Javik

What's the newest DVR software for the GV2008, and that works with the card without needing to do any firmware flashing of the card? We have the 8.2 software already.

In general there is no problem continuing to run Windows XP or Server 2003 as long as your hardware will run it. The main issue is that Microsoft security fixes will end, so you should stop using it on the Internet as a general desktop operating system, and only use it for the specific purpose you need it. Do not enable remote desktop. Use the machine behind a firewall that is separate from Windows XP itself. Also don't install any additional software that you don't absolutely need for Geovision to function. More software that is not used, just exposes more vulnerabilities. So if you don't need NET 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, Silverlight, Bing Bar, etc, then don't install them even if Windows updates suggests installing them. If you absolutely must have remote desktop access to Windows XP, then do it through a VPN, so that it is not accessible from just anyone who randomly finds its public network address.

Is it possible to have some sort of temporary storage of recorded IP network camera data at a remote site, in case a wireless bridge fails or a leased line has communications problems? Basically the idea here is that if for some reason the link to the main site with the NVR goes down or is intermittent, there could be a temporary cache that spools up the recordings until the network link is available again. The cache would then rapidly disgorge all stored data over the link to the destination (as long as the connection remains stable) until its cache is empty. The cache would not normally store or archive data, separate from the central NVR storage. I'm not looking for a $10,000+ complete integrated solution, but rather more like a $250+ drop-in box usable with existing systems, or possibly even open-source Linux, using a generic dual-LAN motherboard and a hard drive.

I'm trying to help someone set up a small 10-20 camera rural CCTV system amongst several separate buildings about 300 ft apart. In general my plan is to install cameras under the roof eaves around the building edges. They don't want to be trenching cable or stringing wire on poles, though they do understand the need for at least power wiring to each camera. In general, which of these will be less expensive and more reliable? All-wireless solution: - All wifi IP cameras, but running power cords to each camera - Omnidirectional wireless range extender / bridge boxes at nearest corners of buildings - NVR connected to a central access point for the wifi All-wired solution: - All wired POE IP cameras - Wired POE switches in remote buildings - Wired to wireless bridge extenders to span between buildings - NVR on main wired network I expect that an all-wired IP POE route will be both less expensive and more reliable, than trying to use wireless-everything. The all-wifi omnidirectional route seems to have the potential for random dropouts that cannot be diagnosed, plus also the possibility of spectrum saturation if say more than 20 cameras are used.

Well, I see it is definitely a lot easier to install fixed position cameras if I can carry around a portable video display to plug into the camera and check it right there in the hallway. This works way better than calling back to the server room over a radio and saying "move it up a little", "left a little", etc. However, doing this onsite testing with an old CRT monitor is a major pain. Need a cart. Need a long power cord for the cart, etc. I'd be much better off with a portable battery-powered LCD monitor. I don't really see much for high-resolution portable LCD monitors, but there are plenty of portable DVD players available which just so happen to have A/V inputs on the side. Any recommendations for particular portable video monitors? I know the cheapest DVD players and monitors use a super-low resolution LCD so the picture quality isn't much better than about 320x240 (4:3). I'd prefer a better display capable of 640x480 for good image focus and detail, but of course this pushes up the portable LCD price. ,

Well, I tried putting a GV2008 into a Dell PowerEdge 2900. It cannot be done, due to the GV2008 being a 5-volt 32-bit PCI card, and the PowerEdge having a 3.3v 64-bit slot. The slot keying prevents this from working at all. From Wikipedia: Oh well, at least the Dell PE2900 server is off the list of possible options for the GV2008 anyway. - Javik

Sorry, but the Geovision user interface totally blows and you will probably not get it to do what you want. You're going to have to get used things being done in a totally un-Windowslike fashion with Geovision. Remember, a screen saver, yes, a screen saver will crash the capture software, and they apparently do not regard this as a bug, so this isn't your typical sort of Windows program here. Apparently the Geovision programmers never read the Windows API specification far enough to understand how to implement title bars and movable program windows, so you're probably going to have to live with it on your primary display. (This is not an insult by the way, but a simple statement of how the software works for the unfortunately uninitiated.)

This was supposed to be a Geovision Tested System but all it does is crash over and over, claiming memory failures that do not appear when the RAM is tested on a different motherboard, or when the Geovision software is not running. Motherboard: DFI P35-T2RL (Blood Iron series) CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 VGA: ASUS X2600XT 256meg DDR4 Memory: Crucial Ballistix 800mhx DDR2, 2 x 1 gig, since I could not find this "Apcer" company they list for memory Geovision: 2 x GV2008 Geovision software version: 8.2 OS: Windows XP SP3 with all available updates Case: Supermicro rackmount with 800 watt server power supply The motherboard is basically an Overclocker's dream come true, with utterly bizarre clocking controls in the BIOS that practically require an electrical engineer to understand, and in some cases do not offer a "default" configuration choice so I've no way of knowing how it should be set. "BIOS Failsafe" mode still fails. Underclocking the CPU for stability reasons still fails. Hooking up the Geovision auto-reset-button function still fails, because the motherboard frequently hangs in a state of a high pitched shrieking where even reset does not function and the only option is a forced held-power-button powerdown. It is totally confusing. I ran the motherboard for a straight week running the MemTest86 boot CD, but the system bombs into a hard shrieking hang after only a few days of running 16 camera monitoring. The motherboard is a pile of junk as far as I can determine but I built it following Geovision's tested systems specifications. Boy this has sure given me confidence in Geovision's own system testing methods. Geovision's tech support people claim they don't have time to test their video hardware in mainstream servers from the likes of Dell or IBM or Sun, but somehow they have time to test out a totally oddball motherboard that only a hardware hacking overclocker could possibly care about. Please explain this, will you Geovision? Oh, and I must say, this "Blood Iron" board sounds like a real professional system for use in a school, oh yeah.. .

I bought a COP-USA CD55 outdoor speed dome, and I'm planning to use it with a Geovision 8.2 system. I do have it set up and working from within Geovision, but I do not see a way to to access the menu system of the camera from within the Geovision software. That involves sending special custom control commands to the camera over the RS485 bus, which Geovision either does not support (or I cannot find it in the lousy GV config menus). I assume I could get a separate program vaguely like Hyperterminal, and just directly talk to the camera over the RS485 bus, setting it up with a standard NTSC monitor. It looks like a very simple and free program could do everything I need. However this type of program is totally unknown to me, and as far as I can tell Windows Hyperterminal will not work to talk to the camera, since there's no way to specify the camera address on the RS485 bus attached to the COM port. - Javik

If this DVR is going into a commercial business, you cannot install loose high voltage power cord above a drop ceiling without it being in conduit. This includes that power cord on the DVR device. Low voltage cabling is exempt from conduit (under 48 volts) above drop ceilings, but the DVR doesn't run on 48 volts. Also, stuff installed bare above drop ceilings usually needs to be plenum-rated in the event of a fire. Plenum grade equipment is major expensive. At minimum you'd need a a big steel box to hold the DVR, with power conduit running to the steel box and a power outlet accessible only from inside the box for the DVR. The containment box is then screwed/locked shut with the DVR installed. The electrical and fire code rules can be really arcane and cumbersome. I haven't a clue if ventilating holes are permitted for a steel device containment box installed above a drop ceiling. There are so many ways a building inspector could fail this that to me it'd be a major hassle to try putting a DVR up in a drop ceiling. So you're just putting the DVR up there in that hidden space on a wooden shelf? Um, no. - Javik

yeah, old thread. Oh well. Playing with gamma, contrast and brightness reveals four fixed-position cameras, probably panoramic fisheye lenses.... and it looks like there may be a pivoting up/down PTZ tucked into the slot on the left side. Can you go take some more pictures of each slot, zooming in? So, it has a four-camera panorama view for general recording of everything, and spin the entire dome to point your PTZ at your specific target(s) of interest. - Javik

Most electronics are washed in water during manufacture to clean off soldering/fluxing solvents, so a little water will not hurt modern circuit boards. Years ago in the 1950's paper capacitors would suck up moisture and fail, but nobody uses them anymore. The real problem is getting water inside the optical lens assembly. Any water will screw up the optical properties and either make a big blur or total black due to skewing the light rays. Getting an unsealed varifocal lens assembly soaked may take a very long time to dry out via evaporation, due to all the little nooks and crevices. If it's not pure water in the first place then there's the potential for hard water mineral deposits fogging up the optics when it does finally dry. Sugar water like in soda pop may very well jam the lens mechanism with sticky goop. I would say that you could try setting a wet camera aside for a couple weeks or months to let it slowly dry out, and try it after a while to see if it works again. It just might turn out fine if allowed to dry long enough. - Javik

To correctly adjust your containment pressure, here's some info I learned from SCUBA books: - for fresh water, 30 feet equals 14.7 PSI (1 ATM) - for salt water, 33 feet equals 14.7 PSI (1 ATM) So for a camera 10 ft deep, the containment pressure should be about 4.9 psi A real simple way to adjust the pressure is to mount a very low-range vacuum-pressure gauge on the side of the chamber, with the gauge in the water. As the containment descends the gauge goes into the negative due to water pressure on the outside of the gauge, relative to inside the chamber. As the containment descends, slowly pressurize to keep bringing it "up" to zero PSI to 0.5 PSI on the meter. Here a low-cost low-range vacuum/pressure gauge used for fuel pump testing that would work: http://deniz.com/cgi-bin/cisco/HGKDT2521.html .

Hmm, after looking up "Titan Speed Domes" on Google product search and then falling over from the sticker shock, I've decided that looking above the horizon is perhaps not so important to us. Or maybe we might try that matchbook cover solution. - Javik

What brand and how many watts is the power supply unit? You don't list that in your posts. It may be more of a voltage stability problem if you're running right at the edge of the power supply's capacity limits.

I am trying to find posts on here that discuss the highest NTSC recording resolution, commonly called 640x480 or 720x480. This is usually referred to as D1 resolution. However a search for D1 turns up absolutely nothing. Is this really correct, or a search bug?

Many camera power supplies are ultra-cheap and ultra-simple, usually nothing more than a 120v AC to 24 AC transformer. This provides no filtering, no surge protection, no nothing for power line disturbances. What comes in to the transformer goes out of the transformer, just at a lower voltage. If a power surge or spike comes down the line to a basic transformer-only supply, it will just simply convert that into a 24v AC power surge or spike. Plugging the camera power supply into a surge-protection power strip at minimum will provide basic surge protection. A line-interactive UPS (most UPS's over $130 at Best Buy are now line-interactive) is a much better insurance policy against surges and other potential damage, plus if your DVR/server is on a UPS you will be able to record for a while when the power goes out. You really don't have to spend much to protect the cameras.

I would like to build a dual GV-2008 system and I would like to do it using a rackmount server chassis from a mainstream supplier such as Dell or IBM or HP. All these companies sell some Intel chipset motherboards, so I don't really need to worry about GV-2008 compatability. However, my big concern is the video overlay support. There are a large number of annoying little catches that seem to make most servers useless for Geovision cards: 1. The onboard server video is usually very wimpy, and typically cannot do an advanced capability like overlay. 2. Server motherboards typically NEVER have ANY x16 PCI-Express slots. They do often have plenty of x8 slots however. 3. Video cards for PCI-Express x1 to x8 are practically nonexistent. Video cards are always x16 sized. 4. You can in fact plug an x16 into an x8 or smaller slot. Many desktop boards sport multiple x16 slots that are actually only electrically an x8 or x4 5a. Modifying an x8 server slot to remove the plastic on the "end" so the x16 edge connector could overhang and stick out in midair (like a PCI-64 in a 32-bit slot) will void the server warranty 5b. Modiftying an x16 video card by filing the edge connector down to x8 size would probably work, but will void the video card warranty and maybe the server warranty too This all culminates in a massive ripping out of hair over trying to make the GV-2008 work in a server chassis. I would really like to know what Geovision is doing to support overlay inside the machines they sell that are 3U server form-factor, but I don't feel like blowing $5000 to know what's in there. How do I make overlay work in a server with only x8 slots? -Dale

Make sure this is actually rated as a solid state drive, and is not merely a USB memory key. Heck, I bought an 8 gig SD memory card nearly a year ago that could easily hold Windows, but it's not safe to do that. The problem with Windows on flash is the page file, and the registry. Flash memory can only support a limited number of writes before the memory cells wear out and a "bad sector" appears. Parts of the registry and the pagefile get hit heavily with writes every time Windows boots. True SSD's use write-balancing techniques to spread out the writes over many cells rarther than pounding a select few. They also do sector sparing and mark failing sectors bad to work around the failing cells. -Dale

I'm about to start using CAT5 as an analog power/signal carrier, and I'm trying to figure out if there are any balun wiring standards I should follow for future compatability. So far I'm not finding anything real specific. Generally a 4-pair cable would be useful for: - Power out - Video In - Audio In - Alarm In I would like some general standard to follow so that if I add more cameras in the future they can all use the same wiring. Though I get the feeling I'm going to end up taking a shot in the dark and just randomly assigning the colors.

So anyway I'm looking around for rack-mountable balun options for my own custom-build cable plant, and I've found something that looks relatively low-cost for a rackmount panel. Most of the prebuilt rackmount passive balun converters seem way overpriced and I will get locked into whatever their particular twisted pair arrangement may be. While I could just have a pile of individual passive baluns free-hanging off the CAT5 drops by the video server, that seems like it'll become a hell of a spaghetti mess in a few years with perhaps 30+ cameras. At this point, I'm going with a custom-build rack with components from l-com.com to reduce costs and give me a high level of flexibility. I can custom-wire standard CAT5/6 rackmount jacks and use standard CAT5 cable with RJ45 plugs for all the runs: 2U .50" Panel (Black), 32 0.5" D-Holes: http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=8621&cmp=ALSOS This particular balun looks like a good option for a custom-built passive rack panel, though it isn't intended for video at all. It's SUPPOSED to be for T1/E1 data communications cabling, but looks like it'll do great as a passive coax-to-UTP video balun as well: 75 to 120 Ohm Balun, BNC Bulkhead Jack / Krone IDC: http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=1067 Though the page says it's for 75 ohm to 120 ohm, note the three punchdown connectors on the back. I called L-Com about it, and the 3rd connector allows for 75 ohm to 100 ohm matching as well. Allowing for 100 or 120 ohm UTP matching is something that I've never seen on any of the other video baluns. Has anyone else tried this balun yet for video? I do not see any potential problems vs any other passive baluns made specifically for CCTV.

Regarding the use of mains / line power, there is a limit to the maximum voltage that can be run without being in conduit in a commercial building. The cutoff is somewhere around 90 volts (I don't have an NFPA rulebook), and if you go above that you are going to have to use conduit. This is why you don't see cameras with power requirements going beyond 50 volts or so. By staying at a relatively low voltage, your installation is exempt from the conduit requirements and you can build it cheaply. If you must use line power for a distant camera, it would make much more sense and be far less expensive to just run the conduit from the nearest breaker panel, install a 1-camera power supply right next to the camera, and run only the video/data signal lines back to your central cable plant.

This is a bit of a dead thread, but I'd just like to add for other topic searchers that CAT3 frequently is NOT twisted pair. The wires run straight through without twists. It is the twisting that allows the wires to reject outside interference, because any interference sources passing near the cable (power line, etc) will equally impinge upon both wires in the twist, cancelling itself out. With a straight-through cable, one wire in the pair is slightly closer to the noise source than the other wire. The magnetic field of the noise source more strongly affects the closer wire, inducing a voltage/current difference between the two wires. This shows up in your signal as a 60hz hum, pops/clicks, and other noise. Using twisted pair DC power wires to your camera is probably a good idea so as to provide a cleaner power source to it, though for coax you can obviously use a bigger gauge twisted pair.

Perhaps twisted pair costs the same as RG6 but what kind of cable are we talking about? For me, I work in a school, and there's such a variety of ceiling ventilation methods up in the drop ceilings that I can't know from one room to the next if a plenum air-return is being used. As such I'm forced to use plenum-rated (doesn't give off toxic fumes when it burns) cable for everything whether or not it's really needed. Plenum-rated CAT5 is common and therefore not too expensive. Plenum-rated RG6? Good luck finding it, and be ready to pay a high price for it. Plenum-rated siamese cable (RG6 + 2 power wires in a single zip cord) does not appear to exist, and if it does it's going to cost a fortune per foot. It appears that if you have to comply with plenum safety rules, twisted pair is going to be the less-expensive route.

Does anyone know where I can find a 6-pin Exxis-compatible CAT-3 video/power balun? We don't have a lot of money for an all-at-once upgrade, and so I am trying to piecemeal a slow upgrade from old time-lapse VCR's to better equipment. I'm starting on the right foot with a high quality GV-2008, but that's about all I can manage in this year's budget. We have these old B&W all-in-one Exxis 4-camera systems, with power, video, and audio all in one 6-pin CAT3 cable. As part of the Exxis system it couldn't have been simpler... the CAT3 RJ-45 plugs into the back of the monitor, which supplies power to the cameras and handles video switching. I am trying to transfer these cameras onto a standard 12v 16-camera power supply, with BNC outputs for the GV-2008. While I could just hack the RJ45 off the end and splice the cables, that seems a very crude and unprofessional way to wire this. I've been looking all over the place but I cannot find a prewired 6-pin video balun that splits off the video onto a BNC, and has DC / audio terminals, and matches this 6-pin wiring style.