Scruit

youtube 'Scruit'

Depends on your country and local laws. In some countries you cannot film public areas, in some you cannot film private property belonging to another. Some countries give property owners the right to complain about a neighbor's camera looking at their property. In my cameras you can see my neighbor's proerties, but they are so far away that you cannot make out any detail. Ie you can tell a car is arriving or leaving but can't tell what kind of car it is. My approach was to talk to my neighbors, show them stills from the cameras and what portions of their property was covered, and basically asked for permission. Nothing in writing or anything, but they know what my cameras can see and cannot see and they are comfortable with it. Another alternative it to aim the cameras so that your neighbor's property cannot be seen. If this results in too much wasted image at the bottom of the shot then you could always get a tigher zoom lens and get more detail in the useful area of the shot. I have seen footage of one guy in england shooting his neighbor's CCTV camera with an air rifle because he didn't like the fact that it covered both properties in equal detail. As I recall the camera was installed with the specific intention of gathering evidence of the neighbor's un-neighborly conduct within his own property, so I understand his objection to the camera (although his methods were not very subtle)

When you use the web browser to access it, did you try http://111.222.333.444:7070?

The grinding sound you can hear is my ABS going schitz.

Must be installed by a licensed installer? I can't imagine you simply have no commercial CCTV....

A.K.A. The Devil's Dandruff.

Ok, figured I'd follow up on the who sun glare thing with my dash cam. Here's 3 example images showing the evolution of the "front camera" in my car to it's final config. 1) No-name ebay bullet, manual iris: $75 2) Panvigor box camera, noname auto iris: $120 3) Toshiba IK-6410A box camera with Fujinon auto-iris lens: $200

Yup.... Plus, if I had hit the BMW then there would be no doubt that he crossed into my lane rather than the otherway round.

I'm not an expoert, just a home user. I have 3 of the CPCam bullets with IR built-in. They are mounted right next to doors so that a person's face takes up 20% of the screen. The IRs alone provide too much light and faces are just a whiteout. I compensate by having motion floods that activate when someone approaches the door - then the cameras show great detail with good lighting. However, there are no streetlight out by us and having no IR means there's not enough ambient light for a good image when nobody is around and the floods are off... It's a tradeoff. So, I use the IR light to provide the reassurance of an empty scene when nobody is there - and when someone IS there the floods turn on and provide extra light for a good picture. (just remember to not have the floods in shot...)

You know, I'm actually pretty happy with the final image above. You can see my lane position and the location of other cars, and that's all that really matters. I'm not looking to identify cars by license plate etc. This is only the first time in 2 months with this camera that the sun was bright enough to make the rest of the image dark. For the most part IF the sun is visible then the image is still perfectly clear. . I think the last camera does a good job it's your positioning of the camera that is wrong. You have too much sky, and so your chances of getting the sun and sky glare near the centre of the picture is greater and automatic BLC won't kick in. You could use your cameras's manual BLC settings to mask out the sky, or you could angle the camera down more 'wasting' picture on the car bonnet instead of the sky. The problem is the angle. If you could mount it from near the roof then that would be a much better situation and your automatic BLC would work perfectly. PS the first camera obviously has no infra red filtering and are useless for this situation. The camera is aimed upwards to show the status of traffic lights. if I aim it any further down then you can't see if the light is red or green when I'm sitting at the front of the line. Same goes for any kind of shading... This level of glare is vary rare. I have not been able to find another example of this amount of glare in the last 2 months. Even with that much glare you can still see lane position, and even if the front camera was utterly blind you can still see lan position form the rear camera. I can live with this rare intermittent glare much easier than I can live without seeing the staus of traffic lights...

I post videos on Youtube on the same name as here. Do a search - there's a bunch of videos of the install and the resulting video clips.

Same thing with on mof my 60mm zoom lenses. Any combination of zoom / focus that was actually clear wound up with the same field of view. I added the spacer and adjsuted the backfocus and was able to get it set up right.

FTP uses two ports - a Control port (for sending intructions and receiving status messages) and a Data port (opened on the fly for filke transfers). It could be a firewall issue with the control port functioning normally but the data port not being opened correctly. I'd check the firewall logs for blocked data from the DVR's IP address. Possibly check the firewall config to see if the DVR's IP is in the 'trusted' portion of the network, and to ensure that FTP Server is allowed through the firewall. Oh, and try sending to a different FTP server as a test.

Yes, if you are ruled at fault then it stays on your record for between 3 and 7 years, depending on state and/or insurance company. That will raise your insurance rates depending on the $$$ cost of the accident and your other insurance factors. ie a 16yo who causes a $20k accident in a sports car is likely to pay several thousand dollars for insurance, if they can get insurance at all. Compare that with me, mid-30s married guy driving for over 15 years - I caused a $2k accident a couple years ago and have to pay an $8/mo surcharge for 3 years. One of my co-worker's kids got 3 speeding tickets, and caused 3 accidents, in his first 2 years of driving. After serving a licensing suspension and paying for reinstatement he then tried to get insurance. He was charged $600/mo for liability only. And he paid it! My first apartment's rent payment was less than that!

Depending on your coverage level, you may lose your car if the other driver lies... Example: I got hit head-on by a drunk driver who went left of center. Totalled both cars. He failed the breathalyser but refused to give a blood sample. Was charged with the refusal. His insurance company said he was not proven to be drunk, so that didn't factor. He said *I* crossed the centerline. Without proof of who went left of center we were both ruled 50% at fault. My car was liability only, so I lost my car - about $6k. In every accident I ever witnessed and gave a statement for (5 so far, I'm a jinx) the at-fault driver lied. In 16 years of driving I've been in 4 accidents. 1 was my fault and I told the truth and my insurance paid out. The other 3 were not my fault, but the other driver lied and I wound up losing money because I had no proof.

Of course, if you are mounting it under an eave make sure you can still open it without having to aim it down. I saw a housing identical to mine (flip-up lid) mounted under an eave at a local McDonalds.... To preserve access to the lid, they mounted it upside down. Of course it's supposedly is a waterproof housing with vents ont he bottom... So that means the vents are now on the... errr... top. Is this normal?

I think he means the Call OUTPUT. It will output just one channel at a time. Normally it would cycle through the cameras, or cut directly the camrea with an alarm event. The monitor output is the main display wiht the 4-split and OSD. - If you display one channel at a time (not 4-split) then does it display normally? - Can you replay the recorded video through the Call output? Does it display ok or it it corrupt? Looks like a bad unit or bad firmware. You need to call CPCam tech support.

LOL .. I think they make it .. I know. I'm just a little disheartened to see a vendor reply to a question with a sales pitch. "Buy a new DVR" is not the correct first step, unless you are selling the DVR.

Have you ever tried TM88 series? I have TM8816 that works perfectly!!! Do you sell the TM88?

The alarm should be a simple external relay contact. The power to the lightbar would power the coil of a standard automotive relay and the contacts would connect to the alarm input. Generally you'd have one alarm input pin per camera, plus a single Common. Check with the manual (download a PDF?) but what I did on a previousl mobile DVR was to have the 4 alarm inputs wired to one side of the relay contact (N/O) and the other side of the relay contact connected to the common. DON'T PUT VOLTAGE INTO THERE!!! You'll probably "let the smoke out of it."

Need specs before we can say. What brand of DVR? What recording speed? At what resolution? What kind of cameras? etc. Generally, the cheaper hardware will give you lower quality recording at lower framerate and less functionality. I usually spend about $100 on the camera (the more I do this, the more expensive I'm willing to go on the cameras...) and my new DVR just cost me about $800.

I can't see the youtube video here from work. My LP camera uses an IR illuminator that was too bright, causing hte plates to wash out. The answer for me was to aim the illuminator at the ground in front of the car and allow the plate to be lit indirectly. Worked for me, and had the added benefit of provinding more IR light for a different camera that provides and overall view of the same area. So, in this case, would it be possible to aim the IR illuminator in a way that the person's face is lit indirectly? Just like a photographer would not aim a flash directly at the subject, but would instead bounce it off a wall or one of those silver umbrellas...

I'm not an expert, just a home user.. Camera 1: Is that condensation? Dirt on the lens? What kind of camera? Looks like it could be a camera with IRs behind the same glass lens as the camera itself, and the picture is blurry from condensation / smudged glass / reflecting IR back. Camera 2: Same as camera 1. Camera 3: Unless you are interested in what is going on in the trees back there, I'd probably consider pointing the camera a little further down - so that a person standing in front of the shed is *only just* in shot - then you'll get to see what's just below the camera. The night shot appears to have no IR at all - is it supposed to have IR? Built-in or external? Camera 5: Good if you want to see *if* someone is messing with the cars, or if a passing car has stopped on the road - but the angle is too high for a good person ID, and too far from the road for a good car ID. I'd probably lower the camera mount down to provide a better shot of a person's face. Or, depending on how many channels you have, maybe even leave it there but have two additional cameras, on for each car, allowing much closer shot. Don't overestimate your ability to ID a person in that shot - you *may* be able to recognise someone you *know*, but it's going to be almost useless for identifying someone you don't know. 'Overall' shots showing a wide area are a vital part of your CCTV system, but unless you have something closer, and with enough detail to identify a stranger, then all your CCTV will give you is an action replay of the crime. These are the "What did they do" shots. You need to add the "Who did it" shot. I have spent many hours on youtube reviewing all of the CCTV footage they put out there, and I try to learn from their mistakes. Too many videos out there shwoing criminals that simply cannot be identified. The 3 biggest culprits seem to be: 1) The criminal appeared in a part of the shot that is too far away from the camera for identification... Either because of poor camera placement / lens selection, or a failure to correctly anticipate what a criminal would be interested in. 2) The camera angle is too high and all you see if the top of the criminal's head. I've never seen a wanted poster that said "Have you seen this Bald Spot". My face-ID cameras, one at each door, are all at about shoulder-height. The drawback is they can be tampered with, but the cameras all cross - if you tamper with one you will be caught by another. 3) Lighting... The criminal is backlit in a bright doorway, or appears in shot after hours and there was not enough planning for light, and it's not enough lighting to get a good ID. Or a too-powerful IR is used and the subject's face is washed out. (and I'm guilty of all fo these sins myself... Like I said, I'm not an expert, still learning myself...)

I have a camera that is visually identical to this. I just have it bolted cirectly to a brick wall under an eave. You can loosen the set-screw and aim it wherever you want it. The housing of the camera is made up of multiple concentric rings (one with a u-shaped cutout) that can be turned/twisted to any angle. I like the camera, gives a nice picture.

Hmmm. I'll have to figure out how to mask the plate like inthe pictures above using my video editor - or repeat the test. Let me have a think about that. -------------------------------------------------------------- emAvi----free ,simple, fast The license plate crosses the screen at 45deg, so the 'mask' would have to move with the car.