Forestarius

Well, I'll try to explain best I can. Mounted outside if you turn the auto gain switch to off the camera will go dark about 45 minutes before other, even cheap, cameras will start to fade away into the black of night. I'd say that is really bad for low light since I think this is even before sunset. With the auto gain switched on it will look like a nice brighter image while other cameras are dimming down and going black, but it is not a "real time" image. It's a memory like image of what once was. Maybe the advertising people are calling this the intensifier image. When I tested it in low light that's when I was a ghostly image walking by. If I stood still I was a grainy image. If I moved slightly I was an extremely grainy ghostly image. I think I had the AG set to the medium setting when I tested that. The motion detection in my GV surveillance software program does not detect the ghostly images moving by. Meanwhile it shows a nice bright, well lit image, but again, it's not real time, it's left over (in memory?) from before the sun went down, with a ghost walking past. In complete darkness, or even with a little moonlight, it goes black and can not see anything. It just takes a while before the fakish memory image fades away. I didn't do much on the high auto gain setting because you get these bright stars randomly throughout the image when it gets dark. They had nothing to do with the background setting, they were just there permanently. It really didn't improve the image of me walking by either, so it was worthless to bother with. I stopped testing soon and turned on the motion detection light on that side of the house. If someone walks by the light comes on, the camera adjusts, and I have a video. Without the floodlight the camera would be useless at night. With the floodlight the image is okay. The intensifier has an adjustable setting which effects the daylight image. I think they call it sharpening. It's nice to get the image a little crisper and sharp, but go too far it looks awful and the colors go bad. Even with the lower setting I eventually went with I occasionally have an orange face. I think that's the real intensifier. If you've ever noticed that the crisp image you have on a TV monitor gets dull once it goes through the video card and is fed to your computers LED monitor, then this might help. Turn up the intensifier a bit and the image looks horrible on the TV but great on your monitor. I think that's what the intensifier really is, an image sharpener.

Has anyone used an Extreme CCTV EB-C300 in the wall camera? How did it work out? I was thinking of putting one outside my front door above the doorbell to capture faces. I have a dome up above but only get tops of heads unless they look up. I figure just about everyone will look at the doorbell and won't be shying away from something they won't recognize as a camera. What lens would be the best for that closeup application? They offer 2.9, 3.6, 4.3 and 6mm. Being so close to it at 1-3 feet I was thinking the widest might be the best. The Speco CVC-675 is the only other similar camera I can find. It's less than half the price but it does not look like it has pan or tilt.

One thing I forgot to mention before is I tested a camera with built in IR lights next to the Speco one night and the Speco did not see the IR light at all, while the tested camera had a bright image.

I have not done it myself. The GV-2008 card comes with an extra instruction sheet that shows how to setup one as master and one as slave and how to hook up the two together with the cable. I don't see any of it listed in the two Version 8.2 manuals printed in January, so this is probably something new. The older card models don't have this capability as far as I know and would not have a place to hook up the cable. pictures added:

The GV2008 can be stacked for a max of two cards and 16 channels. They even come with the cable to connect them together. The older GV cards cannot be stacked.

I recently setup a Speco HT-INTB8 so my comments may or may not apply to the other models. A few minutes ago I noticed that there is enough light outside that I could still see stuff so I went out there. I came back to find out I was not detected. As far as I can tell the "intensifier" is something that gathers light over time (maybe a few minutes) and builds an image of what's there. If you walk by the camera at twilight you will be an almost ghostlike image walking by. When it's moonlight expect to not even be seen by the camera. You might as well be moving at a thousand miles an hour, because the "intensifier" will never see you. It's not a real time image on your screen. Maybe if you stand still for five minutes you might then appear It's okay during the day and the metal body looks like nice quailty, but when sun starts setting the image becomes useless and deceiving.

Cool, Thank You!

I have a Geovision card in a computer at home which I can access from work. I am about to add another computer and Geo card and both systems will be running at the same time. Should the seconds setup be set to port 81? Should all the other ports be moved one up to allow outside access?

The downloadable pdf file version on the website says that. The one that comes with the camera does not.

How do you check if there is an IR Cut filter installed in the ISC-P540X? The spec sheet that came with the camera does not list it and says specs can change without notice. Maybe they are not using them anymore. If I could get a sharp focus during the day I'd be buying more of them because of the nice night vision. As it is now though, I'm looking at other camera models. I have $99 cameras with better daytime images. The best of both worlds eludes me.

The Geovision website only lists one USA distributer and they don't have a website. That's not helpful for avoiding clones. Who are the authorized dealers so I can avoid getting a clone? The lowest price I can find is at - EDIT-CR - but I don't know if they are a reputable dealer or not. A forum search did not turn up anything positive or negative, just that one person had placed an order with them. Over the past couple of days I have sent emails to big internet retailers about Geovision cards (worldeyecam and surveillance-video) and they have not even bothered to respond. They are more expensive there, but their lack of responding is not inspiring. So what are the best places to buy from? EDIT: Links to online shopping (wholesale prices) I left the other two names as it's obviously not advertising and really could be a thread of it's own.

After posting I emailed GV about where to buy and they quickly replied that the closest dealer to me was two states away in California. All they gave me was the name of the company, which I had never heard of, and the phone number. This would have been the end of this for me because I don't deal with unknowns like that. But then I received an email from that company saying GV gave them my info. So with their enclosed link I checked out their website. It had no prices listed on their items. They did have a downloadable price list though. The GV-2008 card I am interested in is listed at $2439.02 The GV-800-4 That I currently have is listed at $888.89 Obviously at those prices Geovision would not even be a consideration. I'll stick with the "unauthorized" dealers.

I moved the camera to the other side of the house. The setting sun lit up the field there as pure white to the camera. So I closed the iris about 1/8th of a turn clockwise to get the field back as green. I tried focusing it for quite a while but it's just not there. I can get a precise focus for a close object, like large text about 4 feet away, but at 15 feet nothing looks right, just like it was on the other side of the house yesterday. The sunlight is fading now and the camera just went to B&W as I'm writing this.

I just brought it inside to adjust the iris. It's actually easy and there is not much of a turn to it. I went through the whole adjustment both with indoor lighting and pointed out the window and can see no improvement. So I adjusted back where it was to begin with as that looks like the best setting. I do get a much better picture on the TV set, if that matters. Here are screenshots from last night. Total darkness: With motion activated floodlights on:

I remembered this morning I can send email alerts with the GV-800. So here is the Speco image: and here is the ISC-P540X: Both of the ISC-P540X's look like the bottom image. So does the Speco before I set the Intensifier setting in the menu.

I still can't post pictures.

I tried flipping around the dip switches to see if it would make any difference, it didn't, and went back to the default settings. I haven't touched the iris at all. I don't understand enough about it to risk messing with it. I left it on all night next to the Speco for comparison (hooked up to a GV-800 card) and will take it down later today. I had a TV set outside yesterday when I was setting it up and trying to focus.

I just received a couple of ISC-P540X's today. My images look like yours, kinda blurry and dull. I am unable to precisely focus it. I've watched it closely as it goes from one focus extreme to the other and there is no sharp zone in-between and the colors are dull. I tested it side by side with a similar in size (and some of the specs) Speco HT-INTB8 that does exactly the same thing. The images look the same. But it also has a switch that turns on an "intensifier" of some sort that suddenly and sharply focuses the image beautifully and brightens up the colors as well. The "intensifier" is also adjustable. I have it set to the 15 setting and my Levi's are the correct color when I walk by. With the ISC-P540X they are much lighter and look faded. So I thought I made a mistake buying two ISC-P540X's, that is until the sun went down. The ISC-P540X is amazing in the dark. As I walk by I think I am in sharper focus than during daylight. The Speco is almost worthless in the dark, while the ISC-P540X infrared is bright, evenly lit, and does a better job than any other camera I've tried at night. The Speco HT-INTB8 is installed on the side of the house where there an outdoor motion detection light installed so not being good at night vision is not a big disadvantage for it. If anyone walks by the light comes on and the camera will then record it. The ISC-P540X's will be going to the other side of house where I don't have any outdoor lights. There the great night vision will make sure no one gets by undetected. The daytime images won't be as good as I would like, but the night images make it a worthwhile compromise.

Only one of the dealers on this site even lists the card I'm interested in on his website and he wants $216 more than the cheapest place I've found. That's a lot.

I'm new to this so don't know if it's a newbie mistake. The time is listed correctly in the computer, in the Geovision software, and in the email itself (in both the body of the email and time stamped on the alarm pictures), but in the email program it is listed as one hour ahead and is so sorted. So an alarm event at 9:30am arrives in my email listed as a 10:30am email (I got one like this a few minutes ago and it's not 10:30 yet). This happens with both Outlook Express and Eudora email programs on two different computers. I think the problem is somewhere in the Geovision software. Any ideas?