CCTV_Suppliers

Like this one? http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=2&model_num=ALTV1224C

To give you a right answer, fist off, where are you located? Based on the typical climate that you may have, there is a chance weather proof domes may have to go into another packaging that comes with heater and blower (like in cold snowy weather areas)... Otherwise, there are quite of many weather and vandal proof mini domes that will perform.. and most of them are IP66 compliant.. Choices available from all the major manufacturers with full 3 years warranty. Please give us some more info and then I am sure besides my post, there will be others who will jump in and provide even more info for you.

Most of everyone we work with have these type of PTZ housing that will allow you to place a fixed camera/lens combo without any issues.. Here are some of the companies that I know for a fact that carry them.. American Dynamics, Bosch, Panasonic (very extensive variations) and few others... If you want details, please PM...

I will put in a wager... that XP will still be around until end of the next year at least... What is the wager?? Microshaft (oops sorry, I meant MSN) has said a lot of things in the past and this latest marketing hype is no exception... If it is really up to them, they will charge anyone who uses their software a yearly license fee and that is the direction that they are going anyways... Did you hear their newest platform beyond Vista?? Some times called Blackcomb and lately called Vieanna, sometimes called Fiji or "Vista RC" and tomorrow, who knows? and apparently the life span for Vista is until 2009?? Here is one of their latest buzz... "There have been plenty of opinion pieces claiming that Vista will be the last of the traditional Windows series, with dark hints about internet-based web-appliance systems." Ya right... I do not know about most, but I think Linux distros and even PCBSD based OS and all their apps rule any day... Too bad that there are MS apps that are not operating flawlessly in such platforms.. yet... Soon enough the WINE project will kick in the high gear and then you can run all your MS apps or any apps that work under windows platform on top of Linux... Any wager on this one??

Did anyone use a DVR system with SLI configuration with virtual matrix software utilizing (4) monitors driven by a single computer setup? We have done quite of few dual monitor setups where each monitor contained 16 independent camera shots and by installing them side by side using Articulated Retractable LCD wall mounts.. that gave the user a panoramic view of 32 cameras running from a single computer... It was very interesting until we were give a challenge to perform the same with (4) monitors to control up to 128 cameras and dvrs were in a different rooms... We ended up using (4) 30" HP LCD monitors driven with (2) NVIDIA SLI setups allowing to view up to 128 individual cameras viewed only by a single user with a single computer... (each monitor took 32 individual cameras shot, including ptz domes)... and all the monitors were again hanged from the wall using Articulated Retractable wall mounts.. The idea was to test if we could give the tools necessary for a single user to control up to 8 different DVRs.. and to have one user to manage up to 128 cameras (including ptz domes) from a single workstation... I am sure you guys have done something similar before and I wander how were your experiences with the picture quality and the functionality of such a setups... What did you use for the computer hardware and then the software... Which "Virtual Matrix" setup did you use? I am also sure someone will say this may be is for an enterprise solution, but it has its uses for smaller size operations... Actually we delivered (4) of these sets to a customer site and it worked exceptionally well.. and it actually was a first time I saw an end user really taking full advantage of such a setup... could not believe how fast they moved and how fast they were able to switch between screens and cameras viewing real time and playback simultaneously... What was actually even more interesting was that when the end user was really pushing the system very hard, the processing power and resources were picking under 80% allowing more head room for additional tasks... burning clips with CD or DVD, remote view of other cameras through their LAN, etc...

Smaller scale is actually a no brainer... and will eliminate the need for actual matrix switch requirements... Perfect replacement package for any basic system with 32 cameras or less... But... the package must be from a single manufacturer... as the Virtual Matrix being a software solution must operate with its own DVR API... I know that Bosch has it (probably the most expensive at the moment), and others as well... Before you decide which package that you can use, first you have to stomach the pricing of such manufacturer DVRs... But then again, if you need such application, then the overall pricing is what it is... and you always get what you pay for.. Lets say you have Intellex environment... then solution is extremely simple, as their version of Virtual Matrix solution will work perfectly. I know that Honeywell has their version, which is more enterprise... Everyone has some sort of NVR solution in place and again, they all want you to use their package and to insure that you get locked in, everyones solution is basically is proprietorial... to their IP cameras.. Very few that I know that keep their NVR platform "open" for other manufacturer IP cameras could work.. Are you referring to Encoders in your last question? It is not clear what you are asking, but I assume that you want to take you analog cameras and convert to IP and the way to do it is to use video encoders... and yes, there are rack mountable encoders avail...

Nick, you will find many websites including the one you mention... Do not have any opinions on any regardless the expereince... Most of the time you will find someone saying something negative about a website because of an incident that could have been caused by a bad sales person, but does not mean that company behind it is bad... Asking around is a great way to learn where to get a good product and to meet your expectations... Everyone is trying to serve someone and make a buck, as you do in your line of business.. I am an old school, so it is very difficult for me to be convinced on none major brand name products... Your typical major manufacturer was there before and will be there tomorrow... and if the products you purchase come in less than industry standard warranty, then you should ask more questions there too... In my professional opinion, Major brand name products = good quality = decent to exceptional performance = more than average cost = reliable warranty = unquestionable and reliable technical support... Some are better than others, but overall you want a system that can give you day in and day out performance that works with minimal intervention... and most importantly, deliver the performance that you expect..

You are right... except the write up on TinyXP was more extensive and much more comprehensive.. I belive the guy who wrote it was from England.. and I have been trying to contact him... One of the areas that we are exploring is to take our setups, including all the applications, and embed them onto a flash card... we have all the tools, but do not have the experience as this guy from England... If only I can find him... he could be busy at least for 6 months on these type of projects.. Remember in one of our posts I made a notation of having a DVR box built into a NAS configuration based system and I said I was toying with it? The sucker works and it works better than what we expected.. The prototype has produced much better performance that we thought possible... Once we conclude it and send it to production, it will be a very low cost, yet extremely powerful unit... working with any IP cameras out there or with analog cameras using encoders... I should conclude that project by end of the next week.. thinking of a name for it and can not come up with one.. NAS DVR for anyone?

Hello Nick... you are in good hands in this forum... What exactly are you looking for? Type of cameras, minidomes or brick type, color or B&W, what type of DVR will do the trick for you, embedded or OS based? May be what will help if you can tell us what you used before and what you want to see improved from your existing system...

DDR2 of course... using Kingston version... 64 Bit XP actually would not have worked... it is much slower for our application (at one point of time we may have to revisit the code for it to take full advantage of the 64 bit environment)... We looked at Intels solutions... To me this Intel processor is like having a Honda with 1000 HP engine with regular transmission... the engine screams to its fullest power, but the car goes only at the performance of the transmission The AMD solution is much more balanced performer and having on-board RAM controller helps (actually working much faster than independent ships around Intel solution)... Also, it was more cost effective, yet very balanced solution. Pirated OS??? Hell no.. We use the licensed XP software, but use the tricks and tips that TinyXP utilizes to stop all the unnecessary services that chew up resources... We read and actually obtained a documentation what that version actually contain, but used only what we need... I know that TinyXP version of the software is extremely popular with gamers mainly... Friend of mine got me the full documentation... and it allows any XP to be modified and increase overall performance.. It is very extensive on how to heavily modify mainly REGEDIT section and then focus on SERVICES section... It is amazing how much nonsense that original XP actually comes with that does nothing useful, rather clogging up performance and forcing many system instability... My preference always has been and will be Linux based distros, but none of our application will work on that platform....yet!

I guess no takers of my offer... Well, hopefully something will come up later... This offer will stand now and in the future, so please PM me with anything that you guys and gals can come up.

I think it should sell... but not in this forum Last I checked, we have close to 2,312 registered domains... Please do not ask me why... I have no control on it.. I focus only anything CCTV or security, but the companies that I work with have very widespread presence in the Internet.. and they constantly buy more and more... My group controls and operates 28 websites right now... and by end of this year, I am told it will reach to at least 50... and by end of the next year, it should hit at least to 100... again, I do not know why this is necessary, but I can tell you that keyword CCTV in the google ranking took us to position #6 at the moment and from what I can see, it is higher ranked than this forum domain name... may be that has something to do with having larger Internet footprint... Not my bag of tea, but at least I guess it works...

Rory, good questions man... The requirement was American Dynamics Virtual Matrix setup... with their latest MegaPower 3200 as a backup... ATI did not work as expected and after few rounds of hardware exchanges with them, we decided to go to NVIDIA solution with EVGA... with 640M on board RAM... Several Motherboards were tested, but the one that really cought out attention was the model from ABIT... that gave tremendously more room for expansion and more room for both video cards... 4GB of Kingston RAM, dual 1G NIC on board... excellent cable routing capabilities and ability to provide 6 SATA connections.. and 1 PATA (we do not use it at all)... SATA DVD burner and few other minor pieces of hardware... We went with AMD's dual core FX series processor that really blew away some of the performance tests that we concluded before using INTEL's solutions... and decided to stay with this AMD solution.. Quad core would have been a better performer, but did not make much sense in the actual performance tests of the applications... The casing, we went with rack mountable 4U setup from Chenbro - excellent case that provides tremendous amount of room for all the fans (use used (6) 60mm and 80mm fans and (1) 120mm fan)... very quite and simple to operate.. As for the power supply, that also was a challenge to choose, as there are so many good ones in the market.. Our final vote went with ANTEC's best... TruePower Quattro with 1,000W that came with all the necessary connections for our video cards, the motherboard, etc... extremely quite and with 85% efficiency... We used (4) hard 750GB SATA hard drives raided... Mirrored of course... The stripped version could have given us more performance, but the applications were more RAM and processor intensive, rather than hard drive intensive.. This way if any of the hard drives fails, the system still is crunching numbers and gave an opportunity to replace the defective hard drive on the fly (all were hot swappable versions)... As for the OS... Well, Win2000 would have been my choice due to its stability, but then we were introduced to a specific version of XP, that is called TinyXP that natively uses maximum of 40MB of RAM in its idle... The most of the services that are totally useless were disabled except what we needed... Few drawbacks... because it is XP, all it could recognize is 3.5GB of the given RAM. Some of the performance that we observed as we started loading the required applications were eye opener.. heck, end the end, this machine became a gaming machine anyway... Duplication of the same setup was a breeze... We had to burn all of them in for 72 streight hours running total of 12 different applications simultaneously and continuously and all the tests were passed with flying colors.. and then they were ready for delivery. After delivery and installation, rest became a history.. Now, the new challenge that we will work through the nights until Tuesday and see if we can delivery everything else.. and if not, well we will give them what is stable until fixing anything that is not 100% I love projects like this... keeps your mind constantly busy and learning every step of the way.. It will be much easier now to work on much smaller scale projects... and the knowledge that can not be bought... you learn as you go...

JD, we are talking about 2 different things.. I belive what you are referring to a single PC being able to pull up individual or few camera feeds from 1024 switch from the LAN regardless where such PC was installed... Do you know if they were running "Virtual Matrix" setup? This facility uses gigabit LAN, but they are in process to take everything to 10Gbit level... which will be yet another very interesting environment to see how all the pieces come together and at very high speeds.. My newest challenge now is to add another piece of hardware and software solution, IntelleView, that will tie the data coming from this facility's POS transactions, alarm triggers from local alarm panels, their access control panels (Softwarehouse) to the appropriate video feed located to appropriate DVR port.. By mid next week, we should have it ready to go, as the only glitch is to finalize the parser for this end user and the rest is no brainer.. At least we hope so... Having said that, we have this weekends and all the way to late Tuesday to finish this newest task and then deliver it on Wednesday... Our only hurdle is compiling Softwarehouse API with Intelleview that is not cooperating at the moment, but I think with some persistentcy, we should fix it (well that is the goal anyway). What is very interesting for me on this project is the availability of the basic hardware and software utilizing off the shelf components and without having to overclock anything at all... It is always fun to play with some newer gadgets and gizmos... and tie them together to work as a complete system...

Just curious - did you contact Pelco and have them solve their hardware problem?? You are welcome... I can not respond on Pelco related question and our good friend survtech will do that for you.. Once you run your cables to the matrix switch and verify the quality of the signal, then the using its independent looping output, run another patch cable and connect to appropriate port of the Intellex and that will work. Which Intellex are you using and what hard drive capability? If you ever have any questions on Intellex, please let me know.. In case, if you customer requires more hard drive storage besides what Intellex already ships, DO NOT use their ESM (External Storage Modules), rather I can give you a lot of info in how you can increase INTERNAL storage capacity of any Intellex systems (which presently is capped at 750GB) to minimum of 2.0TB and highest to 4.0TB.. Good luck my friend and let us know what the outcome of your setup is.

All the video was coming from the LAN... for obvious reason, no outside connections were allowed... Each PC is handling 128 incoming feeds overlayed onto 4 individual LCD monitors and each monitor was carrying 32 cameras each... Plus, they had a call up monitor that at any given moment if they cared to view or to playback any incident, almost instantaneously, they were able to pull up that video too.... The end result was to use (4) PC, 16 30" LCD monitors and with combined virtual matrix software and hardware (both software and keyboards), 4 operators were controlling and using 500+ cameras... They had several shifts of personnel that each used this setup for no more than 4 hours (and I guess the rest of the time doing other investigative work)... But it was an eye opener for me to see a full control on so many cameras using so little amount of hardware... I was not impressed on the hardware setup as much I was impressed the way these security agents were taking a full advantage on such a setup... Great group of professionals and they knew exactly how to perform very complex tasks that normally takes an average Joe months to learn (Salvos, etc.)... What this setup basically did for this end-user is undermined the necessity of the actual matrix switch, which still works, but becomes just a possible backup tool just in case anything than may go down.. They also ordered few extra machines just in case something goes wrong (in the computer world as everyone know, it is not if computers fail, rather when they fail). So this way, in matter of less than 10 minutes, they can change a computer that may decided to have a mind of its own... I know that there are few members here that either work for companies who use these type of systems or are actual builders and I want to see if they can jump in and share some info... I think this will be a good learning curve for everyone, including myself, on comparing notes and technological advanced information that I am sure can and will be handy... No comments besides Rory? Hey Rory, can't we interest one of your local Bahamian casinos with a solution like this one? I will not mind flying to Bahamas to show and tell this type of system, as we have few drinks " title="Applause" />

I have few that I have not used yet... I sold one (can not tell you which one) for less than $10K.. Cheap bastards... I wanted to collect at least $100K... Just curious, how many domain names do you guys have?

Normally if you do have the installation manual, it is already there... clearly showing how to connect everything... You either do not have it or using something older version. What is the product code of your CyberDome? Since GE went through many changes in the recent months, there is a very good chance that what you have and what you need are two different things... Once you can identify the product code, you can get the info from their website... all you have to do is to login, put the product code and everything has to do with that product code will be available to you... and if that does not work, then we will dig up the info from our arsenal of papers...

I know it was Rory... as soon as he takes his mask away, you will see that it was him

I do not understand the questions... does anyone? Are you referring to text overlay of data on video? Example, transfer of text lets say from cash register to video and then store so that later you can find a video based on text search? It will help if you can describe your application little more clear or exactly what is your application?

Night clubs can have too much light, not enough light or very little amount of light dependent on the day or even situations where you will have very bright and very dark areas simultaneously. ... You want the real solution that gives you the best of the both worlds of color and B&W, go with Panasonic WV-CP484 series cameras or better yet, go with the same Panasonic version of Minidomes, that are vandal proof and weather proof.. You know, after few drinks, boys and the girls may decide to use the camera for some toy to play with with a chair or even drop a drink on it... Don't tell me it never happened? May be pricier than most, but a great performer.

Hey guys, I use mutli-tip good old American Craftsman screw driver with 6 various tips combined that does 95% what I need to get done..

Based on what I see on your website, you do not offer any DVRs.. Are you trying to feel what platforms that you can introduce in this market that may work for you or you have an application that you want to select a right DVR for your company? Rory gave you few urls that take you in the forum showing discussions on pros and the cons dependent what platform you may choose... Dependent on your application, sometimes embedded will do the charms and sometimes PC based will, as it comes with more features and functions... So, what is your question again?

Try something else.. Take all you cables to your switch first and verify the output and make sure that you do not have any loss of signals.... then take one output at a time, i.e. first output from the matrix and connect to Intellex port #1 and continue to see exactly what is happening.. Now, if you are taking this route, then make sure none of your cameras setting are set to "Hi Z" We have done quite of few of these setup and and if we found a problem, it usually could have be caused because of a single or a multiple line and sometime caused by even a patch cables... What are you cable lengths coming from your domes and cameras to this Matrix... just curious? Also, what type of connectors are you using? crimp ons or twist ons and what rating, size, etc..? Are you using all RG-59 through and through? What if the problem is a batch of bad RG-59 BNC connectors, that is likley candidate?

Here is one that we used for military application: 1. Tokina TM50Z1040AIPN-2 that gives you up to 1,000MM range. 2. Pano StarLight camera (the best Pano makes for CCTV apps) with specs that are out of this world. 3. Dropped them into videotec explosion proof housing and that is what did it... and still works today.. According to initial reports, they easily were able to pickup tremendous details at night or during the day approximately 3 miles away... and that was a conservative distance numbers... Pricing was not too expensive, but everything combined were a military based package solution. Another one that was used was from CBC Thermal Imaging Cameras & Accessories that actually are different technology (even hand held is available) that gives you full very usable picture in a pitch dark environment... May be I am missing a point here on the initial question, but if someone asks "military grade cameras", I do not think they refer to standard cameras most of actually used before...