kaysadeya

Each camera has its own cheesy little power source. I plan to upgrade to a single panel, but ... . Admittedly in the current setup, I have power cords mixed in with the video cords. (Think snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark.) I know better, but it's interesting that the problem is only with the older cameras. I've been experimenting with CCTV for years -- sort of easing into the technology and testing it as a "poof of concept" before investing further. The "rolling lines" problem is only with my oldest (and cheapest) B&W cameras. The most noticeable problem is with my first camera: a five-year-old B&W ProVideo bullet that gets the most direct sunlight during sunset. Rory, I'll troubleshoot the cameras as you suggest and get back with the results.

Apologies to squale for highjacking this thread, but what are the typical noise symptoms? My "mux" is in a different location, but I already see "rolling lines" on several of the cameras, but only at night. What symptoms would indicate electrical interference?

Oye. I cringe at saying this... It's knob and tube wire that runs through the ceiling of my storage room. I need to run the camera lines through the rim joist, passed the wires, to a shelf below. As luck would have it, the closest wire is the hot (black) wire.

This raises a related question: I have a situation where I have to run all of the camera cables about 6" passed a power cable. The power cable and camera cables will be perpendicular to each other. What's the best way to shield the camera cables from interference?

After considering everything available in my price range, I settled on the Kodicom 516. Hopefully it will arrive sometime next week. Thanks everyone for all your help and advice. I suspect you talked me out of a $1000 mistake. I'll give the 516 a good workout and post a review. Of course, I have zero experience so far with multi-input DVRs, so the review will be more from the perspective of a person coming from a time-lapse VCR perspective. I have wireless DSL in my house, so it will be interesting to see how the networking features pan out. I also have a HD DLP TV that I intend to use as one of the monitors, so the results there might also be interesting. I still have to add more cameras to my installation, so I'll probably be talking to most of you over in the 'Security Cameras" forum.

Please PM me with a quote.

Rory, Excellent analysis! This is one for the archives.

Rory, You should be coming back online soon. How would you rate the ProVideo vs. the Nuvico?

I found what appears to be a good deal on a ProVideo/Speco DVR-16IP/300: http://www.wallcoinc.com/Speco_DVR_16IP_300_16_Channel_DVR_w_IP_Function_p/dvr-16ip-fslash-300.htm Any comments on this unit or the supplier? Also, I can't seem to be able to locate additional disks for the unit? Does anyone have a resource for those?

Thanks for the info so far. I'm trying to find more information on HiSharp units. They've been mentioned several times in this forum and appear to be of good quality. I understand they're marketed under different names (a sore topic for me that some of you are already familiar with) . Can someone provide some pointers to "rebranded" HiSharp units?

Most of the DVRs I was looking at in the $1000 range have NTSC output. I already have separate RG-6 cables from the room that will house the DVR to all of the TVs. These cables will be dedicated to carrying CCTV signal to a composite input on each TV. One of my TVs is a DLP HDTV with a VGA input (also, component, composite, DVI, and HDMI inputs). Would it be better to connect this TV to the DVR's VGA output? As for controlling the video from the DVR, my plan was to configure remote IR receivers to a transmitter at the DVR so I could use the remote control in any of the TV rooms. Do you see any problems configuring the mid-range DVRs for this use?

I've looked at their specs and read about them here. From what I can gather, Everfocus is not highly regarded. In addition to Kodicom, I am considering units from Nuvico, Vitek, and ProVideo. My priorities from highest to lowest are: Quality/Stability Post-purchase support (name brand unit from large company) Video Quality Record / Playback Speed Disk Capacity (enough for 7 days of high-quality video) Ability to Monitor from Standard TV sets Remote Control (discrete IR codes a plus) Realtime Monitoring (in mux views) Networking

Question: What frame rate is needed. This is flexible. I was looking at units with 60 FPS record/playback and realtime display. Now I'm looking at some with 100+ FPS record/playback and realtime display. Question: What compression are you looking for? Again flexible. Whatever works best. From what I can gather from this forum, Wavelet or MPEG 4 are best. Question: Do you need networking? Nice, but not a requirement. Question: How long does the customer need to record for? I'm the customer. I'd like store recordings from up to 9 cameras for about 7 days. Question: PC based or standalone? Standalone. I've eliminated the PC-based option mainly because I'd have to buy a whole new PC and it appears that the popular GeoVision PC DVR cards require software-based compression and don't provide realtime display without a second card. When everything is added up, a decent PC solution would be well into the $2000+ range. That kinda scratch will buy a pretty decent embedded DVR.

I'll bite. Please PM a price for the 516.

To answer your question: somewhat. I hate to point this out because it's embarrassingly obvious, but let's talk about apples and oranges and not mix the two.

I knew someone was going to come up with such an analogy to rationalize deceptive business practices. For one thing, those are consumables from a well-known "dealer." If you don't like the Safeway cola (that's all I drink) or GE phone (mine's a piece of cr*p), then you don't buy more. Not much harm done. It's not the same as *investing* in a serious piece of *expensive* equipment that you rely on for security. Needless to say, I'd be very disappointed if I had to throw away a $1000+ DVR because of misleading information from my supplier.

But why shouldn't manufacturers and dealers be honest about their products? Selling a service is one thing, but to deliberately mislead people to think that "Product A" is different from "Product B" and "Product C," when in fact they're identical, is just downright dishonest. Good businesses are built on the trust of customers. How can a business that uses such deception to confuse their own customers expect such trust and expect to grow? Yes, there's a sucker born every minute, but I doubt many shop for CCTV gear.

I know there a lot of dealers here, so sorry if this offends anyone... I sense the low-cost DVR market is full of deceptive marketing ploys designed to confuse customers. I've *never* had a such a frustrating and confusing time researching a product; particularly one I'm willing to spend (what's to me) good money on. For example, Intellicam claims to be the OEM for their units, but I've been able to locate other "DVMR"s that look like the same product: http://www.vantagetel.com/DVMR.htm http://spyshop2000.com/1079-support.htm http://www.allthings.com.au/Catalogue/Digital%20Video %20Recording%20Remote%20Viewing%20Web%20Cams /SA-DVMR-LAN4C%20digital%20video%20record.html Where are these units made and why would Intellicam be so "untruthful" about their source? This might explain it: http://www.cctvdealers.com/dvrinfodealer.htm If I can't trust any of the dealers or suppliers of these things, then what sort of support should I expect after they take my money?

Yes, I ended up with the "multiviewer" (if only I had known the difference). I have a 50" DLP downstairs, so I'm hoping that will be big enough for 16 views.

Rory, By "not real quad," I mean that you can't configure four equally sized views on the screen, My wife is currently watching the TV it's hooked up to and would get upset if I were to switch the view to check this out, but I recall the four camera view as having one large view and three *very* small views, or something like that. There's decent two-camera view, but it has a lot of blank space on the top and bottom; so much so that they could have moved the two cameras up and inserted another two cameras at the bottom for a true quad view. But noooo.... My mux is a few years old, so maybe they've improved the newer units. The one good thing I can say about it though is that it outlasted my Lorex VCR.

Understood that stability is the most important quality, but there's no way to extract that from a spec sheet. Most of the users on this forum appear to be most comfortable with higher-end DVRs that are way out of my price range. I've seen a few posts from others in this forum who have (or had) the same needs and budget as me, but they appear to have dropped out since getting the information they were after. I guess that's a good sign because, if they were having problems with their systems, I'm sure they'd be back for troubleshooting advice and/or to whine about their misfortune. It appears that best I can do is research the specs, narrow down the choices, and then ask the members of this forum if they've had any experiences with unit such-and-such. So far, there doesn't seem to be a consensus. It seems that everyone here has had some sort of "trouble" with the "cheap units." What isn't clear in most cases is whether that trouble was an inconvenience or a downright disaster. I actually have a multiplexer (ProVideo DV-9) that's pretty decent and might use it in conjuction with the DVR. My only complaint with that unit is that you can't get a true quad screen. But, if I can locate an acceptable DVR within my budget that doesn't have a realtime display feature, I'll probably do all of the monitoring through the ProVideo. By the way, I'd like to thank you all for the information I've gleaned so far. CCTV technology is far from a mainstream interest and it's great to see so many people sharing their valuable knowledge. I wish there were more active low-budget members like me, but maybe more will join in as the price of this technology continues to fall.

herminshs, Regarding the record FPS, after more research, I stumbed on this site, which appears to show the Yoko unit you're talking about: http://www.amexsecurity.com/store/shopexd.asp?id=75 Contrary to the other sites that show this unit (Yoko's included), the record rate is 60 FPS. I don't know which site to believe, but 60 FPS would be a big plus if it were true. I've also learned that the 480 FPS display means "realtime" display, which would the equivalent of using a GeoVision DSP card in a PC-based system. This also appears to be a big feature that appears to place it ahead of both the Intellicam unit and PC-based system I'm considering. Can you verify the specs from the Amex site?

Found this greate website with all sorts of useful information on Geovision PC requirements: http://www.remote-security.com/gvrequirements.htm Why can't Geovision provide this information on their website?

I have two general questions on DVR cards: Manufacturers, like Geovision, indicate certain system requirements such as CPU speed and RAM size. I assume these are the minimum, so would there be any advantage to using a faster CPU and more RAM? Are there any well-known cards that run on Linux? I'd rather not base a security system on a Windows OS, if you know what I mean. Thanks!

I'm exploring a PC-based DVR option using a GeoVision 800-10 or 16 card. If any of the dealers here would like to provide a quote, please send me a PM. Thanks.