bike_rider

how about under each camera, do you have "register motion event"? maybe that is triggering it. Also, under scheduling, there is an option to turn off email triggered by motion detection.

Hmm. Another new feature for geovision. If you are getting emails on motion look at general Setting -> System config -> Camera Record Setting. Monitor Control, Invoke to send alerts. I don't use either motion detection or intrusion for email alerts, but that might be the setting you need to turn off. I would think that Intruder Detect would be handled through the more general Alert setup in the general Config.

IIRC, You can have different quality/size settings for remote live view and remote log view. Maybe your log view is much higher quality.

You need an IO card so that GV can get input from your intrusion detection system. That system could be a full blown alarm system or as simple as a Voice Alert system. VA is a wireless system what uses up to 6 zones covered by IR sensors. Relatively cheap, but it goes through 9V batteries every couple of months. The way my system is hooked up, I get an email on my smart phone when anyone gets near the house. I see a lot of cats walking around, the UPS guy, the meter reader, my wife leaving for work, etc. Exciting stuff like that.

Turn off direct draw overlay and you should get the ability to see the video feed when connected through VNC. If not, try UltraVNC. Works for me.

Check under Password setup to see if the account you are using is allowed to control the PTZ when using each remote method.

My original disks are 8.1, but somewhere along the way I upgraded to 8.12 I had some problems with my 8525 smartphone and wiped my GView software. Now that I have 8.1 on the phone and 8.12 on the server, I get a "server version error" when I try to use the remote log view. The remote log viewer works fine. Does anyone know where I can download 8.12 for the PDA?

I've had GV running for the better part of a year. Everything is running fine; most of the time email alerts work fine. I've had a couple of times where it just loses its ability to send email. Everything else seems to be running fine. When this happens, the email test button stops at "Connect to SMTP" with an "X". Wireshark shows that there are no packets between the GV machine and the SMTP server, so it isn't a case of blocked traffic. GV log shows that it thinks it is sending email, but nothing happens. Windows auto-update is turned off and the machine is used for nothing else, so there should be no changes to any configuration. When this happens, I can use system restore to go back a couple of days and that fixes the problem. Anyone have any ideas?

UltraVNC is at www.uvnc.com

Thanks guys. I'll feel better about buying it if I can expect similar performance.

We are not happy with the dynamic range of the GE 1500 dome at our front door; I completely forgot about how back lit the entry way is. We love the Panasonic CP-484 box camera that we have, so this dome seems like a natural choice. Does anyone have any experience with this, particularly with regard to WDR and back lighting? The lens sizes are 3-9 and 15-50. I, of course, want around 12mm. Can the lens be replaced with another CS mount?

You'll find that the motion detection in GV (or any other camera system) will not be good for triggering events. They are not motion detection, they are scene change detection (although that specific phrase is used by GV for a different feature.) So, changing shadows as the sun moves - that's motion. Bug on the lens - that's motion. Car headlights casting a shadow - that's motion. If you really want to detect motion, you need to use something like passive infra-red. It isn't perfect either (for prices most people want to pay), but it is more reliable that acting on GV's motion detection.

Is there a change history posted somewhere?

Lot's of "it depends" answers in there. Alarm Inputs send info to the DVR. For example, that is where motion detector would connect. What the DVR can do based on that input depends on the brand of DVR. Outputs of course go the other way, they trigger an external action. Generally these are ultra low power setups. For example one set of Geovision outputs is limited to 2A at 30V DC or .5A at 120V AC. Outputs are not power sources, they are only switches. They idea is that they would close an external relay, which in turn would power a device.

Not gonna happen on the BB. The GV package is for Windows mobile devices. It works very well on my WM6 phone.

Hi Rory, This is great. I've been running it for a while. I have 2 copies, back before I realized that I could switch between cameras. Each copy has the EXE with a unique name. Anyway, last week I started having a problem where neither exe would start up. I renamed each exe and the problem went away. Got any ideas about this?

Can you turn down the gain on the camera? The image is tuned to make the driveway and grass look good. But as you see, those don't really reflect much IR compared to a person. If you can't tune the gain, another choice is to kill a few of the LEDs with wire snips.

Geovision also does this - one wide angle camera is used to guide a narrow angle camera. I don't know how they do it, but I think that they only support Pelco PTZs, so there may be some aspect of the protocol that they need. OTOH, they may be doing some image matching to aim.

OK, back up and tell us more about the application. Can't offer any more advice without more details about the need.

You need a camera that supports presets. These are numbered absolute locations, including zomm factor. On the Pany PTZ, you set the camera the way you want and then "set" the preset location. Then you use the command for "goto preset 1" or preset "12", etc.

Have you looked at the helmet cams for sports applications? Even Sam's Club was selling them for <$100 if I recall right. They record 640x480 @ 30FPS and are completely water proof - the demos I saw showed underwater footage. They run on SD, and for a couple of gig will probably record more than any single ride. They're battery operated, and the rider must know to start the recording each time. But for that kind of money, clarity and frame rate, it beats having nothing. I strongly considered getting one for my road bike excursions (bicycle) - but most of that is done on paved non-vehicular roads, so traffic is usually not an issue. There are a couple of high end units that have good features like auto-looping that I'm looking at. Whatever I get will be semi-perm installed under the fairing. I don't like the idea of mounting anything on my helmets - moto or bicycle.

Thanks for the info. There is a growing trend for motorbikes to record their rides. I'm thinking about a camera setup for my bike. This isn't to record my mad skilz (puleez!), but to be there in case of an accident.

First, excellent documentation on the requirements and understanding of the issues. Congratulations. You are right about no clear choke point in theory, but if your neighbors drive like mine, the center of the street is a safe target. If you can set the iris on the camera, you might be able to get a longer depth of field to make the kill zone longer. (I've never actually tried that yet). I second the idea of shooting the backs of cars. Scruit's got a good diagram. One color camera mounted on the house with a wide view, will give you day time vehicle color. Use B/W cameras for everything else. I have a camera that I can set the shutter speed on. If I let it go in "auto" mode, I get blurry cars (35 mph) even in day light. If I force it to 1/300 (or so), I get nice crisp images. Of course it can't see at night at that speed. I'm still working on that issue. Get out that tape measure for everything before you buy a lens. I've got one or two lenses that I wish were a little longer because I eyeballed the requirements. If you budget about $350 per camera (and lens), that should give you room to get some nice BW box cameras for the mailbox. For the color camera, it is hard to beat the Panasonic CP-484. My wife and I are always amazed at how well that camera sees in low light.

I'm looking add one or two IP cameras to supplement my existing cctv system. These would be for covering larger fields of view and allow me to zoom in for more detail as needed. The existing system handles all the alerts and such, so I don't need any software like Luxriot or milestone. I just need to be able to view high res images when I see something interesting on the existing system. I'm thinking that having something like the 3130M send to a NAS would be the easiest (and cheapest) solution. I can setup an isolated wired network for the IP camera(s) data. Does anyone have a setup like this? I'm looking at the NetGear ReadyNAS setups.

One of the big potential problems with entry cameras is back lighting. Lots of door areas are dark, relative to the background area. I have a mini dome mounted at about eye level right next to the door and the view is great, but the back lighting is killing hte shot. I'll have to replace the camera (a GE color one) next year with something better for that position.