TK

Just because they do it, does not mean it is properly focused. True, but it's a good start. Especially if you are standing on top of a 20' ladder trying to focus. The shot still needs to be verified by the customer when they are seeing the video on the monitor used by the customer.

It's really not difficult to get a good focus on a small monitor. A few techs I know are able to focus off a pda. Just concentrate on the straight lines like a door frame or keyboard. Make the lines as sharp as possible. If there is any blur on the lines you know the camera is not focused properly.

Try to drop the video acceleration of the display properties. I run across problems like this quite often on older systems with new software.

NICE offers a freeware version of NVR software that can be installed on a pc. It works well and is fairly easy to use. I will look for a link and post it once I have my 5 legitimate posts. http://www.nice.com/nicevision/freenvr/

Over the past year I have had vendors come to our corporate office to demo IP cameras for our sales staff. Last year before we started installing IP solutions our sales staff was given training by a nationwide supplier. This supplier as well as about half of the vendors have sworn that it is good practice to install IP solutions on existing infrastructure. Typically we do not install more than 50 IP cameras per site, but running on an existing network does not sound like an optimal solution Currently I have an installation of 9 IP cameras 5 that are Axis 211M running on a 10/100 network. Normally this would be ok if the network wasn't also carrying the normal network operations and IP phone system. Clocking the cameras back to 7 ips should prevent the cameras from fully clogging the network, but I am concerned about the possibility of a faulty camera dumping garbage packets onto the network. My question is - Do you run your own network for the IP cameras or utilize existing infrastructure? Any and all feedback is welcome TK

Is there any way of getting wireless access at the cabin? I know we have wireless access that gets roughly the same coverage as cell phones. With that you can hook up an IP camera to the wireless modem/receiver and access the camera that way.

Just an introduction to the rest of the members. I have been in the security industry for about 3 years and come from an IT background. About 99% of the systems I work on are high end, high profile commercial applications. DVR / NVR products that I have experience with are as follows Eastman (PC/Embedded) Pelco Integral (NVR/DVR) American Dynamics March Networks Lanex/Verint Vision Controls Lenel NVR NICE ONSSI Milestone ATV Costar Comming from an IT background I am very knowledgeable when it comes to workstations, servers and networks. I look forward to being some sort of a contribution to this message board. TK