rory

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ive started using this standalone, its good image quality, remote video is not that fast but works, has alot of features and hasnt crashed yet. Have a few of them in the field now. Main limitation are you cant change the remote video codec or quality, but thats typical with most stand alone DVRs. They have 4, 8, and 16 channel units, and a couple versions of each. Ive been using the basic versions. This is a US company that buys it OEM from South Korea. http://www.vsionis.com/index.php/en/vision-8ex-16ex-h264-pentaplex-dvr.html Also, looks like CNB uses one from the same manufacturer, although the specs are a little different and the front face looks different, the local software on the DVR looks identical: http://www.cnbtec.com/en/html/product/product.php?inc=spe&seqx_prod=1180#p_v1 The actual manufacturer at least with the Vsionis one is Indigo, at least as far as the internals go. I know this as the activeX control is from Indigo. Also the local and remote software is identical. As far as CNB goes I cant say but the local DVR software is the same also, they may OEM the boards and make the cases themselves though, and customize the remote software. Havent used one yet. The 16 channel CNB model looks like it might be a couple hundred dollars cheaper actually. http://www.indigo-security.com/

And this is what a really crappy Color IR camera may end up looking like. some no name camera .. no idea where it came from but its a color IR bullet.

Also there is an entry level Monalisa Indoor dome, the DFL-20s. Here is a thread where a member posted a screen shot with them pointing at an entrance. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=21501 the DFL-20s is more then 1/2 the cost of the 24VF models, but its not true day night.

DBM-24VF is the indoor monalisa. The vandal dome is only a couple dollars more BTW. I havent really used the monalisas but seeing videos online they seem to have better backlighting then most other non WDR cameras. CNB also have a line of WDR cameras, also I havent used, but their new ones are called the Blue-i. Other then that there is always the Panasonic, now those are expensive but pretty much guaranteed to work .. ive used the box camera version of the SD3 on a gas station door entrance and it is amazing even after several years of being installed. Also I dont know how any of these will work under low light, but they are true day night cameras.

a basic example of cheap Color IR Turret Domes, this was in a warehouse for example, notice the difference of IR from one narrow isle to a much wider isle with no objects within its IR range for it to really reflect off of. These were okay cameras for the price, low res and the color is fine indoors at least, but cant point them at a door entrance during the day or everything is dark, terrible backlighting, no idea how they would handle night club or bar lights. http://www.eclipsecctv.com/ECL555E-turret-security-camera.html

Ive got varifocal lens bullets in the field no problems in general .. but cant speak for this camera. with bullet cameras it can differ from one to the next even using the same camera. i normally caulk the area where the cable goes into it though.

Really? Ok, I have to go do some more reading. Maybe do some more searches on YouTube. Whew- this is hard work. Well it depends on the location, we use mostly BW Bullet cameras as they are cheap and generally mount them high enough away from hands. Also they are black housings and its dark so nobody sees them. Color vandal dome on the entrance, Color or day night cameras in the car parks ... started to add more light to one outside bar so using color there now .. but still mostly the cheap BW cameras suffice, even when trying some really low light color and day night cameras they just end up staying in BW anyway for us, or the color has noise as too low light. KT&C have the BW bullets and they also have the mini cubes .. in BW 420TVL (0.03 Lux) and 600TVL (0.3 lux) and exview models which are even lower lux. Now when i say cheap i dont mean the BW ones you get at Sams club or Kmart! Stick to a decent brand name. Ofcourse if its going to be easy for someone to grab then a vandal dome would be best, hard to find a BW model though, could make your own or just try the true day night CNBs as soundy mentioned, as they are reasonably priced. If its too dark then you would need IR. But thats a whole other ball game, unless its just a small room then thats easy to cover with almost any near decent Color IR camera. Problem with alot of Color IR cameras is the colors can be off .. also alot of cheap cameras like that have terrible light handling. CNB also have a couple true Day night IR Vandal Dome. Alot of times the IR can just cause a persons face to be a blob of light though. Worst case scenerio is you put in the BW bullets then you get a better idea of what you want .. and go from there. As they are not that expensive its cheap to replace them, or sell them off to someone else as you swap out for a more expensive camera. Though even BW cameras need some light .. so if its too dark to see then you might want to look at IR cameras. Check out the turret IR vandal domes on the cheap side, they can do normally 30-40' of IR inside. There are tons of brands that sell them though and not all are good.

Yeah i'll check first .. as you mentioned the BW will be smaller images so longer recording .. something actually that could sell down here .. no DVR needed for a simple 1 camera job .. still though duty on that would be 35% if they charge it as a PIR motion .. but no wire to run so on some jobs save alot there.

Thanks .. ive decided on the memocam now though .. it should do what I need ... Might even just go with the BW one as its even cheaper ... will let the client decide. Also found 16GB mini SD cards online for around $70 in case we need more recording time. I can then just connect it to a wireless bridge and the client can playback the video from their PC over the network, so it seems.

Yeah gonna take a look at the memocam some more ... seems it might be able to do 8 days+- in CIF mode which is fine for that tiny area, maybe more based on PIR motion. And guess could always change the mini SD for a large one like 16GB. Thanks.

not much at all really .. staff maybe cross it a couple times a day to clean or whatever they do in the other room ... i wonder if the Mini SD card can be changed .. in case.

thanks soundy, it looks good .. but they will probably need about 1-2 weeks ,, they vacation for 3 months at a time and dont always get to me to deal with something sometimes for over a week after it happened. Right now they average 7-9 days on the DVR but that will increase when they add larger HDDs or change the system also.

in cases where its dark all the time, or dimly lit, you may just want to go BW only. We use BW cameras throughout the clubs here and they work great. KT&C has alot of them. They will always be better in low light then even a low light color camera or true day night camera, and lower the resolution the better, we use 420TVL more.

thanks but this one needs to be a hidden camera, so a mini cube or board cam with a pinhole lens mounted in something. The staff know what the dome cameras and regular lenses look like already.

Whats the recorded frame rate like?

Yeah seems thats the way to go .. those decoders seem to cost waaaayy too much. So will start looking at going that route then.

Im looking at cleaning up some coax wires for a client .. they didnt ask but its a mess as theyve been added to over the years and in most cases conduit after conduit has been added, also down the same wall for example they have added other conduits full of other cable, some high voltage. I want to get the camera wire away from all that crap .. really at some points there is no conduit as it splits off and goes into wire mold or around certain bends and it all is next together tie strapped or other. At the moment its hard to tell what is what and I cant just go taking it all and redoing it .. or I could but I have another idea while Im at it: Basically I have about 7 cameras ... 3 of them are approx 150' run from the DVR .. 2 are approx 250' run .. another 2 are well over 300' All are using Siamese cable and powered back at the DVR. All the cable runs down a wall in conduits ... then it either branches off to the cameras or goes on further then branches off to the other cameras. At about 300'+-, basically between 3 of them and the rest, there is a guest house, a small cottage. there is already a cat5 cable run there and they have a router in there so the tenant can use the internet, that goes right back to the router next to the DVR and cable modem. These are all non IP cameras and all are day and pitch dark night apps ... doubtful the client will switch them to IP just yet, perhaps in the future though. All but 3 of the closer cameras go right past the guest house .. the other 3 I could get the wire run to them easily as its only approx 50-75' away and its all lawn or bush/wall. Im thinking I could scrap all the coax going to them from the DVR .. just use the coax from the guest house .. but then I need to convert them all to IP in there. Also need to convert at the DVR end as for now its a stand alone DVR - maybe change that later. What kind of router/switch and encoders/decoders do you recommend? Also, I would have to power them all at the guest house using a standard Distributed Fused PSU as they draw alot due to heavy duty IR, so dont think I would need POE unless just to have for future. Need something available in the US ofcourse, and something good not cheap, but its not a military compound so doesnt have to be the best! Want something compatible with Exacq or similar, in other words not some unknown brand. Thanks.

question about the Arecont 3130M any sample snapshots? Also it fits ok in that housing? and how well does it work under IR?

Yeah I forgot about that, can it be shared over the network then set the camera to record to it like that? Just wondering about the speed though as USB is slower.

How do you get the USB drive to work with it when the camera is over 100' away from it? Or do you mean just close runs?

thanks, checked it out but way too big ..

I am .. but it has to be decoded back to a stand alone DVR at the other end in this case. I only want to use the IP for the transmission, instead of running a whole new cable as I mentioned its not easy in this case ... they have enough wires in this house now. Id like to switch their system some time but its not going to happen right now as they bought this DVR from someone else not too long ago. Old concrete house with attics here and there and no attics in most places, most cable is surface mounted on the outside in conduit or wire mold. The wireless access point is just on the other side of the wall across the room about 15-20 feet, that cat5 goes all the way to the other side of the house right back to the router and the DVR is right there also.

yeah checking out video encoders and the prices are pretty expensive .. see acti has an 8-channel but thats alot of $$ more then 2 x 4-channel ones ... dont know if Axis has one .. id prefer axis due to its network streaming technology .. but their site is down .. problem also is that Acti's single channel video decoder is almost as much as a 4 channel video encoder I guess im going to have to do this and the same time quote them on an NVR so it makes sense .. as the decoders seem to be just way to pricey.

Thanks .. only thing is I dont need the weatherproof camera Also I will need a decoder at the other end right? To go into the DVR.