WildCard

Same old story... I think I am about to swear off domes as Rory has, but working on a few things now and wanted your input. Any decent quality (or high quality) domes that would be suitable in a professional site? Customer feels that bullets or boxes aren't the look he's looking for. He's said that he's looking for most bank for buck (picture quality vs price), I am just curious as to what brand & model (and approximate price point) you would suggest. This would be in a pc with Geovision, if it matters. Thanks, -WC-

yeah, sounds like each dongle is configured to work only with a specific card. Painful way to do it, but effective - if the counterfitting problem is as bad as they say it is. -WC-

Yes, dongle is needed to upgrade past chipset cards to 7.0. Cards with latest chipset will not need the dongle. -WC-

My cable supplier generically has cable available - to which I have recently bought 3 500' spools of Siamese CCTV combo RG6/u + 2/18 cl2. In my research on this forum, I see that many feel that it is best to have cable that is 95% copper shielded. Of the 3 spools I received, two had some copper shielding, one had 0 copper shielding. Given that I want my jobs to be professional look & effectiveness, I would like to know what cable you suggest and use for your cctv professional installs. A good priced supplier and appx cost would be great too. I am presently paying around $90/spool delivered, if it helps put things into perspective one way or another. Thank you! -WC-

Yes, my past 3 rolls of quad shielded was dual jacketed. It definitely was convenient to seperate, clean look too. -WC-

I was just looking at the cables I have here, the generic mentioned above... rather flimsy feel, infact the aluminum one seemed more solid. But the copper was rather light. Did you mention that the lowest percentage of copper, other than 0, would be 70? This looked peppered with copper, I would not think even 50%, but that's just a guess. I have been doing searches for 95% mix online, you can definitely see the difference between that and what I have. Going with a cable company online, I wouldn't pay more than 33% more to get the 95% mix, which is worth it to me if it removes problems potentially down the road. -WC-

Spectacular list. This is very helpful. I have seen you say on a few occasions in a few threads that you like GE cams, looks like about half of the ones you use are GEs. I've always been under the understanding that GE doesn't make too much of anything (except the high end medical etc stuff), that they typically just rebadge someone else's goods as their own. Maybe that's just the toasters, blenders etc out there. Locally I see a lot of OEM cams, sometimes I will see Sony - but I think a lot of people are tolerant of mediocrity in this area. You selling so many systems is indicative of that you sell well on the value vs price sales pitch. Thanks for the list, it's a great one. -WC-

Do you all buy brand name cable, or does it not matter who's brand it is as long as it's rated at 95%? -WC-

Thanks Rory. You have a treasure trove of good info.. By OEM, I assume you mean the simple unbranded box cams that companies sell, right? Doing a web search for GE KTC-840CE comes up with prices in the $*** retail range. That's not much more than some of the OEM ones I've been looking at. I've been looking at lenses & the Altronix ps, thanks for touching on those points too. -WC- //Edited out websearch pricing, posted because I thought the price found was retail, not dealer pricing.

An incredible amount of quality info, I thank you again. Yes, these domes were slated for inside. Sorry for mentioning that. I'll look into those domes mentioned. I have lots of research to do today. -WC- PS: I am going to continue this in another thread, about box cams.

Wait, do you pay the $200 price due to your location? Are you saying that I should look for the 95% mix at the $70-85 pricepoint? If so, that's good news for me, given that is what I have budgetted generally in my quotes for the generic cable! -WC-

Perfect, that's what I needed to know. I didn't realize the price difference would go from $90 (what I am paying for generic) to around $200 for the good stuff. But if it helps guarantee less interference, I think it is probably worth it. Thanks for the info, -WC-

Hey G22, Awesome clips, I was so hoping the owner would have come on the scene as the guy was calmly rummaging through the trunk. Upload the clip of the owner coming on the scene, would like to see his reaction. Mind me asking what camera/lens combo you have on that area? Beautiful recording. -WC-

I seem to see the most trouble with HP software running in the background, holding up reboots/shutdowns. But even those programs eventually error out. So to confirm what you are seeing, when you choose the restart option, it just goes back to the desktop? Can I assume you didn't install any software after the winxp reinstall? You did say that even in windows setup it wasn't able to restart so that makes that question's answer moot I guess... I wonder if there is a power setting in bios holding this back somehow. There is a small problem in xp sometimes if you have the ACPI (or is it APCI?) power setting active, when you shut down you get a 'it is now safe to turn off your computer' vs just turning off. Not sure how that saves energy, but disabling that hidden setting in hardware control panel fixes it. Not totally relevant to your issue, but I guess I would focus on bios settings. Either go back to bios defaults, or see if Toshiba has an updated bios for that model. -WC-

repost the pic with him circled. I can't see him at all! -WC-

well, I would have tried that out before using Nero.. lots of ways to skin a cat they say. glad you found a quick way. -WC-

Good suggestions so far, but what I typically do, especially if the qty of data is large is to pull out the HD, adapt it to regular IDE connection (simple adapter appx $10) and put it into another machine. I then back up the data to the local hard drive. But the USB hard drive external bays are nice if you don't want to deal with shutting down the pc. If you don't want to deal with opening up the laptop, crossover cable will do the trick. But if you could solve the Nero problem for the customer, that's probably the best option - for you and the customer (unless you are doing a winreinstall). -WC-

Thanks BW: The monitor is an LCD, not CRT so improbable that it would be interferring in the way you mention. I am more concerned about the muzak music amplifier 3 feet from cables & geovision system, might move that later or turn off the amp to see if there's any difference. But given that the mroe expensive accudomes work in the same environment as the cheap domes don't, I am just not sure. Would like a solution that doesn't involve replacing all the cheap cams with accudomes, but we'll have to see. -WC-

I would love the info too, please. Send it to james22341@jipe.net Thanks! -WC-

Yes, the performance difference between the cheap domes & the ones that are more expensive is huge. -WC-

Maybe this is the solution - would explain why my Accudome worked fine on two cables while the budget dome fails to work well in the same environment. -WC-

Yes, I agree that the cheapos look like crap. My supplier said that this would be a great budget 1/4" dome, but I wish I had gone with the Accudomes that I have used in the past. Customer was looking for a budget solution, and it's given me just headaches. -WC-

I've been using an RG6 quad shielded braided siamese cable, my supplier sells it to me for a little under $100 shipped for a spool of $500 feet. What model Altronix or P3 power supply box do you use? I don't mind paying a little more for quality... My distributor only pointed me to the generic one I mentioned above. I was thinking the same thing - or maybe a mis-setting in the Geovision software. But I took a confirmed working cam, a nice Accudome and put it in the same environment using the same power, cabling, and ends. The quality camera worked beautifully. I tried it on two cables where the cams were previously receiving 'noise'. The accudome is a 1/3" 480 line Sony SuperHAD cam vs 1/4" CCD econ camera. So, are cheap cameras vulnerable to noise more so than more expensive cameras? There is a Muzak amp within 3 feet of the DVR system, and a small UPS battery but other than that there aren't the usual things that would cause electrical interference. -WC-

I was advised to use a RG6 siamese cable, which looked decent. It's quad shielded, which I was under the understanding that is great for this application. Given the power being siamese'd onto the cable, it's convenient for laying the cable. F-connector combo, was a price & convenience call. What cable & connector do you use? Mind me asking who the supplier is? You don't use Geovision cards? Which do you use? We laid the cable away from the florescent lighting, but it's not to say there aren't power lines or something else interfering. I tried to lay the cable with ideal procedures in mind. I used a simple camera power supply distribution supply. Chinese import of no brand name, 12vdc for 9 cameras. It says output is +12V 5A max. What box do you use in these installs? Video cable is fine, works bad only in Geovision cam windows. -WC-

Ouch, the truth does hurt. Looking back on it, I wish I had not done it this way. I didn't do the buying for these items, but was told that the adapter combo was cheaper to buy than to buy bnc connectors outright. As illogical as it sounded, I was told it was the truth. This isn't our first install, but it is our largest scale. We did a few things in this install that I assumed would be better, but apparently not. I am trying to fix things using research and all of your cumulative advice. I do thank you all for the info. -WC-