Cooperman

Londoners love to moan about what we've got, so it's often difficult to remember that 'civilisation' is what you're used to, and not what you aspire to... Sorry to hear about the jeep; if it's any consolation, you can be a 25 year + CCTV consultant in the UK and still find it difficult to get work. Why pay for advice, when installers give it for free!!! I haven't actually used any Baxall cameras since shortly after Mr Hall and Mr Baxter sold the company, and the CCTV world (this side of the pond at least) was never quite the same again. You're obviously being asked to quote for jobs; do they rest on the bottom line price, or can you sell "value added" product based on your undoubted expertise? Maybe you can think about what you can offer that's unique, which is worth the client paying that little bit extra for?. Do you do any covert work? That usually pays well above the norm. Maybe if you can trump your rivals quotes, you'll pick up even more recommendations. Keep your chin up!!! Wish you luck, Cooperman

Final, final thought! I forgot to mention that you can buy a very limited range of 'non browning' radiation resistant lenses. Cheap they're not. If you need a link, I'll have to dig one out.

Rory is right about Baxall, they are THE major UK based camera manufacturer. Having said that, their are loads of quality manufacturers products available in the U.K. and Eire, and whilst the topbrands are generally more expensive than the Taiwan / Korean imports, reliability and service support are vital, particularly if you are concerned about maintaining your reputation. Importing (incompatible) NTSC product from the States or elsewhere, is really only viable a) if you buy in quantity, and b) if you are prepared to hold a healthy stock for service 'back up'. Try and stick to PAL if possible, otherwise you may get a reputation for selling 'imports' that don't work with other bits (especially as customers have a nasty habit of buying add on bits cheap, without telling you, and then they make out it's your fault if things don't work properly). You'd probably be better off building a relationship with a trade distributor, and try and stick to one or two preferred manufacturers products. Without knowing what market your aiming at, or indeed what part of Ireland you're located, it's difficult to comment further.

Rory, I'm not sure I'd use the word 'enjoy' when referring to government services, but I take your point. The north of England might be your best bet; they're a lot more civilised than us southerners, plus cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle are becoming increasingly 'Cool', when compared to the excesses of my beloved London! Incidentally, having started this thread (and perhaps lived to regret it!!), I did notice the other day that the CCTV website in question has gone through something of a slight redesign. It seems to be easier to navigate now, so you never know, I may eventually finish reading through it all, by the time you get back to Britain!

Ghall, I haven't thought much about 'nuclear' related applications in years, so from memory, here are a few considerations. I don't know what type of camera you are using, or indeed where it is located, or what it's looking at. General rules are to minimise, radiation exposure, which can be as simple as using lead 'flashing' as a liner, to cover all external camera surfaces , excluding the front of the lens. Try using the smallest possible front optic (e.g. a conventional, but expensive pinhole lens might be worth considering at a push), and / or if possible, locate the camera as far away from the target / radiation source as is practical. You could think about shielding the camera and using a mirror, so with the camera (completely shielded) at right angles to the radiation source, you need only worry about a minimum of stray particles, rather than an intense source. A number of cameras have a 'mirror' switch so you can reverse the image to appear correctly on screen. You need to absolutely minimise the cameras exposure to radiation; even low level exposure can damage 'sensitive' circuit junctions on a CCD imager, and you can end up with a steadily increasing dead pixel count, or worse. Final thought; the accelerator manufacturer would almost certainly have been asked for advice on this precise problem, so it may be worth getting in touch with them. Many medical companies offer bespoke solutions to common technical problems, but boy do they charge for it!

If you're seriously thinking of moving back to the UK, Rory .... be prepared! CCTV installer numbers here could well run into the many tens of thousands (you can buy security cameras in many high street shops for around £ 30.00 (US $ 55), so not much competition there then!!! As the UK is apparently one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we currently 'contribute' something like £ 20 billion to the European Union every year; 150,000 people a year are leaving London (the second most expensive city in the world), mainly because the quality of life here is ....rubbish, unless of course you are rolling in money! An average one bed apartment is around £ 250k (that's about US $ 450k), petrol (gas) is currently £ 3.70 per gallon (US $ 6.50), our health service (schools, public transport, crime, etc.) are in crisis, and the weather is mostly rain, but at different temperatures depending on the time of year. There are of course estimated to be around 4 million CCTV cameras over here, and in London, we can expect to be caught on camera around 300 times per day (or so the 'experts' would have us believe). Bottom line is, if you're thinking of setting up a CCTV business here from scratch, you're a braver man than I. I suppose any chance of me having a midlife career change, and going to work for the London Tourist Board, may be ever so slightly dented!!

Whatever you do Rory, don't give up your day job!! The CCTV industry in the UK is ... a bit of a minefield. Norbain are the largest distributor, having acquired a number of other distributors over the years. Vista was originally launched as their 'own brand' and Baxall were bought to diversify into manufacturing. Major brands like Sony, JVC, Panasonic, Sanyo, (Philips) Bosch, and the rest are all being squeezed by cheap often poor quality imports from the Far East. A lot of the manufacturers posted on other 'threads' are not widely (if at all) available on this side of the pond. Bullet cameras are generally of average quality, and aimed at the lower end of the market. One thing that may interest you. Since we are enthusiastic members of the European Union (EU) ... not, we Brits are peculiarly compliant when it comes to legislation which is handed down from Brussels. I've been wondering why there isn't a thriving trade in PC Built DVR's, until the penny finally dropped. Some years back, I had to stop modifying, or engineering one off solutions for my customers, simply because of new rules that were brought in. The Low Voltage Directive, and Electromagnetic Directive, to name but two, literally changed business in the U.K. overnight. Because every newly assembled or modified product must be lab tested to be compliant with all relevant directives, and then an exhaustive manual containing all the test data must be produced, before the product can receive a 'CE' mark. Without this mark, it is actually an offence to move the goods around the EU, much less try and sell them. If that doesn't depress you, recent legislation means that within a couple of years, all persons working in the security industry (including consultants and installers) will most likely have to buy an expensive registered i.d. card, and indeed take examinations before it's issued. You'd probably find life a lot easier in other parts of Europe, where they don't enforce the rules so strictly, but if you are determined to come here, poorly paid hotel jobs are mostly taken up by EU nationals, and our farming industry has long since seen happier days, since the outbreaks of mad cow disease, foot and mouth and salmonella scares. My advice would be to open a vegetarian restaurant!

Judges in UK courts are rarely if ever asked to rule on specifics related to the use of security cameras. Most judges would prefer to sidestep making rulings on expert issues, preferring instead to concentrate on more established legal principles. The explosive growth in CCTV usage in the UK over the last ten years, is very much a 'house of cards' which has created its own false sense of security. One leading criminologist recently estimated that there are 4.25 million (?) CCTV cameras being used in the UK, and therein lies part of the problem. Their have been examples of CCTV failures resulting in loss of life, but not widely documented in the press. Public opinion is squarely based on 'anything is better than nothing', but should (or perhaps that ought to be when...) their is a serious incident which could have been prevented but for CCTV operational failures, then public confidence in the use of the technology will be dented. It could be argued that if a sprinkler system failed and a fire resulted in fatalities, then their would be a clear legal case. Unfortunately with CCTV, unless its purpose has been clearly and publicly defined, it would be very difficult to build a case with the benefit of hindsight.

AV Consulting is right about the quality of the Sanyo camera; it's been around for years. If you want to do a simple (primitive) test to see if the auto iris is actually functioning, try this 'on the bench'; turn the camera off and remove the lens, then lay the lens down so you can look through it. Plug the auto iris lead into the camera, then switch on the power supply. You should see the iris open slightly depending on the amount of light alling on the CCD. Put your hand over the front of the camera and the iris should open fully (no light = maximum aperture). Shine a torch on the imager and the iris should close almost fully. If it's not moving as I've indicated, I agree its possibly switches, set up pots or lens wiring.

On long cable runs, isolation transformers are usually the cheapest way to go. Having all mains supplies on exactly the same phase on large sites, is a total pain. If you use AC powered cameras, it's (earth loop hum) a known potential problem (different earth potentials, sets up a current flow etc. etc. etc.). If you use 12v DC cameras, and they're mounted on an insulating material, hey presto - no hum. If a metal weatherproof camera housing is fitted onto a metal clad building, you can induce the hum, either through the earth cable or the building itself. Insulating the bracket, and / or doing away with an earth connection would cure the problem, but in many countries it would breach the wiring regulations. If you were using a camera cabled back to a plastic cased monitor, their wouldn't be a hum, simply because a double insulated plastic cased monitor doesn't have an earth wire.

PAL will make life a lot simpler in terms of equipment availability, but a four week deadline should prove interesting. A couple of UK based companies you can try for the DVR equipment (there are a number of others, but you'll need to do your research). http://www.tecton.co.uk - Chris Hall http://www.vigilanttechnology.com - Mark Novak I'm guessing you won't exactly match some of the specs laid down, simply because of the time limitations, but you never know until you try.

A lot of what you say Dave is absolutely spot on. Not sure about the UK Court ruling though. Their is a 'legitimate expectation' in most situations that the owner / operator of any premises, has taken reasonable steps to ensure the safety of their 'guests'. The problem in seeking legal redress for example with a person being hit over the head in front of a dummy camera, is a) was their an expectation that this could possibly happen, and in most cases the answer would be no, and b) would a working camera that was being recorded, but which reproduced an unusable image, be any more likely to have prevented the attack; again the answer is probably no. Taking appropriate steps to address a whole range of risks, can (as we seem to agree) include dummy cameras as part of an overall strategy, but simply using a dummy on its own, isn't a terribly good idea, unless you deliberately want to 'relocate' a particular type of offence, into an adjacent location which is covered by covert CCTV. I've always thought that if the client wants dummies, and you don't agree, its far better to agree to differ, shake hands and walk away. After all, you can't buy a reputation, and more often than not they will (eventually) respect you all the more for it.

D & C Hope you're not rushing against a deadline with this one. If it's in your own country, I vaguely remember that Greece used to be on SECAM (television standard); has that changed? do you need to output to any other external monitoring points? or can you use PAL (or NTSC) equipment throughout? Be careful with the 'fps' figures quoted for some higher end Digital recorders, because Display and Recording figures are often not the same. 480fps processing is available on some models (particularly from the far east), but most manufacturers use different compressions, so whilst some of the 'better' models may actually use MPEG-2 or MPEG-4; they might quote 400fps for display, but only 240fps for recording ( 15 fps in 352 x 288 resolution, on a 16 channel DVR). You'll perhaps need to split the cameras in to recording 'banks', so that you can more easily design (and manage) the eventual structure. If you bring the project in on time and on budget, you deserve a gold medal! Good luck.

Rory I'll take your advice about the Bahamas, but I'm rapidly running out of attractive alternatives. Living in Exeter is undoubtedly a more agreeable option than London, and a heck of a lot cheaper too (don't know when you were last here, but you're going to need every penny if you come back!). Mind you, you'd probably be shocked if you found out how much they've spent on street CCTV down in the south west of England. On the subject of 'hybrid' recording, the option of continuous low performance 'time lapse', triggered into high performance/fast uprate under alarm input switching, is operationally the best (technical / legal) compromise in many situations. It's surprising just how rarely it's actually used though! Their is another technique which can be useful (in some circumstances) if 'triggered' recording has to be employed alone; that is 'pre event' recording. With some units you can retain highest quality recordings of the few minutes preceeding a triggered event. This is particularly appropriate for anti terrorism / homeland security situations; hopefully not a significant consideration in either the Bahamas or Turks & Caicos islands.

Rory When you talk about spamming, you had me worried. The guy that started the thread posted across 4 newsgroups, so all replies were also posted to each. The two messages shown are 23 seconds apart, so it hardly looks like an attempt to take over the world. Bad manners maybe, but hardly a hanging offence. Regarding the motion triggered approach to recording, the technique itself is as old as the hills; the problem from a legal perspective, is that a clever barrister (their is another name for them, but I can't repeat it in polite company), can easily argue that without a visual record of all times, it is technically possible that the system may have failed or operated unreliably, and therefore other persons may have been present at other times who were not recorded. This information is straight from a legal bods mouth, and I'm hardly equipped to argue with him. Another one for the courts to decide on the day. I can't say that I was that overwhelmed by the sites design, but to be honest, I was more interested in the content. From what I've seen so far of specific products discussed on the 'forum', a lot of it is not readily available here in the UK. Maybe I should move to the Bahamas; life back here certainly isn't what it used to be!!

Hate to be a party pooper, but their are a few comments here that are kind of bugging me ... a lot!! First off, the directory where I originally found the site, describes it as "A unique information resource, detailing the use and application of Closed Circuit Television ..." According to the home page, the guy who put this site togethor is describing it as a "...CCTV information resource", not an indepth guide to Digital CCTV. I've been through quite a number of pages, and whilst it's claimed on the homepage that there are around 350 pages on the site, my impression is that's probably the case. So far I've only found around half a dozen pages relating to Digital, and the index suggests that the Network section is "under development". I hate to state the obvious, but as a UK based consultant myself, I can relate to a lot of things on this site, but a lot of the comments that have been posted here, have absolutely no relevance to what actually goes on in England. It's a fact that our prices are generally way above the United States, analogue massively outsells digital, and as one example of 'space saving' goes, using motion detected recording instead of time lapse, would almost certainly render the recordings inadmissable in an English Court. If their's one thing I absolutely loath and detest its spamming, so the thought of a fellow Brit. consultant doing this is extremely disturbing. I actually did a Google search on news groups to see just how bad it is, and you know what .... I only found TWO postings by this guy, one in uk.legal and one in alt.security, both of which were offering quite good advice in the form of replies to particular questions. Is it my imagination or do some of these comments seem like its 'let's Bash the Brits' week? Mike enjoyed it, I think for what it is, it's well worth a look. Whoever built this site has obviously put a lot of work into it, and if all we can do is pick it to pieces on the strength of half a dozen pages, I can't say I'm impressed. How many of us could actually put something like this togethor? Anybody else think the same?

I've been having a bit more of a look around. There's a heck of a lot of stuff on this site; thought the system design info was interesting. I've been using the site index to navigate around, but I don't think I've even scratched the surface yet. Anybody else come across a CCTV info site like this?

Not sure exactly what connector you're after, but you could try Hills Components Ltd. Their website is at http://www.hillsonline.com

If you use a toy dummy with a flashing LED on the front, you aren't going to fool anyone. However, in the right situation a dummy camera can be worth its weight in gold (come to think of it, that's not a lot). If you use an 'empty case' dummy from a respected manufacturer, it looks identical to a working camera. Put a low cost lens on the front, and the deterrent effect is the same as a working camera. Now if you use a dummy sensibly, it can have some quite interesting results. The standard "double deception" requires an overt dummy, perhaps in a normal weatherproof housing (outdoors), to be located as the visual deterrent, whilst the working camera is installed covertly, with the dummy in its field of view. As an example, a couple of years back I caught (on camera) a golfer covering over the dummy with a hand towel, before stealing a load of 'Big Bertha' golf clubs from the storeroom. It kind of ruined his day when the police showed him the recording. The golden rule is, assess the situation, and choose the right tools for the job.

Test / installation monitors are probably the most useful bit of equipment we'll ever need, so it's worth investing in a good model. Having said that, I haven't! Instead about two years ago, I bought (in a sale) an ex demonstration portable DVD player (Panasonic) with an A/V input. Brilliant quality 5" LCD screen, 'clam shell' design, and a battery pack that works all day (impresses clients as well!). One point to consider when focussing any fixed focal length lens. If you know the distance from camera to target point, you can set the camera / lens up near to a monitor (or suitable A/V input TV), adjust the focus on a target at the correct distance, adjust the aperture, and then gently tape over the 'rings' to prevent movement. A limited number of lenses (some Pentax / Cosmicar for example), have locking thumbscrews on the focus ring to prevent accidental movement. This technique is fine for wide or ultra wide lenses, but is not critical enough for standard or telephoto lenses, where the target area is close to the camera (depth of field is too short to maintain an accurate focus throughout).

Hi gottx, First things first; perhaps you need to calculate the energy requirements for all the pieces of equipment involved. I'm assuming that the various bits run on 12v DC, so if you can add up the current consumption in amps., and you have an idea as to how long the equipment is required to operate, you can then multiply the figures togethor to arrive at an amp/hr (Ah) figure. You haven't actually said what type of machine it is, but unless it's large (ish), the best policy is usually to employ energy efficient cells (budget permitting, Lithium Ion etc.) or good old fashioned proven sealed Lead Acid batts. If possible, try and use a number of smaller batteries (e.g. 4 x 6Ah, rather than 1 x 24Ah), and allow at least 20% above what you need (perhaps more in extreme heat or cold). Using smaller batteries means you can usually distribute the weight more evenly, on the machine. Also use 'in line' connectors for each battery (and colour coding on each set of batteries) so you can then replace all the 'reds' for example, one at a time without any down time. Solar cells are a viable option in certain circumstances, but could be expensive. You could consider using a combination of batteries and solar, with the panels trickle charging the batts. when the machine is idle. If the machine is big and fast enough, you could even consider a small wind generator (bit tongue in cheek that one!) Hope this helps.

A couple of months late, but how's this for a silly suggestion ..... The standard approach for preventing cameras from being vandalised, is to keep an eye on them with ... more cameras, sort of! Without knowing whether you are using dome, fixed, PTZ or whatever, if you use a standard weatherproof housing fitted with a dummy camera, and locate it in opposition to the working camera (singular), it's a brave (or foolish) individual who will willingly attack any CCTV camera, if they believe they are being monitored by another camera. Not always the cheapest solution, but usually the most effective!