survtech

We've had similar problems when one lead of the power cable got shorted to ground. That usually happens during construction or remodeling when they crimp a power cable between the drywall and a metal framing stud. One way to test for this: disconnect both leads at the power supply and run a continuity check between each wire and a known good earth ground (cold water pipe, grounded electrical box, etc.). If there is continuity, disconnect the other end of the cable at the camera and test continuity between the wires and ground again. If continuity to ground is still there, you have a wire crimped or frayed and touching ground. That often can play havoc with multiple cameras that are powered by a common power supply. It usually affects the negative wire but can affect either.

You might look at broadcast and pro equipment lenses for HD cameras. I don't think any manufacturer makes that specialized a product for CCTV yet. Maybe Canon, Fujinon or Computar broadcast divisions.

We use the same West Penn connectors for mini coax. Great product and far sturdier than the standard 2 or 3 piece mini coax connectors. You can almost literally hang from them!

That's how we aim and focus all fixed cameras.

Found one! Sony YSW270A Power Over Coax Adaptor Four camera power adaptor. Applicable models that may be used with the power over coax feature are: SSC-DC50A and the SSC-DC590. This unit provides DC power and power/sync signal between the adaptor and the cameras over a single coaxial cable. Two (2) isolated video outputs per camera are provided on the YS-W270A. Maximum cable distance between the camera and the adaptor using an RG-59B/U coaxial cable is 300 meters.

Definitely check NYC codes. I used to live there many years ago and at the time, they had the strictest codes in the country.

You might be able to do that with a large electrolytic capacitor and choke at each end. This would only work with DC cameras. Put the caps in series from the video source to the center conductor and from the center conductor to the termination. At the junction of the cap and the center conductor, put a choke to the camera power input (+). At the other end, a choke to the power supply (+). Tie all grounds and (-) together to the shields. It might work. Sorry, I can't draw it.

I did that once and darned near killed myself. The chair went one way and I went the other. No, he's on stilts. And Axis cameras are infamous for their ugliness - the Yugo of CCTV!

AXIS Installation Monitor "Pocket PC user interface control AXIS Installation Monitor automatically discovers Axis network video products on the network. The installer can view the live camera images by using a Pocket PC while adjusting the focus, viewing angle and direction, and even the field of view for pan/tilt cameras. The built-in focus indicator makes the installation quick and efficient." Runs on a Pocket PC but you would still need to power the camera.

Veracity HIGHWIRE IP Over Coax

I'm pretty certain the GE/Kalatel KTD-312 will do the same thing as the Pelco CM9760-DMR and it is a bit cheaper: approximately $230-240 vs. Pelco's $400+. And no, you can not connect two controllers simultaneously to the same line. That could short out one or both since they may put a continuous DC voltage on the line, even if there is no control signal being sent.

Two words: passive baluns!

Some printers still have connectors for parallel printer hookups. Standard RS-232 serial printing is pretty much obsolete, having been replaced by USB.

Spectra III drives also have the electronics fan in the dome, not the back box. It was Spectra II that had the fan in the back box.

Sorry, haven't used them. We don't have a lot of need for WDR. Still, we did an experiment a few years ago with a few WDR cameras; trying to ID faces in an extreme backlight situation. Unfortunately, none of them provided acceptable results. The best images were from a Dallmeier DF3000AS-DN Ultra Wide Dynamic Range camera, but they are very expensive and we still had trouble with dark-skinned individuals. Second best was the Panasonic WV-CP484. The rest were totally useless. We did not try a Ganz because they didn't make a WDR box camera at the time.

We use the 5000 series domes in many areas of the casino for overviews and other non-critical and semi-critical applications. We do like the fact that they use CS mount lenses so we can swap them out if the lens doesn't cover the area of interest. And they use Computar lenses - one of the best. We often just substitute a manual iris lens for the included auto iris one because our lighting doesn't vary over time. Unfortunately, the lack of a defeatable AGC makes them unacceptable for critical applications like table games and slot machine reels. We seldom care about day/night because that is not a problem inside the casino. The 5000 series is not WDR - that is the 4000 series.

Ganz makes pretty good cameras. We use them in some applications.

Try Marshall Electronics. They make a number of both fixed and varifocal lenses for board cameras including a 4-8mm auto-iris lens. Also, Pentax makes a number of fixed and varifocal auto-iris board camera lenses. Marshall Electronics Lenses Pentax Board Camera Lenses

How long have these been in service and what are the environmental conditions? It sounds like they may have either slip ring issues or their positioning optical sensors are dirty or they have a problem with their Receiver/Driver PCB's. We've also seen power supply and cooling fan problems in Spectra III's. We repair ours in-house. Try doing a reset of the dome system by using <95> and going into the camera menu. Also try panning them several times both ways in turbo mode to see if the problem clears up. That may wipe any dirt off of the slip rings. If neither solution works, you can either repair them yourself or send them out for repair. I strongly suggest replacing the electronics cooling fan every two years. Time Lapse Supply sells them for $24.00. Besides Pelco, there are a few places that can repair Pelco PTZ's: Time Lapse Supply sells parts and services PTZ's and other CCTV products. This is where we buy our repair parts for Spectra domes (II, III and IV). Moore's Electronics repairs CCTV products. We used them before we started repairing PTZ's ourselves. Since we have well over 100 Spectra domes, the cost savings we realized by repairing them ourselves has been significant. Moore's charges about 2/3 what Pelco charges for the same repair and by repairing the PTZ's in-house we save nearly 1/3 over Moore's - a net savings of approximately 50% over Pelco's prices! I believe there are also other independent service companies.

Actually Soundy, there are a lot of 4CIF or D1(standard res) IP fixed and PTZ cameras made by Axis, Sony, Toshiba, Lorex, IQInVision, Trendnet and many others. Of course, there are also many megapixel IP cameras too. No they don't. For that you would need Pelco "M" protocol, which is what they use for keyboard-to-device communication. That's more proprietary and difficult to obtain; and of course, only works on Pelco units.

CCTV video comes in two flavors: * Analog or composite video is the same as standard definition video like TV. This would be NTSC or PAL, depending on your location. * IP is pure digital. You need a frame grabber or capture device to record analog video on a computer. IP video can be recorded directly; usually via the ethernet port on the computer or some cameras can connect directly to a USB port. Recording any video will take up some of your computer's resources. Since analog video must be encoded to digital to record on a computer, the recording will take more resources if done by the computer (in software) than IP digital. In either case, you will be taking up hard disk resources. edit: By the way, remote control broadcast-quality cameras would be darned expensive. You would be better off with a good CCTV camera mounted on a remote control toy. Use your imagination and a toy catalog. Otherwise, check out this link: Camera Robotics.

Why not just use a USB capture device. There are literally hundreds of them.

I'm not sure about a Mac but there are a number of PTZ control software manufacturers for PC computers. Perhaps they would work for a Mac in PC Emulator mode? Camfunction PTZ Controller 1.7 PTZ Pro

If you want to repair it yourself, you can obtain parts from Time Lapse Supply. We fix all of our Pelco PTZ's in-house and the savings are quite a bit! Spectra III fans are notorious for failing every two years or so, often taking out the electronics with them. You will probably have to buy the complete DD53KIT, which includes the power supply, fan and chassis. If the tilt gears are bad, they sell them too.

An excellent idea! You could program the MIDI to pan the camera up to your chimney when you play Jingle Bells