scorpion

How many devices do you have? One DVR. One computer, or do you have more? If you only have the DVR, and nothing else then you will not need any additional gear. I would recommend getting a static IP. If this is for a residence then you may have to get a business/commercial account. If you are only hooking up the DVR then you would use an ethernet cable to hook up the DVR to your netopia. You will have to find out what IP address is available to you, and that is what you will be putting in to the DVR. Once the IP address is put in to the DVR, and you have set up port fowarding then you shoud be able to see your videos from the internet right away. Will the netopia be next to the DVR, or will you have to run wiring to go from the netopia to where the DVR is going to be located? Have you tried downloading a manual from my webpage so that you can read about setting up a DVR on line? This will give you a starting point for reference, while you are deciding on what DVR to purchase.

http://icrealtime.com/solutions/dvrpage.asp?productid=dvr808fx

use the ethernet on the netopia. Just get a router for your pc, and your DVR.

Go to http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx and scroll down until you see a picture of a crimp on, and a compression connector. You can down load the pdf of your choice, or both for comparison. For the crimp on, you can use those $10.00 tools that look like this... http://www.levitonproducts.com/catalog/model_40988.htm?sid=DFEEB0996B7CC25A81FAC039B754C9D7&pid=1208 If you go compression then buy the best tool you can afford, and do not skimp even though it may be a one time use. Do you have a friend who is a cable installer for broadband/tv? I have used crimp on, twist on, and compression. Quick, easy, get in/get out, and cheap then I default to crimpon. I would tell you to use a razor knife to cut the RG 59 rather than a tool that might cost you $25.00. Compression might be a little more difficult unless you can afford to "waste" some fittings while you practice. twist ons you can figure out with 2, or 3 tries.

Welcome to the threads! Here is some of my ramblings to bore you with. There is more in the ARTICLES section. I wish you the best of luck in your new endevour! http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=31 http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=44 See you on the forum!

Ebay syndrome! Stay back, and watch what happens then make your move at the last moment to get what you want!

Yes. I would like to know the same.

Hello! I take it you work with IP/Computers? See you on the forum!

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

This puzzles me as well. Is this contest open to everyone on the WWW? I am wondering if people who travel through the site think the contest is only for us "locals" on the forum?

If the hacker is such a lame, then what was the website's weakness that left them open to this attack? I am curious as I would not want this to happen to my website. I have no control over the security of my site.

There is no better feeling then when the police dept is showing a picture to the "culprit", and they are asking is this you? Everyone to include the "culprit" knows that it is him, and what can the "culprit" say? It was my twin brother! I do not want to go to jail, but I do not want to rat on my twin brother either!!! As to the T intersection. Which way is the entrance to your section of the neighborhood? Do you enter, and exit from the T area, or do you enter, and exit from the bottom of the picture? If there was some kind of event, and the exit is to the bottom of the picture than you will want to point the camera in that direction. I also sell custom bird houses that I use to discuise cameras. They have "license plates" over the roof so that I can make them custom with Pro Sports, College, and many other varieties.

Make sure you purchase cameras that have distances of more than 30 feet of IR. 50 to 60 feet at least! I concur with everything that KIWI says.

You could build a mailbox that works as a traditional mailbox, and it can have one camera inside of it on the backside that faces up the street, and another one that face down the street. Now you do not have to spend as much money on cameras. You just need to get the cameras close to the "subject". You will have to trench, and conduit (use the kind used in sprinkler systems rather than 10 foot sections that have to be glued with fittings. The sprinkler style does not have any "breaks" every ten feet, and you do not have to worry about water intrusion). You will want to use burial RG 59 siamese inside the conduit. On the house I would use three cameras if not more. I would have two wide angle cameras to cover the whole front of the house, and one telephoto for facial recognition, and the two in the mailbox for up, and down views. I would use 6mm bullets inside the mailbox to avoid distance distortion that you would get with wide angle cameras. You can use cameras on the sides, and backyard now, or you can add them on later. I would recommend a camera that has a 4mm to 50mm vari focal lens to watch the car in the street. All of your cameras should be vari focal if you bump up your budget a little. Vari focal will make your system more flexable. An unexpected situation will come up sometime in the near future. Vari Focal will allow your system to "adapt" to the new situation, and when that "threat" is over you can put your system back to the way it was. I would recommend an 8 channel DVR. You may not use all of the channels for now, but it is great to have that add on capablility! Perhaps a megapixal camera would be better to watch the front of the house. This will allow you to get better detail without as many cameras. Do not let crappy video throw you in to defeat! Better to have some video, rather than no video. You would be surprised at what goes on around your house when you are not at home. Ask Scruit from the forum. He has video of a mailman pissing in his bushes! Busted Caught on "tape", and the sound of the "tinkeling" adds more to the evidence!! What do you think?

Info in PM

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

I can relate to that! I hate cat 5 in the box if it does not have the reel! I seem to catch every "knot" in the cat 5. As long as I do not have new tech who would rather give it the yank, instead of uncurling the loop, then I am good to go.

There is no way to get rid of the "image bending" That is part of the mm setting of the lens. I am surprised at how much of a curve you have in the posted image. It appears that the camera is about 12 feet from the wall. It appears that the wall is about 10 feet wide? You can manipulate the curve in the video by moving the camera upwards. The image appears to be at a smaller setting then the 4mm you posted. 6mm setting will not have any noticable curvature in the video, but you will not have as much periphereal vision either.

OH! I need a bigger solenoid!

I have a solenoid with a chocolate glaze donut attached. When the alarm is triggered, the outside solenoid waves the donut back, and forth, and some how the police dept shows up immeaditly! Sometimes more than several patrol cars respond! Now what to do about my ant problem!

AS Collin R, and DVRMAN says. You should just insert the harddrive (please with the power off), and it should just be plug, and play. It does not need to be formatted by the DVR, and there is no OS on the hard drive that has to be "loaded". It does not need to be preformatted. I use Western Digital Caviars, and I have had no problems (except for the very first time I tried to do a hot swap with the DVR powered on. Drive crashed, but the DVR worked fine). I have some questions. It appears that you have a manual from what you mentioned. So that is the first question answered. What do you see on the screen? I assume that the DVR is working fine. You can see the crosshatch of multiple cameras, and you can see your camera videos, and the time / date is correct? Can you go into the menu, and go to the various listings? This tells me that the power supply is working, and the heart of the DVR is working. It may be a power supply issue. It could be supply that gives you the low voltage that plugs in to the back, or it could be an internal power supply problem. If you do not see the cross hatch, and your videos than it is def the power supply, (or could be the cpu). Where did you buy the DVR?

You will have to have a seperate power supply for each camera. Simple bullet cameras will require a 12 volt power supply, and you can use the "wall" warts to supply the camera with power. For multiples of cameras then you will want a power supply box where each camera connection has its own fuse, or resettable fuse. If you have a problem on one camera (or wire) then the other cameras will not go down. What kind of fuse box are you talking about? 120 volt circuits? Where else would you get power on a construction site? There are starter kits that use telephone jacks for video, and power, and they do plug in to the back of a monitor. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TYPE OF A SYSTEM FOR YOUR NEEDS. When you want to make changes, or add ons, or upgrades you will not be able to as you are stuck with phone jacks!!! MAKE SURE EVERYTHING HAS BNC CONNECTORS, or at least RCA jacks. Using the Dell monitor is going to be DVR dependent. Does the Dell have a composite input (yellow input connector)? ****** You would be much better off hiring a company to provide you a site survey, your products, and tech support! ****** The weakest link is going to be the lens selection. Wide angle lenses are designed to pull in the far left, and the far right periphereal vision. Things in the distance is not of relevance with this lens selection. Objects in the distance will appear smaller in the video than in real life. If you see someone in the video their face will be so small at a certain distance that you will not be able to recognize the person. Wide angle lenses are great for the whole picture. You can see where a crook came on site, and you can see where he walks up on items around the yard, and you can see how he approaches the building. This will give you the travel path. Having another camera trained on a spot where you can capture their face will give you "the who done it" video. The problem with lenses for facial recognition is that you do not see much "area" in the video. Having a combination of cameras, (or lenses) will give you the whole story. You say that you want to be able to "jump" from site to site. This would be rather difficult per se. Do you have a trailer that you can tow from site to site? You could set up everything in the trailer. You will have to hide the equipment, (but not in a way that hinders airflow to the equipment). You will have to use lock boxes as well. You may want to install a battery back up system in case they cut the power. You can go to a spy shop, and you can buy a simple GPS device where you can use a computer to draw a map, and show you right where your trailer is if it is stolen. Another design would be to have ATT (or what ever phone company is in your area) provide a static IP modem, and you can use IP cameras. Now you can mount the cameras on a pole, and then you can move the cameras from site to site. The cameras will send the video somewhere else for recording. I would recommend cameras that have a smart card, or some kind of internal storage. You will be able to see video footage from the camera if the internet went down, (or was cut down). If you are really macho then you can just yank the 4 X 4 post out of the ground, and take it to another site, and dig a hole! LOL! Any manufacture to stay away from? Thats a hard one to say. Some installers like "chevy", and some like "ford" so you will allways have those kind of "opinions". Professional installers will never recommend DIY, or starter kits, such as what you will find at the "big box store", or "warehouse". You have seen enough of the gas station video on the news to understand what I mean. But then again at entry level price levels it is better to have something, then nothing! So you will see alot of these opionions as well. The environment will dictate what kind of DVR to use, and what kind of cameras to use. Matching DVRs to the Cameras make a difference too. I love phillips screwdrivers, but if you have a flat screw you will not get the job done, and vise versa. An installer has a large assortment of "tools" at his disposal to match each situation, and site design! I have seen brutally expensive DVRs set up for the wrong job, and I have had someone hire me to fix his system! I am honest. I could swap the DVR for a cheap one, and get him going with his system, and take the expensive DVR, but I depend on recommendations, and referals. Could you imagine if you hired someone that would "steal" your expensive DVR instead of explaining the situation to you? Then again residential homes do not need each camera that costs $2000 each, and a $5000.00 DVR! I would not want to put a cheap camera, and DVR system to watch the headquarters of the C.I.A. either! I am not helping on your selection am I? If you were to hire me to help you then I would have you send me the web links to goole where I can see your construction site. I can make my evaluations, and product recommendations, and "I can see what you see". As for the $2000.00 price tag that is barey going to get you started. This will get you a four camera system easily with a entry level system, and you can get decent DVRs with 3 year warranty. But if you are doing your installation then it is doable. You may need a vandal resistant dome like this for example rather than a bullet. Where are you located? You may need heaters, or blowers, or both for the cameras. http://avssys.net/?s=product&sub=camera&cat=ir&p=vnd49ir _____________________________________________________________ Here is some more info if you are doing it yourself: How to run wires in attics, and drywal walls. http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=48 How to trouble shoot camera problems! http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=42 Here is how to fix your video source problems! http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=41 There is more if you click on the upper left ARTICLES How else can I help you? P.S. Happy New Year Everyone!

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

Which one do you work for? You can PM if you need.

Now for the fun part! Connecting the alarm system, and the surveillance system together to tighten the layers of security! Do you do video verification? It appears the police around our parts treat burglar alarm calls in the same catagory as "barking dog call". Verified alarm has really changed the industry, and has allevated the the respoce level! What has been your experience?