sjmaye

Hey Cooperman, That makes a lot of sense. But I am still a bit gray on one matter. Your quote: So, what is the use of the manual iris? Just setting the maximum aperture. Then you let the EI takeover from there?

The install went fine except for my stupidity! I was stupid and somehow allowed Windows to select the drivers from my hard drive instead of the ones on the supplied CD. I still can't figure how I missed that. It is working fine. So good that I ordered another card which will bring me up to 16 total cameras @ 30fps each. From everything I experienced I found: Although XP will work OK, Windows 2000 is preferred I have been told this card will not run with AMD. Must be Intel. Use the drivers supplied.

Wow, I thought distance form the area you want to watch was simply a matter of picking the right focal length lens. If you need to watch an area further away you get a longer focal length lens and vice versa. Is the 50' limit becuase there are serious limits as the lenses available? Or what is the limiting factor to getting clarity at a distance? No problem. The drive is almost single lane up to the parking area. I could increase illumination just as it opens up. We are having some paving work done this summer. I might ask them to add a speed bump at this point. I guess I don't get what you are doing with the manual iris on the lens and the eletronic iris . How are they interacting. One by day one by night? I really appreciate all the info, guys. I know this is one of those things I am just going to have to try in order to gain experience. I will be runnign cable in the next couple weeks.

You are referring to the VM300? If so, no problem. As far as license plates. I really don't think I need to go super expensive or hi-tech. It is by no means essential that we get a license plate 100% of the time. Just a thought that might be helpful. We are a manufacturing plant out in the country. Sure, every once in a while we have some thought that someone may be trying to break in to a car, but that has been maybe 3 or 4 times in the last 20 years. I am simply taking our old cameras and time lapse VCR and bringing them a little more up to date. I built a DVR (capture card and PC) and now I am working on cameras and wiring. I know once I have this thing up and running no one will update it again for some time, so I thought I would do as good a job as possible. Thanks for the reply and info, Rory!. I will look up the cameras you mentioned. PS- I am trying to work out the spread of the cameras. Is there a rule of thumb on just how much parking lot I should try to cover with a single camera? It would seem you don't want to cover too much because you then don't get as much detail and if you have to blow up the image to look at something small it would get really blurry. Any thoughts or pointers here?? Any problems locating all the cameras in one spot and spreading them across the lot? Or should the cameras be as perpendicular as possible to the lot?

Anyone know what the maximum length of run would be for a camera installation? I am looking at runs between 200' - 600'. I had hoped to use the siamese coax with 18ga power leads. I was concerned about either video signal loss or voltage drop across the long runs. Should I be worried?

I know I am a newbie, but what is a IR Cut filter and what does it do? Thanks!

Based on .2A w/18AWG wire I get a dvoltage drop of about 2.54volts lost per 1000 ft. Can a 12v camera run OK on about 9.5 volts? What is the rule of thumb for recommended voltage range for a 12v camera?

I bought from Qualitystar168. The specs you mention are the same as the one I bought. In fact, the reason I chose it. I was skeptical so I actually cruised through his prior closed auctions. I emailed several people who bought the same card/software and all were very happy with the performance. There were a couple that commented on finding the card working better on a Windows 2000 system rather than XP, but other than that they were all happy. One of these guys even sent me a copy of the installation manuals. They were Kodicom installation manuals. One manual for "site" (host?) for "center" (client?). I just received both the computer I ordered and the dvr card. I will install today. (fingers crossed)

I am a DIYer. I read about some of the DVR cards on ebay. I knew it was a risk, but thought what the heck, if it does not work I am not out much. I bought an 8 channel/240FPS card with the Kodicom software(at the least the manual shows it to be). Yes, it came from China. I have not installed it yet. My question- If I don't like the software functionality or it just does not work right can this capture board be used with other brands of DVR software or is the board software specific? If other software can be used with the card do you have any recommendations?