mechBgon

This will be of interest to Hikvision DVR users: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Hikvision-DVRs-Have-Security-Glitches-That-Allow-Full-Control-of-the-Device-465620.shtml

Yeah, I think they should mandate passwords long enough to rule out rainbow tables, at a minimum. Personally, my remote-access solution is a Remote Desktop session over TLS1.2 on an oddball port, with a 100-character password (all hail barcode scanners!). And even that only gets me in as a least-privilege user. The recent WinShock vulnerability shows there's no such thing as invulnerable, but at least I know RDP's underpinnings get patched and are subject to ongoing scrutiny. For those considering the RDP approach (yes, all three of you ), I could cough up some recommendations on security. Some of them require editing Local Group Policy and Local Security Policy, and therefore only work on Pro/Business/Ultimate/Enterprise variants of Windows since they have a local GPO.

Thanks for bringing this up. I checked Washington's state laws, http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9.73.030 Section 3 says It looks like an audio-recording sign at a business's entrances would be a solution here.

I got another Grandstream GXV3651_FHD and it came with an auto-iris lens (previously varifocal manual-iris on my other two) so I tried the stock lens. This is a full-size image but I had to bring the JPEG quality down to 80 to get under the 500kb limit. Camera is locked at 1/125th-second exposure so I get minimal blur on people just on the other side of the window. It's a dual-pane window and the camera looks through it at a ~45-degree angle, so take that into account if you're critiquing the fine details. Lots of extra glass in the way After trying the stock lens out, I slapped my spare Fujinon 3MP lens on it. It's slightly better IMO. At peak resolution, framerate is limited to 5fps. The camera has a lag of typically 3 frames between a motion-detection event and the actual frame it stores/FTPs/emails, and at 5fps, a 3-frame lag can displace the target significantly when it's at close range. I have a ticket open with Grandstream and they are looking into it. At the next-highest resolution, max framerate is 15fps which diminishes the issue. Other things people might find relevant if they're thinking about one of these: no WDR settings to adjust, recorded audio has heavy rumble in my opinion (I can stick a clip on YouTube if anyone's curious), and you currently can either pick a specific shutter speed or AUTO, but you can't just cap it at a minimum shutter speed for now. In the scene shown above, sticking with 1/125th-sec exposure gets grainy but useable photos even of people walking by at point-blank range at night on the lighted porch, but you pay the penalty of a lot of noise in the video footage (go figure).

We're fortunate here, we have electricity at only 6.9 cents per kW-hour if I recall correctly. But power consumption still factored into my setup because I want a good runtime on UPS power. With two 3TB Western Digital Red drives, an SSD and an 80Plus Gold-rated PSU, the Core i3 does a good job, typically at about 31 watts for the server itself when it's just recording and not displaying the streams onscreen. It helps that only one HDD is running the majority of the time, since the software fills up one drive before starting on the other. The full setup (server, 16-port Dell gigabit switch, POE injector, 48V POE power brick, 12V power brick for analog, and 11 cams) is at about 90 watts when the IR-equipped cameras are running with IR on. My el-budgeto APC UPS estimates 52 minutes of runtime, which I would like to increase, but it's better than nothing. You can take the Gsurf Pro video requirements with a big grain of salt. They suggest a whopping GTX660-based card for the server, but there is absolutely no call for that. If you want to test your laptop, you could install the Gsurf Pro software (it's free, and in fact I think it's open-source), then add some of Grandstream's own live-demo cams and view them. Here's one that's currently up: http://66.228.93.51/index.html 2560 x 1920 resolution, so if your lappie can handle that, it's going to be fine. To add a device in Gsurf Pro, it' System Config > Device Config > ADD and make sure to pick IPCAM as the device type. Username and password are blank, just give it the IP address and save, then double-click it in the left panel to view the stream. I started by trying to manage the cams directly with browsers, but the FTP server and NVR software is a much easier combo. My typical workflow is 1. get the coffeemaker started! 2. connect to my surveillance server at work via Remote Desktop 3. look at the photos the cameras sent to the FTP server when they detected motion overnight 4. if anything looks suspicious in a photo, then start Replayer, pull up the associated video, and see what was going on 5. if I see something in the video that needs to be documented, either take snapshots from the video, or export the video and convert it to a playable .AVI file which I can then enhance or whatever. Periodically I archive the snapshots and bump off old video files so I can get enough capacity free for proper defragmentation of the HDDs. I don't think they've got a non-Windows version at the moment, so that would be a sticking point. But FWIW I see refurb Core 2 Duo desktops with Win7 for around $130ish at Newegg. I will add that I have had some bugs to report to them. They do work on them, it's not sell-it-and-run.

I'm only familiar with the Grandstream stuff, but you could consider that approach if you have a spare PC. It doesn't have to be a powerhouse. My work system, recording 11 streams at once, including three 5MP cams, a 3MP, three 2MP and an analog transcoder with four channels, all at max resolution/framerate/bitrate, takes about 5% of a Core i3's power while at its minimum idle state of 1.55GHz. Still snapshots are handled by the native Windows IIS FTP server (and duplicated on the cameras' memory cards), video storage is on local HDDs in my case. So something like an Core2 Duo with 2GB of RAM could handle the recording duties and save footage to your NAS, or locally for that matter. Their motion detection is driven by the cameras, so the CPU doesn't have to "watch" the videos and detect motion in real time. Displaying the streams, particularly from HD cams, will ratchet up the pressure... displaying all 11 primary streams at once, over Remote Desktop Connection, will take my Core i3 up to about 50% load at its full 3.2GHz. But there's not much point in using a primary stream if you're going to squish a 2560 x 1920 video into 1/16th of the screen... at more than a 2 x 2 array of videos, I might as well switch to secondary streams. If you're interested in picking my brain on the subject, feel free to shoot me a PM. Oh, and I could also point you to an affordable 8-port PoE injector if you have a suitable switch already.

Here's another PoE option, I got one of these add-on injectors: http://www.ebay.com/itm/170823886352 If unmanaged will do the job and you already have a switch, then that could be worth a look. I grabbed a Dell 16-port all-gigabit switch off Ebay to go with it. For my cheaper cams that aren't PoE-capable, I use these thingies: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161071413415 My longest Ethernet cable runs are 100ft and 125ft, and these do the job OK with a 12-volt camera that is rated for about 4 watts peak power consumption. If it's pitch-dark in there, consider some motion-sensing light fixtures too. Search Ebay for "PIR 50W LED floodlight" and you'll get some hits. These garden-variety lights have adjustable sensor range, adjustable time before reset, and adjustable daylight cutoff, for around $50. Visible light would allow identifying clothing color, and more light is also beneficial because the cameras can use faster shutter speeds for less blur. And hey... if your vengeful ex-employee gets 3000 lumens blasted in his face as soon as he gets through the perimeter, perhaps he'll retreat and save you some expensive damage.

I'm considering a new lens for my front window camera. It's a Grandstream 5MP box camera with a 1/2" sensor and CS-mount stock lens (varifocal manual-iris, unknown manufacturer). The camera/lens is relatively inexpensive, so I'm wondering what to expect from an aftermarket lens. In the attached sample pic, the camera is near the wide end of its zoom, so I don't expect miracles, but it would be nice to be able to read the license plate on that car in good lighting conditions. Also, grade-school kids walk this way to/from school, so if anything went down, I would like to have good info for law enforcement. Any opinions on whether it's worth trying a new lens? The other thing I'm up against, is that the scene varies from bright sunlight to dimly-lighted nighttime. People passing the window are at close range, so it takes a fairly fast shutter speed to get clear face identification. The best compromise seems to be 1/125th-second. But that swamps the camera in daylight. So the other selling point for a new lens is that I can pick up an auto-iris model and hopefully stick to one shutter speed. welcome to the surface of the sun I scrounged for a 1/2" auto-iris varifocal 5MP lens and there aren't many options. I found this one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/869727-REG/Tokina_tvr4518hddc_ir_TVR4518HDDCIR_1_2_5_MP.html Any other nominees are welcome. Any advice on the real-world value of a 5MP-rated lens over 3MP?

Oh, gotcha. I did revisit the focus with the iris wide open at twilight tonight, just to get the most out of the camera under the circumstances. I wish I had more illumination out there in that parking lot, it's like a black hole. I'm just the bicycle mechanic, so I'm at the opposite end of the food chain from the people who ought to be adding more lights (the property owners, or the property managers, or the business owners). If I could, I'd slap up a couple IR illuminators, but the front of the building is, like, 2ft thick concrete

I'll definitely revisit the focus at dusk when the iris is wide-open. Although the camera itself has no IR, I was under the impression it was picking up the ambient IR from the sun, hence why the cameras have an IR-cut filter for daytime operation. Since I was watching the camera at the time, I toggled the IR-cut filter on/off to see if that was the cause of the fuzzy focus, which seemed to be the case. But regardless, I'm betting I can improve the open-iris focus like you said. I found a couple more of that lens on Large Auction Site for $50 a pop and grabbed one for my entryway camera too, since it faces the same varying light conditions to a lesser degree.

I ordered the recommended Fujinon lens from an outfit that never shipped it, and ignores my efforts to contact them Time to have PayPal lower the boom on 'em. Meanwhile, I ended up with a similar Fujinon auto-iris 3MP-rated lens, the DV3.8x4SR4A-SA1, from a different online store. This one is supposed to be day/night. Below are comparisons of my stock manual-iris lens and the auto-iris Fujinon, for anyone who was curious. Optically, I think I'm getting about the same effective performance*. And there's only so much you can expect when the camera's looking through a double-pane window at a 45-degree angle. But now I can leave exposure locked at 1/125th-second and be done with it. *I should qualify that... I noticed at dusk that the camera removed its IR-cut filter and the focus went fuzzy. Apparently not IR-corrected. In my case it doesn't matter much, because after dark the only light sources are visible light anyway, so I can leave the camera in "daytime" visible-light-only mode and the focus doesn't shift. Sample below. All these pics were reduced to 60% JPEG quality to fit under the 500kb limit, by the way.

I have this one. It does a good job of throwing the light out pretty far. If I remember I will take a screenshot of it tonight for you. Here is a shot of my backyard using this illuminator. The house is a walkout in the back. The camera is mounted under the eve above the first floor and the illuminator is mounted below it on the deck framing. I am using an ACTi E42 camera and it is at the widest angle which is 3.3mm. You can see that the angle of coverage is not as wide as the camera but it is much brighter back there than what the built in camera illuminator was doing. Hope this helps. [attachment=0]01130909_21-04-00a.jpg[/attachment] Thanks, that's useful info I wonder if a diffuser would be effective at spreading out the IR for a situation where more spread and less range is required.

I have this one. It does a good job of throwing the light out pretty far. If I remember I will take a screenshot of it tonight for you. I'm interested to see your screenshot too, for the angle of coverage especially.

If it helps, the 100ft and 300ft ones here look interesting, but I haven't tried one yet: http://www.securitycameraking.com/security-camera-illuminators-223-ctg.html The customer remarks seem encouraging. They're rated for 2 amps and 3 amps respectively, so a guy would need to shop for a suitable power supply as well.

What's your approximate budget? Also, for shopping purposes, what country are you in?

These are from my Grandstream GXV3622_FHD at 8Mbit, 2048 x 1536, auto iris, auto shutter speed. I had to compress the original JPEGs enough for the forum to accept them. I force it to use color mode at night, since clothing & vehicle colors can be helpful to know. The main goal here would be to catch someone breaking in via our fire exit or our north windows, or tagging our building with graffiti. Our neighbors have also needed our security footage a couple times, and this is a route used by school kids too. Here is some video footage, including an accelerated segment where the light is changing from overcast to sunlight so you can evaluate how it handles that. The camera has no user-accessible WDR or noise-reduction options, so it is what it is. _5HNew1Dot4

Thanks everyone for the input. Yeah, looking at an angle through two layers of window glass, plus interior reflections, sure doesn't help. It would be worse if I didn't put a matte-black glare shield behind the camera to intercept the actual store interior. Grandstream currently doesn't have an exposure "cap" feature, or I'd definitely use that. In lieu of that option, or the necessary skeels to script an exposure change tied to sunrise/sunset times, I'll see how the auto-iris option works out, and post a fresh picture late next week for anyone who's curious. Good point. I'll keep my expectations realistic. Yes, and he was aiming it all over the place too, including at occupied residences and through our front window. I think he was testing the laser sight. This area's a bit sketchy at night.

I'm game, I'll get one of those with a CS-to-C adapter and try it out. Thanks ssmith

I had that type of problem recently. It turned out I'd assigned the same IP address to two cameras, one of which was unplugged for a long time and then got plugged back into the network again. Ooops!

Another vote for the on-CPU Intel video. Scaling/displaying and recording nine primary streams at once in Grandstream's software, and piping it over a Remote Desktop Connection, my i3-3225 comes up to full speed (3.3GHz) and 30% CPU load. Recording the streams without displaying them, it throttles down to 1.55GHz and 2% CPU load. Based on my UPS's wattage readout (typically mid-30W area), the system itself (not counting monitors) is sipping about US$20/year in electricity, which seems good. I spend more than that on all sorts of foolish things that is awesome! I can't wait to get one of the new Haswell cores! how much do you pay per kwh? we're 24cents Yes! Mine is a mere Ivy Bridge. I would've picked a Haswell Core i3 for sure if they had been available, but Intel started with the i7s and i5s At any rate, this is still a big improvement over my quad-core Phenom II, about half the power consumption (and twice the battery-backup runtime) in any scenario. We are at 6.925 cents per kw-h here, which I believe is relatively low? For folks with expensive electricity, if you go with the self-built PC route and it'll be running 24/7, also consider a power supply with an 80Plus Gold or Platinum rating. I got one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151117 For those interested in power consumption numbers, I was at work and re-checked the wattage readings on my UPS's display (computer only, no monitors). ~34 watts when recording 9 streams but not displaying them, in which case the CPU is throttled down to 1.55GHz. 44 watts when recording and displaying 9 streams with a combined ~21Mbit/sec at the network port, in which case the CPU comes up to its full rated speed but only about 30% CPU load. For a commercial system similar to this, people in Newegg's service area could add your preferred HDDs and OS on one of these Lenovo barebones servers: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859106336

Another vote for the on-CPU Intel video. Scaling/displaying and recording nine primary streams at once in Grandstream's software, and piping it over a Remote Desktop Connection, my i3-3225 comes up to full speed (3.3GHz) and 30% CPU load. Recording the streams without displaying them, it throttles down to 1.55GHz and 2% CPU load. Based on my UPS's wattage readout (typically mid-30W area), the system itself (not counting monitors) is sipping about US$20/year in electricity, which seems good. I spend more than that on all sorts of foolish things

For my surveillance computer at work, I picked a Core i3-3225 and used the CPU's onboard video to drive two 1920 x 1200 displays. CPU usage is around 2% when not displaying the video streams (just recording them to disk). Simultaneously displaying all of the following primary streams (and scaling them to fit on the display all at once) can take it up to around 25-30% CPU usage: four 1600 x 1200 @ 2Mbit/sec one 2560 x 1920 @ 8Mbit/sec four D1 @ 2Mbit/sec from an analog-to-IP converter So these are my thoughts on your scenario: 1. you are investing a lot of money in cameras, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to skimp on the reliability of the computer that's supposed to store the video by pulling an old PC out of mothballs. I'd get or build a new computer. 2. you could start off with a Core i3 and see how it goes, then expand to an i7 if necessary. Ditto for the on-CPU video. 3. it will probably depend on the software to some extent, but in my case recording the video is a very low-stress chore since it's already in H.264 from the cameras. It's not like the CPU has to encode it on the fly. For my build, I went with a top-notch Seasonic power supply, an H77-based motherboard, the i3-3225, 1.35-volt RAM, a couple 3TB hard drives and a chassis that has direct fan cooling for the hard drives. Power consumption when recording is in the mid-30W range and it has a couple hours of runtime on my UPS in the event of an outage (the cameras are on a separate UPS). It would probably be noticeably lower if I had a Haswell-core i3, but they haven't been released yet and I was getting impatient

I'm looking for comments from any users of the 3651_FHD here. Mine updated its firmware to 1.0.1.81 a few days ago, and the motion detection went haywire (non-stop snapshots every 2 seconds) before quitting altogether. I haven't been able to get it working again, despite trying everything including a hard reset. How's the 1.0.1.81 firmware working for you, with respect to motion detection, and particularly still-image snapshots? I've got a support ticket opened with Grandstream but haven't heard back. If the problem is pandemic, I could understand them not being able to answer everyone's questions right away.

Update: Grandstream resolved the issue with firmware 1.0.1.82.

What about the 3662FHD plus a separate illuminator? I was thinking about replacing an analog outdoor camera and would probably go that route from the Grandstream lineup. For one thing, that gets the darn insect-attracting light source away from the camera. Plus you get auto-iris and varifocal features. In my case, I also have an el-cheapo IR illuminator from Ebay already.