Scruit

yeah, but who would know what they are? Could be anything .. yard light or something. They are not visible to the naked eye. Hold up the phone in camera mode and compare the phone image with what you can see. any bright white dots that only appear on the phone = IR emitters.

The two white dots are IR emitters

What can I say? I'm paranoid. There's also the thought that any house with CCTV cameras all over it must have something valuable to protect, eh?

I have a BW camera (520TVL Sony) that has a 60mm lens and 850nm IR Pass filter attached to it. When I try to focus on an object in the middle of the picture I can get a good clear image, but there is a 20% wide strip across the top and sides (not the bottom) that is blurry. The camera is mounted abut 10' above the ground and reads license plates from passing cars (no OCR or anything). When a car first comes into shot the license plate appears in the top right and travels to the bottom left. It's not until the plate is in the middle of the screen that it's clear enough to read. I believe the focus issue is because objects at the top and sides of the screen are 10-20' behind the focal point. Is this a product of the zoom lens? ie Is it normal for an object that is in focus at 80' to be out of focus at 100'? I have removed and cleaned the lens and IRPass filter and they are perfectly clean. The ccd sensor appears to be clean but I haven't tried to clean it for fear of causing damage. The biggest issue that I have is that the during a motion event the bulk of the framerate of the DVR is allocated to channels with motion and and the rest drop to 1fps. This means that a car leaving my house will trigger the motion sensing on the front cameras and the license plate camera will drop to 1fps. When the car passes under the license plate camera it's a 50/50 chance that the 1fps just happens to catch the plate when it's in focus. Once the car reaches 100' from the house the plate is no longer in focus (even though it's still large enough to read if it was). If the whoel image was in focus then the lower framerate wouldn't be so bad becuase I'd still capture at least one good image. There now follows lots of nonsensical rambling. Read at your own risk: As a temporary measure I'm going to reinstall my old 4ch DVR that does 30 frames per second and use the loop output from the primary DVR to feed the license plate images to the secondary DVR. The secondary DVR will always record at 30fps so it will always get a shot of the plate while it's in the range of focus. heck, I can feed the 3 door cameras to the secondary DVR too - they'll all record at 7.5fps but that's still good enough and will provide a backup DVR for the most important cameras (the ones that provide evidence that can lead to a suspect, rather than just fuzzy pictures on an untraceable bad guy ripping me off) in cae of failure of the primary DVR (has happened once this year due to failed HD - system was down 3 days before I realized it) The licence plate camera is useful for about 10'. At 1 fps a car has to be travelling under 10 feet per second to be assured of a good image (assuming the plate is otherwise readable). That's about 6.5mph. A car leaving at 13mph will be missed 50% of the time. However with the DVR running at 7.5 frames per second the bad guy would have to travel at 75 feet per second to clear that 10 feet between frames. That's over 50mph, and he only had about 60' of acceleration space, on gravel.

Absolutely. I have a Toshiba IK-6410 mounted to my windshield and there is plenty of light at night to see for driving purposes. Even when there is no ambient light you should still have your headlights and then camera should see just as clearly as you did when you were driving. If you NEED another light source then consider a seperate IR emitter attached to the lightbar or behind the grille. Then you need to make sure your camera is a true day/night with mechanical IR filter so you get normal colors during the day but good IR sensitivity at night. I have never tried to use a camera with built-in IRs to see through a window. I figure it woudl just reflect the IR back into the camera.

My install required some Artistic License.

I initially focused it during that day, then went back and tweaked the focus at night with the IR on. The camera is not in a dome. I'm going to try putting something in that blurry area and see for sure that I can focus on it - that would rule in / out focal length as the problem versus issues with the lens or imager being damaged or dirty.

Did that work?

I'm trying to decide if I should run my 4ch Avermedia EB1304MOB in D1 or CIF format. At D1 I get 15fps per channel. At CIF I get 30fps per channel. The purpose of the DVR is not to capture license plates or to recognize faces - just to show things like lane position, traffic lights etc. Because of that I'm considering dropping the resolution to CIF. The benefits would be longer recording time and smooth playback. The risk is the lower quality recording might miss important details. What factors do you consider when deciding of CIF versus D1?

My CPCam DVR's "sensitivity" setting a number that means the amount of change that triggers the DVR. ie sensitivity 80 is actually LESS sensitive than sensitivity 50.

I have a CPCam CP576W which is very similar and equally loud. However it's not a problem for me because it's installed in a commercial DVR lockbox. Much quieter now. (DVR is no good to me if it gets stolen during a burglary)

Can't answer for the DVR, but you should be able to accomplish this all on your router. Is the DVR plugged right into the internet, or does it sit behind a router/firewall? If it sits behind a router (and it has an ip address like 192.168.1.x or 10.x.x.x) then you should be able to configure the port forwarding on the router. Also, some routers allow you to use one port number inside your network and another outside. ie Your router ip is 1.2.3.4 (public internet) and your DVR is 192.168.1.2 (private intranet) The router would listen on port 1.2.3.4:8000 and forward those requests to 192.168.1.2:80. Your DVR only ever sees requests on port 80 so it works normally. Your DVR would have to list the router's internal IP (usually 192.168.1.1) as the default gateway. That way you can use 8000 to avoid the ISP's filter, but still be able to use port 80 in the DVR. If you are behind a router you'd have to setup port forwarding even if you set the DVR to 8000 - the difference is that cheaper routers might only forward the same port number on the internet - ie if you use 8000 on the router you must use 8000 on the DVR. But any decent router should allow you to switch ports. I'll check my Linksys WRT4G when I get home to see if it allows a port# change on port forwarding. Also, with dynamic DNS - you are dynamically addressing the address of the router, not the DVR, so the DDNS config is done on the router anyways. You go to a DDNS provider (my linksys came with instructions in the manual) on the net and create a DNS hostname, and then configure the router to send IP address updates to the DDNS provider. That way you can type in DVR.MyHouse.DDNSProvider.com:8000 and get to your DVR. BE WARNED that larger companies will block outbound internet traffic on anythign except 80, etc and many will also use a web proxy that will recognize if you are trying to use port 80 for non-http traffic. So you need to test if the remote conenction that you are going to be using the DVR from will allow the port# AND the type of traffic (streaming video?)you want to use before you spend any money on hardware. If you are hooking up your DVR direct to public internet then you can always spend $60 on a linksys router and configure as above. None of the DVRs that I've worked with (3!) had DDNS but they all had a configurable port#.

I think you are using version 5.7.3.0014. I just sent you 5.7.3.0007. It's ~5Mb EDIT: Your mail server refuses to allow .EXEs. I'll try renaming it to .EX

I put a 500GB Western Digital in my CPCam 576W after it puked the 250. Plug & play.

I have two different versions of the USB Playback console. One version is experiencing the same problem you are takling about - the USB playback console has audio but the output AVI or MPG doesn't. The version with no audio is running on Vista (Run As Administrator) and the exe has a 'Modified' date of August 16 2007. The version with the working audio running on Windows 2000 and has an exe date of January 5 2007. The 'damage' is done while the file is being downloaded - ie that dvr will will export with no audio from any version if the .dvr file has been downloaded with the 'bad' version. And both versions will output audio if the .dvr was downloaded using the good version I don't know if the problem is with the OS (vista versus 2000) or exe version date (Aug 16th versus Jan 5th). Check your exe modified date - I bet it is Aug 16th.

I have an AverDigi EB1304MOB. 4ch. 15 frames per second per channel in D1 when running 4 cameras. The first one I got burned out when I turned it on, but the replacement has been fine. Not a moment of missed video yet and I've been running it for a month. I do have a problem with the USB download though - when you export to MPG the audio is out of synch with the video. I can correct that with my video editign software, but such editing could have legal implications on the admissibility of the evidence. Aver is looking into it. Their online support has been pretty good.

tsaba, Did you get the files I sent you? Did they work out ok?

1) If they know it's there... 2) If I caused the accident then I'll fess up - don't need a video. Been there, done that.

I'll see if I can get a single .dvr file that is not an hour long (therefore 200 Megabytes!) To do that I'll probably have to turn the DVR on for just a few seconds to record, then turn it off, then use the USB playback console to backup that one event. I'll see if I can get to that in the next couple of days.

Make sure you are looking at channel 1, or all channels at the same time. Here is a an example video that was opened from a backup .dvr file and output to an MPG by selecting a small segement and clicking on 'output': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsMiNyORS10 As I said above, I switched the front camera to channel 1 so the sound is recorded with it. The sound is still too loud so I'm going to get an inline rca volume swith from radio shack, or parts to make one. When you hit play in the USB console there is about a second dely before the sound starts to play - although it plays in synch. I suspect the problem with my sound being out of synch is the software exports the sound and video to two seperate files first then combines them - and the combine process is ignoring the one second of silence and then starting the sound/video at the same time - resulting in a one second offset.

I installed the microphone on my EB1304-MOB today. It's a 12v self-powered unit that has an RCA plug on it. On lpayback through the Video-out and Audio-out I coudl hear everything fine. I ued the USB playback console to open the DVR HD, selected the event and had it playback in the software - I can hear audio fine. Now, I haven't tested backing up the .dvr file then playing it back - I'm gonna do that after I go for a drive later - I'll post the playback later today. UPDATE: Audio works on the .dvr file playback also, even after being copied to another computer. I did notice that the audio only plays when you have CH1 or QUAD seelcted. If you select CH2,3 or 4 alone then there is no audio. The microphone audio is VERY loud, to the point of clipping. Everything sounds thunderous. I'm gouing to move the microphone to a location that does not transmit road/engine vibration to it, but also look for a menu option for setting the audio volume (or put a volume control inline with the microphone). I'm also going to move the 'front ' camera to CH1 becuase that is the one most likely to be viewed fullscreen if accident evidence is needed - I'd need the audio on that channel, otherwise I'd have to export CH1 and CH2 seperately and merge them in video editor software. The driver cam really should be a small PIP - the only detail needed there is "was I paying attention". Problem: I just noticed that the audio and video are out of synch in the MPG. They're ok in the software, it's just the exported video file that is bad.

Reversing the image is a problem for me... I need a rear-facing camera for my Car DVR, but I want it to show a real image instead of a reversed one. I'm not using it for backing up, just for a rear-facing view for evidence in an accident. I'll have to check to see if my Aver EB1304MOB DVR has a mirror option per-channel - that way I could use a 'reversed' rear-view camera. In my pervious car I had a tiny bullet mounted to the rear passenger grab-handle mount, but the new car has side curtain airbags so I can't install any hardware in the path of the airbag. I may just suction-cup it to the rear glass - the camera is very light.

Do you get audio playback when you view the video through the TV out? Are the menu options set for "Record Audio" = On *AND* "Audio Mute" = Off? I am about to add a line-level microphone try this using my EB1304MOB. I'll tell you how it goes. My previous mocrophone was bad / didn't work - however the line-out from a CD player worked fine into the Audio input. It played audio back when using the TV out BNC and audio-out RCA connectors - never tried the USB playback console. I ordered a new microphone and I'm going to install it in the next couple of days.

I got the USB playback software installed on my laptop (Vista) and my EB1304MOB DVR is in the car and all fired up and working ok. I can playback the recorded video through the video out by using the remote control, but I'm having a hard time getting anything to playback using the USB software. Here's what I'm doing: - I plug in the USB cable - DVR screen says something like "USB BACKUP?" I say Yes. - DVR screen says something like "USB connected" - I run the USB playback software, select Open File, (HD) - The list of hard drives is blank - doesn't even see the laptop hard drive. If I go into computer management I can see a new uninitialized disk for 238Gb (250GB hd in the DVR) so I know the USB is connected. So what gives? If there something in Vista that is stopping the playback software from seeing the hard drive? Failing that, I'll have to ask Aver on monday.

The AverDigi EB1304MOB hard drive CAN be read by the playback software when it's connected to a computer using a standard external USB enclosure. BUT the last file was not 'committed' to the hard drive until the DVR was fired up again. When I looked at the HD it had every event except for the last journey of the night tonight. In a crash situation the 'last journey' woudl be the one that includes the crash, no? Once I put the HD back in and turned the DVR on again it 'saved' the last file and it became available again. (In this DVR an 'event' is synonymous with 'journey'. ie from starting the car to stopping it again. It will split evetns on the hour though. So a car journey from 18:45 to 18:55 would be one 'event', but a journey from 18:45 to 19:05 would be split into two events, 18:45 to 18:59 and 19:00 to 19:05. I need to make sure the DVR can be easily removed in the event of an accident. I currently have it held down using wingnuts - I can remove the DVR in about 60 seconds if I wanted to. I'll also paste removal sintruction on the top of the DVR in case I'm in a hospital bed and need to send a friend or relative to the junkyard to get the DVR. Depressingly enough my wife know that if I'm incapacitated in a car wreck that she needs to get the DVR back. I guess that no different the her needing to know the contact information for my life insurance company.