Scruit

To change the camera image layout during live view: 1) Go to the live view 2) Press "SET/ENTER" - one of the camera images will go green 3) Use the Up/Down/Left/Right buttons to move the green box around to select one of the cameras (or an empty channel) 4) Use the + and - buttons to select a channel number. The channel numbers are in white. 5) Press "SET/ENTER" again. To change the camera image layout during playback: 1) Go into playback mode (just hit Play) 2) Press "SET/ENTER" - one of the camera images will go green 3) Use the Up/Down/Left/Right buttons to move the green box around to select one of the cameras (or an empty channel) 4) Use the + and - buttons to select a channel number .... As you cycle through the channels numbers you will see they switch between white and yellow as you roll over (ie White 1-2-3-4 then Yellow 1-2-3-4 then White 1-2-3-4 etc) When you select a channel number, White means LIVE and Yellow means PLAYBACK. 5) Press "SET/ENTER" again. ie - While you are playing back you want camera image 4 to show a live view of channel 1... Press 'Set' button, use up/down/left/right to highlight image 4, then user + / - to select "WHITE" 01, then press Set. ie If you want to restore your 4ch playback to factory default... 1) - Press 'Set' button, use up/down/left/right to highlight image 1, then user + / - to select "YELLOW" 01, then press Set. Repeat for images 2-4.

I was just playing around with my DVR upstairs... Here's what I found: To configure live view during playback: 1) Go into playback mode (just hit Play) 2) Press "SET/ENTER" - one of the camera images will go green 3) Use the Up/Down/Left/Right buttons to move the green box around to select one of the cameras (or an empty channel) 4) Use the + and - buttons to select a channel number 5) Press "SET/ENTER" again. From now on, when you go into playback mode, you will still see the live view of the selected channel in the selected camera position. ie if you highlight camera position 3 and select "01" then during lpayback channel 3 will show a live view of channel 1. To turn it off: Your guess is as good as mine. The manual doesn't show how to turn it off again. So now I have a live view image in my playback and I can't turn it off - I'm now in the same boat you are - only I have 16 channels, 10 cameras and I use a spare slot for this test. So it may be a little annoying, but it's not the end of the world. Are you using all 4 channels? Does anyone know how to turn off Live View during playback?

I'm at the budget end... of the spectrum. I've had good luck with AVTech/CPCam and with the AverMedia EB1304. They should be around 400-ish. They are not fancy, and you get what you pay for... But they work fine for the entry-level home system. Many of the professionals on this site will cringe at that recommendation - but as in my case, it's not worth the cost of a premium system to do what you are trying to do. The VCR thing is no good - you can't be changing tapes. It's bad enough on a time lapse, but a standard VCR would be even worse. As far as getting a good image - If you go with the AVTech be prepared to have the camera view close in on the subject. The comression on the newer AVTechs is good in terms of size, but the image quality suffers, even on Best quality compression. You can counter this with more thoughtful camera placement. Remember that it's easier to recognize someone you know than someon you don't know. You need a much better image quality / closer view for a 'wanted poster' type image - but you can probably recognize little timmy form 3 doors up the street with a wider view/ lower quality image.

Can you use a smaller FTP username?

With the newer AVTech products is it possible to change the layout of the images on screen - ie the images coming in to ch1 can be displayed in the lower right, if that makes more sense to you. I think this is done by pressing enter, then up/down to select a channel number. Check your manual. There is also an option to specify that one or more screens will continue to display live images while in playback mode. ie, you can keep an eye on critical cameras while you are playing back the recorded video. Sounds like the live-display-during-playback option has been accidentally selected. Check your manual and it will tell you how to set it back. If you choose to reset to factory (which should fix it) be sure you have written down all your settings and can reprogram them. things like Motion Detect sensitivity / mask etc.

I have used a weatherproof 'outdoor' electrical box with a small bullet camera mounted to the cover. I used nuts/bolts instead of screws to attach the camera to the cover itself, and sealed the holes with dabs of silicone. I ran the wire through one fo the threaded fittings and plugged the gap with silicone too. Been in place for a coupel years no, no issues.

Been there seen that... I like the little stripper I use but it seems like more often then not I too have one or two strands of shield that gets wrapped around the center conductor. It's funny because other then that it makes a very clean cut. The one that catches me out a lot is when there is a tiny sliver of insulation left on the center conductor... Always gotta check that.

Do you see the hard drive in the hardware list if you go to control panel -> System? I don't expect you to see the HD in windows explorer because it's not formatted as a PC drive... This is the same set of symptoms as I had under Vista. The solution was to use the latest version fo the USB Playback Console, and to run the software by right-clicking and selecting 'run as administrator'. Not sure if you can do that under XP. I can't see live video using the USB Playback Console, but I *can* play back the video by searching for events. Works great for me. EB1304MOB

CCTV is a complex field. If you are not an expert then don't be surprised if you don't get it right at first. Heck, assuming that you can go out and buy entry-level hardware, and DIY a system together that will rival the quality of professionally installed hardware costing 10x as much... It doesn't work like that. Sounds like you should just get a pro - you'll be happier with the results.

That's not CIF it's FRAME (according to the bottom right of your screen) Really, that's worse because you'd expect the images to be better. Night-time images have lower contrast and larger areas of similar colors that are easier to compress in a blocky image. What happens if you light up that area, ie turn on a porch light or something? There is a noticeable quality difference between my CPCam 507HC (AVTech 717) and the old 4ch 'cheapo' DVR - ie the old cheapo DVR is BETTER! But for regular daytime images it's fine. I have motion lights near anything worth recording (I use the IR lights alone purely as a reassurance that nothing is happening). Maybe if you had a motion light next to your camera someone coming near the car would kick the motion light on on and give you a much better recorded image because of the better contrast in the picture?

When testing I like to show pictures of the license plates to someone who doesn't know the number. It's easy to read a fuzzy plate if you know the number - try it with a number you don't know! FYI, the plate you provided appears to be (blank)A6 Y60 The illuminator I use is is a 100' rated ebay cheapie. Of course it's actually only good for about 40-50 of visible illimunation, but it lights up a license plate perfectly well up to 100'. My 'killzone' is about 100' from the camera. Also, when I first got the illuminator the built-in light sensor (to turn off the illimator during the day) was WAY too sensitive and resulted in a 30 min period during twilight where ambient light was not too dim to light up the plate, but the illuminator was still off. I opened it up and blcoked the light sensor with electrical tape - and it's fine now. I have a couple of spare plates that I use for focus adjustment, but learned very quickly that reading a stationary plate is MUCH easier than a moving one. Don't call you config 'good' until you can read the plates of moving cars...

FWIW My own experience has been much different. 7 tickets, 6 resolved in 48 hours and 1 that took a couple weeks for emailing back and forth. They have been very good to me. I have had similar issues with other DVRs where it just turned out to be a HD the DVR didn't like. Is your HD on Aver's approved HD list? I use a WD 250GB right off their approved list - never any HD related issues.

If you also lose the dog, you can retrieve him by dangling a cat up there . How do you get the cat back? "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly"

I have found Aver tech support to be very good. Did you open a ticket on their support website? http://support.aver.com/

If you can show off, so can I... These are all playback images. The LP video is recorded on 3 channels simultaneously so at least one combination of brightness/contrast settings will capture the plate. BEAR IN MIND: THe car on the right (that you see the back of) has a dark smoked license plate cover, and is STILL visible. That's why it's darker than the car on the left. I have tried accelerating towards thr camera through the killzone as fast as possible (and that's in a 250hp Turbo AWD car, so the acceleration is as good as you get for normal cars) and the plate can still be read. I also tried driving away from the camera as fast as I could, but you really to come to a stop as you leave my driveway because it's a 55mph road (65mph traffic speed) and the traffic from the left is blind. Even if you didn't care about the traffic, it's a gravel driveway so you can't turn that corner at anything over 15mph without sliding off the driveway into the 55mph road - and the plate is STILL visible. This latest iteration has proven that the only way to stop this cam capturing your plate if you obscure it in a manner than would render it unreadable to the naked eye. I think I'm about ready to quit messin' with it and let it do it's job now. Who wants to bet someone robs me blind tomorrow and the plate can't be read becuase of something stupid...

Of course, and that point is well taken.

I would recommend IR light anyway becuase you can't gaurantee the car's license plate lights will be working. Also, don't underestimate the brightness of brakelights... Try to line the camera up in a way the the plate's side/side up/down motion is as little as possible (directly towards or away from the camera is ideal) I have my field of view adjusted to be slightly wider than the car - ie I can see both mirrors, but only just. That makes the plate big enough to be captured. The DVR must have GOOD compression. My new DVR's compression is not great and the plates were only visible 1/2 of the time due to blurry image. The same video recorded on an older DVR with better compression image quality was easy to read. The faster the cars, the faster the framerate. Hope the camera maintains a high shutter speed so teh image is not blurry from the camera. I have the video image from the LP cam being recorded on 3 channels simultaneously (Yes, 3!). 1 is recorded live,, then it's looped out the ch1 where i have the bright/contarst adjusted for best image during the day, then the looped the ch3 where I have the brightness/contrast set up for night (higher contrast really brings out the IR-lit plate). No one channel gets all the plates!!! All it takes is a strong light ligth the sun peeking between clouds just as the car goes past for the plate to be washed out in the high contrast image, but the low contrast image is ok. and vice-versa. My current setup has not missed a single plate (that would have been seen by the huiman eye) in about 30 days of running. I use an IR filter on the len to help reduce headlight glare - but if you're only shooting the back then you may not need it. Your worst-case scenario to test for (in terms of extreme lighting) is to have a car with it's license plate lights off and all 3 brakelights on, moving through shot quickly. MAKE SURE YOUDVR CAN STEP FORWARD THROUGH THE FRAMES ONE BY ONE!!! My new CPCam Dvr cannot advance by frame - you have to press play and hit pause at the right moment. Even as the car passes throught shot there may be time where the plate is unreadable, as the camera adjusts to the lighting changes etc I have had cars pass through where the plate can be read in only ONE frame out of 30. Even then, watching the car drive through with a mostly unreadable plate woud have made me give up, but watching the even frame by frame DID reveal the ONE frame with the good plate. Oh, and I betcha this is inadmissable in court... But one time I had a car where the plate was really blurry. Adjusting the brightness and contrast on the TV capture card that was diaplying the freeze-frame was not helping (it sometimes does, but not often)... So what I did was printed out the picture under 3 completely different brightness and contrast settings, then held all 3 pieces of paper together and held it up to the light so I could line the plate up on all 3 pieces of paper. The overall effect was a *readable* plate. like I say, probably not admissable in court, but it allowed me to identify the car. In my CCTV system (10 cameras) I probably have 33% of the total system cost invested in the license plate setup - probably more now becuase I have a 4ch DVR dedicated to just license plates while the 16ch DVR handles the rest of the cameras. If someone breaks into my house then I want a plate, darnit - not a fuzzy video of my stuff begin ripped off by a forever-anonymous villain.

Can you post a screenshot of the picture? I havea TV cature card and I will often compare the live view of a camera with the playback. Do you have the ability to do that? That would give us a good idea of how much quality is lost to the compression. Like the name. Spelled right, for once.

There's a couple of 2-channel portable DVRs (8fps = 4fps per channel?) on ebay for under $100, but they look pretty cheap. When you consider my DVR record 4 channels in 30fps (CIF) per channel and cost <$400 new, then you can understand my objection to paying over $200 for a 1 channel 10fps device... 2 channels would be perfect for a bike - 1 cam on the fairing and one on the helmet... Helmet cam could be wireless, and a plug-in recharger on the bike. ie take your helmet off, attach it to the bike and plug in a charger connected to the bike's battery. How big a battery do you need for a Swann Microcam? Then you just put your helmet on, turn the DVR on and there you go...

Me too! I've been looking for a cheap portable DVR for my motorbike!

I have a handheld crossbow that I have used to 'shoot' a string through a space so I can pull wire. Bear in mind you must have access to the other side.

I must have missed the name of the better and cheaper product you were talking about...

Hmmm... Nice butt are there side affects wen the manufacturers is using to standards at the same time? And how is this done? Well, I don't know if RickA has a nice butt... But I can say you basically have to choose if you will use NTSC or PAL, and that choice depends on the video standard in your country. ie, In the US it's all NTSC. You can get PAL cameras and a PAL DVR but you can't play them back on an NTSC tv or record it to a NTSC VCR. int he UK it's all PAL. The rest of the world is all one standard or the other. Hardware that displays video can either use NTSC or PAL and it will either switch automatically by detecting the video signal, or you have to configure it maually in the menu, or it may be set by either a jumper or solder-blob on the main board. Most folks just stick with the standard that you country uses. I'm in the US and all my stuff is NTSC. What country are you in?

Should work using the built-in web browser, as long as the client-side internet service (ie your company) doesn't block it. My company does.

1) If you want to ue the viewer software then you will have to install it at work. 2) The website should work using the same example as above if you have the port forwarding set up correctly... 3) Depending on where you work, they may block that port. Some companies are completely open, some will block all but known valid port#s like 80, 8080, 25, 110 etc, and some will actively scan the port 80 traffic to ensure it's legitimate HTTP traffic. I would test it from a friend's house before testing it from work. Every company I've worked at in the last 7 years actively blocks streaming video and non-http. If 7070 works from a friend's house (ISP's generally don't block ports) but not from work then try setting everything to 8080 which is recognized as a valid alternate HTTP port. If 8080 works from your friend's house but not from work then I would suggest that maybe the port is being blocked or limited to HTTP traffic only.