rory

Only real way to test a camera is to take it outside, test it in the day and night, and with pitch dark - its alot of work.

Ye, its the cameras in low light, thats how some are.

When you save as AVI there are no resolution settings, it just saves as what it was recorded as. Yes if it kept recording longer than say 5 minutes, the file could be huge, a 720x480 file could easily be a couple hundred MB and for a surveillance system thats alot of processing. Is this a legit card?

another thing to try is see if you can image the drive. there is a free image program called Drivesnapshot, well its a trial but it works full for a certain amount of days. if it doesnt recognise the file system it could still image it but then its the full size. if it recognizes the filesystem then it will may be a small enough file size that you could upload it somewhere for us to download and check out further. We can also use drivesnapshot to explore an image file created by it. Just another option to try.

yeah the pixem i tried was terrible in low light, all kind of noise and strange artifacts.

Yep thats why I mentioned it wont recognize it if its NTFS, which although is not done through Windows default format, there are other tools that do it for you. Have to put that option out there as we dont know what it was formatted as prior to installing in the DVR. Most will recognize FAT32 also, though there were a couple I used in the past that only worked with FAT. Ive used UFS to try to access AvTech DVRs in the past and it wont recognize those file systems.

or to not upload a grainy low res video of a TV news cast up to youtube. besides they identified them with a $30 camera .. thats not bad hey

A really basic NVR type of software, actually its more of a CMS but it will record from its IP cameras and DVRs ... Dahua's PSS. They just released a version that runs in Mac.... slow .. but it runs. I think it is emulated but didnt have enough time with it myself to check.

Just stay away from the Green drives, the Western Digital AV drives are slower than the Black or Blue drives. Better yet if you have the cash, Solid state is around 260 now, twice the speed of the hard drives. Ofcourse current hard drives are twice the speed of hard drives from a couple years ago. Though in a Geovision system for example, on Windows, I even used an old 5400rpm USB hard drive to test for the video data only and had no issue writing to it, no idea how long term would be though. Geovision creates AVI files, though less files as they are 3-5 minutes long approx, that still takes alot of processing and writing of large files. Running older versions of their software (current versions must be developed on a super computer) they run fine on P4 and even going back a couple years, a celeron 2.8. In the case of Geovision, it likes alot of Memory, using 2Gb in most cases is sufficient, though back in the day, ran as little as 512. In fact an old NetproMax PC DVR I was working on recently had a P4 2.4ghz and only 256MB of memory .. but it was slow and using a newer version of their DVR software, I had to set the recording to CIF as it would crash otherwise! The older software had no major issues with the hardware, but the hard drive had crashed and they no longer had the old software anywhere. They had 2 of them though, the 8 channel with the same hardware was fine using its old software and recorded in 4CIF.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering what that was, saw it in the KT&C camera specs but could only find a review of it on a japanese site, and the review was in an image so could not translate it.

Its no different than any other camera, treat it the same. That connector just gives you something to screw the red and black from the Siamese cable into. You can use any power supply once it supplies the correct voltage and enough amps. I use a 500ma 12VDC cheap power plug to test them here, or a 1.2ma 12VDC whichever one I can reach easier without walking over too far .. at the customer locations Ive used 12VDC or 24VAC .. single power supplies and distributed boxes, depended on the install. With this camera polarity does not matter so you can put the 12VDC + and - either way into the green connector, and 24VAC can go either way anyhow. Power consumption is 180ma for the VBM-24VF. Get some RG59 Siamese cable and be done with it. If you want you could splice and use the ready made cable you have but the distance with that would be more limited, also there are other issues with that type of cable - stay clear of it if you can. If the run is over 150'-200' then best to go 24VAC. If there are more 12VDC cameras on the install than the 24VFs, and all cameras are within say 50-100', eg. mounted on the eaves of a normal size building, then you could go 12VDC for all and use one box, otherwise I would go 24VAC with the 24VFs and just put the 12VDC cameras on their own supply. Really depends on the install.

the DVR should NOT format your USB Drive. What file system do you have it formatted as originally? if its NTFS then it wont see it, then it will NEED to format it to copy data to it. if it IS NTFS, format it as FAT32. If it is FAT32 then format it is FAT and try that. As soundy mentioned its being formatted with a file system not recognized by Windows. Windows will see the drive but cannot assign it a letter as it cannot work with that file system. As to emulate, you could load Linux in Virtual Box, but then trying to get that to recognize the USB drive is another thing - if Windows cant recognize it then Virtual Box wont be able to virtualize it either. You may need to grab an old PC and load native Linux on that.

How is it directly on a monitor at the camera? When zoomed to far, the max, that should be the best image, make sure you can get that crisp first or wide wont be clear at all. Maybe it has a backfocus feature? Most of these M13 lenses snap in place and cant be turned, some will though and perhaps it needs a backfocus adjustment. But test it on a monitor first, like even a 13" TV if you dont have a CCTV CRT monitor - LCD wont give you the clarity. If its still the same, maybe return it instead of fighting with the lens, it should be easy enough to focus, not all this work, unless there is a problem and thats not a good sign.

Only the latest versions of the firmware have that menu option. I had a few domes from the same retailer, some came with it, some came without it, they were different versions. Even so though, Ive tested it and could not see that it made a single difference.

I think its still a little out of focus, when i resize it to CIF it should be sharp but its not. Though im not sure what DVR you are using and how much it is being compressed in the encoding.

Yeah I looked at the spec sheet and it mentioned a DIS feature, maybe try disabling that if it is enabled incase its not working properly.

Always do the focus on the center of the image first, then check the edges and adjust if needed just a tiny bit. I had issues with trying to focus a camera outside mounted the other day, similar thing it was really sensitive, I ended up taking one like it home to focus in a controlled environment then took it back and replaced it with that. You didnt mention what you are focusing with, for example if using the network software its a 50-50 chance of getting it focused right, same with a small LCD. Although it should be better than the images you posted. The lens, its hard to say without seeing a picture of the lens. If its using a standard TDN M13 Varifocal Lens then that can be bought from many places, KT&C for example have a couple of them listed on alot of various retailers and distributors. If its an M12 lens then that is smaller, most recent ones Ive used from a couple different brands were M13 push in type (not screw in). Also if they have a customized lens, eg the IR Cut mechanism is at the bottom of the lens, then that is going to be different, in that case you could get a non ICR lens as the lens in that case would normally just rest on top of that part. What you could also do is locate the AI on it, its the part with the motor (or 2 of them with the IR Cut), it normally has one or two small tiny screws, you just unscrew them and then you can pull the entire AI piece out of the lens. The lens will still work, just no AI or ICR if that is built into that as the standard ones are. This is just to make sure there is no issue with the AI part of the lens. If the camera has an EI option set it to that also. Dont take the AI piece apart though incase you damage it, its easy to do, the metal gets bent and then it wont close and open properly and ends up getting stuck - been there done that.

Yes looks out of focus. No shutter changes right? Everything factory? What are you using to focus it and where and under what lighting? Most of the time it may be focused in one and not the other, but both also could mean a lens problem. Park your car out there at night and focus on that, seems like a ton of light there.

Sorry, I don't understand. What costs $100? Best, Christopher The 10 pack @ $14.95 on amazon. Landed here thats around $90-100. If it were at a distributor in Miami I could bring them in cheaper, but not from Amazon.

The Koreans still seem to produce them though: http://www.cnbtec.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=198 Also they are listed on various retailer sites. Im surprised you got a reply from CNB though, Ive sent them several emails and nothing. No worries though as I have no real need to talk to them unless they are going to sell me the product direct at a lower price

Just an FYI for the OP, higher the resolution a CCTV camera is, the less sensitive it is under low light. Also you should not be slowing the shutter to see in low light, either the camera sees or it doesnt, just add light if it is not a low light camera. As mentioned slow shutter gives slow next to useless video under low light, in most cases grainy.

Geez... I would have expected better pics of them from 17 different cameras... LOL thats spy cameras, what you expect

Save to AVI should be saving it in what resolution it was recorded in. Have you set the recording in the camera side to 720x480? Not just the source. I've never used 8.2 though so cant say if that is a bug or not. You should be able to downgrade to 8.12 which I know it works in, as well as upgrading to 8.31 or above. I know cards that came with 8.3 software dont work with lower versions, but as far as I know 8.2 should.

ah no cant afford that here .. thats nearly $100 time as its landed for a ten pack, beanies only cost us a couple bucks or there are terminal strips from radio shack for cheap also .. thanks for the link though

What brand are they?