Portable DVD player for camera setup

[smokingjoe 0]

Could someone tell me if a portable DVD player could be used to do an on-site setup for surveillance cameras?

A friend told me this would work if I could find a cable that would connect from the DVD player to the BNC connector on the back of the camera.

[smokingjoe 0]

I did a little more searching and found the answer. I gess my friend was right. Thanks any.

[catseyenu 0]

I did a little more searching and found the answer. I gess my friend was right. Thanks any.

 

Could you share what you found?

I need to rig something myself.

[cachecreekcctv 0]

I normally carry my little battery operated b/w TV with me. Power the camera up, make a little six foot coax cable, stand on the ladder, move the camera. The output from the camera goes into the 6" TV. On bigger installs, I always remember to take along my Garmin 2-way radios, so I can talk to someone who is watching a Main Monitor, though. Where the customer wants to watch, is not always what I want to watch, so I try to keep them happy.

[Jim Barrett 0]

Yep, the little buggers work pretty good for the purpose and the fact that you can play a DVD on it is just icing. However, not all portable DVD players have an in/out switch. The ones we're talking about obviously do. The problem I've had is the picture being washed out by the sun. So I find myself improvising sun shades and and/or trying to pick a time of day when the camera is in the shade.

To that end I picked up a device called an ARCHOS portable video player.

With its adapter and 3" screen you can plug into the camera whilst up on the ladder and do your adjustments. Smaller screen but easier to handle, it has pretty good backlighting, and when you're done you can record a few frames and save them for your records.

The icing on this cake is that it stores and accesses manuals. I can usually download the manuals for the equipment I work with regularly &/or specific to a job to my ARCHOS & have them instantly available in PDF. I have a ton of manuals on an 8GB sdhc card. (When I worked commercial 2-way radio we carried hundreds of pounds of manuals that could now reduced to a few gigabites (well, maybe more than a few).

Neat little device that I originally bought so I could watch Rocky & Bullwinkle while on the cardio machines at the gym. I love multitasking machines, probably because I'm a monotasker.

[catseyenu 0]

Thank you both, that helps some.

Jim, which model Archos are you using and does the "adapter" come with it?

I was thinking there should be some smaller form factor of LCD type monitors without the overhead of a DVD player (weight, size and cost) available.

[Jim Barrett 0]

Right, I have the ARCHOS 405 and something called a travel adapter (or something like that, to provide the NTSC input.

It seems that in the U.K. they had a 30GB version but all I ever saw here in the U.S. was a 2GB version. However, they take up to a 16GB SDHC card.

I'm not sure but I think the Archos was about $125 & the adapter was under $50. They make another adapter that appears to allow output conections to standard video. I haven't looked at it very closely yet.

The battery life isn't the greatest but what can you expect in such a small package? Works for me.

I've never seen one of these in a store & wouldn't have known about it without running across it on the net.

[catseyenu 0]

I saw those versions on their site (2-30gig) but there wasn't much information on the video input connectors that I saw.. is yours USB?

I'll dig around a little more.

Much appreciated!

[Jim Barrett 0]

The device charges & programs via USB. Memory is SDHC card but there is some sort of DVR dock that has USB connections. That's the one I don't have. I believe it provides video out & USB in for both charging & file transfer but I'm not sure.

archos.com should tell you what you need to know. Look under acessories.

Good Luck

[Florian100 0]

funny enough, when I last visited my mum, she gave me a little sony dvd player which she got for free when buying her new TV. I have never used it to watch DVDs, but noticed it had a little switch, that changes the monitor output to an input. together with a few adaptors it now does a great job in helping me setting up my cameras without having to run down to the main screen all the time.

My main concern is though, as already mentioned, the sun wash out, so it's best used during sunset. But it does an excellent job!!!

[Soundy 1]

(server glitch, double post)

Edited February 4, 2009 by Guest

[Soundy 1]

My coworker bought an Archos too, and the thing is amazing. Another bonus with it, the screen is very high resolution, probably twice that of most cheap portable DVD players, so fine-tuning camera focus is even easier. His has built-in WiFi as well, so if I plug a cheap wireless router into the network with IP cameras, it can link to them through that too

 

Oh, and the other advantage to having an Archos or a DVD player or anything else of the sort: it can double as a signal source for troubleshooting. Bad picture on a line, is it the line or the camera? Unplug the camera, plug in the DVD's output, and see what kind of picture you get at the other end. I made a DVD with a variety of standard TV/NTSC test patters that's I've also used for setting up projectors.