dome. Ofcourse these bullets can get pretty large also, will have to wait and see. My main thing with a TDN IR bullet is I also want to be able to disable the IR, in most older TDN IR Bullets you can do this easily by just disconnecting the IR Ring, in all new ones Ive used so far its been more difficult and in most cases impossible - hope this KT&C has that option. BTW you could always paint it to camouflage it some ..

Do you mean the browser based app? I believe that used a portion of the drive? If so in the older units it never had that, never was an HTTP server or port. That was added in the newer units about the time I stopped using them. Before that it was Wavereader (or my software) only, which is why I also created my own browser app using their SDK at the time. It was Nucleus back in the day, though they may have changed that in the newer models.

Also yes color may help with the glare, but if its too dark then it wont see as it would in BW. Note the glare from the street light in the following images: (taken from crappy DVR in dark area) See how it is much worst in BW mode: Now that said, you can balance the light by using another light source, eg. IR in this case: See how the glare from the street light has gone away now

I have a big dusk to dawn light there .. I would first default the settings. Set the sharpness to max. Leave everything else default, DNR is low But perhaps adjust the SBLC .. move it higher while testing the view. Its important its focused properly though, as in full light you wont notice it as much but under low light it can cause things like lights to appear with even more glare. They should come focused to 2.8 but not all of them always do. Its a day night IR corrected lens so once its focused good there should not be any major shift in focus. Just dont focus it in bright sunlight or you may not get an optimal focus.

Yep definitely not a fat/fat32 filesystem, it uses the Nucleus RTOS. They might have been mistake with a newer model or a different model. Either way glad it worked for you. Most stand alones are like this though, once you provide them with a blank hard disk they will partition and format it with their own file system.

Is drive performance really that important? I would assume that as long as the drives can keep up with the stream, we would be ok. I used the WD AV drives (greens) with a Geo system and it took weeks but in the end I found out it was the drives that were causing the recorded video to skip. Otherwise the drives tested fine and had no issue outside of that. I ended up switching to WD Blue drives (no blacks here) and they work great. Speed difference is 90 max with the Greens to 130 max with the blues, although cant say that really effects it much as Ive used slower drives without issue, It has to be something else in the AV drives firmware that causes the issue.

Thats strange. Here is a VBM-24VF with default settings No lights Normal Lights Brights

That definately will not be as good as the VxM-24VF. However if you are experiencing glare, perhaps there is some other reason. Is the light level so low and the lens maybe not focused properly? Have you tried adjusting the SLBC? There is always the Blue-i CNB camera, VCB-34VF?

Probably motion detection recorded video? There is no universal DVR recorded video player .. they mostly all use different proprietary codecs so there is no way for a single player to be able to supply all of those.

if it came built for PATA then using SATA wont help, other than if you cant find a PATA drive.

here are a couple examples (bad cameras/lens though). Shows 4mm, and then 8mm.

Weather wise the location under the eave/balcony is fine. Distance of 50'+ is a too far to get anything really useful at a wide FOV like 2.8mm or even 4mm. You could zoom the lens in to the max and it will work then, but you then loose the yard. Also if the criminals are on the other side of the car you wont capture them anyway. However with adequate lighting you should be able to get a general description of a suspect or vehicle, just wont get a face or licence plate. Really depends what you mean by "good enough to hand over to the cops", a wide FOV is for an overview mostly. If you need to watch the car closely you will really need a camera just for that.

also the 7200rpm PATA drives are much slower, like a 30 max speed compared to current SATA drives which are 130 average, or even Sata drives from a couple years ago which averaged 55. It probably wont make much of a difference with some stand alone DVRs anyway, even the old GE drives required the old 5400rpm drives, though that was mostly due to the factory power supply. I recently had to put in a "new" PATA drive in an old PC DVR whose hard drive went bad, thats when I tested the PATA speed.

1/2" wont be better quality, but it normally can see more in low light and be more sensitive to Infrared light - depending on the camera and lens ofcourse. If you are using single low light camera for a Day Night application, then you should get a Day Night lens. In the past they were not available but you can get them everywhere now. Day Night lens reduces the focus shift commonly experienced with a day night, low light color, or BW camera using a varifocal lens. With a non Day Night lens you must focus it for both situations, or 3 situations if you are also using Infrared, it normally would need to be focused off a little to compensate for the focus shift and this way it wont be 100% all the time. Day Night IR corrected lenses will also help with focus shift under IR light. Also the 5-50mm lenses tend to be higher F-stops so generally wont see as good in low light, compared to a lens with a lower F-stop - depending on the 1/2" lens you use that might help.

Just delete the partition on the drive in Windows or other OS, then stick it in the DVR, it will auto format it and use its own file system.

Thats a loaded question. Are these cameras made by Sony, or just cameras using a Sony CCD? Quality as mentioned is not just limited to the pixels and TVL, alot more will determine whether a camera is high or low quality, and even going by specs alone there is no way to honestly tell these days, although it helps.

Yeah thats another thing the camera or cable could be run near some high voltage. That type of ready made cable is more likely to pick up interference.

IMO its a useless system if one cannot change the hard drives without sending it back to the manufacturer. Those manufacturers may be able to sucker others into buying a product that doesnt allow them to switch the hard drive when it goes bad, but not me. And BTW as for GE there was never a problem changing the Hard Drives, originally there was an issue finding the right drives for the power supply but after power upgrades that is non existent anymore. They even have a feature built into the menu for drive setup. I cant speak for the rest. And if you mean it just voids warranty then that is not the same.

Unless one can change their own hard drives a system really is useless. Its like saying you have to send a car back to its manufacturer to get a tire changed.

Under the eaves are fine.

I dont see any wobble? I see blurring from low bitrate and in low light. Do you see this with all the lights on, or just under IR in the dark?