rory

Hi, it worked okay in the end, was just a bad connection. But I will remember that for the future, didnt know. thanks Rory

this is for a home PC .. any recommendations on a decent not too expensive Card to hook up 2 or 4 of the 74GB Raptors (10K rpm) drives in Raid 0? Mobo doesnt have onboard raid, looking for additional speed. Remember ive never done any raid before so be gentle .. This is the case im using .. see the hard drive cage there, the top space is taken by a Card Reader drive .. so it leaves me 4 spaces for Hard Drives, but would 4x 10,000 rpm drives get too hot being that close to each other? If i add another fan in one of the slots near the PCI spaces, and direct that air on the hard drives, would that help enough? There are now 3 fans already, one right there at the front pushing air in, a 120mm rear case exhaust fan, and one on the Side Panel CPU shute, just for the CPU though. Im going for performance over anything else in this case .. and read that 4 drives in Raid 0 is the fastest . .. but for checking email, Skype, and a little MS word, Nortons installed also, which is really all the client uses .. could 2 drives suffice and still be much faster than a normal drive setup? Thanks Rory

ok got it down to 120mb with AVG Antivirus disabled .. but im not removing any standard components from my PC to see if I can get it lower .. cause I know I will need them at some point and forget to put them back in

C'mon, you can do better... it should not go any higher than 100MB or less.. Im talking about a PC with Office, Outlook, etc, loaded on it, and some other things running in the background .. not just a plain system. Anyway, as for a DVR, soon as you load Geo it goes up to ... 300+ what you already had! Just add more memory, Dual Channel DDR2-800 makes them fly now, like they are on speed or something I stripped down XP too much in the past and Geo did not work properly, not worth the extra 30-40MB of memory when memory is so cheap these days. Besides I dont have weeks on end to mess with that, other things to do you know, plus I only have the 1 computer

Ive never used TinyXP actually .. but yes Nlite .. anyway I now have a good working set of reg fixes for a Geo DVR .. Speed was the fastest yet .. when I get a chance I will slap them into my Tweak Program and reupload it again.

Home users dont want server cases .. but will keep that in mind .. thanks

Rory, most of Antec cases already come with a filter on the front... Removable and reusable... Which case do you have? None of their MicroATX cases come with a Removable front filter, AND a CPU funnel. In these particular cases, the 1650B.

No idea, as never went with it, see above though about the Raptor. As to XP, when I tweak the standard XP Pro it goes down to about 130MB memory usage, which is super fast and can still run all the apps we need. And yes, I know all about the registry, im in there every day

Im using Antec, I havent found anything besides Server cases with Removable Filters .. nothing worth mentioning anyway. These are for MicroATX Cases. PS. that $100 is $250 here.

Update to this .. client got a couple Raptors .. no raid 1 here just normal hook ups .. anyway, 1 was OEM and the other was a Retail .. both are very very Noisy!! So we got a silencer that fits in the 5.25" slot, seems more like a cooler to me, no fan just a heat sink type enclosure, but it claimed it makes the drives silent .. well no change .. nothing noticable anyway, the drive was still very very noisy .. As to the speed .. didnt feel any faster, in fact it felt slower, could have just been the fact that you can hear everything it does. Anyway, well copying files to it from a 7200rpm drive was much faster than copying files from it to the 7200rpm drive; tested with 40GB of files copying .. and using a Hard Drive Speed test program I have here, it showed up as the 7200rpm and the Raptor being about the same in reads, though actually the 7200rpm came out faster but it was with less data, even though it was a larger drive, tested it on different sized partitions though, same thing. But the access time was faster on the Raptor, being 5.6ms, with the 7200rpm drive at 7.2ms - not a huge difference though. The score was 990 for the 7200rpm drive, and 1400 for the Raptor, But no idea how they came up with that, stayed pretty much the same each time. I imagine it may be faster in some instances such as where data is being copied to/from it alot, but the noise factor is just not worth that IMO. The 7200rmp drive, a Western Digital SE16-500 in this case, is super quiet, and still feels fast. Perhaps the Raptor might be better suited in a server application where it is in a dedicated server room with acoustic silencing on the walls, racks , cases, etc .. Definitely not for a home user though, it will set you MAD! Mind you the clients son doesnt seem to mind, we left it in his PC, though Im going to try to talk him out of it, and going back to the 500GB as his main drive, or at least we may try some other silencer enclosures, and perhaps in Raid 0 next time. Rory

update to this. Got a couple aluminum mesh filters .. put one for the Side CPU Funnel, attached between the side panel and the fan .. fit and works well. Course its not really "removable" at least not without a screw driver and removing the side, but regardless it will do the job for right now. And the front one, regular fan screws did not fit the hole, and fatter screws that size would be hard to find here, so .. just used 2 mini tie straps on 2 of the corners .. holds it there and does the job. May take one of the extra filters I got and see if a local plastic company could make up a holder for it, which could then just be glued onto the case side (on the outside of it) and the case front, and the filter slides into that - so it can be easily removed .. will let you know if that happens. Rory

Many cameras have settings others do not, and vice versa; eg. SSNR, Sens-up, typically found in South Korean cameras. Play with the camera indoors, where you can switch the light on and off, you will figure what settings do what after a short while.

Its all about the Filter: 730nm = high glow, 850nm = slight glow, 950nm = invisible

Going by the specs from their website and others only, as not used either: The 627 is a budget Color Infrared camera, not True Day Night .. so dont expect too much out of that, if anything it may be okay for inside a room or where quality is not important. The 6700 isnt much better and is a color only camera; its also a 1/4" and same low resolution of 420TVL (380-400 probably). If anything it is a budget color camera, with a high price tag. For a couple dollars more you can buy a True Day Night bullet under a different OEM name. I do not know why they are calling it a Day/Night camera though, when the specks clearly say it has a Minimum Illumination of 1.0 lux. http://www.specotech.com/cart/products/productDetails.asp?prodID=256 However if you view the Data Sheet from the link above, it says Color, not Day Night, so seems to be a misprint on their part. Rory

Like this one? http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=2&model_num=ALTV1224C Yup, only thing is limited to the amount of cameras per supply, sometimes you have no choice but to use multiple supplies.

24VAC, longer runs and wire can go either way (reverse polarity). You can get dual voltage PSUs also.

Still imagine they are using the shutter to do that, only way I can think of, less there is some amazing chip out there, and if there was, it should cost in the Extreme CCTV range or more, and wont be in a bullet camera.

I dont have a card/cam in my PC right now so cant test, but perhaps later tomorrow (geez today) ill hook up my webcam ... off to sleep now, 3am.

You will need to change the quality and compression settings in Amcap. I think it would be set on low by default, been a while.

Do you have multiple locations for the recording? If you do could be when it switches to the next location. Though no seconds is pretty strange.

Its better, though the USB convertor software might be holding it back also. In case that is also compressed, maybe try AmCap and view the USB image through that, see what it gives you. Use it with no Compression, any captured video will be Huge but just to test. Some Info on AmCap is in this thread: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2021 Link to AmCap: http://noeld.com/programs.asp?cat=video#amcap Raw video using AmCap, from a budget color camera: (connected to a generic card in this case)

No need to Explain, they are just names that Speco has given them based on models they asked to be manufactured for them by the OEM manufacturer in Asia. In most cases you can get OEM manufacturers to make your camera order with either Exview, SuperHad, or other technologies .. just depends what you want to sell the client and put your name on.

No No, just 2 different things, mostly relative to the Network Video quality from the Avtech DVR. But, like I said, for the price, cant beat that DVR. The others mentioned, including the other stand alone DVRs, cost alot more. PC based for a low end solution is actually not that great ... ends up being double to triple the cost to do it right. I mean you could build a $200 PC then slap in a budget 4 channel card for like $150 retail (eg. GeoVision GV-250), but .. to then turn around and sell that to a client is another issue. For a low end solution the budget stand alones like the Avtech, and a little bit more, the Avermedia, are the best choices IMO. The Avermedia is actually better quality over the network, last time I looked at a demo, but costs more than the AvTech. I use to push the AvTechs, but not for its remote video, only as a entry level DVR (with a basic remote video option). In other words to get a DVR with better remote video quality (LAN or WAN), one has to spend more, but for local direct video at the DVR, it is great typically. As to the cable, the RG58 would be better (provided it is solid copper center and copper braid) than the other one which is RCA. But, RG59 is what we use. Rory

ok, sorry didn't realize it was a portable DVR .. my bad

Why a Car Battery? Maybe thats what fried it last time? Im hoping this time its at least connected to an AVR