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Check out CCTVImports LX Series DVR's. They have great support, a good warranty on this model and I have had good luck with it. I personally don't why people pay such big dollars for some of these name brand DVR's when alot are OEMed anyhow. My customers could care less about Pelco or any other named brand. They want a nice picture, be able to back up an incident onto CD/DVD and have remote access. I do not work for CCTVImports nor do I owe anything to them but I do know that the service I have received has been the best out of the past 4 supplies I have dealt with. I am a happy customer. So to answer your question about a supplier......give them a shot. My 2c opinion of course

I have a question regarding remote PTZ Control through GV. I have a NET I/O card and my PTZ camera is working flawless locally. When I remote in through the Webcam Internet Explorer and through Multiview the PTZ control is greyed out and states no PTZ Device is connected so I have no option of PTZ control but if I remote in through Multicam I can select PTZ control using that and I have control of it. What am I doing wrong to have this control greyed out in Multiview? I am logged in as supervisor so all the checkboxes are checked so I should have full control. Thanks.

Thanks for the repies. I tried disabling direct draw overlay. Although I was able to see the video now over VNC I found it had created some other issues so I renabled that. That is a great work around though. I found, as tedious as it may sound, ALT-TABBING between my remote VNC session and my multicam view session provides a work around for me. In my VNC session I can select the camer menu and also do the IRIS OPEN and CLOSE commands and within my multicam screen I can control the up and down within the camera menu. Crude but it works and did not require doing anything special to the settings. If there was an IRIS control in multicam then I would be able to do all this with multicam except for maybe initiating the 95 PRESET command. Good feature to add to multicam there GEOVISION. Is Andy out there anymore? Thanks.

Ya I got the PTZ Control Panel running but I mean in order to get into the PTZ menu like I would normally issue a 95-preset in order to get into my PTZ camera via the local PTZ controller. Can I get into the camera menu to make changes to camera settings remotely? Thanks.

OK one more question. Now that we finally got the PTZ working is there a way to get into the PTZ camera menu remotely? I can get into the PTZ camera menu over the local GV computer but it doesn't seem to have a way to get into the menu remotely. I get into my GV Computer over TightVNC but of course I don't see the video transmission through a remote desktop viewer. Thanks

Freakin SWEET! Thanks a ton for the help all. It was the camera mapping that was the issue and for some reason I missed seeing that in the menu. I squinted a bit harder and saw it there Everything is working great now. Now I just have to play around with all the other cool features when I get it to the customer place. He is playing guinea pig with this DVR so that is cool of him. He currently has an 8 camera system with two PTZ cameras so he has an ideal environment for me to play with all the cool features GV has. The only thing I still fight with is the recording quality don't seem to be that great but I guess it is part of the design. I find my low end embedded DVR records much better with less jagged edges and such but I'll continue messing with it. Thanks for the help

THanks for the replies. I already had the Remote Control selected. I tried deselecting and reselecting to see if that would fix but no luck. I'm not sure i understand what PTZ Camera Mapping means. It works just fine through the local computer and through Multicam but not through the webcam service. Would mapping cause this to be an issue if so can you please explain what is meant by it and I will look into that. I appreciate the ideas. I thought there was someone from GV on this forum. I wonder if he has any possible insight as well. This is actually the only issue at the moment and is preventing me from doing an install at a customer site who currently has two PTZ cameras but wants to upgrade his DVR to this GV system. I also have another customer who the same type of upgrade an he also has PTZ cameras but if I can't get it working then I guess I'll have to look into some other type of DVR. I'm not impressed with the Avermedia and there are a number of other DVR cards out there but GV seems to be the more popular one. ****EDIT: I just also realized within the webcam server setup under the VIDEO tab that the allowed PTZ cameras all show greyed out boxes. It does not even recognize that I have a PTZ camera connected yet I'm using the darn thing. What could I be missing? The PTZ camera is a no name Pelco D protocol camera. Camera works great other than working through the webcam. Thanks

Thanks for the reply, however, as I mentioned I log in as a supervisor so all the privileges are checkmarked including the one that is marked as PTZ. I also have control of the PTZ when I use the Multicam application but not through any other remote access method. This is an important system so I would like to figure out why I don't have PTZ control through all remote view methods. Thanks.

Try turning the ALC up. I believe this adjust power to the lens and maybe it is set too low to keep the lens open. Just another thought.

Were there problems with them before? I did get a response from my supplier who spoke to a rep from Extreme CCTV and the rep stated that the camera will operate to -40 as they test them down to -55 (this was told to me) but it may take a performace hit when operating that low. I'm not sure what they mean by it won't perform as well but it will operate....

I have a customer who does not want the look of a bulky heated enclosure on their house so I am looking for alternatives. Problem here is that it could get down to almost -40F in the dead of winter. I have had no problems with the heated enclosures and PTZ's we've installed as the temps have gone down to -36F (I have a picture of the thermometer!) this past winter I have had no issues. Anyhow, I was thinking that the WZ18 series bullet cameras look like a good choice for them but the spec states -22F. Anyone have experience with these cameras in really cold environments? Does the camera hold true to spec or have people seen these running in much colder than speced? I don't have experience with Extreme but I'm well aware of them. Thanks.

No luck. I moved the card over to the other PCI slot and besides it asking for the drivers again it has made no difference. GEES! I have no idea why everyone states good quality recording with their GV cards when I just can't get a decent recording. Everything is just so darn jagged and yet all my setting seem to be in place.

I will get to this next week as I am leaving for vacation for a few days but to answer your question on the monitor it is a 17" Samsung CRT monitor. I truely appreciate your responses to help me troubleshoot this thing. I will give your suggestion of moving the card over to a different slot a try next week.

I honestly do not know what else to check. I think I've checked all the settings that could be causing this and my current settings are in my post above. Do these look right? It should not be my PC specs that's for sure. I am running Windows XP latest updates all installed. No AV running on the machine either. My actual resolution that I was recording in was 720x480 but by suggestion I brought it down to 640x480 with no improvement. I do have a legit card bought from an authorized source and all the software works without issue. Posted in this forum are horror stories of clone cards not functioning properly with the software and I don't exhibit those issues. Just the record quality is horrible. Maybe I'll do a full uninstall of the software, change the card PCI slots and reinstall the software again. I can't see any other reason as I seem to be the only one really complaining about the record quality. I don't understand it at all. In my eyes it's just not worth the money right now unless I can work through this issue. Thanks

Could camera type affect the recording quality. I seem to have different quality recordings depending on the type of camera. The camera in question currently attached to my GV system is a Panasonic WV-CP284 and I think I read on the forum some place about Panasonic chipsets giving problems to GV systems but I'm not sure if this is part of the issue or if it was a different issue all together. I have an internal camera as well where the record quality seems to be better but anyhow here is a screen shot...the original uploaded is 1024x768 but it seems that image shack resized it to 640x480. Look at the vehicle in the background. Seems to have a trail behind it. At times my recorded video gets really blocky and if I pause it or back up a frame it will clear up. My PC is a Gigabyte system running an Intel Duo Core and it has 2G of memory. I have a 500G AV drive and I'm using the internal video card which is Nvidia based with 512MB. The person I spoke to said they have a number of video cards and he said they didn't find any different in quality of the video I send them. So for some reason it is just recording in subpar quality. Thanks

So no one else has GV Record issues? I don't get what I am doing wrong. Even taking a snap shot of a live view shows a very jagged photo and is nothing like what the live view looks like. Is this normal for GV? I was a bit concerned when the tech I spoke to said there is nothing else that can be done and is part of the GV design. If this is the case I don't know why people would purchase it as part of a professional DVR setup. Could I have a defective card? Not sure what else to do as I can't sell a DVR that has this bad of a record quality especially when a couple of my no name brand sub $500 embedded DVR's are many time better quality. One thing I found unmatched with GV so far was the streaming video. I find it to be very fast and the streaming quality very good, the features of the card are great also now if only it could record in high quality. Thanks

Gee I think it is worse. Here are my settings. The recorded video is so darn jagged and unclear it makes no sense. It looks nothing like the live video. I think these are the settings that control all this let me know if I'm missing something please. General Settings: Panel Resolution checked and 800x600 selected Enable de-interlace render check marked Camera Record Setting: Recording quality: 5 Video resolution: 640x480 de-interlace Video Source: NTSC_M 640x480 De-Interlace A/V Setting DSP Overlay checkmarked Recording System Configuration / Display: User aspect ratio 4:3 Camera/Image Setting are all checkmarked - Apply Deinterlace render - Apply scaling render - Apply deblocking render - Apply text overlay... - Apply text overlay's POS... - Apply camera name render

Thanks for the reply CollinR. I have a 4:3 tube monitor with my desktop in 1024x768 resolution and I have GEO set to this display also. I will try what you suggested setting the desktop to 800x600 and 640x480 recording to see if this cleans it up a bit as well as the other items. My camera is an intensifier series like the Speco which has a spec of 540TVL unsure of actual pixels. I'll report back. Thanks again

I'd be interested in your setup if you are having a great experience with them. Is your color setting on Auto or set to Color? How about your Sense Up settings X2, X4, X8? AGC? What lense type are you using, I have tried a number of lense but lately have been using Fujinon lenses primarily the D/N lenses with these cameras. Keep in mind I use the CPH4000 model from CCTVImports which is identical to the Speco intensifier model. I have a tough time to get an outstanding image considering it is High Res and I find that these cameras do not handle bright clear sky days to well. If I adjust the camera so it looks good during the day then it will not look good at night so I find the camera to be a catch 22 but if you are having great success maybe I am missing something in the settings to get such a good picture. Thanks

Awesome thanks. That's helpful.

I've seen a few blurbs on this subject but not what I was looking for, figured I would start another. Do you folks find yourself building your own relay modules? Let's say you have a DVR with Alarm out Max30V/2A and you want to turn on a light for instance. I have a BSEET and can easily figure out how to make my own design but generally speaking one should not need a degree to figure out this stuff......anyway got sidetracked. So if it is just an alarm then one could power a 12VDC Relay at the DVR source and pass it through the N/O alarm terminals on the DVR. Motion is detected and click the relay closes. Now if I wanted to have a bed lamp switch on you now have to have a 12VDC triggered relay than can pass 120VAC through the contacts. No problem but one would have to build a relay box and maybe put an appliance outlet into the box and the relays inside the box. There does not seem to be an easy relay box for this or an online place that I could find that has these type solutions available. The only option is to build one I think unless someone knows of an accessories place for DVR that may have this. I may have to go buy a project box and relays over at Radio Shack and build my own but I'd rather buy one call it plain lazy...

Thanks for reminding me of the back EMF Diode You guys have experience with any particular solid state diodes you can share? Part number or cross reference number maybe. When I live near Boston I had a place called You-Do-It-Electronics and THAT was a candy store I could spent HOURS in. I love the place and whenever I get down to Boston every few months I stop there. Unfortunately I now live......well lets just say in the Tundra It'll reach -40 here in the winters. Population not very large so I have no candy stores within a convenient drive. I would have to order or maybe Radio Shack near by might have something. Thanks for the replies. Looks like I would have to build something each time so that is something I have to keep in the back of my mind when writing up estimates.

Looking for some advice here. We have a potential customer that called me today looking for a replacement system to his Digiview DVR that he is having endless problems with. This is an auto auction place so they have a large yard with 6 cameras currently. He wants a 16 channel DVR so I am looking at a Geovision system. Combo card 16 channel 480fps with PTZ control and alarm connectivity. They want to have a sensor setup across there entrance which will trigger an email to be sent to there cell phone or the alarm trigger. I believe the Geovision system can do this. Now the issue we have is locating a sensor that will work over an entrance span of 170'. I think to find something that will span 170' we will need somekind of laser beam with maybe a reflector on the other end?? I've never done anything of this width before so I am really uncertain of the required equipment. I will also need to get some additional cameras to cover this wide of a spread maybe 2 cameras focused on the entrance alone? Thanks

Sweet, I got a call back from them and they are out of Toronto or at lease the tech guy that called me is. I spoke to them for a good while and I think that they will have what I am looking for. They seem to provide many options for integration which I was hoping. I will be in Toronto in a few weeks so I am setting up a meeting with them where they will provide me some training and a walk through of their products and a new product they just introduced. Thanks for the lead, this has been helpful.

Thanks dcam. I guess it's not as I expected. Instead of showing the size as we would expect the options are small medium large. I selected large and now I have the choice to select 720x480. Thanks I figured when you posted that there must be an option so I tried that and that was it.