bryan1656

Just as examples: Security Cameras Direct http://www.scdlink.com Supercircuits http://www.supercircuits.com YMMV in dealing with these folks, so no endorsement expressed or implied - BUT they've got $500 DVRs.

"Here is the dilemma: How am I supposed to install security systems (cctv) with the prices that dealers charge? I mean, I got quotes from dealers that are 25 bucks under what ‘street value’ is. Why would I buy from you? These people aren’t going to pay $1500, 2000, 4000, or 5000 “clamsâ€

A very affordable electret mic will do the job nicely. Try to place the micin the conter of conversation, if known. For general room placement, you can place the mic a few inches from the corner near the ceiling. The walls and ceiling will act to funnel the sound to your mic. WARNING!!!! - Check your local laws regarding covert audio intercepts and recording. These laws very from place to place and can be very strict. Make sure that your install is legal. Edited to add: The tech part is only part of the battle. If you've never done one before, you'll have to find out how to do the covert install. How you do *that* will depend on the environment and what kind of physical access you have.

quote: "What specification reflects a cameras ability to resolve IR light? thanks!" Lux rating. You'll want a low lux rating, with low light cameras this is usually expressed as "0.3" ; "0.002" ; etc. The lower the number, the more sensitive the camera is supposed to be to light in the IR spectrum. Now, the lux rating could be what the chip is capable of, but your actual end product might not be exactly the same due to differences in cameras, lens, etc. However, the lux rating is your general guide. Note also that not all chips are the same. For low light, I'd recomend a black and white 1/3" Sony SuperHAD, or ExView. The Sony chips are (IMNSHO) offering the best low light performance currently. Something about how they are made allows them to work better with IR spectrum light. I don't know how the magic works, but it does. The black and white cams will provide better resolution, which will be important for tag and facial ID. If you want invisible active IR illumination of the target area, you are going to want to get IR LEDs that peak equal to or greater than 940nm. Anything lower and you will get a tell-tale glow at the light source. Headlight wash could be a problem, depending on other lighting conditions present. I might suggest, for vehicle ingress cameras, that you channelize in some way to slow traffic down. You maight install a speed bump, gate w/access control, a curved entrance lane making them slow and turn, etc. - you get the idea. This slows the vehicles down making it easier to get a better shot over more frames. With or without doing the above, I might also recomend some visible security lighting. This helps prevent problems and is a good basic safety and security measure. It will also help you get good quality images. A cam that is well designed to work in this application at night may not work very well at all during bright outdoor daylight conditions. If you want one came to handle both, then a day/night cam will be worth looking into. However, and this just my personal opinion, but I'd rather use two cameras... one for bright lighting (day) and one for dark conditions (night). This will assure me good images either way. Hope this helps!

I feel for you, man! I told my wife that we aren't moving again until we have enough money to go on a cruise and pay some company to move all our stuff for us while we are gone! The last time we moved, she dropped a refrigerator on me. Yeah.. I know... she'll veto it if she gets a mind to. SHE isn't the one doing the heavy lifting. SHE wasn't the one pinned underneath a Frigidaire! Anyway... Remember, lift with your knees, not with your back! ... and if anything heavy falls on you, go ahead and call the fire department. Calls like that really make thier day! It is always nive to help out those courageous firfighters by bringing a smile to their face by way of your own personal embarassment!

TVL and LOR, along with other abbreviations, all usually refer to Horizontal Lines of Resolution when refering to camera resolution/output. The NTSC (color) standard for composite video is 525 horizontal lines, however, not all of these are actually viewable. Some are used for other information. IIRC, the actual *viewable* lines number around 420?? Someone correct me if I am wrong, here. At any rate, the higher the horizontal resolution of a camera, the better. You may not end up with that many lines being viewable or recordable, but it gives you more to work with on the "front end". Then there is the whole issue of whether or not the camera actually produces the number of lines in their spec sheet. Just because the CCD or CMOS chip is capable of that resolution, doen't mean that that is neccessarily what is coming out of the BNC in the back of the camera. Hope this helps!

UH... maybe next spring, you might need me to come down there and help you with a job, right? Maybe? I could hold your flashlight for you?

One more thing... To help understand, you might could go take a look at your cable TV and follow the cable from the wall. Notice that the signal travels through things, and each thing does something particular, VHS, cable box, TV. Each item must also be powered. Again, Hope this helps.

Good question! And one which others may benefit from. Generally your camera is on one end. You'll have a line going to power, the power feeds the camera, or recorder, or whatever. You'll have a line representing your video signal that travels from the camera.. Your recorder, whether stand alone DVR, time lapse VHS, or what have you will be next. Then you'll have your monitor where you can view what is recording, or what you play back. If you want a time date generator, that will need to go between your camera and the recorder. The signal must pass through it. You may also have a Video Motion detector (if the recorder you are using doesn't have one built in), this would need to go between your camera and your recorder. It must monitor the signal and then send a signal to the recorder or alarm, etc. In the most basic set up... you'll just have a camera and a monitor. These must each be powered. A recorder would go in between the cam and mon. Anything else would most likely go in between the cam and the recorder. If you use wireless, the you'll have a camera, a short hardwire transmission to a wireless transmitter... then a wireless transmission ... then a wireless receiver, and then you have your thingamajig, your recorder, and then your monitor. I think this covers the basics. I hope it helps.

kewl-kewl! I will give him a call today or tomorrow!

B/W Hi-Res Low Lux Bullet Camera • 600 Lines of Resolution Sony ExView CCD • Low 0.0003 Lux Rating @ F2.0 • 3.6mm 92° Field of View Mini Lens • Built-in Electronic Shutter & 45dB S/N • Compact Swivel Mounting Bracket • Automatic Gain Control • Sleek 0.74â€

http://www.scdlink.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=1204 But I don't think the model number is the same everywhere. I've seen it listed at some other places with a different catalog/product/etc number. I don't know who really makes it. I just find places that retail it. Is it okay to post prices ? [edited to post link and stuff]

PMs out to you both. I'm like you guys... a little incredulous. Perhaps the ExView CCD can do those specs... but with THAT lens, on THAT board??? I dunno. I was hoping maybe someone could give me a yea or nea... but just about wither way, it is too tempting not to get one and run it through it's paces. Even if it only works at 2/3 of the advertised specs, I could use the heck out of an easy to install weatherproof camera.

petedvr, I've typed and retyped an answer to your question three times.. and the bottom line is that I can't really offer you a good answer without knowing a good bit more about the installation site. Different cameras do different things. What you should be looking at depends on what you need the camera to do, the lighting conditions, distance, etc. etc. There are just so many variables. However, generally speaking, I'd be looking at C/CS mount cameras as opposed to a bullet cam. Maybe some of the other guys here will have some more specifc suggestions based on their experience.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Very kewl beans!

I voted, too. Restricted access would probably be a good idea. I was also wondering if it would include locks and stuff, or would it be biometrics, proximity, and card readers, etc.?

yeppers..sounds good to me. Would it include locks such as "Locks and Access Control"? or just biometric, proximity, and card reader type stuff??

Could you home brew? I had a friend who home brewed and he used to always have some really great beer. I've wanted to try it myself ever since.

I'm grateful for the chance to pass this on. I certainly couldn't explain it any better. http://www.westpenn-cdt.com/pdfs/coax_train.pdf And here's a page for thier other tech bulletins. http://www.westpenn-cdt.com/techinfo.html I really like the fact that WestPenn published so much tech info on their website.

I know this is an old thread... but I am sitting in my hotel room, bored, going through posts... and I thought this was important enough to post on. There are some very serious legalities effecting audio monitoring as opposed to video. (at least in the US) !!!!! This is why most cameras do not have mic inputs... to keep the dealers out of legal hot water. The best example I can give is that, when you are out in public, you have no expectation of privacy against being seen. So video is no problem. But what happens when you monitor and/or record their conversation without their consent, or the consent of any of the people in the conversation? Check your local laws on audio monitoring. Most states require that at least one party to the conversation give their consent to another party to monitor and/or record thier conversation. Other jurisdictions require all parties in the conversation give thier consent. the law on video versus audio are very different. Check with an attorney to get the scoop on local laws before doing any audio monitoring of people's conversations.

"ID quality" video for court purposes would mean that anyone could look at the video and then look at the person and recognize the person on the video as the person they are looking at. This is different than perhaps a shot where people who already know the person might recognize them in the shot, but anyone who didn't know them would be able to ID them from the video. The above comments that truly ID quality video in surveillance CCTV is rare. Even if people change their tapes, often the image is not well lit, not properly focused, not properly framed, etc. etc. Generally speaking... the higher the resolution the better. This means that 480 lines of black and white is actually preferrable to 420 lines of color. Just because it looks better to eyes accustomed to television does not mean that it is a better picture. Resolution becomes critical when you need to do things like have video forensics try to do frame averaging to get a tag number of a clerk who was kidnapped at gunpoint. Perhaps one color camera on the lot would be good to get color descriptions... but things like the point of sale, doorways, etc. need the better reolution *and* the better low light abilities that you find with b/w cams. For FOV, 10' wide is a good rule of thumb to allow a properly lit scene with a well focused camera that is properly installed and has sufficient resolution. All of this is for nothing, though, if they don't change their tapes. A really good picture is worthless if the tape doesn't have any particles left on it. Video admissibility will vary between jurisdictions and the differing rules of evidence and case law. "watermarking" is not *usually* neccessary in most places as it is actually the testimony of the witness that gets the tape into evidence... Q: "Ms. Clerk, is this an accurate depiction of the events that happened to you on blobbidy blah?" A: "Yes, it is." However, admissibility of video and photographic evidence will varry from place to place... local rules of evidence and case law will be the best authority on this matter. LE investigators should be familiar with how to safeguard, process, copy, and store video evidence in analog and digital formats. If they are not, then they can consult with their local prosecutors and/or state crime labs, or other agencies. I recommend that local investigators keep with them quality video tapes to present to business owners to replace the tapes that they take possession of as evidence. Actually... it wouldn't hurt to give them a whole dozen to encourage them not to overuse thier tapes. HTH

The tint should pose less on a problem than the window itself. You can't get a good focus through regular glass because the light gets refracted. The tint just reduces the amount of light getting to the camera. Glare can be a problem, but this can be taken care of through camera postioning, lens hoods, and filters. What camera you need will depend more on what kind of video you need, distance to target, and lighting conditions at target. Choose your camera based on that and then take into account that your tint will reduce the light a few stops, and remember that the glass will keep from getting a tight focus. I'd think glare would be the least of the challenges. For general stuff such as parking lots, approach areas, etc that are lit by commercial lighting, there should be plenty of C/CS mount cameras out there for less then $200 that will do the trick nicely.