ncdoc

If you are doing PoE then you are doing right by using CAT6 for the 23AWG wire if nothing else. We had a project of around 100 of a very similar camera that uses 9w (versus 7w (i think) on the 7080R) and have been very close to 100 meters in a couple of situations. I have had no problems with power or signal. You need a PoE switch with enough total current capacity to handle all of your connected cameras and you home run from the camera to the switch. No idea how you would daisy chain an ethernet connection. Unless he is just pulling your leg he may be thinking of some sort of mid span PoE injector to boost power. If the camera is running at around .25 amps and the PoE is supplying around 48VDC you are probably going to only drop around 3.5V at the 100 Meter ethernet limit. That is calculated on just one pair of 23AWG wires. Good luck, RW

I like the Vivotek as well. Used around 40 of the 8361 units on a project and they have good quality video and are very durable. The Vivotek software for IP assignment has some quirks when assigning multiple cameras that are active on the network so try to assign the IP address one at a time as you connect to the network. On the conduit subject they had what I thought was a 3/4" threaded port but oops it was metric. One of my guys spent some quality time with a 3/4" tap and all was well.

The RJ45 plug/circuit board on the end of the lead-end cable for the SNV-5080R will not fit through a 3/4" conduit connector (or at least not the one we have) although there is a 3/4" threaded port on the site of the housing. It almost fits but not quite. We have to surface mount these and pipe into them in many cases so this does cause a bit of a problem. If you are mounting to a backbox then it is not much of a problem.

Samsung was sold exclusively in US under the GVI brand until Jan-2011 and when you combined that line with the Samsung Techwin line it was often hard to figure out what was what. There may have actually been 3 companies total. Used many good quality analog mini-domes (without the long cords) via the GVI channel. Seems like they are doing a better job of streamlining their product lines now so they are less confusing. Still with so many VMS platforms out there you really need to ping both the camera manufacturer and your VMS provider to get the integration moving faster. If your VMS supports the ONVIF platform then you could likely connect to the camera. However some of the features like motion detection integration may not always be there. Also sometimes the Korean HQ site has a bit more detailed information on some cameras. Good information akelley on the Axis P3367-VE. Although I did not test it I checked it out on the web site. Found out quickly that it was going to kill my budget since we needed over 100 units. Can you connect metal conduit (3/4") or something similar directly to the side of the camera where the conductors would be secure? I had a hard time telling from the manual. Thanks,

Have been testing SNV-5080 and SNV-5080R. "R" version has IR as well as remote focus and vari-focal adjustment. Both have very good video. SNV-5080 has direct ethernet port on camera so if you only need ethernet (poe) you can connect directly to the camera and remove lead in cables. The SNV-5080R has lead-in cable you cannot remove with a RJ45 plug/circuit board on the end. Circuit board is for led indicators. This along with the other cables (if needed) make installation in some situations a bit difficult without additional junction box. SNO-5080R bullet does not have remote focus adjustment but the SNO-7080R does. Both have heaters but not sure about the fan or length of these lead-in cables. Samsung often does not know how long they are either. We will be using some of the mini domes and bullets on projects with Exacq VMS. Have been finding that many IP cameras and their composite lead in cables (apparently for IP66 ratings) are making installations more difficult when the camera needs to be installed with conduit in a secure environment. Some of these lead-in cables are 5 ft. long or even 12 ft. on some PTZ domes. Hard to find an IP dome camera with a plain old 3/4" conduit fitting.

We are starting to use the Exacq hybrid servers to upgrade our digital recording on existing matrix based analog systems. These are in correctional facilities. We are also using a software only version in one of our institutions using Axis encoders, HP Servers and external iSCSI storage. We tested a lot of VMS software applications and there are many good solutions out there. The Exacq works very well, provides very good video quality, and is easy to operate. The system provides quick and simple access to recorded video as well as simple off loading of clips. Regardless of the version you buy the client interface is common. Exacq continues to make improvements to their software and have updates every 3 months or so. Sales and technical staff are very helpful. A big bonus in my opinion is that they can provide a solution for the analog world as well as the IP and megapixel world including the newest H.264 compression.

We have tested many LCD units and found the Panasonic WV-LD2000A to be the only one that can compete with a tube monitor for qualilty. Around $800.00.

The "works great!" part is the feedback I was looking for. We will order 2 and run them through some testing. Thanks,

I have researched building our own DVR system using the Avermedia NV6480Express cards. Some of the feedback and advice provided by members of this forum has been very helpful. We are going to build a test system with 2 NV6480 cards but we also have an immediate need for 62 channels on one project and 90 on another. Talked to Avermedia and they strongly suggested I look at their SA6832. Basically a prebuilt PC with 2 of the NV6480 Express cards. It appears I can get this for less than $3500.00 for the 32 channel unit and can add two 1TB SATA drives in the removable trays for $600. It comes basic with a 500Gb drive. Considering you would pay $2k for the 2 boards alone that is not a bad deal for 32 channels of D1 recording @7.5FPS per channel. Anyone want to talk me out of this? Thanks for reading.

Thanks, In between my post and your reply I was looking at the NV6480 Express card at AVermedia. This looks like a good option. I have some work to do on the computer selection and construction. What have you used for archiving storage? I was looking at a SATAII to iSCSI RAID that can handle 16TB in one unit and can connect to 3 computers. Have you used this type of setup or similar?

I have never used the PC DVR capture cards and software in the past so I am looking for suggestions. I need higher end cards that can handle 32 cameras each and it appears that most cards that are listed as 32 channel are actually 2 cards. If I am using something like a Dell rack server with the required number of slots can I install 64 channels in each server and access all cameras from a networked client or clients?? I am only looking to use 96 of the channels. Is it pretty simple to set up archiving to an attached iSCSI or similar attached storage system? Any help on this subject is appreciated.

All good points and I hope the manufacturers understand this because we also have a large number of analog systems to support. I have to believe that a good deal of their decision making is based on the fact that developing an IP based system is mostly about software development versus hardware (matrix, mux, DVR). They don't have to make the servers, storage, or network devices.

I recommend using the Seagate SV35.2 Seriesâ„¢ Hard Drives which are designed for 24/7 operation and around $100 for 320Gb ATA/100. Models: Ultra ATA/100 320GB ST3320620AV Ultra ATA/100 500GB ST3500630AV Get a simple USB - IDE hard drive case ($35.00) and hook up the new drive to be used for master. Leave the cable select jumber in place on the HD while formatting. Download free Seagate DiscWizard from their site. Connect HD case to computer via USB and wait for it to see the drive. Use DiscWizard which will find the new drive. Format it for FAT32 leaving other settings in default. Just let it select the next drive letter since the DS2 unit will set the master back to C:. Once formatted copy and paste the "disk.zip" folder and the "bin" folder from the software download available from the DM web site. Do not unzip anything. Remove the HD and change the jumper from cable select to Master position. Plug in the archive HD and all you have to do is format this drive then remove the cable select jumper. Install the Master and Slave in the correct position on the DS2 unit and start up. All should work fine.

With most DVRs these days you can just swap the HDD yourself (granted some stand alone DVRs still dont make it easy, but all PC DVRs allow that). If you image the main DVR partition that can be re imaged in under 5 minutes. If you have RAID then hot swap but still if one drive goes half the time others have gone also due to brown outs or what not (voltage regulator and good cooling prevents most if not all HDD failures). I completely agree Rory and I failed to mention I was comparing to embedded units we have used in the past without hot swap drives. I should also mention that we have discount pricing with HP, Dell, and Cisco so that makes utilizing a server based IP system a bit more attractive. While we will continue to use analog system on smaller projects I get the impression from the industry that large companies like Bosch, AD, Vicon, Panasonic, etc. are focusing their R&D on IP. I do not expect to see much future innovation with Matrix, Muxes, etc. so I wonder how long this technology will last. Did anyone notice as of the Jan 2nd Pelco is pushing the Integral Technologies line on their front page. Never thought I would see that either.

I recently priced out our first IP system for around 128 cameras. Our traditional setup has been analog cams connected to DVRs and a Matrix. In this application we needed to transmit several cameras from multiple buildings back to a head end. A fiber backbone is available to us so our traditional route would be multichannel fiber XMTRs/RCVRs. As you know this can get costly so I compared the cost of using Cisco switches to create a standalone Gigabit network and then transmitting all cameras to the head end via video servers (encoders). (note most systems cannot yet take advantage of the Gigabit speed) The IP route came out cheaper and we do not need as many fiber strands. Also by using server based recording and external storage we do not have to deal with the issue of sending a DVR unit back for repair when the HD fails. Just Hot Swap. We are testing several IP software packages including Genetec, ONSSI, Verint, and Nice. For the locations where analog monitors and keyboards are still desired you can use a network decoder with any analog monitor and Pelco KBD300 to provide the feel of a traditional matrix. With that said when I plug a high res analog cam into a good CRT monitor I always know what I am going to get. That is not always the case with IP. Granted I have not yet tested the Megapixel. Regards,