MetzLyov

I myself do not like CD or DVD burners on DVRs and I think it is a waste of hardware in any DVR configuration. If you are using CD or DVD burner, then you have a restriction how much video you can store on them. Unless you are using a DVR that does not have ethernet connection and it is just a VCR replacement (yup there are quite of few out there), then I will stick with DVRs without CD or DVD burners. I rather connect to the same DVR via local LAN or WAN or connect remotely and then transfer as much video as I want without any restriction and then I can burn the same content on any media of my choice. I always suggest my customers to buy smallest hard drive configuration of DVRs (the pricing for hard drives increase in any DVR is very high) and then use local cheap machine with as much hard drive space it can take to perform backups. Hard drive costs have been droping, however hard drive costs in DVRs increases much higher than it is worth. Levon

Vic, have you considered CCTV Observation Systems that come complete with the monitor, the cables, the cameras, the quad, switch or DVR, etc?? This type of products are very popular for homeowner, as it is a simple plug and play setup... Here is a url for Bosch Observation Systems: http://www.boschsecurity.us/index.aspx?prdctgroupid=313 Levon

Like this organization? http://www.psasecurity.com/ I have known them for quite a long time and they have done some very large jobs in the past. They have a pull of many dealers in every part in the country and when there are large nationwide projects, I know they get hired. I also know that Honeywell, ADT and many others used them and basically in such projects, all the labor and the portion of the hardware profits go to this organization (not bad when they actually did not peddle to get these jobs). What kept them very strong was that they were dictating the best pricing with all the majors and majority were playing along. They also were able to purchase very large quantities of products and distribute to "their dealer networks" and 5% margins, thus dealers were getting much better pricing than conventional distributions... However, this organization is very big and there are tremendous amount of politics and corruption, therefore became very ineffective over time. They were an excellent choice in the past and the "past" is what they are. All I learned that the “controllingâ€

Hey everyone, Happy 4th of July.... I know most of us will have a half a day today and with extended Holliday weekends around the corner, just be safe... I know that this is very rare time for me and gives me a chance to spend quality time with my kids and it is well worth it... Have a great Hollidays and stay out of trouble... or an opportunity to get into trouble Levon

Chances are that you are using Computar TG10Z0513FCS lens... Looks like aperture ratio starts 1.3 (sometimes referred to F-Stop). If your lens has lower F-stop, your picture quality will increase specailly at night (lens will allow more light to pass)... Computar is limited in 1/3" lens selections beyond 50mm, unless if your go with their motorized lenses, and then again, the price will go up exponentially... You can use 5.0mm - 100.0mm lens from Kowa. Part number is #LMVZ510A-P that gives you much stronger zoom capability and it is more flexible lens for your application... Levon

Hey guys, Enjoy the Holliday and relax, I know I will... As for our friends abroad, take a day off anyway and if someone says why, tell them that your friends in U.S. told you to do it and you will do it for the friendship!

There is another solution that should be more cost effective - BOSCH LTC 0495/20 and give you equal or even better picture, plus better warranty procedures and least amount of problem, etc... Which lens are you using for this 150' distance??? The type of lens you use can say a lot, as the picture that you want has a lot to do with the lens. With a great cameras from Bosch and from Pano, you should use the best lenses and try not to go cheapo... PM me and I can help! Levon

Ike...who?? Have you really worked with them and you think their product line is close to Bosch or Pano? We carried them for a short while because of their warranty, but then, well no more... Their customer service and support is even worse than Pano... Ike's cameras took distant 6th place if you wanted to know, regardless what they state in their specs or what their claim really is. I will take Bosch and even Pano any day for any high end application and will not touch Ike, knowing the problems that their cameras have and specially god forbid, if something fails (by the way, according to them, their cameras do not fail and it is always the distributors or dealers fault)... Last week we were suppose to have a meeting with their new director of sales of North America and I basically told him that if all he is going to talk to us about Ike's fluff, then do not show up, rather if he has something new or a really good change on the quality (that he will guarantee personally) of their equipment and customer service, or if there will be a meat in our discussions, then show up and we will listen. Well, we are still waiting.... Levon

Now, you made me mad and I do not want to send you PM nor I want to send you these products Oh, well what the heck I will do it for Rory... Check your PM shortly... Levon

Basically the experience you guys had or still have with Dell is the same as Panasonic. The situation is even worse now - They are still in process to shut down their New Jersey and Seatle offices and warehouses and moving everthing somewhere in Chicago area. When we place an order, I mean any order with them, it takes at least three to four weeks to get product and sometime, you do not get what you ordered and then again you go back to the same cycle.... get RMA, send the product back with your own cost and then wait again for another several weeks... It is extremely difficult to work with them specially now... Levon

I am curious what this forum thinks of Panasonic Security products besides them being the most expensive. I read many posts about this manufacturer in this forum and so far, can not find anybody liking it or do not see why they dislike it, except that they are very expensive... Levon

At least I learned something today... Thanks guys! Levon

Yup... I hope you do not have to call too... Either Panasonic or Dell... Levon

We are not familiar with this brand of cameras. I checked some of its specs and look good, but then again specs is normally a marketing fluff, therefore we do not pay attention on every detail specs of any cameras... Good luck! Levon

Panasonic CP484 is an excellent camera and with latest SIII technology, it is better than their previous CP474 series, however... We had a test of Panasonic, Bosch, Sanyo, American Dynamic and GE Security best cameras in the 1/3" format only (we know that we can get a much better pictures on 1/2" cameras, so we left them out, because it would have been unfair tests)... The only common dinaminator on all these tests were that we were using the exact same lens from Computar, which is 3.5mm - 8.0mm Varifocal AutoIris... Results were very close for the first position, however we also used several other factors on this evaluation - price, support, availability, warranty procedures and overall performance of the equipment and here is what our assessment is: #1 Bosch LTC 0495/20 #2 Panasonic WV-CP484 #3 Sanyo VCC-4594 Rest, well, it does not matter.. The real test was done having a very bright and very dark areas in the picture and then having somone walking tawards the camera... In case of Bosch, we not only saw the person and the background in an excellent picture quality, but also any changes in the background by having another person walking and then changing the lighting conditions.. In case of Panasonic, it was very similar, except when the second person started walking in the background and the visibility and the picture quality dropped and did not allow a clear view of the second person. Well, this is our tests and does not constitute any manufacturer intervention or presence.... Nor we would allow them to do it.. These tests results were based on our unbiased position on the results! Next, we will test the best of every manufacturer using their 1/2" format cameras... Panasonic CL924, Bosch LTC 0620/20, etc... May be you should consider 1/2" cameras, if the pricing is not that important, as these series of cameras are much more expensive, but will provide much better results than 1/3" version of cameras. Stay tunned... Levon

Hey Guys... I see very few posts about American Dynamics equipment in this forum.. Just curious what everyone thinks about this brand of equipment... http://www.americandynamics.net/home/default.aspx Levon

Herm, I know what you mean... Their DM series was good, but they realized that they have too many problems with these units, since they had someone making them in China... With all the marketing effort, they sold near 10,000 units, but then shut everything down realizing some very serious problems with the product. I know that this type of product will not come back from them again. As for their rest of the product line, it is fairly good. They had some very serious problems with their 3.0 and 3.1 series of Intellex system - major problems with power supplies shutting down due to some engineering flop on calculation on size of the power supply, chosing Maxtor hard drives that were frying faster than normal, motherboard problems, etc... With their latest 3.2 version, they did much better job on selection of all the component and most importantly, changed the hard drive manufacturer to Westerd Digital... Right now, we have less than 1% failure rate vs. over 50% fairlure rates before.. Their MegaPower switchers and UltraDome lines are solid. Do not care for their TouchTrakers, as they fail after a year of use... Levon

Sammie, You hit one of the nails in the head with mention of "customer service" being a joke or how about, non-existent... There are only (2) items we still buy from them and did in the past - their previous CP470+ and now CP480+ series and CL920 series cameras and that is all... 99% of our purchases are these 2 series of cameras... G22 - to operate their DVRs, you not only have to go through a extensive training, but also have to be an engineer to even understand most of the fucntions and how to use them and agree with you... Levon

Rory, You made your point! Bigger is Better We used American Dynamics 42", 46" and 50" Plasma TVs with DVI inputs in the past. Had an application that required to have 25 individual stores images and full control on the equipment in each store through this 50" Plasma and all these stores are located throughout the country... Took a week to complete and the end result was very interesting.. Used GE and Bosch DVRs for each and every location (some pre-existing and some we added) and with view and complete control of each and every dome and the camera gave the management complete control and view on every corner of their stores 24/7... and if they needed playback for a specific store's activity for a specific camera/dome, they did without any problems... The overall costs were devided between several departments of this organization and this was not only a security application. Rather, we had their advertising, merchandising and security department to contribute, therefore the overall costs were splitted among these departments. Each department received one of these 50" Plasmas at their approprate section of the corporate office and they each had their own agenda to use this setup... Levon

Stay tunned.... I will have about 100 of these suckers on hand soon and a project that will take all of them and then we will see its performance with several different DVRs, some of which are already in this facility and others that we will introduce... Levon

Rory, what can you do with 32" LCD that you can not do with 15" LCD, unless if you are a gamer or like to write a code Levon

Thanks for the details.... Just found out that Bosch also started supporting this new technology with their latest DIBOS series that works with MPEG4 compression... Will be very interesting to see this combo, as we just seen one of this DVR from Bosch.. Apperently this DVR will be available in August.. American Dynamics is writing the code at the moment to work with this technology in their Intellex IP DVRs, which I am told will be first tested in Luxor in Las Vegas. It will be very interesting to see all these developments using this technology... Thanks, Levon

Rory, They do not make a DVR... It is not in their price book nor I have heard that they make them.. In their website they have something called HD Video Surveillance and Event Management System - http://covitechnologies.com/products/ip/crystalhd, but this is not a DVR rather a network utility... According to latest and greatest information on hand, it works perfectly with GE DVRs and Pelco DVRs (apperently a code was added or the communication protocol was modified in these series of DVRs)... I will find out more when we get the first units... Apperently we bought 100 of them for some project that requires it... Will be very interesting how CoVi will line up against IPIX... Stay tuned... Levon

APC make excellent products, but Tripp Lite is in line with the quality and performance. Here is the URL for Tripp Lite product that we mostly use: http://tripplite.com/products/ups/vs.cfm This series gives you from 500VA to 1,500VA and dependent on how many DVRs you use per location or side by side, this series will help... Levon

It is Tyco International for you guys...