bike_rider

Don't rethink too much, just get the 484s. They are very good.

The quickest and easiest solution I can think of is one of the wireless Baby monitoring cameras. The issue with these is that they are only viewable from a PC (or Mac). I don't know how you would get the output to a TV. They are not great in low light, but they might be acceptable. Here are two samples. from a Panasonic BL-C121 (I think). The dark one is early (7:30am), just after the interior lights were turned off and I think before the camera fully adjusted. That window on the left is west facing, so the room is pretty dim. The other one is just before 1PM. The blinds are still closed and filter a good amount of light. The room is moderately lit - you'd want more light to read a newspaper comfortably.

Camera based motion detection is a poor solution for perimeter security because it is very hard to get it so there are no false positives. "motion" can be cloud shadows, trees in the wind, cats, bugs up close to the lens. The geovision software is very flexible, but without knowing more about how you might change your day and night settings, I can't say if it can handle your need.

TSD, You'll understand that I'm skeptical of a mfg's samples. I see that you are a vendor. Care to send me one for a loaner demo? I'm working on a plan for a neighbor that calls for 2 Vandal domes. I'm thinking 484s, but if the 24VD works out that would be great. Cheers

I've been very happy with my Panasonic CP484, but I don't know if it has stabilization. I think it is being replaced with the CP504 which does have stabilization. I haven't used one, but I'm anxious to see some results from the Samsung SHC-737 ...

How wide of a field of view do you want? With that, you should be able to plug that into a lens calulcator to get some idea. For a 1/3" sensor, 60mm will get you a 50 foot wide field of view; 120mm will get you 25 ft wide, etc. Your camera mount is going to need to be rock solid. I know that some cameras have anti-shake built in, but I've never used it on a CCTV camera.

I'm working with a neighbor on a system for their house. Pretty typical setup - front door, back door, side gate/utility panel and 1 camera covering the street. The FD/BD will be 484s, so we are looking for something with good image quality. I''m looking at dedicated DVRs for simplicity sake. The owner would like the option to add up to 2 more cameras, so I had been thinking 8 channels. That lead me looking at 16 ch systems, like the EH5116, in order to get D1 (4CIF whatever) recording at decent fps. Then I thought, what about 2 four channel systems instead. Something like the EB1304. Buy one now, add another later if needed. The price would quite a bit less. What am I missing? I'm still trying to figure out if the 1304 accepts alarm inputs and what size the hard drive is. Can that HD be upgraded with a generic one?

Yes with the new cards and 8.3 you can stack them now. Oops. How dare they improve their product without telling me?!

[oops, you can put two GV in a computer now] My scenario is two stand alone DVRs. I did eventually find a manual for the 1304 and to described it as "limited functionality" is putting it mildly. I saw a video explaining some of the features on a 16 Ch AverMedia DVR and it had way more features. This is to be expected at this price point. I could not live with the limitation, but i can see where it has its place and it may be fine for my neighbor. Tom, one more quesiton. One feature that is a must have is record on motion and, separately, send email on alarm input with a snap shot from a defined camera. Can the 1304 do this? Email on motion is useless for me.

(Insert rant about not being able to d/l a stupid manual.) Can you tell me more about evidence sharing with theEB1304?

Thanks Rory. You are such a tease. I'll see if I can hunt down that DVR. I wonder how the EB1304 Net handles "remote" video since you would think that would be intended as the primary playback.

IP 54 means I'd guess that means it has very small vents somewhere. How hard does it rain where you are? I'd risk it.

Thanks for the link to that PDF. I've seen that and was hoping for the complete manual. It just kills me that in this day and age manufacturers keep the manuals under wraps. You lost me with this bit

What Soundy describes is pretty much how GV works too. For me a wireless passive IR triggers its base station. The alarm out on the base station goes to the alarm in on the GV. Each alarm input can be set to send a PTZ to a specific location. You will need one of the GV I/O cards or boxes. I think you are also asking if motion detection on one camera can be used to trigger another camera (a PTZ) to go to a preset location. I don't think that can be done. As far as tracking the vehicle on the PTZ, it depends a bit on what version of GV you have. On 8.2 and less (I think) you need two cameras - one fixed that can see the whole scene and one PTZ to track. I think 8.3 supports single camera tracking for some models. GV does only support a "limited" number of cameras for auto tracking, so you'd need to get the latest list from GV. Some cameras also support auto tracking. I have a Panasonic PTZ that does a great job of tracking people walking around (50 feet away), but at that distance cars go by too fast for it to see them.

Thanks Tom. This looks very promising. In another thread you wrote Can you elaborate on the "tv" part of that sentence. I do not know if the user will be interested in this, but I'm curious about how it is done. Do you know if there is a PDF of the manual available anywhere?

the phone application uses different ports through the firewall. I don't remember what they are, but you can google that I'm sure.

http://www.cctvfootage.com/

There are several others inside the restaurant that look great, when I get a chance I'll grab some stills from them. That would be great thanks. What's the difference between the 20 series and 24 series? I can't find the 20VF, but I can find the VCM-24VF

have used a couple very good image. i just wish they would not fit the fly lead out of the back of the camera. if you wanted to come out of the conduit plugs you have to buy a new fly lead. i will send you a ip address i will leave it open for 12hrs so you can see how good they are. all outdoors are vbm 24 the internal are all vbp 5314 550tvl Can you post some sample images? I'm especially interested in how they handle back lighting. Can you compare them to Panasonic's 484?

Did you ever post the information with your make and model of DVR?

Anther out of the box idea is to use a RAM mount. Each setup is generally 3 pieces - Ball base, rigid center peice, Ball mount top. There is a huge variety in each of the mounts.

Don't know about the VS60. Look at the DS209 series. It has record on motion. Essentially, the cameras have to stream to the NAS all the time. Then the NAS does the motion detection and records. The current version of the Synology software is very limited compared to something like Geovision. For example you only have rough control over the sensitivity and cannot make different parts of the image have different sensitivity. OTOH, it does work as a way to simply gather the streams in one place. Synology stores the files as AVIs or MPGs on the hard drive. There is a post on the Synology forum that talks about stripping out images from the last stream and sending them to a static web page. It looks straight forward. There is a new version of the synology software coming at the end of the month, but I do not know what that will bring. There is a live demo on the synology web page.

You could also look at a NAS from Synology or QNAP. Both act as IP camera recording stations. Double check the list of supported cameras.

I have to admit, that comparison against the 484 is pretty compelling. It almost makes me want to upgrade to IP for a couple of my cameras.

Is the 484 designed to be mounted like that? Are both sections of the white clam shell waterproof? I have the 502, and I thought it was designed to be mounted under an eve and that only the lower clam shell and dome was designed to be exposed to rain. The 484 can be side mounted. There are markings for "this end up" inside, so the drain holes are in the right spot. ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/cctv/OperatingInstructions/WV-CW484%20Series%20Operating-Instructions.pdf