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Maxima, I have a 4ch DVR in my '96 Maxima that records video only (no audio, but only because I was reusing an old DVR that had no audio). I do audio by having a tape recorder in the cupholder that I can turn on at any time, then I can synch the video/audio by clapping my hands together. Don't laugh, I've done this and it works perfectly just like a clapper board on the movies. I have once camera facing forward that is attached to a cyustom bracket that is sandwiched between the roof and the rear-view-mirror bracket. This keeps the camera tight up behind the mirror so it doesn't get in my way. More on this camera later. I have a rear-facing camera, a cheap $65 bullet, attached to a small bracket that is sandwiched between the rearmost mount of the rear passenger-side grab-handle. I also have a passenger-side A-pillar camera that shows me driving. These cameras are not 'hidden', but they are discreet. The wiring is all RG59 coax that is run under the carpet to the DVR that is under the passenger seat. The DVR is a standard indoor unit that has been modified by using a laptop hard drive (better g-force handling) and uses thick leather straps to mount the drive so provide more vibration resistance. The front-facing camera is important - looks like you are using a camcorder right now... Beware that is you use a standard CCTV camera you will find it cannot handle the dynamic nature of driving a car. The ABSOLUTE MUST-HAVE features for the forward facing camera, in order for it to handle seeing the sun: 1) Auto-iris - otherwise the image will be blinded when the sun comes into shot 2) Outdoor camera - the camera must have an internal IR filter otherwise grass/trees/cars will appear to have strange washed out/yellow colors Also be aware that the camera needs to have a wide enough angle of view to show what is happening to your sides, and the color of traffic lights as you pass.. But when you use a wider angle you will notice that the sun is in shot more (more chances to blind a cheap camera with manaul iris. Also, wider angles will result in the cars in front of you appearing to be much much further away, and the detail level of those cars will be lost. Ie a car that is only 50' away will appear as a tiny blob. I went on yourtube and downloaded a nonch of police dashcam videos, then matched my camera's vew angle to the same. ANOTHER HUGE HUGE ISSUE.... If the DVR/inverter is powered on when the key is in the engine run position then you will find that it will start up as soon as you turnt he key on. If there is enough delay to allow the DVR to start up completely before you start the engine, then you'll find the DVR/inverter could die when you crank the engine. This is a whole area of study for builders of 'Carputers'. When you crank the engien the current draw is so huge that the car's voltage will drop to 10v - which will most likely kill the dvr. The way I fixed this issue was to power DVR from a clean 12v in the maxima (cleaned up using a voltage regulator that is rated for the current draw of the DVR) and then I installed a small 12v 1.2Ah UPS battery ("Tank abttery") with some very heavy duty diodes that allows this "Tank" battery to power the DVR, but stops the voltage from the tank battery trying to help start the car. What happens is the main battery provides 12v (11.6v after the diode) and when the engine cranks the tank battery stays at 12v, allowing the dvr to 'survive the crank'. The tank battery will only power the DVR for a few minutes, but because it only needs to power the DVR during the crank it's fine. Also the tank battery is charged by the car so it's always topped off. By modifying a standard DVR (not a mobile DVR) to the same vibration/temperature handling specs as a mobile DVR I've been able to run my 4ch dvr for about a year so far with no problems. DON'T use a desktop HD, they can't handle the vibration and will die after a couple months. I ran all the cables under the carpet. There is a white cable conduit that runs the length of the car under the passenger's right foot. Finally - you need the DVR to shut down nicely - you can't just shut off power to it or it could lead to a corrupted recording. I achieved this by making a small circuit that has 2 a simple resistor/capacitor timers. When the key is turned on the power controller starts up and provides power to the DVR and to the cameras. When the key is turned off it waits 15 seconds then the first timer shuts down the power to the cameras - this makes the DVR stop recording. Then 15 seconds later the second timer shuts off the power to the DVR. My home-built power controller also has multiple isolated triggers so I can start recording under may different events. For example, the key being turned on will set it recording. Also opening any door will turn do the same, as will hitting or bumping the car (thanks to a vibration switch from a car alarm) Costs: DVR: Free, but a similar entry-level model could be bought today for $300. 60fps is the minumum you need for smooth video shared across 4 channels. DVR modifications: 80Gb Laptop hard drive $150. Mount was made from old leather belt. Front camera: Camera 480tvl CCD with auto iris lens, ebay, $130. Rear camera: Cheap $65 color bullet Driver camera: Cheap 2"x2" pinhole/board camera $55 Cables/connectors: Total of $75. Power control - home built. Components ran $50, took 40 hours of dev/testing/manufacture. A 'true' mobile DVR will not need this.

Meh, I can see where this is going. More touble than it's worth, and certainly more $$$ than it's worth in my application. Thanks anways.

Well, I must be doing something wrong here, because when I aim a camcorder at the driver's windows of my car all I can see if a reflection of the sky - the driver is too dark. I would need shine a really bright light in to the car to see the driver. I wonder how police speed cameras do it..?

Hmmm.... So, what about this... I take the camera that is in my car - it's a 480TVL indoor box camera with auto iris and an external IR filter... And I install it in an enclosure outside on a fence post and have it looking at the driver's window of any car that enters the driveway. I can remove the IR filter to allow it to work with an IR illuminator at night. I don't mind if the foliage color is off. It should give me a good color image during the day, and work with the IR at night. I'd just need to run an RG59 and 12v power out to the fence post. Does RG59 have to be specially rated for direct bury, or can you bury any Rg59? It'd have to cover about 100' Then I can get a better camera for inside the car.

I use bullet style cameras and all are under eaves. Yesterday I checked one of them out because the image was out of focus, and these are supposedly fixed focus cameras... As I unscrewed the front part of the camera (not a 'lens', just clear glass) I found the rubber o-ring behind it was cracked and had allowed moisture in. I cleaned the lens and glass with q-tips and put it back together with a new o-ring (on particular size of air conditioning o-rings from my 'import A/C service kit' was a perfect match.) I checked the other two bullet cameras and found them the same way, split, cracked o-rings. Of course, these cameras have been in place ~5 years, so that's not too bad. They're good as new now.

Please look at these two images: The first was taken with a non-name 380tvl ccd box camera with a manual focus lens. The second was taken with a 4 year old no-name bullet camera that uses a 1/3" Sharp CCD, also 380TVL I believe. Zoomed in. Both were recorded on a 2-year-old CPCam 9ch standalone DVR in best recording quality. I have two goals: 1) improve the quality of the recorded image. 2) Allow for recording at night. What is the best bang for the buck? - Will a 420 tvl camera show any real improvement? What abut 480tvl? - Would a DVR with H264 encoding record a better quality image? Would a 480tvl IR bullet camera give me better quality during the day as well as night-time recording? Or should I be looking at a box camera with auto-iris and a seperate source of illumination? Is there any real difference between the Dome and the Bullet style cameras? Is it just the casing?

Your two cents is well received. On every door to the house I have a close-up cam that captures faces: Then I have the license plate cam: And the rest fo the cameras provide an overall blanket coverage at greater distance. The problem I'm having here is the guy never cam to the house, just messed with my car. I have no 'face' camera near the car.

OK, I did a test. I hooked up a Sony camcorder in place of one of the 380 tvl cameras. Then I played back the video and captured from the playback to make sure I was testing the DVR's video quality too... 380tvl Bullet Camera: Sony Camcorder: Clearly the Sony represented the color of the grass much better. But in temrs of being able to identify detail in the picture, there's really nothing to call between them.

Just to add: I have 9 cameras: 3x 380tv Bullets. Ok during day, a little fuzzy. Useless at night 3x 420tvl IR bullets. Better during day, reasonable at night under IR over 60', great at 20'. Need very little light for a good image 1x 380tvl crappy box. Better at dusk, but still useless at night. 1x 520tvl BW box w/huge zoom lens, IR filter etc for License plates. Happy with this. 1x 420tvl cheap BW dome in my garage. Light level is consistent, no complaints here. I'm thinking of replacng the 3x 380tv bullets and the 1x 380tvl box with 4x 480tvl IR bullets with 1/3" sony CCD chip. If it turns out my DVR can't use the the better quality, then i could always replace the DVR in the future. No point me getting a better DVR if I'm still feeding 380tvl to it. But then again, no point feeding 480tvl to a DVR who's compression can't tell the difference. Not in a position to replace the DVR *and* all the cameras.

Yeah, I was gonna try the camcorder trick tonight. I can take a snapshot, save it to disk using the CCTV camera,t hen do the same with the camcorder. I'll be sure to take the snapshot on the playback so I'm also testing the codec, not just the live view.

To upgrade my system I have to choose between switching to a H264 DVR, or upgrading the cameras. Which is the best first step?

I have a home-made LPR setup that captures about 90% of plates 24x7. IT has an IR illuminator and IR filter so it doesn't get blinded by headlights. The illimnator lights the plate up really nicely dusk to dawn. I also aimed the camera at the thinnest section of my driveway so I know where the car will be, so I can zoon into the width of the car. All of the plates that I have missed fall into the following categories: - Car has no front plates, drives in forward, backs out. Our mail carrier does this, so does the electric meter reader. - Vehicle with license plate mounted to extreme left or right. UPS trucks are bad for this. The dump truck that brought my driveway gravel was the same - plate was mounted to the extreme left, behind the wheel of a vehicle that was wider than a car. - Smoked licence plate covers The setup work fine for me right now, just a residential setup. Not worth me freaking out and spending anouther coulpe hundred bucks every time I miss a plate. Did that for a while and wasted a lot of time. My two biggest issues were getting the car in a preduictable spot for a close zoom, and reading plates in low light / blinded by headlights. once I fixed those two issues my plate reading success jumped out to 90%, but there will always be exceptions.

It's installed on the edge of the main sliding doors at the local walmart. There are two, one facing in and one facing out... Behind the dark glass there is a lens. The doors are actuated by sensors above the doors, soit's not just a opening sensor.

Loss Prevention. Store Security.

The only brnad name I ever remember seeing was iDVR, but that may have been in the attached fast food place. Nothing else has logos. A place this big SHOULD be able to afford better cameras - but both of the images I described seem liek they could be fixed using an auto iris lens? Even if they don'y want a really good camera with WDR and all that jazz, then the could maybe re-orient the indoor camera so it's not see the doors in the background. The image is not close enough to see the height scale on the side of the door, so there's no value in seeing the door. Just aim it a little further down so the doors disappear of the top of the screen - that would mean the camera is looking down at about 45deg - still a pretty good angle for identifying someone, no?

good question Nope, nobody did or said anything. Now, I dunno if they followed me with the cameras the rest of the time I was in there..? I'm probably on a terrorist watch list now and will never be able to fly again. I need to stick a post-it note over it and then sit back and watched to see if someone comes out to clear it off.

Also - I'm not really convinced this local walmart has had any experts involved in their cameras. They have two TVs up over the entrance door that display two camera angles. One faces the inside of the door from a ciling-mounted bubble/dome. The other is from an outdoor box camera looking over the parking lot. The camera facing the door is in a relatively dark room facing at the bright outside light. All you can see is the white rectangles of light from outside the door - everything else is black. You can't see detail of people, just outlines. Whent he sun is out and it's early afternoon you can see bright vertical lines from the sun refelcting off of car windows. About 1/3 of the screen is obscured by the CCD overloading effect, rendering the rest of the image too dark to be of any value at all.

This thing points away from the door at about 45deg. There is no matching sender/receiver for a beam break sensor. The metallic purple/red reflection in the center is exactly the same color are the reflection of the lenses of a couple of cameras I have lying around here. If it was a infrared sensor then it would need either a matching sender/receiver in a seperate unit on the other side of the door (there is none) or the unit itself would have to do the send/receive in a single unit, meaning it's actually looking for the IR refelcting off a person walking past - much like touchless faucets and hand dryers - but this unit has only one 'thing'. Visually, to the naked eye, it looks exactly like staring into a logitech webcam lens.

Ok, despite what is being said here, I'm still convinced it's a camera: Closer look today...

I'm pretty sure it's not a door open sensor. There's one on the entrans door facing out, and one on the exit door facing in. Howveer you can still wlka in the exit and out the entrance and the doors still work from teh overhead sensors. What is a camera finder? Maybe I should accidentally brush up against it and obscure it with something, then sit around and wait to see if security comes out and fixes it...

Here's one to think about... I need to install a camera to cover my cubicle at work. I've already had a pair of sunglasses stolen, and just yesterday someone stole my British Flag and threw my US flag on the floor all crumpled up. The cubilce is 6x8 with an L-shaped desk. I used to have a USB webcam attached to the bottom of an overhead cabinet and I used it to get some interesting shots. Like this one: That worked fine for a free throwtogether solution... But then I caught video of two fo the cleaners "making out" in my chair, and when I told my boss the video was confiscated and I was told to remove the camera due to privacy rules and that my use of a camera (in my own cube!) was being escalated to "Legal" and "Security" to see if I broke any rules. Well, now it's going back, but it has to be so stealthy that not even my team members will realise it's there. I can stick with the USB webcam and old laptop computer solution for now, but that requires too much babysitting. Would like to have a solution that I can install and just leave running on motion sense. I have a spare laptopn (p3/500) but not a desktop.

A friend of mine lives in a home that she is renting from a relative, and has told me that over the last year items have been disappearing from her home - small ornaments, money and even furniture that was in storage in the attic. She recently discovered that an estranged family member who used ot live in the home had stated that the furniture in the attic belonged to him and had tried to remove it many years ago but had been turned away. This lady now believes that the same person has been entering her house while she is away and removing property bit by bit. The police were called and said they could do nothing about her suspicions unless someone saw him at the house. She knows I have a camera system so she asked me for advice on installing cameras to catch him in the act. In th elast year she believes he's been in the house 4 or 5 times. My advice to her was to start with rekeying all the locks and making sure all doors and windows have substantial locks, then motion lights and all the other basic security doodads. Secondly, I told her that she needs to get a monitored alarm system installed by a professional. I told her that she should consider cameras only AFTER she has the basics of home security in place. Well, she still wants cameras and has up to $1,200 to spend. I'm thinking a basic 4-channel standalone DVR (Avermedia?) and 4 wired cameras. The labor would be done by me and I wouldn't charge for it. She would like to cover the front and rear doors close enough for good facial recognition of people who come to the door. A longer range camera to cover two cars parked side-by-side approx 40' from the house, and a 4th view that would be wider angle to give an overall view of the back of the house. What 4ch DVR and cameras would be good for that money. I know that more $$ = better cameras, but 1200 is all she has to spend.

My 9ch CPCam DVR is rated for 30fps. I have it recording just 1fps total (each image updated every 9 seconds) when there is no motion, and when there is motion it ramps up to 30fps. That 30fps is shared between the cameras that have motion, the rest are 1fps each. When there is a motion even on just one camera that means I get 16fps on that camera which is good enough, but when a vehicle approaches the house and pulls up ot the garage it's covered by 4 camers meaning I get 5 cams doing 1fps and 4 cameras with motion have to share the remaining 20fps = 5fps each. That's pretty slow and jerky. When you choose a DVR for a customer what FPS do you look for? Is there a certain #fps you look for per camera? If I wanted 30fps per camera for 9 cameras that's 270fps - that's a pretty expensive DVR. And I don't need 30fps per camera. I'm thinking the 4 cams aalarming at the same time situation is the highest I'd get unless there were multiple bad guys. I figure maybe 20fps for those 4 cameras and 1fps for the idle cameras. Something close to 80 or 100 fps? Also, what is currently the best video encoding method (for size versus quality)? Relating to my other thread... I'm wondering if I could sell this DVR to my friend who needs a basic camera system, and then put that money towards a new DVR for myself...

Hey, I just thought... My alarm went off the other day and while I was talking to ADT on the phone I could hear the alarm trying to dial. That's not right, huh?

I have a DVR lockbox that I got used from eBay for $50. It's a purpose built VCR/DVR lockbox with ventilation slits and a 120vac fan. It's big enough for the DVR and the UPS. The wires from the cameras terminate at f-type wall plates, look like cable tv outlets just with 6 per plate, right under the lockbox. Some are cameras going in, some are video signals being forwarded to the TVs in the house, one to my computer which then records a set of 1fps backup images to a standalone firewire HD that is hidden. On top of the lockbox is a cheap $40 VCR with a tape in it that says "CCTV TAPE #17" on it and jsut sits there. The hope is that if this area is discovered they'll either be stupid enough to steal just the vcr, or at the very least they won't be able to steal the DVR. That lockbox is lag-bolted to 3 studs on two sides. I can sit all my weight on it, it's that strong. Even if they do manage to rip it off the wasll or pick the lock/crowbar it open... They might get away with the DVR and the computer but the backup images are saved to that hidden hard drive. And even if they find that, I FTP an image of the 9-way split to a server in another location 20 miles away from here every minute, so at least I'd get occasional snapshot up until they wreck the DVR. Oh, and all the time they're working on my DVR I've already been alerted to the burglary by the alarm company and told them to step up the police response to 'active burglary' based upon the images I can see remotely of their car in the driveway or garage, or the CCTV system suddenly going offline a couple minutes after the burglary alarm. I'm looking for a way I can dial in to my phone and hit a couple of keys and listen in to a microphone in the house... That would help me tell if it;s a false alarm. Did I miss anything?