bike_rider

You need a product called a video encoder. They come in single and multi camera versions. Analog in, TCP/IP out.

Following up here. The day/night flipping loop continues. It's annoying enough that I might send it back just because that's a stupid problem to have. The night time image quality is getting better as I tune the settings. In my desired location there is little IR reflective material until a person enters the image. I have to set the Gain (AE reference setting) to about 5 to keep the camera from vainly trying to bring up the image brightness. When I was comparing against the sony ch140, I noticed that at night, when the illumination changes, the Sony adjusts instantly but the ACTi takes about 3 seconds to settle down to the new light level. This isn't critical for me, but if the camera was inside, pointed at a door, when the door opened the camera would be overwhelmed for a few seconds.

What kinda help are YOU looking for? He asked for more information about what areas of the image appeared soft.

Why do you think this is funny? You offer some vague criticism citing your vast professional experience, but when asked for more information you get coy. How is this helpful? It's like a game of "I've got a secret". FWIW, I think you are wrong about the image. The subject is not well suited to determining how sharp the image really is. OTOH. I think the camera placement is poor.

ACTi TCM-5311: night profile: brightness 42, AE Ref Target (Gain) 12, Shutter 1/60 max I started with the house lights and then swung in an IR unit from Amazon (currently called the S-8100). The ACTi initially responded well to the IR, but within a second lowered its image brightness to the point that the IR made no difference in the image. Odd behavior that I might be able to tune around, it I decide to keep this thing.

Finally took some time to compare my cameras. Sony SNC-CH140 Shutter speed 1/60 max, AGC low. Lighting: dark. No moon, porch light, house number light, plus light on the garage off screen to the left. Fixtures have a 7W LED bulb in each. Garage door closed. House is light coffee colored. I then added an IR unit. See the ACTi post for details.

The future isn't what it used to be.

What's the shutter speed on those Dahua night shots? What's the ambient lighting?

I'm seeing some softness in parts of the image, but it isn't consistent. The door above the handle (our left, mid screen) looks OK, but the lower part of the hand rail is a bit soft. I don't think it is as bad as some of the comments indicate. The bottom of the porch light looks crisp. I suspect that plant by the railing is just fuzzy, as is the edge of the welcome mat. Viewers - right click to turn off scaling, turn on full screen.

On that night sample I'm guess that there is quite a lot of house lighting in that shot and that that shutter speed is slow (lilke maybe 1 second). Am I right?

I have not been able to find an ACTi-specific forum yet, so I'll just blurt this out here in hopes.... Has anybody had the Workstation app throw "Line: 54 Error:"XMLHttpRequest" is undefined"? FWIW, the service seems tb running. IE 6.0 is the only IE version installed on this box.... and that would be my first suspicion... IE6 does not support he XMLHttpRequest function.

No prob, but the setup interface is also provided by the camera server. Sorry Mike, you lost me here. I already pointed the finger of slow night performace at the camera's CPU. Was there more that I missed?

Thanks, but I'm not talking about image latency, I'm talking about loading and rendering the setup interface. In the thread about the 7811 (which I think has the same sensor at the 5311 - BTW, ACTi has the dumbest product naming conventions.), Ando specifically recommend 10-20 for night performance. If I'm not happy with the noise at 11, going to 50 is not going to put a smile on my face. Like I've said, I'll need to tinker with this to see if I can get it good enough. Oddly, in the thread about the 7811, the screen about day/night switching has an option to delay switching back, but that doesn't show up on my screens.

The only effective illumination in that photo is from a pair of IR - one that is pointed right at the person/shrub and one that is incidentally hitting the treee. I'll admit, this is going to be tough to get right. The AGC (called AE by ACTi) will need to be turned way down to remove the noise and keep from over exposing the subject. on a scale of 1-100 (100 max), this image was set for 11. I've toned it down to 8. I also have to figure out how "brightness" plays into this. Another thing I've found is that at night, the web interface on the camera is painfully slow. I think it is trying to deal with the large dark area and the camera's CPU just can't keep up. So far, not thrilled with ACTi. I know this is a mid-tier camera, so I'm trying to not judge it like I would a top tier one. OTOH, that day/night flip flop is just stupid.

Thanks for the thoughts, but I'm way ahead of you here. There is a very powerful IR pointed right at that area. Like I said, the auto gain struggles because there is so little reflective material unless there is a person in the image. I think I can get it to work, but that day/night flip flop is my first issue.

I have a new TCM-5311 which I think is comparable to the TCM-7811. I'm still tinkering with settings, but I too am seeing more noise than I would have expected. I have AE=15 (ish) because otherwise the noise is pretty high. I do wonder how AE and brightness settings interact with each other. I need to put a new lens on the camera this week and then I'll have sample images. I have to wonder if the latest TCM firmware is not optimized for CCD cameras.

I don't know anything about those cameras. That Pany is not a true day/night, but that may be OK for your needs. Check out this blog. http://www.networkwebcams.com/ip-camera-learning-center/2011/04/14/axis-sony-panasonic-ip-compact-camera-group-test/ Also, I completely forgot about cube camera for indoor use. Something like the TCM-4511 or TCM-4201.

I'd say that yes, you can have too much light. Notice how the bushes are washed out. I'd consider bouncing the IR off the wall to diffuse it. It would also give you better off axis light.

Happy to help. If you decide that analog works for your indoor needs, then a hybrid DVR might be the right solution. I have an ACTi camera coming in "soon" so i'll be able to compare it against my Vivotek and my Sony. Since your playground need is day time only (you will not have enough light at night to be useful) a day time only camera will save money there. The TCM-1111 looks very interesting (cheapish!), but the lens size might not work for you. That's where you need to use a lens calculator.

10-12 fps is good enough for most things. 5 fps might be ok, but I wouldn't recommend it - you would need to try it to see how it looks for you. D1 (analog) images covering a room are going to be low rez for things on the far side of the room. In your case you may be able to ID kids based on low rez images because you are working from a limited pool of "suspects". Analog means either a DVR or a capture card in a PC. In that case, DVR is the better solution. You need to decide how good of an image is sufficient. Google the term "pixels per foot". Try this - take a digital picture of an area you want to cover. Resize it down to 1MP and down to 704 x 480 (D1). See which one gives you a useable image. If you can get what you want with D1, go for it. I have a handful of installed analog cameras that cover doors and gates - they work well for a narrow field of view. D1 would be useless for your playground. Commercial installations are very old school and have much bigger budgets than you do. Vivotek and ACTi are definitely not Tier 1 companies, but they offer good value.

I use Blue Iris software on laptop. The laptop is a quad core i7. It wasn't that expensive ($1,000) because it is not a high end laptop - heavy, mediocre screen, so-so battery life, but I don't care about those things so it works very well for me. I know that I have pelenty of CPU capacity as I move toward more MP cameras. Local storage on the camera can be interesting, but I think you will need more storage than you can get on a 32 G card. for your stated purposes, i'd want 60 days of 6 hours per day of storage on the class rooms and 14 days, motion based on the other items. (Qucik on line calculation at 12 fps says that's about 1.5 TB) That's going to add up fast. One nice thing about PC based solutions is adding storage space is easy. Blue iris will not let you select retention periods per camera, so it may not work for you. i don't know if the Vivoteks come with software. I assume they do, but I already had picked my solution. Fujinon, Tamron, Tokina, Computar. Those are the lens companies I'd look at. I did stick a "cheap" non-MP lens on the 7160. I have another lens on order. When that comes in I will compare the various lenses I have floating around, but that's probalby 2 weeks away.

Tone back your goals or raise your budget. You are not going to get a system that is 100% of what you want for that kind of money. The last thing you want to do is put in a camera, have something happen and then say "I wish I had better video of that". So, put in good cameras where you can. If you are looking for coverage where there is not great lighting, you'll need Day/Night cameras. That means a removable IR cut filter. You'll have to learn about lens focal length and field of view. Google CCTV lens calculator and learn to use one. Otherwise you will buy a camera with a wide angle, when you need a telephoto (of course box cameras let you change the lens, while most domes do not). Sony's DM series is about 4 years old. They are being sold at a super discount because they are beyond end of life. I have a Vivotek 7160. Surprisingly good for the price. If you are covering "well lit" (whatever that means) areas in the day time, there is not reason to look at more expensive cameras. Most expensive cameras (like Sony's current cameras) are better in low light, or with back lighting (like covering an entrance door from the inside) or have more features. For basic clean images, something like the Dahua or Vivotek get the job done. The Vivotek's color isn't great and the picture can sometimes be seen to flicker slightly as it adjusts the exposure, but it works. The speed of your internet connection does not matter because you will need to store the video on site. If you go the PC route, you will need to dedicate one machine to this. If you stick with one brand of camera, like ACTi or Vivotek (maybe Dahua too), you can use their software. People here have reported the ACTi software is quite good, but again you are limited to only their brand. For box cameras you may need to buy new lenses. Make sure they are MP rated. It makes a big difference in image quality. Based on a guess of risk levels, I suggest you cover what you can in order: Playground, parking lot & child pick up area, classrooms, hallways.

Simple question you have not answered: Why are you putting in a system? Is this for after-hours security? During the day "what's going on" images? I-want-to-ID-people-as-they-move-about? Give us a use case or three.

Well they have these cameras that were donate. Not sure if they were the wired type or wireless. But now they have to hassle with more government regulations, instead of just getting their store back up. I don't know what to make of all the above, but they have these cameras and I was looking for something they could use to get Big Brother off their backs. If the Inspector wants UL listed devices you have exactly zero chance of talking them out of it. If the cameras you have are not UL listed and you want cameras, buy new ones. It would be cheaper than the legal costs of fighting with the Inspector. Besides, if that really is an all in one set, those cameras are not good.

Let it go. The cameras are not worth the fight. OTOH, if you wire for cameras during construction, you would be ready to install cameras at some time in the future.