cctv_down_under

My standalone has USB Flash

I told you it was a pc !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cool site Alan

Welcome aboard!

The best complete Linux system I have seen is the Dallmier from Germany but they make their own stuff so doubt they would sell cards. I have seen many Linux cards, but most of the drivers are very outdated, also many limitations with Linux unless you are very good at it. We tried to make software with Free BSD but never finished it, everytime I we got close to something good, someone beat us to the punch, much cheaper to let someone else develop it. newsgroups have some good links to free code but that was ages ago.

You might be better with cameras that only sendd the video when there is motion, this is achieved by a PIR built into a camera, you can also get a camera,pir that can activate the recording mechanism of your VCR, the reason you were told to go for a DVR is two fold: 1/ It will cost you the same as buying a four input motion kit or a VCR that can independantly activate recording on motion of each camera. 2/ No one stocks this stuff much as it does not sell well, veen if you did it cheaper, for the small difference you could actually get a DVR which will give you much more. Your cheapest option would be one of my 4ch Standalones they use a PIR to detect motion and you could still use your bullet (BLAH) cameras, all you would need is 4 PIR's and the standalone so that would be $150 or so for the four PIR's and $600 or so for a 4 Ch 100 Fps standalone device, thsi would allow motion.. real hardware not shadows to record your data for each channell.

Wrong, you can have 400Fps machines (Pal) that is real time on 16 cameras. Also you can get good quality on Mpeg4 otherwise everyone would not be striving to develop the chips, no debate that Mpeg 2 is much nicer but WAY too big on file size unless very heavilly compressed and if it is then it becomes below par. I havent seen many other than Geo that do the Smart frame buffering. You use a looping switcher but do not record from it as the cameras go straight through it to your DVR, Its like interrupting each camera into a box allowing the choosing of any full screen view of a camera at another location (where the switcher is) and then each camera still goes to the DVR as if the switcher was not there..... an example. Imagine a Guard room and a server room, the DVR would sit in the server room and most people on the network in the building can view all cameras on their pc's but the guard room at the front gate may not have a computer in it, therefore you run all cameras to the switcher in the Guard room then back from the loops to the DVR, the DVR works like nothing has changed and the Guard can press any button to view any area he wants on a full screen large view. A switcher is about 1/8th the price of a Mux, therefore it is a very cheap way to have more than one controll of the DVR and you can also wire alarm sensors to it so that movements around the area will trigger a full screened view for the Guard.

It only does 25FPS which is pretty poor over 16 cameras, a bit overpriced considering, My new guy found out soem interesting stuff that I have yet to test but he found that downloading remote files had to be like 2mb for 5mins, when on the highest setting... I do not know if this is right but that semms an awefull lot, byt he way Rory, your Kalatel is ACTUALLY A PC!! Has ram sticks proccessor and everything, thats why it can run a CD drive, it must run an embedded Linux or something but it is still a PC!

Cheers!

Whats the integral link?

Have you seen a better system than Geo yet? what were the win4tech cards like?

Alan, whats this National Elite DVR Fairfax has something to do with you doesnt it?

I ahd a good look at nuvico it seems ok but the remote demo was very slow and seems to be using very heavy wavelet compression, but If it is cheaper than the Kalatel I would be keen to have a closer look, does anyone know if they wil be at the Taiwan show?

I have employed myself another young sales person, he does not know a lot about cameras yet but he is pretty good with PC's please make him feel welcome.. his name is Diddley

I really need an answer fast... please help

Yes you can lower it.

Took rory's advice and got myself a storesafe for testing, should have seen the look on the guys face when he found out how much I knew about them, they are reluctant to sell to us but maybe they will let us distribute them, but first step is to test the unit. I will post a full report on here on the system as I test it, I hope your available for support Rory. Bloody onyl 25Fps, wish I knew that before I started on it.

It is not as good as the Kalatel

I have a wharehouse full of Japanese Video drive lenses!

By the way I will not want anyone to see geo, just walk by them with big bags of competitors brochures and see how they like it! I hate Geos marketing but their product sure does rock!

Already did that, (told Geo), they just said " not that Alan guy again " I am very tired up with some big projects so it will be someone else that will have to go.. any input you have on what t o look for would be invaluable, the show is on or around the 23rd I think.. Hay Alan can I call you to get some advice on a tender, it is a big scope job, maybe...GULP.... even too big for me, could use some advice can you email me any tender answers you have sent that I may use as a template guide!

Thats Bull****!!!! Tell that to Nasa or your Doctor.. thats pure garbage! Yes standalones are more stable but by what, I sell both and they are very similar...I crashed the Kalatel just the other day.. so go figure.. yes windows is not as reliable as linux but to say that a PC is not stable is pure Bull****, log into my machine and check its uptime, builders of machines are the people who are unstable!

been using it for ages.. damn go on give away all my secrets

I have never used them, however I think someone in this forum actually sells them, Sentry is not the manufacurer. I have seen nothing better than the Geo software. but I would kill to find something, I would imagine it is not better but may be close. Yes I have tried stackable cards, it means that you use two x 16 Channel PCI cards, it should not double the frame rate though, especially on larger images unless onboard compression is used. The one I tried became very unstable with two boards. If it were me I would build two machines, it all depends how you plan to watch it, if it sits in a server room who cares but if it is right in front of you then maybe 32 on one screen would be handy, probably be very small images though On some DVR's that have not fixed interlacing problems you will view what is like a tearing or blurring of larger or faster moving objects, the SW stands for Software Interlacing and makes the viewing better. I am 100% sure you will get a different answer formt he Geo tech department, each one answers the same question differently, seems only the head techs and engineers know much about stuff. It will depend on your system CPU, Bus speed and and Motherboard make, however worst case scenario for us has been about a 35% loss in frames and best around 17% loss, this is true of all cards that do not have onboard compression Yes and No I can't see PC Cards tottaly stopping as they are easier to develop software for, but yes there is a big trend towards standalone machines and not just for stability, they are cheaper to manufacture, therefore if Geo made one they would make even more proffit. Standalone systems will be the mainstream in my belief within 2 yrs time, I know Geo is already working on it, but at present they are still a ways behing PC based systems but are gaining rapidly This is a bad statement, PC Cards are much more advanced than standalones and most large projects use PC rather than standalone as they have more flexibilty. I would say standalone is more stable but not by that much, PC can be updated while it is much harder with a standalone, if your unit is obsolete you need to replace all of it with a standalone, however if it is a PC it may be a simple upgrade, also a standalone is just like a PC with video display chips etc, the only difference is that if the video chip goes in a standalone you need to replace the whole thing not just a video card in a PC. An example.... Geo released a hardware overlay feature for newer video cards, so upgrading your video card alone gave new features, but had it been standalone you would not be able to, besides standalones are not as flexible with remote features. Rory if you want to remotely log into any Maccas here let me know we did about 16 of them! A tip for you.... tell them it will help with training and their cash SOP.

Its not a bad peice of kiat hay Alan... BTW that trade show is in Taiwan, just as well I checked LOL