survtech

No fading when the elevator moves? What kind of antennas did you use? What frequency, 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz?

Wireless does not work well where either end (transmitter or receiver) moves. That would include elevators. To prove the point, take a wireless transmitter and receiver and walk either one towards and away from the other. The signal will fade in and out. We had the same issue with elevators at our casino. In our case, the traveller cable had no spare cables of any type so wireless was our only cost-effective option. We approached a number of wireless manufacturers to see if their products could do what we wanted. Several said they could but when we asked if we could return the equipment if it didn't work, all of them said no. We eventually had to add an additional stringer cable to one critical elevator and gave up on the rest. Now we specify that new elevators have either coax and a pair or an extra two twisted-pairs in the stringer specifically for video and power for a camera. Note, the cost was approximately $10,000 to add a second stringer cable to an elevator that only runs between three floors. I strongly recommend wire. And contact with the elevator manufacturer. Doing this yourself could subject you to a lawsuit and/or fine.

Maybe the bandwidth would be acceptable but latency would be off the scale. Think about the delays you often see in live newscasts that are satellite-fed versus local. You are probably talking about anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds of latency on the video. Control would be the same issue, but the latency would probably double since you have it on both the video and the control signals.

That's quite true. Although we have not tested the Panasonic product, I can vouch for the fact that analog camera picture quality on an LCD digital monitor with 800x600 or higher resolution does not look as good as a CRT monitor can provide.

I assume they are ball bearings? I've found that 80W90 gear oil (like rear end oil) works pretty well on them. I wouldn't use a much thinner oil than that.

By the way, are you in a PAL country? Maybe you have to tell VLC to use PAL and not NTSC???

In my experience, VLC plays files WMP won't play so if it won't work, I'm at a loss. Have you tried DIVX Player? Just a shot in the dark.

Try VLC Media Player. It'll play darned near everything. Link Here

On your Home Theater and Automation forum, you are discussing consumer items where you can find a number of users for each product. Here, you are discussing cameras from ebay that no one on this forum would likely use. Then you take offense when you are told that no-name Chinese cameras sold on ebay tend to be junk. Then you take offense when given practical advice for suitable cameras for your intended purpose. It seems to me that you might try asking your questions on the Home Theater and Automation forum.

I really don't think you do in this case. Buying a name brand article or collectible or whatever on ebay is one thing; buying a no-name CCTV camera is quite another. I know of many instances where those types of products are pure junk - poorly designed, badly built, etc. If you want to take a chance on either of them, I suppose the dome would be your best bet. However, don't complain when it dies in 89 days or when it doesn't perform as promised! As the saying goes: "You pays your money, you takes your chances!"

I don't think zmxtech was referring to the cameras when he said "rubbish" but to ebay itself. You have to be very cautious when buying from ebay, things are not always as described and you can get burned! edit: Then again, I just looked at the links you provided.

What are the light levels in the areas with the poor picture?

There are a couple of clues in the description: * 3.7mm Pinhole Lens * Picture Elements: NTSC: 512(H) x 492(V) PAL:512(H) x 582(V) These are probably lower-to-middle quality board cameras with fixed iris. Despite the claim of high resolution it's only 512x492 pixels versus the better cameras are usually 768x494 pixels. In actuality, I strongly doubt the claimed 480TVL resolution since that is more typical of a full pixel count camera. I would be willing to bet they will have trouble with varying light levels and especially with back lighting.

Here is a link to calculators that can determine the effective wire gauge of multiple strands and conductors: http://home.hiwaay.net/~rgs/awgcalculator.html In your case, two 24 gauge wires in parallel equals 21 gauge. Three would equal 19 gauge, etc. It would take an entire 4-pair CAT-5 cable to equal one 18/2 power wire. We often use one CAT-5 for video, power and PTZ control signals and have never experienced interference between functions.

It depends on the power draw of the camera. Yes. Conduit can collect water, especially if it is buried. Using indoor-rated cable is asking for future trouble. No. Speaker cable, while it would handle the power, is not rated for it.

Veracity HIGHWIRE High-Speed Ethernet Over Video Cable

Not a good idea unless you can shut off the termination on one of the monitors. Still would be subject to ghosting, though.

Easier still, test continuity from center pin to shield ground first with both ends disconnected. If there is no continuity, purposely short from center pin to shield on one end and test continuity at the other. If there is continuity then, you are good to go.

So does Ergotron http://www.ergotron.com/. Winsted uses the Ergotron mounts for their consoles.

If you want to use WD RE drives in a stand-alone system (not a RAID), you will have to disable TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery). See the Wikipedia link HERE

Interesting! The keyboard probably has a full wave rectifier bridge inside to protect against reversed polarity of the power. For the data, it wouldn't matter as long as one cable was straight and one cable was reversed, since the data just has to go through one "twist" somewhere. The pin functions for the RS-422 port on the keyboard are: 1. RS-422 TX + 2. RS-422 TX - 3. - 4. + 12VDC In 5. Ground (Power) 6. - 7. RS-422 RX - 8. RS-422 RX + Pins 1/2 and 7/8 have to be reversed somewhere in the loop. The power supply data connection is straight through. If pins 4 and 5 are reversed, as would happen if the cables were swapped, normally the keyboard would fry without an internal protection circuit. By the way, we have a full CM-9760 800x32 system for sale. We will split it up into chunks if you need anything. PM me for details.

Bodies, not bodys.

You are confusing analog horizontal resolution in TVL versus vertical resolution in scanning lines or pixels. While the top 6 resolutions in your chart are horizontal TVL resolutions (Umatic... (250 lines) to Widescreen DVD (400 lines)), the figures for 720 and 1080 are not the horizontal resolution, they are the vertical pixel count.

A suitable place. I've always wanted to "clean up" our IT Department!

Ground loop isolators typically can't overcome real serious loop issues. You may have to isolate every camera using nylon screws, washers, etc.