Scruit

This was on the bench. Power source was an off-the shelf 12v power supply rated for 1.2 amps. One known good camera attached. Dip switches set to TV mode, OSD, NTSC. Output going to a TV.

It ships without a hard drive. I tried a couple different drives, and tried without a drive at all (It's hot swap so the DVR should display menu/cameras even without a hard drive installed.) Either way, nothing.

Cool, didn't see that at first - I'll take "operates at lower than normal operating voltage" = survives the crank. The manual says if the dvr is connected directly to the "batter" then I should stop the recording and shut off the DVR so I don't "Run out of battery". Considering this is a standard mobile DVR that is also used in bus fleets around the world, I'd have to say that making the driver remember to pull out the remtoe control, hit stop, then power off the dvr using the tiny little fingernail on/off switch is pretty unrealistic. I have to believe it's built to simply lose power and still shut down gracefully. If not then they should have a seperate power and trigger inputs that would allow the DVR to maintain main battery power ling enough to gracefully stop recording and then shut down & go into a zero-power-draw hibernate mode when the trigger input is off. I know there is an alarm input, but the DVR would still be fully powered even when the alarms inputs are off, and would still run down the battery. Manual says 4 cameras plus DVR = 2amps. How long would a fully-charged car battery last at 2 amps draw? EDIT: Optyima Yellowtop for my car is 48AmhHours. That would give me 24 hours until my battery was dead if I ran the DVR constantly. Sometimes I don't drive the car for a couple days at a time, so that won't work. Battery Buddy?

I tried to call Avermedia tech support and was on hold 30 mins before I gave up. Called back again later and I've been on hold now for 45 minutes. What gives? is this normal for tech support fro AverMedia? I called at 12:30pm my time, and again at 1:30pm. (I'm eastern time) UPDATE: After 1hr on hold the system booted me. Called back again and got couple of busy signals then a human being, and he told me that the tech support for the DVR was handled by a different group and I can't call them - they have to call me. He opened a work order and took my name/number. All I want to know if can the EB1304-MOB survive the crank when it's wired into the car so that the ignition switch turns it on....

That's not really how a mobile DVR is supposed to work, though. It is supposed to be hands-off, running when the car runs and turning off when the car turns off. At least thats what I thought... If I have to actively turn it on and off every time I get in the car then I might as well go back to my prior non-mobile DVR.

That's not really how a mobile DVR is supposed to work, though. It is supposed to be hands-off, running when the car runs and turning off when the car turns off. At least thats what I thought... If I have to actively turn it on and off every time I get in the car then I might as well go back to my prior non-mobile DVR.

Do you sell Aver products? Do you know the answer to my question?

Might be worth investing in a GOOD quality USB video/autdio capture card for your laptop. That way you can play back video from any DVR at a client site and record it to your laptop just by hooking into the video out.

I'm with you on that! When I'm setting up or adjusting cameras I always judge the video quality from the playback, not the live view. Especially when the quality of the image is directly relevant, such as my license plate camera. I finally got that camera where I want it and it's been running untouched for months now, but for a while I would adjust it here and there whenever it missed a plate. Being able to read a plate on the live view does NOT mean you'll be able to read it on playback. Always check the playback.

I ordered a Toshiba IK-6410A camera from an online CCTV store (not ebay) from their "True Day/Night" section. I haven't got it yet but from what I've read online since my order I can't find anything that corroborates the "true" day/night (mechanical ir filter) claim from the seller... I even went to Toshiba and checked the manual - no mention of IR filter at all...

Name brand? Yeah but Toshiba? Anyway if it looks good please let us know .. at that price would be worth it. Perhaps it has a fixed IR Cut Filter, which is still good for most apps, as you dont always need IR, and then the day picture would look good. Although, in that case it may mean it is switching to Night mode digitally, by removing the Chroma, which is not always as sensitive in low light. Low light sensitivity is not tremendously important becuase I'll always have headlights/hibeams/streetlights etc - so I should be good. My biggest concern is accurate colors and good picture under daylight / headlights

It's going to be in my car. Temp might get up there while it's off, but not in direct sun for the most part. I wanted to go with name brand this time. My biggest problem withthe last camera was it had no IR filter so the grass colors were messed up.

I just sold my Nissan Maxima that had 4 cameras in it linked to a standard home 4ch dvr. The cameras were front(zoom), front(wide), driver and rear. The biggest problems were to do withthe vibration/heat in the car (fixed by using laptop hard drive and vibration proof mounts) and the power (when to turn onthe recording, when to off etc, had to use a home-buit power-off timer circuit) My front camera started off as a cheap bullet but the smearing under direct headlights/sun was too much. I got a cheap auto-iris camera and found it worked better but didn't have an IR filter so the colors were messed up in the day. I'm in the process of installing cameras in my new car. Because the car is new it's going to be a no-drill installation. I have also learned that while hom-brew stuff can be made to be reliable eventually, name brand off-the-shelf stuff is reliable out of the box. What a concept. The front camera is a Toshiba IK-6410A Day-Night camera with auto-iris lens. It's going to be the front/zoom camera. I'll run the lens at about 8 or 9mm, close enough that cars appear in proper perspective, ie not fisheye. My rear and driver cams will be the same as before, cheap OEMs but their function is simple and I'm not asking much of them. I've ordered an EB1304-MOB DVR and it'll be here soon. I'll give you a full review later. My hope is that all the circuitry that I built for power handling/poweroff timer for save-to-disk/voltage regulation/crank dropout protection etc is all going to be part of the standard function of this new DVR. It even has a clean power source for the cameras. I'll be running all RG59 /BNC ends and will do the witing installation by removing allt eh seats and interior trim again to ensure the wires are run in a safe and permanent way. My biggest issue right now is the front camera cannot hide between the rearview mirror and the windshield like on the maxima. This new car (Legacy GT) has less space back there so the camera will be mounted either below the mirror (at the of risk blocking out a lot of my windshield OR making the passenger sun visor useless becuase it can't fold down) or down on the dashboard (at the risk of being very obvious to people outside the car, so I'll have to make a housing covered in dashboard material so it won't look out of place.) Down on the dash is in direct sun too. I'm toying with the idea of buying a spare passenger-side visor and cutting/edging about 6" off the left side to give me space for the camera really high up against the roof. This will allow the camera to be out of my line of sight (safety), out of sight of people outside the car (security) but still allow my wife to use her sun visor (I don't have to sleep on the sofa).

If it's only a problem at night... Is there a mains power wire running near it that powers a light that you only turn on at night?? That might explain the lines appearing only at night if it's a line noise issue.

Could someone post a couple sample video/stills showing the kind of quality that the higher model DVRs get (Panasonic, GE, Pelco etc) so i can compare the image quality with my CPCam. This is a CPCam CPD576W 9ch. I'll start with a couple of stills: This is a CPCam 480tvl IR "night vision" (not true) day/night camera. Yes, that is an RC plane that's about to hit my Barn. This is a BW name-brand (don't recall the name) 520tvl camera with a Fujinon varifocal fixed-iris lens set at 60mm, and an 850NM IR-pss filter. Supported by an 850NM IR illuminator from Panvigor This is another CPCam (not true) day/night in night mode. I know I need to reduce the IR to prevent washout- I'm gonna do that this weekend. This watch pitch black outside. Same camera, but in the daytime. Same type of camera (cpcam), different lcoation. Both of these from a cheap no-name bullet camera, 4 years old, 1/3" Sharp CCD sensor. These images were all captured by playing back the video onthe DVR, then capturing the image in 720x??? resolution using a TV Tuner card. Show me how much better the image quality would be if I sent the extra $$$...

It's funny that people always cite the McDonalds coffee incident as an example of lawsuit abuse... But the facts in that case were that McDonalds *WAS* at fault. - The coffee was not just 'hot', it was intentionally served at a temperature that was just off boiling so that poeple could 'drink it when they got home' - The woman suffered 3rd degree burns, tissue loss and required numerous skin grafts. Coffee served at a drinkable temperature doesn't do that. - The woman was not driving the car at the time the coffee spilled. She was a passenger, and the car was parked when it spilled. - McDonalds had been sued numerous times before for their near-boiling coffee, each time settling out of court with no admission of liability - and then doing nothing to reduce the temperature of the coffee. Wiki and Snopes both have good writeups.

In the US if we catch a burglar we tend to whack them in the head with a .45

We need more disclaimers. WARNING: ANYTHING YOU POST HERE CAN BE READ BY THE PUBLIC WARNING: PICKING YOUR NOSE AT THE DINNER TABLE WILL MEAN NO SECOND DATE (Don't forget that in some countries pointing a CCTV camera in a way that shows people walking past on a public street is a violation of law and invasion of privacy. In the US there is no 'expectation of privacy' in a public place. Hmmm... "Being in Public" means you are no longer "In Private" - what a concept!)

After the famous mailman incident at my house there was discussion about the rigth to audio privacy on a private individual's doorstep. I put a sign on the front door, 5x7, laminated, that says "Warning: 24hr CCTV - Audio and Video". I can record what I want now. One of the cameras on my front porch has an audio output as well as video so I just ran a thick guage speaker cable to it from my DVR and soldered RCA ends on it. In this video the audio made the case. Without audio there would be no way to know what was happening.

Is that image captured from the playback, or live? Plus, when I browsed the retail price on that DVR I cam up with a number that is 8 times higher than my existing DVR - which begs the question; "Is that image 8x better?"

Is that image captured from the playback, or live? Plus, when I browsed the retail price on that DVR I cam up with a number that is 8 times higher than my existing DVR - which begs the question; "Is that image 8x better?"

Video sample: CPCam CPD576W 9ch. Various cheap cameras between 380 and 480tvl.

What is the resolution of the camera taking that image? And what kind of DVR / resolution recorded it. I can tell there is a hugh difference between the quality of the live image and the playback image in my DVR - I'm wondering the the recording resolution is 640x244 or thereabouts, instead of full D1/4CIF. Not really much point is me worring about 480tvl/520tvl etc if the DVR is only recording 244 lines of vertical resolution. However every DVR I've seen that advertises good framerates (like the $1000 Geovision 8/12 port card that claim 480fps = but that 480 fps at CIF. I think that's closer to 120fps at full D1. My DVR (CPCam CPD576W) has an option where it maxes out the framerate on the channels that have alarm/motion and lets the other cameras drop to 1fps. That was the action is smoother until 3 or 4 cameras get involved. Still only has 25fps total though, so when just one channel has action it's still kinda stuttery. Works ok for what I'm doing right now, but the recording resolution is worrying me - CPCam doesnt' publish it's recording resolution.

What is the resolution of the camera that is looking at the white van? EDIT: That is some NICE video! What is the camera and DVR you used??

Is that a fair comparison? The second picture looks to be a wider angle. Is this the same camera from the thread about the guy who stole the lawn mower? Didn't you say the nice camera was removed for repair and the replacement was a wider angle? Yeah, it's much darked, but it's also got two bright light sources in it. I'm not an expert, just seemed like an apples to oranges comparison. Maybe if the zoom was the same in both pics it's be more of a slam dunk.