McJannet

Try these pages for more information. http://www.rs485.com/pfaq.html http://www.hw.cz/english/docs/rs485/rs485.html http://www.bb-elec.com/tech_articles/rs485_basics.asp Regards: Dave

Gents: This sort of system is very popular in Australia - provides real time combined security and access control. With PSTN dialler backup. Should be coming to North America, should be called something like the GE Alliance. In Australia it is known as the Tecom Challenger. Software is (Multi User) Titan. Ethernet is an add-on module, replacing a serial card. Intrusion alert is sent to software. For ehternet forwarding to monitoring station, require 3rd party software or configure so that alarms are dial-out while access events are not. Everything still recorded at Titan software. Many thousands sold in Australia. http://www.tecom.com.au http://www.tecom.com.au/816cat.pdf http://www.tecom.com.au/Titan_Gold.htm Regards: Dave

Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator and the ACME Disintegration Pistol

One of the things we learned living in Canada's Yukon Territory in the '70's was how to deal with stale beer. This works almost like magic. Add a little pinch (very little, can always add more) of salt to the bottle, does two things: 1. gives it a bit of a head, 2. takes away that bitter, 'skunky' taste. Also useful on draught beer, but check that the salt shaker lid is on tight! Enjoy: Dave

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I think all complaints should be fielded by manufaturer's reps ... How about making that their price for having such a nice, free sounding board as this one ... Respectfully: Dave

Here's the brochure on the lens http://www.lge.com/products/mobile/mobil/sidemenu.do?action=filedown&group_code=CTG1000475&list_code=PRD_BROC&page=1&filepath=/download/11727175002003_Camera.pdf&filename=2003_Camera.pdf& It's an LG lens, on their website www.lg.co.kr but it's one of those websites that do not provide unique page addresses. Looks Good?

Hi sjones9: First, for product advice you can contact some of the major manufacturers and distributors: Pacom: www.pacom.com.au GE Security: www.ge-interlogix.com.au Bosch: http://www.bosch.com.au/content/language1/html/1296.htm For an indication of who is available in your area to do the actual install see the industry association web-site: ASIAL: www.asial.com.au For higher level advice there are many consultants, but perhaps try some major Melbourne installers first for what looks like a relatively straight forward job: ADT: www.adtsecurity.com.au Signature: www.signaturesecurity.com.au Chubb: www.chubb.com.au SNP: www.snpsecurity.com.au Vangren: www.vangren.com Manufacturers love to design your project free of charge using their equipment, but they have no professional liability coverage. You get what you pay for ... Regards: Dave

An explosion proof camera housing is one that is robust enough to contain an explosion from within - when the hot gasses produced from the explosion reach the outside of the housing through conduit entry threads, they are cool enough not to cause the external atmoshphere to explode - but the camera is toast. Intrinsically safe means that after taking resistance, capacitance, voltage into account that there is not enough energy anywhere in the system that would cause a spark of sufficient energy to ignite the atmosphere. You need to look at camera, cable and barrier. I got around a ProfiBus problem once by getting the 485 cable wrapped with steel wire at a cable maker - in this instance the cable was not intrinsically safe but was considered physically strong enough to remain intact if crushed. It was then suitable for use in a refineray. Regards: Dave

The 0.95 lens lets in about 2.17 x the light that the 1.4 lens lets in. From the definition of F-stop. So the 0.95 is more than twice as good as the 1.4, in terms of light gathering ability. The Ex-View is a good, sensitive CCD providing good low light images. Coupled with a good lens like the 0.95 you'll get a good NTSC picture of about 412k pixels. (how good?: manufacturer will give a lux number at 30 or 50 IRE). Which you then compress the buggery out of. The point being, when everyone asks you to zoom in and enhance; you'll need more resolution and less compression. A super lens is great, but the inherent limitations of the sensor and compression currently limit the system by requiring about 1/3 to 1/2 of vertical field to be filled for identification. Three to five megapixel CCD's must be dirt cheap these days, falling in price as fast as Pentium processors. Why not build them into IP PTZ cameras and start taking some serious images? There must be a huge market for this. Regards: Dave

Gents: Please refer to Vlado's book at http://www.cctvlabs.com/Books/book.html This should be sitting on everyone's shelves, you just need to know this stuff sometimes. To quote on the transmittance factor: "The definition of a T-number takes the F-stop and the lens transmittance into account" So, the f-stop is calculated purely on geometry while the t-number takes the lens material quality into account. If you look at the formula, you'll see that there isn't a big difference between the f-stop and the t-number. Limited as we currently are by PAL / NTSC resolution I would suggest that there is no reason to worry about the t-number. Although with my new Nikon D70 6 mega pixel digital SLR camera it is a concern. I bought this camera primarily because of the well known superiority of Nikkor lenses. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/page3.asp Regards: Dave

Rory: I have just emailed a sales flyer from VeCommerce to address your speaker recognition application. You can run the entire island from a central database with IP intercoms and charge individually. Can also (using xml over SSL) have the database trigger a stored procedure to kick off whats needed to open the door. Should be able to figure out how to get a 485 / 422 or 232 serial Weigand string as well. Might want to interface to an Australian system called Concept 4000. The function you're looking for is called 'muster' (relating to making sure everyone is out of a burning building) which is a central feature of access control systems. Extremely secure, no cards or keys to manage or lose. See www.vecommerce.com.au (speaker verification) and www.barix.com (IP Intercom) and www.innerrange.com.au (Concept) Regards: Dave

Hi Rachel: I've worked with CCTV in Sydney for more than 4 years now starting with a very large international manufacturer and currently with a local distributor. In my experience, there are several installation companies that can work with you to provide a solution based on your requirements. If you intend to go alone, note that the two major distribution chains sell to professional installers only, so at some stage - if you are looking for a professionally installed quality system - you will have to deal with the people here. The industry association ASIAL is a good place to start. Here you can search for installers by location so you can find someone local (all good installers are a member of ASIAL). www.asial.com.au Trade shows are another good way to educate yourself, next one is Sydney isn't until August though. If you'd like some suggestions, please PM me. Regards: Dave

We can assist with part 1. You are looking for a KVM extender (Keyboard / Video / Mouse) with dual user access. These are available in analog and digital formats. For 100' distance with one local and one remote user, analog will do fine. There are various manufacturers of this equipment, we represent Rose and Minicom in Australia. Minicom Smart KVM Extender (Israel) http://www.minicom.com/kvm_smartext.htm Rose CrystalView KVM Extender (USA) http://www.rose.com/htm/crystalview.htm Both of these systems extend the KVM signals using CAT5, but note that Rose requires regular CAT5 UTP while Minicom requires the higher spec CAT5 FTP (foil shield). Regards: Dave www.InControl.com.au

It should be investigated first what the system is to be used for. If surviellance images are required for identification and possisble use as legal evidence then you lean towards wavelet / jpg because these are a series of fully formed images (with watermarking most likely). The evidenciary utility of mpegs are not good because of the use of intermediate frames that are not full images and that cannot be watermarked to the same degree as wavelets / jpegs. But these attributes make for good remote transmission speed. If a security application of CCTV is based on evidence gathering then it should not use a system that isn't watermarked or one that uses intermediate image files or even one that provides fast remote transmission. But the market is being driven to provide real-time viewing so that transmission may be mpeg but local storage will be wavelet; a sort of hybrid system that makes the most out of both technologies providing police with the opportunity to gather evidence and the system owner with the ability to view sites remotely in close to real time. Wavelets will become obsolete when the need for lossy video compression no longer exists. Regards: Dave

IE 6 XP SP2 Windows Firewall - Off Norton Internet Security - Disabled 1.5 Gbps ADSL with hardware firewall On this (my employer's) network, I need to disable Norton Internet Security for most everything. Should be able to fine tune this given a few hours though. Your CAB would not download with Windows firewall on (even after accepting the prompt), it did after turning firewall off, also got what looked like a Visual Basic service pack. Then your application started, no problem. Regards: Dave

Good day gents, having spent several years with Tecom / Interlogix / GE Interlogix there are a few things I can add here. 1. There is a specific manufacturer and model of hard drive that must be used. This detail can be easily obtained from GE. 2. The hdd model that will be specified is not 7200 RPM, but is 5400. There is a reason here - on-board power supply cannot reliably handle start-up in-rush current for 7200 rpm version causing continuous reboots. 3. There are different motherboard builds: provide the serial number and other information found on the stickers on the bottom of the dvr to your GE rep, with this information they can provide the largest size hdd possible for your device. 4. Using two hdd's: recommended that they both be the same size. 5. You will not have the WebBrowser software which is loaded onto the hdd via a GE proprietary software that cannot be released for quality control reasons. So this may be where you will have an issue as you will need the WaveReader program. You may find it difficult to locate the WaveBrowser files on the un-formatted hdd's as Rory suggests. 6. Regarding use of webservers and your home computer. This will certainly work. There are various available that will provide you with total remote control of your home pc. Google "IP KVM" to find Avocent, Cyclades, MiniCom, Lantronix, Rose manufacturers, you will require only a simple low-end device. (Note: We represent Rose, MiniCom & Lantronix in Australia). Depending on model you will get encryption, Radius and other authenication / security features designed to keep out unwanted hackers. High-end models are suitable for use in the most demanding applications. So: wiith the webserver option you log on anywhere on the Internet to your fixed IP address (provided by your ISP), start IE, login and it is as if you are in front of your computer at home. Options include capability to reboot pc and dvr if they are frozen. Regards: Dave Sydney (heatwave) Australia

In response to a few recent Networking 101 subjects I think it may be of interest to note that one of the Califorinian companies we represent has a series of on-line Networking Tutorials. This website is more IT focussed than Security / CCTV, but it is accepted that convergence is occuring. If anyone else can nominate their respective employer's or manufacturer's freely accesible web tutorials we could build a resource for referral to those seeking basic IP advice. Network Tutorial Home: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/networking.html Networking Basics: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-tutor-etntba.html Adding Speed: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-t ... tadsp.html Sharing Devices: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-t ... tshdv.html Fast Ethernet: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-t ... tetnt.html Device Servers: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-tutor-ds.html Switching: http://www.lantronix.com/learning/net-t ... ching.html Regards: Dave

Gene: I'm familiar with Kalatel. There are others. 1. Client software is WaveReader, available free of charge from GE website. 2. Can do anything, very much influenced by slow POTS connection though. 3. PTZ is available, but difficult due to lag. Presets are preferred with POTS. There is a fair amount of previous discussion on WaveReader in this forum. Regards: Dave

Try Hills Electronic Security 1 / 30 GreenPark Road Penrose, Auckland. They should have access to GE camera stock, excepting perhaps the CyberDomes.

Try Hills Electronic Security 1 / 30 GreenPark Road Penrose, Auckland. They should have access to GE camera stock, excepting perhaps the CyberDomes.