scorpion

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/bellsouth

That is a tough one to answer. I do not think they send cease, and desist letters up front do they? I would use the Burger king logo, and then you can use that as a way to back off from the gangs. At least Burger King would have a law firm send you "the letter". I am not familiar with the gangs, and I would not want to be the one to desrespect their logo, and I would change my logo to the opposite of everything their logo appears. I would look for something that appears more British Royalty in appearance.

LOL! I stick to my minor player league's crap as long is there is a market, demand, and I can make a profit, and I can make a customer happy! LOL!

Great! Sounds Good! I would mask off those trees, and shrubs that move with the wind as well. Have a Happy New Year!

I truley do not know. I have never ran one camera off of a 16 channel device. I would imagine there would be some "overhead" due to 16 channels. I would say that 5 days of recording would sound "normal" even though you are only using one camera. Then again it depends on the settings. I assume you are running the highest level of quality "BEST", and that you are set at 25A fps. "A" meaning audio. Take it down one notch, and see if the audio might be storing "noise" even though you do not have any mics hooked up to it. What do you have the "alarm duration" set at? One minute? Go to menu, then go to System, then go to alarm duration, and change it to 10, or 15 seconds of record time, on activation. Is this camera mounted outside, and pointed at a busy road? You would be recording for one minute every time a car came by, plus the redundant audio noise. Make those tweaks, and lets see what happens! I do not know how much gigabytes of information it stores on a daily basis for one camera. I would have to agree with you that it does seem short for only 5 days of recording. I am wondering if it is more of a situation where it records so many "units" of activity, and you are filling up pages, and pages of activity. Once you have filled so many "units", and maxed out the pages of recording it may not record anymore than the maximum number of units that it can hold. Could it be that it is still recording, but it is not included in the full list? If not then the list is full, and no other recordings can take place. What do you think?

It has been slowly going down hill lately starting about a year ago. I use do to do 15 - 20 installs a month in just CCTV alone, and now anyone can google "cheap 4 channel DVR" and up pops on the screen is what should be dealer cost, and yet they are selling to the public direct. I can assume that there are alot of "speculators/investors" out there buying cheap, and selling high direct form asia. I fear that the market will end up being oversaturated with products. I wonder how long before I see DVRs at Wally World. I will cry if I am getting gas at a convenience store, and at the check out counter I see DVRs for sale next to the DVD movies, and energy pills! YIKES! The investors do not care about CCTV, or whether I live, and die by this business. Once the market goes bust then they just move on to something else to make their money on. I do like that the average joe is becoming aware of CCTV, and there will be a day where every house will have a system. I see a future in new installs, upgrades, and service contracts. As to having an analog monitor: Entry level price / Entry level design: I think this market is going to depend on CRT monitors until there is no longer a market left for CRT, and LCD can overtake the CRT view for view. Any daycare, home nursing care, residential surveillance, bar, nightclub for the most part do want to see it on a CRT. Some of it is due to economical, some of it is due to lack of education. Why would a bar want to invest in computers at every point that they want to view the cameras. I consider it a good day when I walk in, for a site survey, and they actually have an internet connection! Corporate installs / Security is of the essence installation: I believe this market would be wasting it time, and money installing CRT monitors. I think it becomes a dual backbone system of viewing. You have all of these computers sitting about, and you want to go out, and buy 2, 3, or more monitors to view a surveillance system? Using on hand computers would be so much more efficient, and cost effective. On the arguement point I think it is more of a matter of perspective then technology, or economics. My perspective is entry level residential market. The last thing I want is to mix CCTV with entry level computer that is used by the teenagers who are loading every P2P, free game download, and free music download, and then have them click the yellow bar where it say "would you like to enhance your web browsing experience"? I can only look down, and shake my head when people want to do this kind of system. When I am working for a client that has a server room, and in house IT staff, no matter how small the company may be, they get it about protecting themselves, the desk top, and the server/servers, and there is no fear mixing CCTV with computers. Now you just have to smooth out the feathers of the freaked out IT guy who thinks you are going to suck every bandwith out of his precious "baby", and you are now the "new enemy". As to CCTV guys who choose to stay analog, or to move towards the future of technological advances: that is a hard one to argue about. No one seems to care about all of the elevator operators who's job it was to stand in an elevator, and pressing a lever in one direction for up, and the other direction for down. What seperated the "MEN", from the "boys" was that one could release the lever on "cue" to have the elevator level to the floor at the get off point. I remember in the late 80's where professional photographers were up in arms as SLR cameras were being introduced with built in computers to take the "perfect shot". They thought is was the end of the world to their careers. Who would need a professional photographer now? I look at most people's pictures, and they still look like crap no matter how many pixals, and how fast the computer chip, or how much fuzzy logic they build in to a camera. Now you do not have to manually screw up your shot with to many settings, and Fstops , and buttons ect. No one seems to care about the guy who used to carry "THE KEY", at the gas stations who would go around and reset the gas pumps back to zero so that you could pump your gas, and you would always get stuck with the guy who was a "chatter box", and would not end a dumb conversation with the client whose gas tank was full, oil was checked, and the windshield was squeeged clean. Where are they now? The developers who failed to adopt to automated elevators did not stop building skyscrapers, and gas stations did not fold if they failed to adapt to the newer pumps. Maybe composite video will be replaced by RGB, (or HDMI, or DVI), but I for see analog to be around for some time to come. On the other hand those video surveillance shops that fail to understand, or to learn the basics of the IP, or those that fail to create some kind of partnership of those in the know of IP will close up, and go away. Future system will finally become linkable with plug, and play alarm system, CCTV system, time and attendance, and electronic access. Rory is not demanding an expensive IP camera to be sold at $50.00. I would want to see an entry level IP camera to be sold at $50.00 so that there is a glut of IP cameras on the market which will spur the transition from analog to digital. I look at the cable company. The have one cable coming down from a telephone pole, (or up from the ground from a burial system), and they have analog signals, digital signals, HD signals, IP signals, and telephone, and in some cases multiline telephone, plus the cable boxes are talking back, and forth to their systems. Based on this, it makes me wonder what could a digital camera do if it could send multiple pieces of information to a "DVR" of the future, and the DVR could talk back to the camera! I would love to see a vari focal camera that sits in wide angle mode until it detects "something" that makes it telephoto in for more information, or for a facial shot, and I do not mean after the fact like you would do with megapixal cameras today when you need the "detail". I would be the first to say that most IP surveillance people are beginners in the CCTV field. I would be the first to say that most CCTV people are beginners in the IP field. It is amazing how an IT tech can screw up such a simple CCTV installation, and then there is the CCTV tech who does not even know how to do in IPCONFIG, or to reset a modem, or a router, or does not even know what 192.168.1.1 means!! CCTV is afraid that the IT's are going to take their jobs away, and the IT's think that they can just pound a drywall screw in to a wall with a tack hammer, and the install is done. What we really need to do is to teach each other our craft, and enlarge both of our markets, and get rich, and retire at a young age, and.. OH I am rambling again! Right Rory? LOL!

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

Welcome to the threads! See you on the forum!

Starving Tiger! LOL! Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Try doing it yourself on the tweaking, and see what it looks like from there. You can always call the pro later. You should be allright!

I would recommend this type of setup. http://www.channelvision.com/pdf/flyers/affinitycut.pdf The link did not work at 720 pm eastern time 12/25/07 but you can try it tomorrow.

Hello! Merry Christmas! I noticed that you pick a low budget DVR for security purposes. As long as you are aware of the pros, and the cons of this particular system then you should be able to get some mileage out of it. I saw your post yesterday, and I did not reply as I have never sold this DVR, and thought it better for someone else to take your post. Since noone has posted due to the holidays I figured I would chime in with my opinion. The biggest problem with these DIY "kits" is that they use wide angle cameras, and then when someone requires "facial recognition" they feel as if they have been cheated because they cannot get any recognition at all from the system. The DVR is the first to be blamed, but that is usually the wrong place for the blame. Wide angle camera are designed to pull in the left, and the right peripheral side views. In doing so things at a distance will end up appearing farther away. Imagine if you will that you are bowing the video to get more of the left, and the right, now any thing at 20 feet is going to appear real small in the video. You have bought cameras that are fari focal! This is great! I love it when systems can be flexible to change with different needs, and situations. As to the DVR I would have you open it up, and find out what kind of hard drive you have. You may need to upgrade it. This is going to be one of the weak links in your system. Remember that this drive is going to be running 24/7, and I would not want a hard drive that was designed for occasional use in a desk top. As for your camera locations I would say hook up your cameras to a 13 color tv with composite input (yellow connector), and then get up on a ladder. What does the camera view look like in the monitor? Do this at night to see how the IR works as well. For Jacksonville I would say that you may not need the heater, but you may want the blower for July/August. If you can run a seperate wire for the heater/blower then I would say do so. If ever one of your power wire goes bad then you may have an emergencey back up wire. Down the road things may change, and you may not be able to pull more wire to fix future problems. If you can do so down the road then that is even better. It would be determined by what kind, and quality of the first wire you ran. How much will your camera draw? How much will the heater/blowers draw? What is the gauge of the two conductor that came with your siamese wire? How long will the run be? You can always run a higher voltage at the input to make up for your voltage drop. I would say put inline fuses in the enclosure. The specs on the MACE say 200 feet of IR. I do not know how much of that is true, but this way be over bearing inside of a garage. You can always plug it in to a 13" monitor, and give it a try. I do not know why the 735 is cheaper than the 721A. Is it on sale? Is this the same with other vendors? I do not sell these cameras, so I cannot tell you why. Why would you hire a professional to come out to adjust your system? I would say hire a professional from the start. With a proper site survey comes proper product selection. I do not recommend such, and such camera. I look at the environment, and I let the environment dictate what kind of equipment should be placed. Would I recommend having someone come out to adjust it. Yes! I would. How much will it cost. Someone will come out for the right money. If you offered my $20.00 to do it then I would have to decline. My Tundra will drink $20.00 getting there, and back just traveling locally!! If they charge you less then $50.00 an hour then is he a fly by night, or does he have low overhead? I do not like to see less than 4 days of recording. If something were to happen on a friday, and you found out about it on a monday then there is 3 days of recording already! What if it happened last wed? You will only know about a robbery if they trashed the place. How much cash do you have around the house. The more cash/jewelry the more professional the criminal. He may want as much time to "get away" before you call the police, and search every pawn shop, and jewelry dealer looking for your stuff! If they trash the place then they want it to look like a robbery, and there may be other motives involved. It could be just bored teens wanting to "baseball" bat your belongings who knows! I like how you think!!! Security is layers upon layers. Locking doors, and windows is the first line of defense. Having an alarm system (even if it is not monitored, and it just sounds a siren) is another layer to your security. Having proper lighting, and cutting back landscaping in key areas is another layer. Having a dog is another layer. They are great for low threat situations to bark, and notify you of someones presence, but do not use a "family pet" for higher threat situations. It is bad enought to get robbed, and worse to find out that someone poisoned "fluffy" in the process. One can always install land mines that are use for paint ball "wars". If someone came in to your back yard to get to a window, or such the mine will go off splattering him/her with colored paint. If the police respond right away, and they find someone that is suspicious, then they can be identified as the culprit as they are splattered, and busted!! You do not have to worry about injuring someone, as if you had used some kind of booby trap. I like the idea that your garage door is open by 18' or so. What was your address again? This may be a vulnerable point for you. Do you lock the entry door from the garage to the house? Do you have a pull down attic stair? Do you have dewalt tools in there, or a generator? Yes? Where did you say you lived again? I would have you check your recorded footage on a daily basis. I am not saying to look at every moment of footage, but at least verify that is recording day to day. At the worst check it a least once a week. I see it often where someone has an issue (does not have to be a robbery as it could be just some kind of simple question), and the DVR was not recording. I also recommend UPS with good line filtration. We have lots of lightning in Florida, and your DVR will last longer with the best UPS you can afford. It is bad enough that we get brown outs, and spikes from the power company! UPS will give your system the juice it needs while the power is down. Here is someone from Jacksonville from the forum. http://www.cctvforum.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5460 Sorry I could not answer your questions better.

Have you resolved your gprs problems?

You have set the hard drive to over write. This tells me that you have a manual, and that you have set up the DVR. If you do not have a manual then you can go to my website, and you can download it. If you had all sixteen cameras hooked up to it then it would be normal for you to only have 2 1/2 days of recording. I agree with Gyro Gearloose's post. The LED flickering means that there is data going to, or coming from the hard drive. This is normal. It should not be flickering if the record light is off. Do you have this DVR set for motion? Is there a lot of activity in front of this camera? I was wondering if you could mask off some areas that are triggering the detection, such as bushes, and branches that are seen by outdoor cameras, or if you could mask off areas where people are sitting, or walking but out of the area that you are wanting to record the action on indoor cameras? Go to page 14 of the manual. The section that says RECORD. In the far right column you will set it for EVENT, or NORMAL, or OFF. On channels 2 - 16 select OFF. If you need to make changes to the detection area, or to mask off an area you will need to press enter twice. This is where you will see the camera view with an overlay. If I remember right * are non recording, and O will activating recording. You may also want to get a larger hard drive, or insert another one in the second bay. (Note to others! Turn off the DVR as the hard drives are not hot swappable, and you will fry the hard drives if you remove them with power on).

For those of you who want to try it go to my website and down load the manual for the AVC 760 (CPCam 501) if you do not have a copy. Go to page 52, and you will see the chart that has the function, and the hex code equivalent, and the ASCII equivalent. Page 51 has the pin outs for the RS 232 TX, and RX Let me know if you made it work!

You will need the original VCR. If there are any flaws in the head, or if it was misaligned then the original VCR will be the only one to give you the video. What is the make, and model of the time lps VCR? You may have to rent that exact model to play back your video. I do not know of a service that would do this. You would have to keep every VCR ever made to provide that kind of service.

I would be interested in seeing what happens to your experiments. I have never tried it.

I can hang a really big Christmas Stocking up on my mantel!

PM sent.

http://avssys.net/?s=product&sub=camera&cat=ir&p=vnd49ir Also I install these: http://eclipsecctv.com/ECL-599_security_camera.html This is what I use on entry level residential installs. It is not a fantastic camera, but for the price it does what it needs to do. I prefer the VND49IR camera as it is waterproof, vandal resistant, and it is varifocal 4mm - 9 mm. I like this one very much as it has 50 feet of IR.

Yes Bullets, and Dome cameras come with vari focal lenses. Vari focal lenses are great for down the road when your surveillance needs may change. With vari focal lenses then the camera can adjust to your new requirments, which makes your system very flexible, and adaptable. In the cheaper models you will have to get up on a ladder, and you will have to manually change the settings. Others can be controlled by Pelco protocall, but they are more expensive. There are some cameras that can be controlled with a hand held "remote" that is wired back to the camera. If you want to controll the camera with a DVR, then you want a DVR that can control a PTZ (Pan, Tilt, and Zoom) camera. The Camera will need to have Pelco protocall. Now you can control the camera with the DVR, and you can control the camera remotely over the internet. I would not worry about the time frame of how long IR LEDs will last. They last pretty long depending on the quality. There are some that may last over 10,000 hours. All infrared is going to be invisible as it is out of our visible spectrum for our eyes to see. The IR LEDs will put off a slight red glow. Not enough to notice, but you can see it on the cameras. All you have to do is put on night vision goggles, and you can find every IR camera without even trying! Why even bother to hide them? I would be more concerned about having vandal proof, then I would be about hiding them. You can always hide the cameras in a birdhouse if you need too.

When I am looking at jobs I give it a security rating. For example a residential house with no major cash stored in a safe, or expensive electronics would get a lower rating then a residence with large amounts of cash, and expensive home entertainment gear would get a higher rating. It looks like in your case you have a very high rating. I would imagine that employees would be pilfering your products, as well of people would be wanting to break in to steal your stock. I would highly recommend that you hire a company to have them come in, and do a site survey, recommend the equipment, have them do the installation, and provide tech support when things fail. Why would someone just walk off the job?? He was facing a certain amount of frustration. Was he new off the street, and not trained in CCTV, and he got overwhelmed?

Wow! Thank will look impressive on the wall!

What you really need to do is to hire a local company to come out, and do a site survey, have them select the cameras, and have them do the installation. Trying to save some money, and do it yourself? Oh boy! I get to start a new novel!! http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=48 http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=42 http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=41 If you are selecting bullet cameras then here is what I recommend. This is not scientific, and it is only for reference, and the environment is going to dictate the equipment more so than the camera product. For night time use, and you are using inexpensive bullet cameras then you will need to measure from where you think you are going to mount the camera, and measure the distance to where you want to capture video. Take this measurement, and double it for the IR distance. If I measure from the camera out to 15 feet then a 30 foot IR camera should work. You do not want someone standing at the 30 foot mark as the IR level goes down with distance. If you stand in front of the camera then your face is going to be washed out from the IR illuminators. If you stand at 30 feet I doubt that you will see anything. At 15 feet this should give you decent (not perfect nighttime video). If you measured 60 feet from the camera then you need a serious camera! You will need something like 120 feet of IR. There are several different kinds of IR LEDs. Some throw the IR wide, but not very far. Some throw the IR very far, and it is in a narrow beam, but you cannot see anything on the sides of the video, (think of a bright flashlight). What you will really want is to have a combination of the two. Now you can see to the left, and the right of your video, and you can see deep into the picture. Lots of overhanging limbs, and bush to the left, and to the right is going to make the IR work better, as it has something to bounce off of. Just think about going to get the family picture. See how they have all of those "umbrellas" with lights in them? This is to bounce the light in to multiple directions, and if give a more realistic quality to the picture, and not like the crappy shot from the diposable camera with a flash! ___________________________________________________________ Before you do an installation buy yourself a camera that is varifocal from 4mm to whatever you can afford, (12mm is fine). Take a 13 color TV that has the yellow video input on the front, or the back (composite video), and hook up your camera to the TV. Now stand on a ladder, and hold the camera about where you want to mount it. Look at the TV. Are you happy??? Try various areas for mounting, you may surprise yourself! Do not forget to do this in the dark, and compare night time video with IR. You will want to start at the 4mm, or at a wide angle setting. You can see alot to the left, and to the right. Here is a problem that you may need to know. You cannot watch anything past 20 feet from the camera. At 4mm lens anything that is at 20 feet will actually appear farther away in the video then in reality!! To gain the peripheral vision we are "bowing" the video, and that is where things at a distance look even further. So much for facial recognition!! Now zoom in to the 12 mm setting. You can see someone at the street side of your house, but you cannot see to the right of your yard, or to the left of your yard. Now you have tunnel vision!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! Now what do you do?? Try to find a happy medium. Try 6mm. You will not have the wide angle distortion, and you will not have tunnel vision either. If you are going to have a 4 camera installation then remember that there are going to be "holes" in your surveillance system. Install the cameras to your advantage. Do you have a wall that has no windows, such as along the garage, or on the side of your house?? You may want to sacrifice putting a camera here so that you can use it somewhere else where it is needed. You will want to have two cameras for the front yard, and one in the back, and now you have to pick which side of the house you will put the fourth one! Here is a trick that I do. Imagine a house with a garage to one side (right), and the front door is in the center of the house. I will mount the camera just to the left of the front door, and I will aim it at the driveway. What I have is the view of the cars in the driveway, and I can see who approaches the front door. I cannot see who is standing AT the front door only who walked up to it. Some burglars will ring the front door to see if someone is home, then they go around back, and they break in. Do not mount past the IR distance of the camera, or you will not have video of someone around your cars at night! On the side of the house that has a gate this is where you will want to put your camera. You have a great place to catch a facial shot! There is only one way in!! If you do not have a fence then plant some trees, and some bushes to create a "choke" point where they have to walk along a certain path so that you can catch a facial shot. If you are in to wood working then make a "garden trellis" ( I call it a short fence) with some 2X4s, and some lattice. Now you can make a choke point. If you feel that you have to hide the cameras then make a birdhouse, and hide the cameras inside! If someone is scouting your property then they will just think that you are a bird lover! You can hide cameras in a dog house also. Another trick is to hide cameras behind screen material. You can paint the front side, but do not fill in the holes with the paint. You can make a frame for the screen, and you can mount it on the aframe of your house in the attic area. Now you can mount the camera behind the screen, and no one will be able to see it. Becareful as you do not rain water getting inside your attic. You may want to create louvers for the frame.