paranoid

Lol, that cheered me up. The chip is a tiny one to the right of the IE1394_2 port, nothing was plugged into this port. What are my chances of a refund ? I am so gutted

Of course, im not silly mate Now i have to deal with the supplier and have god knows how many arguments

Absolutely gutted!!!! Big fat spark and a burnt out chip on the mobo. Ive built well over a hundred pc's and this is the first time ive had a problem like this. Knew i should have stuck with msi

Rory, Thanks for that, those pictures are really very similar to this setup. The dodgy area of grass has a building behind it, much like your pool cam, and im going to raise the cam so that at least half the i.r. is on the building. I would have liked to install cams / ir's like extreme or even mobotix but they are just too 'industrial' looking and my cams are pretty good for the price, overall im very impressed. This forum is really handy ! Cheers

ah, paranoid by name and ......

Now thats what I was looking for and it goes a long way to explaining the problem. Also explains why wildlife films on the t.v. sometimes have snowy grass when filming at night. Before I look at removing the lens cover im going to reposition the cam slightly so that it has other objects / foliage in view, this should lessen the porthole / glare effect as it does on the other cams. Im in north london mate, dont really like to say too much more on the old information superhighway if you get my drift. Cheers

Well ive found the watchdog cable, it was buried in the antic static bag and I couldn't see it I think your right and this spare audio card cable is either an spdif / mobo audio or maybe for connection to another gv card. I will let you guys know in the morning.

Hi all, I am building my gv 800 pc right now and have a slight problem, the audio extension card has 2 cables : 1 goes to a shaped 4 pin port on the gv 800 card, it cannot fit anywhere else so it has to be right. 2 is a small 2 pin female connector and I cannot work out if it should be used or not ? The manual only covers an audio connection for a gv 600, and it only shows 1 cable........ Any help would be great as ive got everything ready to go on my workshop table

No worries mate. Im going to leave this cable tied up and phone the supplier in the morning. Cheers for your help, this is a great forum

Once again thanks for the prompt reply. Its a V3 card and I have already looked at the manual for watchdog connection and it shows the watchdog cable coming from the gv card itself and not the audio card. There are only 2 cables supplied with the whole 'kit' and both are plugged into the audio card. The audio connector I have used is a 5 pin white connector with a chamfered edge. I would like to use the watchdog function and feel maybe this cable should not have been plugged into the audio card - J6. This is exactly how it was supplied. Any further info would be great

Thanks for the replies chaps. Its nothing to do with the psu or the ir range, its strangely to do with the area / terrain. The cameras are all outside on each corner of the property and apart from one area all cams perform extremely well. The other areas are all mixed terrain with trees, paths, objects etc etc. The trouble area is just one big grass lawn and i can only assume that the cameras circuitry just does not like the area been lit up by the ir. As ive said before, if i move the camera anywhere else its fine with great ir range and no porthole effect. Lenses are all the same. Im prepared to suffer it but thought i would mention it in case anyone else is pulling their hair out with the same weird problem. Maybe the ir is somehow bouncing of the grass ? I know that sounds bizarre but what else could it be.

Hi, The cams are these http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/colour_sony_ir.htm Im sure these are what you would call crappy cams but they are fine for this installation and the owners did not want large / medium industrial housings. The effective ir range is about 100-125 feet (ive measured it) and the area of grass is about 50 feet away from the camera. The other areas are the same or much further distance and they are all fine. This is why I think its a weird problem and not a straight forward one, but overall I am very very pleased with these cams.

Hi all and happy new year, I now have my gv800 card for recording my 4 day / night cams and am looking for some setup help. The system (xp pro sp2) is a p4 3.0ghz with 1gb ddr ram and 3 hard drives, the hard drives are as follows : C: 200 GB WD CAVIAR IDE System drive (primary master) D: 200 GB WD CAVIAR IDE Storage drive (primary slave) E: 80 GB MAXTOR SATA Backup drive (3rd master) F: DVD ROM (2nd master) G: CD ROM (2nd slave) The pc is currently used for audio / video editing and a lot of video is captured on either C: or D: drives, am I asking too much from this pc if I add the gv800 to record 4 cams at full resolution 24/7 ? I cannot let the cctv compromise the video editing and am wondering if I should go for a barebones p4 system dedicated to the gv800 ? Any comments appreciated, Mick

Im going to stick with basic drives, I seem to remember some problems in the past with one. All I have to do now is build the system when it arrives and sort out a weird infra red problem, im going to post the problem in the camera forum.

Any ideas on the dynamic vs basic disk argument ? Unless it speeds up disk access times overall, I cannot see the point. $70,000

Hi all, Ive installed my 4 day/night ir cams and im well impressed. I have ordered components for the system as follows : 1 x asus p4c 800 edelux Intel p4 2.8 northwood 533 fsb antec truepower 380 psu 2 x OCZ 256 DDR400 pc3200 (lifetime gurantee) Maxtor 80 gig sata system drive Maxtor 300 gig sata storage drive multireader floppy drive Nvidia geforce mx440 agp8x 64 mb tv out xp pro sp2 oem I have just reinstalled my existing video editing system and I have the option of using 'dynamic' on my storage / ghost backup drives. I doubt I will mess about with striped volumes etc etc so is there any point in converting to dynamic ? This question applies to both the video editing machine and the dedicated gv800 machine. The video editing machine has the following drives : Maxtor 80 gig sata system Maxtor 80 gig sata ghost / backup Maxtor 300 gig sata video capture / storage (using promise drivers) Cannot believe how much money I have spent The cctv system is totalling around £1500 so far ! Any comments welcome

Hi and thanks for the reply, I have just looked at that thread again, intersting you mention the msi mobo I have an 875pneo and its pretty good. However that mobo is in thios pc and its going nowhere, im choosing the asus because its recommended by this forum. Im buying the kit from ebuyer and I think they do the corsair stuff and yes I have just remembered the previous comments about using 2 x 256 mb instead. Im very familiar with ati cards and its the make I would prefer. The system is a 4 cam day/night job for my parents and im hoping to record at 640x480 on a 24 hour cycle, would a 200gb sata storage drive be ample for that ? Cheers

Hi guys, Im about to order the parts for my barebones pc, to run a gv800 4 cam full res system, im looking at the following : Asus p4c800 e delux - £96.19 1 x kingston 512m ddr pc3200 400mhz - £44.03 1 x Pentium 4 (northwood) 2.8 ghz 533fsb 512 cache - £85.09 1 x maxtor sata sys drive 80 gb (donated from this pc) Storage drive unknown at present. 380 watt antec psu and an old atx case from my junk box Graphics card ? Bearing in mind that this new pc will only be used for the gv and nothing else, do I really need a top notch card ? Obviuosly I would like to keep cost as low as possible, any thoughts from you guys welcome.

I have an ati aiw 9800 pro and it does an excellent job of outputting to a tv screen, in fact if wasn't for the slightly unstable drivers I would say its by far the best card I have ever tried. Just my 2p worth

Thanks for the replies chaps, Im considering buying new components and donating my current desktop / workstation to the gv800. The specs are : MSI 875 P NEO MOBO 1 GB DDR PC 3200 (VDATA ?) INTEL ICH5 AND CANTERWOOD P4 3.0 GHZ 533 OCZ PSU 520 WATT ATI AIW 9800 PRO - PROBABLY MOVING IT TO NEW PC WD CAVIAR 200 GB SYSTEM DRIVE WD CAVIAR 200 GB STORAGE DRIVE MAXTOR 80 GB SATA BACKUP DRIVE ANTEC CASE ANTEC CHASSIS FAN Are any of the above components recommended ? Cheers Mick p.s. I have tested the gv800 in the above system, albeit briefly, and it seemed ok.

Thats what I thought, Does anyone have a recommendation for a barebones system, preferably small cube type and capable of recording 4 cams at 25 fps / 640x480 each ? Am I looking at a p4 3.0 ghz, 512 ram, 200 gb drive etc etc like this one http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=17138 Looks like im gonna have to spend another few hundred Mick

Hi all, I have to install a 4 cam day/night system next week and I just cannot make up my mind whether to go for a gv 800 or standalone dvr. The cameras will be 4 of these http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/colour_sony_ir.htm I would prefer a minimum of 25 fps per individual camera and feel my only option is a gv 800 ? Any comments appreciated

Rory, Thanks for the input, I agree that the built in IR is a limitation and am considering bulbs. I have a dennard 25 watt IR and its pretty good but blows a lot of bulbs. The system is for myself and I for one want no less than 25 fps per individual cam, I have a 50 pps standalone and am not impressed with the frame rate at all. I do know its not a sony cam, just sony components inside someone elses creation. The trouble with cctv these days is that there are too many options

Hi, I have one of the cameras already and have been testing it for some time. The daytime colour image is perfectly acceptable but im suffering from the dreaded 'looking through a porthole' effect with the nightime IR, considering its a sealed unit thats under guarantee I cant really mess about with it. However I have just tested it with a 500 watt pir and the response was impressive. The quoted 50 metre IR range is way off and more like 25 mtr, but for the price I suppose I cannot grumble. I intend recording with motion detection most of the time with occasional 24 hour sessions thrown in. I feel that the gv800 is the only way to go as it will give me the best quality and highest resolution for the price, im simply not prepared to drop down to 12.5 or even 6.0 fps per cam. I am building the sytem myself and have a lot of previous experience with all kinds of systems, the setup of the gv800 should not be too much of a problem (i hope). I have to place an order tomorrow so if anyone has anything else to say, please speak up

Hi all, I am looking for a standalone dvr mux combo with a minimum record rate of 100 fps pal (25 fps per cam). Large hard drive and ethernet link up are essential. I will be using it with 4 of these : http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/colour_sony_ir.htm I have to order by monday pm, Any ideas ? Cheers