AVCONSULTING

Check the Ganz and see if it looks similar to the one in your link. http://www.cbcamerica.com/cctvprod/ganz/cams/specialty/sid_pdf/CamLCseries1.pdf Any idea who the Taiwanese company is that makes the Adac cameras?

The camera looks ok, if you can trust the seller. You might want to think about getting the 3.5-8mm version instead since 9mm doesn't give you a very wide field of view. It is more telephoto. What exactly were you going to cover with it?

It is difficult to tell not knowing which meter you have. Several have very advanced features. Check your instructions first. If you still have questions then maybe you can send an email link for the unit you have.

Cards with higher fps require more processors. I have no idea how much more it costs for those processors. I have seen boards, from Kodicom, that come standard as 16 camera boards, but are sold as 4, 8 and 16 camera configurations. They charge more as you go up and all they do is add more connectors. All sorts of things going on with the boards, but still it is the software that counts. A lot of work goes into it and you do get free updates on a constant basis from GeoVision. Something you rarely see from the other DVR companies.

I was looking at the dome camera you mentioned. You are saying that this camera is $75. It looks almost identical to the Ganz.

It's a misprint. Download the PDF attachment and it has the resolution as 420 lines. You might want to bring it to their attention so they can change the copy.

One of the best summaries I've yet to see. GeoVision should hire you to do their marketing since they are totally inept when it comes to marketing their own product. If only they would now listen to your ideas on designing a better GUI, they would really be great. Then the next thing they have to do is renounce their distribution policy and become more selective in how they let the product be sold. Seeing that none of this is going to happen I'll still look at the ISC show for an alternative. I'll let you know if I find one worthy of your attention.

Here is a link to the download section of GeoVision. Near the bottom of the page is a place to download the version 6.0 manual. It is fairly comprehensive and could answer several of your questions. You might want to take a look at it and see what answers it can provide regarding some of the programming options that you want to do. http://www.geovision.com.tw/002/en/download.asp

The cards they advertise are Avermedia. I think that is a fairly good line. Anyone have personal use of the Avermedia product? The cameras are the usual low cost Taiwanese which isn't necessarily bad, but they will have problems with any backlight situation so you have to position them with that in mind.

I do not think that the GeoVision software can initiate a software command to run another program on the computer. What expert is referring to is the ability to trip relays for outboard systems.

I think you should just take the plunge, get the GV-250 card and enjoy it. By the time you make up your mind what card to get you'll have the knowledge of a DVR expert, which would be great if this were your profession, but at the same time a hungry pack of bears (do bears run in packs?) will have overrun your neighborhood and made off with anything edible not nailed down. On the serious side though, you will find that 30 fps per camera will eat up your hard drive so fast you probably wouldn't get more than a day or so worth of recorded video. Even 20 fps is so fast that you can't tell the difference between that and 120 fps. I've had years of experience in video recording, both on tape and digital. If you saw 5 fps per camera you would have enough information for almost anything except gambling security and jewelry store security. Try taking anything large in less than 1/5th of a second. There will be tons of DVRs on display at the ISC show, so I'd suggest if you want a really serious look at the latest and greatest in the world of security that you take a mini vacation to Las Vegas and enjoy the show. Here is a link so you can get a free pass. https://www2.compusystems.com/servlet/AttendeeRegLoginServlet?evt_uid=726&vip=CK

I'll have to see what comes up at the ISC show. There will be about 100 DVR suppliers at the Las Vegas show next month.

You might want to repost your question in the camera section. Just an FYI though, a Sony chip doesn't mean Sony quality in the camera. Plus Sony makes different quality and grades of chips and they keep the best for themselves.

I don't know about other areas of the world but in the U.S. XP is almost universally used now. Anyone here sophisticated enough to buy a DVR will either have XP or will buy it. There is going to be a whole new set of DVR remote software coming out that won't run on 98 anymore. You should upgrade, it isn't very expensive and having gone from 98 to XP the difference is really much better.

http://www.tivt.com/pdisplay.cfm?dscnum=1423959114&dpid=1423959114&dcnum=11111 http://www.atvideo.com/pdfs/specsheets/ENGLISH/RoadRunner%20Brochure.pdf

I'm a CCTV consultant and manufacturer's representative. I used to own a distributing company but sold it a few years ago. If you want to see the relationship between WiseMicro and this other company simply go look up who owns the websites. Both are registered to the same person.

That company is owned by WiseMicro, one of the biggest GeoVision distributors in the U.S. so you might want to contact them with your technical questions regarding multiple board use and also see what price you can get from them. Here is a link to their site. http://www.wisemicro.com/Sales.htm

I think you hit it, I doubt if it works on anything lower than XP or 2000. Just a guess. Here is the home web site for the company, maybe something is mentioned there. http://www.bluenetvideo.com/

Although Extreme is an incredibly good camera I think it might be overkill for his project. A friend of mine is the Extreme CCTV rep out here and his business has been steadily climbing since it is the choice of most high end projects. But I think for watching garbage cans you can safely use the lower priced units. I had no problems viewing the BlueNet, in fact I got very close to real time imaging with good resolution. I'm not sure why Rory is not able to view it. Perhaps the connection wasn't good. Still, the BlueNet isn't going to be practical for this application. The GeoVision GV-250 is really the best in this case.

I just went on Google and searched for LED sales information and one company stated that LED's last 80,000 hours which translates into 9.13 years. That would be running 24 hours a day. I don't think the LED's on this camera run continously but not sure. Even so I think that would work out for you.

I don't have hard statistics, but I've never heard of them burning out. Maybe someone else here has some type of survey regarding this.

Refresh rate is the same as fps. I'd say that I was seeing close to 15 fps or better which is great. Of course they may have a really fast connection which is really the main limiting factor in viewing over the internet. It depends primarily on the upload speed your internet provider is giving you. Upload speeds and download speeds are not the same. Most of the time the upload speed is far slower than the download. You'll have to talk to your internet provider about that aspect.

That is a great picture. In fact I'm very impressed with the refresh rate on the transmission speed. This company has some very interesting products. I'll have to scope them out at the ISC show.

850 nm vs 920 nm is simply the wavelength of the IR light. From a human visibility point of view the 850 can emit a slight red glow while the 920 is invisible. This is important in very covert type of observations. For your project covert lighting isn't that important. I'd actually go for the 850 if you have a choice since they are more efficient and can project a light further than a 920. LED lighting almost never burns out so you don't have to worry about the bulbs going.

If you are really intent on having 30 fps then get the more advanced GV-800 card that has 30 fps per camera. Truthfully this is overkill and no one uses it except for casinos which have to see very rapid hand movements to catch cheaters. You would be fine with 4 or 5 fps per camera. I guess unless you actually see something like that in action you won't understand that 4 to 5 fps is a lot of frames. I'd suggest looking around in your local area and see if you can find a company that offers time lapse recorders or DVRs (check for Spy Shops, etc). At least go in and see what the playback looks like. Another big drawback to recording at high speeds is that you use of huge chunks of hard drive space at that frame rate. Even if you only record on motion it will still eat up a hard drive quickly, not unlike a hungry bear devouring your garbage (if not you also). GeoVision is a great card. It has drawbacks but they really don't affect your situtation. As for the number of DVRs and cards I've evaluated, I've lost count. Too many for sure. And I will be looking at tons more at the upcoming ISC show in Las Vegas next month. The quest for the perfect DVR is never ending. And we haven't even talked about embedded systems. Good luck on your quest.