rory

Dude, a $15 camera is hardly middle end, in fact its way below low end!

poor fellow

Specs look ok, even though its no name. I would get it hooked up directly to a monitor and check it out that way, possibly a bad camera though, may need some better focus, or could be something up with the DVR also. Only thing I dont see what its minimum resolution is without IR, and that normally means it wont work much at all without IR in low light. In the case of this camera and its placement the IR wont do anything there. Even if you get it focused right, it still looks like it might just be too dark and unless you blast the area with light it wont make much of a difference. Make sure the IR is even coming on, sometimes the IR board on some bullet cameras control the sensitivity of the camera as well, and if not hooked up properly or not enough power it might not be working 100%.

doubtful that your current HDD is giving you more then 55mb/s. The raptor averages around 75 mb/s ..

I would start by taking the camera back down and setting it up in a room to hook it up in direct to a monitor (taking it off the DVR completely), you could use a VGA Adapter if you dont have a CCTV monitor, and then use any computer LCD like a 15" or 17", though its not as good to focus on as a CCTV monitor or using a focus meter, its better then using a 5 or 7" LCD where you will loose way too many pixels. Once its powered up and on monitor then adjust it in there, you can test it better by turning the light on and off. though if you need to adjust the Iris that needs to be done with outdoor lighting, which is why I use my garage to setup cameras, total controlled environment, during the day time and turn the light off and close the door to make it like night. I have certain things like licence plates and such inside there to focus on. Ofcourse for long zoom lenses like 5-50mm etc that is different. BTW what is the make and model of the camera? It really might just be a piece of junk for all we know. Also what kind of cable is being used, how are the connections, how is it powered, etc?

Something is either wrong with the camera, its not setup right, problem with the DVR, or bad wiring/other.

nope never seen bad staff do that here, they do alot of other things but never seen that one before .. doing that would be too bold, they would be caught in a flash, they may as well just pocket the cash and dont ring in anythng

that ir board lens just looks like a normal fixed board lens, which ofcourse has no IR cutfilter built into them. That original lens must have the fixed IR cut filter built into that funny looking piece on it. So to recap the camera has a somewhat IR sensitive chip ... therefore you can switch the lens to a microvarifocal day night lens with mechanical IR cut filter as i posted above from KT&C. Just email KT&C and double check with them that it will work 100% before ordering it. Many retailers and distributors carry KT&C so shouldnt be a problem getting that lens. As far as I know there are no fixed lens with mechanical IR Cut filter.

tom why didnt it cash out the bottle of liquor?

Ok no problem. The way I see it though is you only would be saving money with the 16 channel cards, 4 channel cards are about the same cost all around. Check Netvision though they are on this forum at least. Id like to know if they had a place to buy their card in the US though (PM only if they do thanks).

Did you realize that many use the same cards from a separate manufacturer all together? Example, Geovision cards are (were) from a manufacturer in Korea. As mentioned before, most DVR Companies are ONLY software developers. And you speak of Nuuo and the other card, but the fact is we can buy the Nuuo card in the USA and not have to order from Asia, regardless of where the actual card originated from, and that is what matters, ofcourse in addition to the software and drivers being stable and feature rich. I am not going to order something from as far as Asia, I would be crazy to do such a thing unless I was ordering 100+ units to resell but then I would also need some major turn over for them and would need to include a visit to their factory to make sure they even exist. I mean I dont go buying a TV from a factory in China. BTW yes that link you posted, their Nuuo prices are high due to that being Retail, I wouldn't have to pay anything close to that myself and if you are in business you should not have to either. I beg to differ .. unless you are on a proxy? Why would you lie about which country you are in?

On box cameras then the ICR is attached to the board. But on domes and bullets then the ICR is usually built into the lens. With a Day Night Dome or Bullet camera that has a mechanical IR Cut Filter then yes the Microvarifocal lens has the MECHANICAL IR cut filter on the lens, and in that case the camera must not have a fixed IR Cut filter otherwise that feature is useless. But he is talking about a FIXED IR Cut filter, which is never built into the lens. He is saying the lens had a fixed IR Cut filter, from what I read anyway, and that when he swapped the lens for one that didnt, then the colors in the day were messed up, which is expected from the IR in the daytime. But thats why I mentioned the camera itself needs to NOT have a fixed IR cut filter as then no matter what lens placed on it wont matter. For example, I do this all the time, I interchange lenses between color bullets (with fixed IR cut filters which see absolutely no IR) and BW Bullets (with no IR Cut filters, which work at night and pick up IR). I imagine the fixed IR Cut filter must be somewhere behind the chip itself. Either way apparently his camera didnt have one and for some reason the lens had one which as I said before, is not normal.

ok??

I cant answer that as that camera sounds strange. The IR Cut filter is normally part of the camera not the lens.

Well at that kind of price no wonder you are looking to chinese cards. Even Geovision 16 channel cards dont come anywhere close to that price. Also are you actually looking at Avermedia and Geovision "dealer" prices or just retail online, and then comparing it to the chinese prices which would be more like dealer price as they sell to anyone? Edit. ok the geo hardware compression is pretty pricey, but who uses that anyway? Though take a look at Nuuo and you can buy it right in the US, they are about 1/2 the cost with the hardware compression cards. Also, are you going to order a card from china for your customer? What happens when it doesnt work or needs replacing? Thats a long way to ship it and a long time for them to be without video recording. Or is this just for your own personal use? Or are you ordering 100-1000 pieces? But the main thing is that you are happy. Also you mentioned you are recording in CIF mode, why would you do that?

Scruit .. sounds like time for a .... SSD?? expensive though .. i see OCZ has the 1000GB for around $3,000!! http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_colossus_series_sata_ii_3_5-ssd http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=821&type=expert&pid=11 newegg hava a bunch of 30-256GB ones .. not cheap either.

Ahh. More BS from the reps... love it .. those guys rock man ...

Who ever gave you that price was incorrect. But anyway ... the point is NOT the card itself, it is the stability of the drivers and software. The card can be purchased for cheap in many cases, but you are paying for the software. If you have ever seen the unfinished and highly unstable software that comes with many cheap asian DVRs then you would understand.

How does that work out for you guys? I mean all businesses have phones, or they wont be in business for long, but in many cases Internet for a business can cost much more then a home account, eg. down here a home is $30 per month while a business is $100 per month, for basic internet connection. I can however see where it can be useful for getting long distance clients. They do alot of radio monitoring here, no worry when the ISP or their node have issues .. but then again that is expensive for the initial cost of the radio.

Providing you have a day night chip then one of these from KT&C might work: KLV-4090DN - 1/3", 4.0~9.2 mm, IR Cut Filter/Auto, F1.6 http://www.ktnc.co.kr/english/viewtopic.php?t=466 not enough specs on the webpage but that might mean it has a mechanical IR Cut filter and Auto iris.

the biggest problem i see there is windows 7 Dont forget those stand alone DVRs arent running an OS that requires an 8 core CPU, 16 GBs of RAM, and a super sonic video card, to be close to useful. Install XP then load Geo back on and let us know if its any better. Even with XP it is best if one strips it down and tweaks it to make it faster and more stable. With an OS like Vista or Windows 7 being somewhere like 80% slower then XP .. I wouldnt expect to just run a DVR server on the default setup. Many so called "pros" do this but they are wrong in doing so. Anyway, the Geo card could be bad also, or even some issue with the HDD. Geo 8.3 is VERY buggy as well. I would love for them to come on this forum and explain why it went downhill since the release of 8.3.

a T50 should do it, I use to have one but misplaced it. Now i just use the clips with the tiny nails if run loose at all.

Windows 7 is basically the same as Windows Vista regardless of all the marketing hype from MS .. in fact it seems even slower .. and as an example instead of 2 steps with XP you now have to perform 5 steps with Windows 7 (and Vista) .. i dont see how anyone could even fathom to use that for a security DVR ... anyway .. Other than being so slow it reminds of using Linux with all the silly fonts and ridiculous folder icons. im working with vlite on it and see how that goes, stripped down though its still a 2GB ISO and what 6 GB installed!@ So far I have done some major tweaking to it but that really does nothing to make it any faster .. at least no where near as fast as XP .. it feels like its 80% slower than XP. MS should change their logo to "it just keeps getting slower and crappier" and i think Geovision should take a look at that logo since their 8.3 release. I dont know what is going on in the world right now but everything is going backwards now ... instead of making things better they are making them worse.

Nuuo is a moderator of their sub forum, myself and ken are not.

Thats standard with [almost] all CCTV digital recorders, its called post and pre recording.