CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted July 31, 2008 The major misconception of the Intellex system is that it is a proprietary and you can not make any modifications nor can change basic components... Well, that is not true. In basic format, Intellex is a proprietary product build in and around basic computer system. What makes it proprietary is its software and its capture card... all the rest of the components are standard off the shelve items. It is a very well accepted product in the market by many organizations and deliver excellent and very productive results - until it fails.. Here are my take on TEN assumptions that surround this product and creates unnecessary confusion. Assumption #1 – many will assume that you can not change the motherboard/processor combinations with anything else other than Intel based solution – wrong assessment. You can use motherboards from different manufacturers using both Intel or AMD chipsets. Our tests revealed that AMD based motherboards/processors provide much better performance than Intel based solutions. Consideration for this type of change is and always will be more cost effective in the future than any Intel based motherboards/processors combination. You have to make sure to provide the operating system all the drivers that will recognize your motherboard components and that is all... You also can reuse your existing MAC address allowing to use your existing SW key... Dependent which motherboard is used, there is a way to change its native MAC address to user defined MAC address. Assumption #2 – many will assume that the video card can not be anything else other than what Intellex comes with – wrong assessment. You can use video cards from various other manufacturers. Make sure that you are using at least 128MB of on-board RAM (256 MB is preferable) and also make sure that you manually provide its respective driver. I am sure that someone will dispute this claim, as typical video card that comes with latest Intellex systems is 64MB and that video processing mostly occurs with capture card in the system. However, there are utilities available that can clearly show that higher video RAM and faster GPU based video cards do contribute better performance. It does not increase video resolution at all, rather increases video performance. The main bottleneck restriction of the higher video resolution and performance is based on the capture card hardware setting, which can not be changed. Assumption #3 – many will assume that hard drives must be by Western Digital – wrong assessment. Western Digital drives are great products and come with three years warranty. They also come with 7200 RPM speeds in both PATA and SATA format and they perform very well. With few dollars more, you can buy Surveillance Grade Seagate hard drives that come with five years warranty with similar specs and yet, operate cooler. Any hard drive operating cooler does and will prolong the life expectancy of such hardware and besides, additional two years warranty is the icing on the cake. Assumption #4 - many will assume that the power supply should not be more than 400W and it must be exact same manufacturer – wrong assessment. With simple calculation of all the hardware Intellex systems, it is obvious that 400W power supplies are just enough for the task. Using basic formula available anywhere and here is one that you can use as a reference - http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html shows clearly that if the Intellex system comes with 500GB or more internal storage, the required powers is 388W. The main problem is that you always have to allocated at least 20% overhead on any power supply used for any computer based machine, so that your power supply does not fail due to heat built up or availability of no overhead. This basic formula explains the main reason why Intellex power supplies fail more often than usual and require constant replacement. Instead, you must use power supplies with at least 450W capacity and I recommend efficiency factor with no less than 80% and also that it comes with several fans of its own, preferably at least one that has 120MM fan. This type of spec power supplies last very long time and surpass even life expectancy of most components in the same system. The efficiency factor also helps to reduce your electrical bill, as it guarantees this high percentage of transfer of energy. It operates much cooler and is less noisy compared to what original power supplies come with such systems. Assumption #5 – many will assume that CD burner can not upgrade to DVD burner – wrong assessment. There are patches available on AD website allowing you to upgrade your CD burner to DVD burner. But... the standard DVD burners you purchase today may not work with Intellex systems. The software that control burn function of CD or DVD burners is tightly integrated with Intellex software and it is a very old versions. Thus, it works only with older version DVD or CD burners, most of which are no longer available in the market. What can someone do to find this type of solution? One way is to buy dozen DVD or CD burners in the market and test them individually to confirm if they work or not. It is a very difficult challenge for any house that works with Intellex platform. There are few current models from various CD or DVD manufacturers in the market that work with older and newer Intellex systems. So, search or ask and you will find them. Assumption #6 – many will assume that you are not allowed to obtain all the Microsoft critical updates and must use only the updates that the manufacturer recommends – wrong assessment. This seems tricky, but very easy. I recommend to download and apply only the critical updates and nothing else. Install Firefox or Opera and disable Microsoft IE, the Outlook Express and the Media Player. Even if you disable the IE, you still be able to perform your updates, however, if you really have to use Intellex for web browsing (you should not use Intellex other than what it is intended), then do not use IE – instead use Firefox or Opera. Do not install any new software for different tasks. If you have to install printer, make sure it does not change your system configuration and do not take any updates from Microsoft for the same hardware. Assumption #7 – many will assume that Intellex internal storage will not exceed more than 750GB – wrong assessment. 750GB storage is the maximum internal storage available for Intellex platform from the manufacturer (excluding Intellex Ultra platform). However... Dependent if you have a desktop or rack mountable version Intellex, you can increase such internal storage to maximum 4TB (4,000GB). It is little tricky on how to do it, but with basic computer skills and persistency, it is fairly simple task. It may use all your ATA and SATA connections (exceptions apply to older boards that are restricted to no more than 4 ATA outputs), but with current storage capacities available from both Western Digital and Seagate reaching to 1TB (1,000GB), you can achieve this objective easily. Word of caution – make sure that you change your internal power supply to at least 600W and with 80+ efficiency. This way it will accommodate all the power requirements for these hard drives. Assumption #8 – many will assume that you can not backup video content from existing hard drives to newer hard drives – wrong assessment. You can transfer content of all your video per partition to a newer hard drive with the same size partition. The trick is not to exceed or short change the size of such partition. Due to Microsoft limitations of dividing hard drives to maximum four partitions, just remember that when assigning partition size, it matches with the original older partition contains the original video. There are many utilities available to perform this type of task. You have to insure that partition size and content mirrored and copied perfectly on the new drive. Once such copies are done, then visit Intellex Storage Manager and have these new partitions added to the database. Once complete, now you have access to your older video on a newer hard drives. Assumption #9 – many will assume that you can not add more internal fans or better system fans to improve air flow in and out of Intellex. Dependent which form factor Intellex you have, desktop or rack mountable, you can always either add more fans or use better fans to improve air flow in and out of the cases, thus increase life expectancy of your product.. In case of desktop form factor – make sure that besides the 120MM fan that must be part of your power supply, you also have one or two (dependent on age and version of such case) 60mm fan in the back of the case (above and near the processor fan). Always use ball bearing type of fans. You can also add yet another fan on the front of the case and right behind of the capture card. It will require to temporary move the front cover and use yet another 60mm X 1cm fan. Now, when you have a front fan pulling air into the case and the rear fans extracting air, what that does is helping constant move of the hot air away from internal components and increases life expectancy of the system. If you have rack mountable Intellex system, then here is what you do... Besides 120MM fan that is part of the power supply, you have to add two more 60mm fans in the back of the case. Replace 120MM fan that comes with the system for the following reasons.. First of all, it is way too laud and if you work with one, you can relay this clearly. Second, because its constant speed, it does not survive more than a year (we replaced too many of these fans and still do today). Instead, replace it with another 120MM fan that is quieter but more importantly, comes with built in thyristor. What this small component does for this type of fan is that it detects heat variations. Upon detection of more heat, it increases the fan speed to push more air or reduces if it senses less heat. This way, air flow fluctuates based on heat built up within the case. Assumption #10 – many will assume that adding more RAM into the system or utilizing rounded ATA cables will not make any difference in the system performance – wrong assessment. The debate for more RAM causing better performing Intellex is still going on. Here is my take which is based on facts. If you know how to perform registry change to allow the view of the performance of the entire system, then you can observe how Intellex operates. You can view the utilization of the processor and RAM usage based on every task you perform. The older systems came with 256MB of RAM, whereas the newer systems come with 512MB of RAM. Close analysis of RAM utilization through basic Windows Task Manager “Performance†Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alanjh1965 0 Posted July 31, 2008 I have an idea for a new TV program..... Pimp my DVR ! Seriously thought, very informative. As per a previous post I am going to replace a faulty power supply in a dead unit, but I will try some of the other things you sugest to make it perform better. I must say I have installed a a lot of Intellex's and I do like them but they are an expensive unit and I guess I have been a little frightened to open up the lid until now. As you say most of the components are straight off the shelve. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted July 31, 2008 Once you overcome the initial fright on working with this type of hardware, the rest is a breeze... Same applies to DVRs from Bosch Windows based machines, most of Sanyo embedded machines, most GE, CBC, Panasonic and other embedded machines... The trick is always to have the hardware to play with and then move components around... Most of embedded systems are easier to manipulate in terms of internal storage and most of the time you can achieve much higher storage at much lower cost than what manufacturers state. Good luck and if you have any questions about your system, do not hesitate to address them.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Blake CCTV 3 Posted April 1, 2010 Hi you seem to know what you are talking about so hopefully you can help me out. I have recently taken over a ADT system that use's an Intellex American Dynamics DVR. The customer has their user level password but not an admin level password I have tried the usual easy ones eg 0000 1234 4321 etc but to no avail we only need it to change the time. I also tried to reboot the machine and change the time in the Bios but this is also password protected. Any ideas Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted April 2, 2010 Please check your PM... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mdc632 0 Posted October 20, 2010 Can you also show or teach me how to break the bios password from previous owner. Thank you. Martin Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted October 20, 2010 Can you also show or teach me how to break the bios password from previous owner. Thank you. Martin Normally there is no reason to get into the BIOS for Intellex... it does nothing or will help on anything, as long as it is the original motherboard... Unless if you are changing the motherboard with a latest and greatest available from Intel, not much you can get to get into the BIOS... I will PM you the password for the BIOS... Let me know if you have any other questions. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted May 10, 2014 This is a probably a very old post to follow, but I thought I can add few more thoughts on this Intellex topic. In addition to these above 10 options available for Intellex systems, there are few more additional steps available. Since our friends at Microsoft announced that the support of XP platform stops as of April 8, 2014 - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help - users for Intellex systems that operate in Win2000 (version 3.0 to 3.2) and Win XP (version 4.0 to 4.3) may have some concerns about their systems integrity or support for the future. Actually there are quite of few companies are facing this dilemma and security departments or IT departments are forced to either buy new Intellex systems or convert what they currently have to a different DVR platforms or going directly to IP solutions.. Most are facing tremendous cost of such conversion regardless what they choose. However... There is no official upgrade from Microsoft to taking existing Win2000 or Win XP operating systems directly to Win7. It posses a question if there is anything else out there that may minimize this pain... and the answer is YES! It is called Win7 Migration using third party based software. Not an easy task, but very much doable. It has taken us roughly (3) three months to conclusively migrate fully functional Intellex 4.x system operating in Win XP platform to Windows 7 operating system and it works like a charm... There are few licenses that must be part of such migration. However, you can take your existing Intellex system and transfer to Win7 and still reuse software keys that were part of your original Intellex systems. No need to buy anything from the manufacturer.. Currently we are looking at few other DVRs from different manufacturers that still operate on XP environment and working towards migrating such systems to Win7 platform. I think the results will be positive considering what we learned migrating Intellex application to the same operating system. We will wait and see the results in near future. Very curious what the members think for upgrading their DVR systems that may be using older Windows operating systems to Win7 platform. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
seeya1971 0 Posted May 28, 2014 Migration to win7, from a 4.2 and below requires a new capture card does it not? My understanding is that no drivers exist in win7 for the old card. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted June 1, 2014 Migration to win7, from a 4.2 and below requires a new capture card does it not? My understanding is that no drivers exist in win7 for the old card. Actually, yes and no and here is where the fine line is... If you are "upgrading" Intellex regardless which version, it is a different story. Such upgrades are available strictly from the manufacturer, American Dynamics. When you use either "free" upgrade or "paid" version of the upgrade, you get such solution from the manufacturer, who insures that all the drivers are intact and are part of such upgrade. There are a lot of restrictions and dependent on type of motherboard being used and this task is not reversible. According to few articles from the manufacturer, it is stating that if customers want to take their systems to Win7 environment, there are many other restrictions besides costs. Such articles talk about version of Intellex must be no lower than 4.3 or even 4.2 and even then, no guarantee if it may work. If your are successful to perform such upgrade (when it works, it works very good), then the end results is that Intellex version becomes 5.0 and systems operates in Win7 platform. However, "migration" process is totally different. I tested versions of Intellex from 3.2 all the way to 4.3 and all the variations in between. Since this is a three phase process, Intellex drivers and systems drivers are set differently. The first phase starts preparation of the entire Intellex system version “X” export and creates several files and stores them on pre-defined directory. Such results are to be transported to thumb drive or DVD media or network drive. The second phase is where you prepare your new Win7 system ground up. Most system drivers are already built into Win7 libraries, so once you complete installation, all you have is PC with all drivers working perfectly (make sure you perform all Win7 updates before migration starts). If you require different system drivers, either use motherboard, video card drivers from their respective manufacturers. You also have the choice to change to a different motherboard (AMD based is my preference), power supply, 4GB RAM, new video card with at least 1GB on-board memory, etc. The third phase allows importation of the initial system parameters, even including capture card or VACD drivers respective to such version. When import process is complete, it creates exact the same Intellex directories, short cuts and all the necessary Registry entries and even hard to find Intellex certain drivers. Win7 makes a notation that some of the drivers are not “signed”, but no worries... There are quite of few third party software packages available in the market allowing for such migration. Some are simpler than others and the cost can vary broadly. The absolute end result is that you will notice your version Intellex performing perfectly in Win7 environment. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTV_Suppliers 0 Posted December 12, 2017 A quick update for this post, which looks like started in 2008. All of these above steps not only worked very well over the years, but also saved substantial amount of money for many Intellex user customers.. In 2015 Microsoft announced that they will not sell Win7 licenses and customer have no choice but to move to Windows 10 platform. However, they insisted that they will continue to provide support for Win7 until year 2020. This created a new challenge in how to take ANY Intellex platform from version 3.2 all the way to version 4.3 (all variations from Standard, Deluxe and Premier) in order to operate in Windows 10 operating system. In early 2016 we successfully migrated any Intellex platform to operate in Microsoft latest version 10 OS and has been performing very well. If I am not mistaken, the manufacturer, American Dynamics brand new Intellex 5.x version still is operating in Windows 7 and I do not think they have any intentions to move Intellex into Windows 10. The biggest challenge in this new migration protocol was the available drivers that actually work with this latest Windows 10 operating systems. Happy to inform you that we went through at least 2,000+ migrations in the last 12 months and it is working great.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
