rory

what type of cameras are they, Box, Dome, or Bullets ..? Are they Day Night cameras, or IR cameras?

i watched straight through also .. turns out noone in authority gave them the news, someone overheard something and called someone at the church on a cell phone .. so the news was never authorised. Who knows what happens when you are caught up in a rescue effort like that though, i know sometimes when im working it can be a couple hours before i get to return an answer to someone that asked me a question a couple hours ago when i was in the middle of some work .. so a couple hours can be like 10 minutes when you are in the middle of something like that .. its amazing anyone made it out alive .. hopefully he will pull through and we'll hear the whole story.

I think the best bet would be to go with a proven package, if they are this picky then they will have no problem spending the money for an Extreme CCTV Licence Plate Capture package .. http://www.extremecctv.com/reg_cat.cfm they have the cameras, DVR, and software ready to go.

ok then basically you just need a 4 channel 120fps DVR. This is what is tyipically used for Licence Plate Capture. Are these cameras zoomed in on the licence plate or the width of one lane? Otherwise you would need something like a MegaPixel camera and Capture Card, not a DVR. Since you are not recording Movies, and it is Surveillance, 30fps (NTSC) is all you need to capture licence plates. provided there is adequate lighting and the cameras and lenses are very good. Do you know what cameras are going to be used and what lenses they are using?

If this is for surveillance, I have no idea what those specifitions are for that you have .. recorded surveillance video will never be clear like a DVD/DiVx quality, or you would need 10000's of TBs of Hard Drive Space, hence we compress the video. So whether it is 60pps or 30pps or 30fps or whichever one, according to what I have seen, it wont do what those specs say, as we are talking about CCTV Surveillance, which is designed for long term industrial recordings. Whenever you compress video, you loose some of that video.

I dont know any off hand, but some linux based Embedded Units that claim 480fps (320x240) generally will do 240fps in 720x480 (NTSC). Most will have a selection of Mjpeg or Wavelet. Ive never used any so cant confirm that. Im using the Geo Vision PC system with 13 cameras at a night club in real time recording in 640x480 (as 720x480 was eating up too much space). In 640x480 a decent color 5 minute video is 287MB in Mpeg-4. Ive used the video as evidence in a couple of stabbings already. They used to use the DSR-2000 with a 16 channel multiplexer, so the speed upgrade is great with the Geo. As for the DSR-2000, Here's the Datasheet. http://www.ge-consultantlink.com/Docs/dsr_2000e_prd.pdf The issue you will find with a stand alone non PC DVR, is that the evidence sharing is not going to come close to the quality of a decent PC based system (as most of them will only back up via compressed network video/images), hence my switchover from stand alone to PC in the above case. I still use a CCTV CRT Monitor for playback and live monitoring.

the DSR-2000 is 60 pictures per second (frames) and a stand alone RTOS, but a single channel. You can put it in 60pps though, but the quality is only "slightly" better.

lightning fries everything down here, shoots right through the house and all .. taking out everything .. i dis be duckin !! Course yall dealing with 5 storey buldings up there .. im talking regular homes .. PVC is all they run in the walls here, unless its a huge building.

sounds like a lightening rod

i doubt they require it in a home or retail store, even down here the Hotels and High rise Condos require EMT but then they do their own wiring.

yes you can use coax with PTZ cameras, but for control you typically need something like cat5/UTP. Depending on the PTZ camera used, if it is a decent PTZ (not a cheap one) then it will have the option of UTP or Coax for Video when you purchase it.

says mace on the camera, looks like the mace camera in the image, cam53, then it must be, dont think one OEM is going to try to make their camera look like another OEMs which cost around the same .. but i wonder who designs these cameras, apart from a couple minor differences, the cases look so much alike http://www2.cop-usa.com/ebproductdetail.asp?id=455 Cant say i like COP cameras though ... though that particular mace cam packs alot into that one .. high res and 1/3" lens .. not bad for the extremely low price ..

yep, i let the electrician worry about all that

the main difference is the software .. ofcourse the cards are made by 2 different manufacturers as well .. Im happy with the Geo 480fps system though, got it in a night club and it rocks .. course it was built by VueStar, not myself .. nice though, great quality video .. sweet

i followed that link and dont even see any cameras ..

ahh, its all OEM though, same gear ..

GeoVision has that feature, RemotePlayback, lets you download/Play then save as AVI or BMP.. GE stand alone DVRs are also capable of downloading recorded video remotely using WaveReader.

whats the distance to the poles? Can you put a weatherproof box at the bottom of the pole ..? if so then you can run coax and / or cat5 + 18awg power cable to that box, then run from there. I have RG59 runing a couple hundred feet, then spliced into RG6 (cable TV cable - only cable could get at short notice down here) and it goes through a box with high voiltage, no problems.

Yep, happy new year to yah too Im not a relay expert, mostly just used them for sirens from Alarm Panels, and i havent used any of the Geo relay or I/O stuff (so dont take my word for it until you try it), though a colleague here uses relays extensively, even created entire phone systems out of rat shack relays ..

Yep, only if the link has non retail pricing ... main reason is we have alot of contributing dealers that sell the same products at retail pricing, and some of them are also advertisers. Best way would be to ask for a quote as you did already, then you will get a good variation of prices to choose from. Just remember, the cheapest one is not always the best, look at the warranty and support offered for it as well. If you buy it then cant return it if it doesnt work properly, or cant get it to work properly even after trying everything, or never hear back from the reseller, then it would have been a loss. I'd like to think all the dealers on here, especially if they PM you, would be offering great support, just confirm the warranty with them, as they can differ. Digital Watchguard is a listed Geo dealer, and an advertiser so no doubt I would recommend him, and they also sell those Nuvico Cameras. Also, VueStar builds some great ready made systems. VST is the only Video Insight reseller I know of, but there may be others, VST knows his stuff though. thanks Rory

you'd need a high voltage relay, ive never touched them .. just the low voltage ones .. but yeah it would go into the I/O on the DVR. Input from an alarm device, Output to a relay.

Q-see doesnt compare to Geo or Video Insight, for one thing i noticed that Q-see card only has 320x240 resolution. Its a card that is sold in electronic stores in the US, very basic cheap card ..

you could also just buy relays and power supplies from Rat Shack if you needed ..

Ive used RG6 at a pole with high voltage and it came out okay .. but its taking a chance ... you could run a piece first just at the pole and to a monitor right there, and see what you get, before running the wire all the way back.

only alternative i can think of off the top of my head would be a 60fps GE DSR2000 .... but you would need 4 of them ...