SBTVideoman

Hmmm...the answer may be that you have the wrong camera for this application. It may be worth trying a "wide dynamic" capable Day/Night model, such as one of the following: Bosch Dinion LTC0495 Bosch Dinion LTC0620 (1/2"version, expensive but nice) Siemens CCWC1335 Siemens CCBS1225 - 1/2" model with peak white inversion, which will automatically black out the bright vehicle headlights. Being a 1/2" camera it offers high performance..but expensive option. (BTW I do not work for Bosch, but they make nice cameras) Other manufacturers also have cameras with "peak inversion" - I seem to recall Ness has a "Smart eclipser camera", I think it's a 1/3" model but not sure if it's a day/night unit that will work with IR floods.

My understanding is that the SymDec-4 accepts up to 4 analog BNC inputs and records them at D1 resolution. The SymNet codec can also (according to the specs) encode video at D1 resolution. Being from the same product family they probably use the same encoding chips/compression algorithms, so at comparable quality settings should deliver exactly the same image quality. Whether this image quality is acceptable for your application is another story. I have seen a SymDec-1 in action and it can deliver very good image quality.

I seem to recall that the RS485 coming out of the DVMRE is two wire only...pins 3 & 6, I think that's shown in the DVMRE manual where it talks about the RS485 & KTD-405 connections. As for the CBR-PB2-KA2 manual - try googling it or contacting GE Tech support....they may be able to e-mail it to you or at least fax/scan & e-mail the page that has the lookup table that cross-references binary PTZ addresses against camera input & RS485 address of the DVMRE. Best of luck...I do know that when everything is setup correctly it works like a charm, as I have done this (with Kalatel domes and Pelcos, admittedly no Panasonics).

If memory serves me right, the old Impac 4CS units were available as either 37.5GB (IBM drive) and 75GB...both single drive versions. Later models came with either 40GB or 80GB. These were followed by the Impac/Kalatel 4CD (Duplex) units....also available as 40GB, 80GB, 120GB or later on, 240GB (2 x 120GB drives). These were all Maxtors as far as I know. So...the largest single drive a 4CS is likely to support is 120GB. It may not even correctly register a larger unit. Check when booting.... When you first power up the unit, you see a blue screen, then you get a little grey dialog box that shows the model number, the version number and the hard drive capacity. If that displayed capacity doesn't physically match the actual drive capacity, then basically the unit cannot "read" the drive. It *may* support a single 80GB or 120GB Maxtor 7200rpm drive...not sure though. I doubt it will support anything other than a Maxtor.

The other thing to check - is your bullet camera equipped with IR LED's? Because if it is, it also means that the camera CCD is NOT fitted with an IR cut filter...if it was, it would not be able to see the IR LEDS reflecting off the objects they illuminate. BUT...the sun is also pumping out lots of IR radiation. This could be saturating the camera electronics..

Hmm....couple of things to check 1) What RS485 network address is your DVMRE configured to? Check that it's set to RS485 address = 1 2) What physical camera connection on the DVMRE is the PTZ connected to? The issue is that when you're trying to control PTZ off WaveReader, you must physically bring up that camera in single-cameo view. The DVMRE then "sees" the TCP/IP PTZ command coming down from WaveReader, looks at for which camera it's intended, looks at its own RS485 network address, then generates the PHYSICAL binary address based on the combination. FINALLY, just to confuse things, the actual physical binary address is one less than the camera input. As an example...(simplest case) You have DVMRE addressed to RS485 address 1 You have a PTZ camera physically addressed as binary address 1 Therefore...in order to have WaveReader PTZ control, you will need to connect it to physical channel 2 on the back of the DVMRE. Why is this so? Because the "old" Digiplex addressing (think KTD-348 Crosspoint 32 Matrix, Digiplex IV Matrix etc) started at binary address zero. BUT...the Impac DVMRE's started their addressing at binary address one. So when the two systems were merged...they had to put in an offset to make things work. Confused....there's a physical lookup table in the manual for the CBR-PB2-KA2 ProBridge...have a look there. Hope that makes sense.

I assume from your post that it was/is a twin-drive unit. If the slave drive has failed, I would be pretty surprised if the master wasn't far behind it. The DVMRE's tended to use both drives fairly evenly. You are correct that finding a Maxtor 5400rpm Diamond Max is not likely to be easy. Rory has already mentioned the power upgrade kit that was fitted to later model DVMRE's when they cut across to 7200rpm drives. NOTE: The following is only applicable if the unit is out of warranty or you are not worried about retaining the factory warranty. If the unit is still under warranty I recommend you contact the manufacturer. You may be able to get away with a single 7200 rpm drive instead of the twin drives. This could be a single Maxtor 300GB 7200 rpm or a Western Digital drive. In fact the later model DVMRE CTII's were (I believe) fitted with Western Digital drives... I have seen someone try installing twin Hitachi drives in a DVMRE and the unit did not like it. Not sure about Seagate. So I suggest you stick to either Maxtor or Western Digital. Don't forget to archive any video footage off the master drive before you pull it out.

As others have rightly pointed out, there is more to DVR image quality than just the compression format. Some of the differences between MJPEG and MPEG4 is that MJPEG compresses each and every image (or frame) individually...so each "digital frame" is a complete image, much like a snapshot from a digital camera. MPEG4 is a "conditional refresh" algorithm, meaning it compresses groups of frames at a time, and within each group it only digitises the differences between successive frames. Thus not every single "displayed" video image is actually a complete image. This *MAY* (and I stress the word may) be important in some applications where you want or need to play frame-by-frame forwards and backwards...with MJPEG you can do this. It's not generally possible with MPEG4, as the frame sequence is unidirectional - meaning you can step frame-by-frame forwards but trying to do so backwards will generally step back to the nearest full (I or Key frame). You can try this with you DVD player (MPEG2 is similar in this regard to MPEG4) and a movie like the Matrix - try the scene where the chopper crashes into the building and the ripples spread out. There are many "flavours" of MPEG4 with varying image quality. So not all MPEG4 recorders (or MJPEG for that matter) will give you equivalent quality. The same can be said about image security and watermarking. Using Siemens SISTORE DVR's as an example (and this is NOT intended as a plug for Siemens). SISTORE AX = entry level MPEG4 DVR's have watermarking SISTORE MX = higher level DVR using MJPEG - has Kalagate certified watermarking (basically sufficiently secure to use in a UK court of law). SISTORE CX = high-end MPEG4 DVR/video streaming package also has Kalagate certification...so you can see that the CX uses a different, higher performance version of MPEG4 than the entry-level AX...and the relative costs reflect this. Sorry for the long post...hope it makes sense.

It depends on what version the unit is. The early versions were dedicated PAL or NTSC and as Rory rightly points out, you'd need to reflash a PAL unit into NTSC. The later version however were dual-system capable...they would autodetect upon boot up...but NTSC was their default.

Hmm...unless somebody's posted them on the net (unlikely), I'd say the only place is their tech support line. I don't like the odds of that. It's a fairly old unit, that was discontinued a few years ago. Nice DVR in its day though, easy-to-use interface, decent image quality.

It depends what version it is. With the later versions you could ring GE tech support from site and they could, based on the serial number of the unit and the time of day (as shown by the unit), give you an unlock code that was valid for an hour. Suggest you check the back of the unit for the serial number...also check the firmware version (shown in a little dialog box when the unit boots) and then give their tech support line a call.

Be wary of PTZ manufactures' "X" ratings...the 30X, 26X, 22X, 18X etc only refers to the RATIO of the longest focal length to the shortest focal length...it is NOT (unlike binoculars or telescopes) the maximum magnification. Have a good look at the specs where it talks about the focal length. You will probably find that the 30X will slightly "wider angle" at the fully zoomed out end than the Spectra III 23X and a little closer in (or narrower angle) at the fully zoomed in end than the 23X. You'll probably find that the Pelco Spectra 22X Color probably has the longest focal length at the zoomed in end, hence can provide the largest magnification. The X rating, when used on PTZ cameras is misleading. For example: 5-50mm Varifocal = 10X (50 divided by 5) 7-70mm Vaifocal = 10X (since 70 divided by 7 - 10) But obviously a 70mm lens gives a narrower angle (hence larger magnification) than a 50mm lens.

It may not be caused by a camera problem on site. Do you know what version of firwmare you are running? Is it a 4.xx unit or one of the newer "Wavejet" 5.xx CTII units?

I am pretty certain that the old DVMRE CD "Duplex" units did not have a Web Browser interface. WaveReader only. And it is not possible to upgrade them to have the Web Browser interface since it's a completely different hardware platform to the later DVMRE CT "Triplex" models. Couple more points to note 1) The old Duplex models could only be upgraded via RS232 using a program like Winflash...and of course you'd need the PPC and mux files. 2) The newer CT Triplex models were made to be flash upgraded over LAN using Internet Explorer. Cheers, PD