Need some advice please

[MetzLyov 0]

jisaacmagee, excellent explanation about the differences on PC vs. embedded...

 

I personally like embedded better all in all. It comes with everything you will even need, FPS settings, resolution setting, Internet settings, hard drive increase capable and besides, no updates ever necessary and much more.. The only reason someone may want to upgrade the firmware it to take advantage of the same DVR taking even higher capacity hard drives (manufacturers purposley restrict it based on bios version) or activating certain features, i.e. USB connections, etc. It is like setting up a glorified VCR

 

Not sure which embedded system you use or used in the past, but your assessment on "What is best for my customer not neccessarilly means has the most features, bells, whistles, etc" is not exactly accurate. I can speak on my knowledge and experience on embedded system from majors.. They never shorted on features. Actually, I think it comes with more useless features that majority of end users do not use or ever will...

 

By the way, have Masters in Electrical Engineering from USC and MBA from Pepperdine

 

Levon

[MetzLyov 0]

Rory, you used the keyword "cheaper" - and knowing what you mean, you are referring to second or third tier product line, most of which is garbage...

 

You should try the latest Sanyo and Ganz embedded systems. They are as simple and easy as the GE DVRs and sometime lower in cost (in case of Ganz and lately Sanyo).

 

I have seen the latest Bosch and even Sanyo embedded DVRs based on XP barebone OS (everything is parked in the BIOS and not on the hard drives). Even American Dynamics started testing their latest DVR based on XP barebone OS. As long as the OS can not be tampered with via virus or worms or by an user error, setting changes that most of the time is not recoverable, then we will see how well these latest ones will perform. It is too premature if these ones will do well, however the initial results look very promissing...

 

Levon

[MetzLyov 0]

scottj, I could not have said it better when you state "the application will best dictate the solution chosen". By no means we state that "all" windows based system are bad - heck we sell Intellex systems from American Dynamics that are still based on windows 2000 and I will say with their latest changes, it became much more stable than their previous revisions...

 

I may agree with you on problems with ATA hard drives and specially if they are from Maxtor, however we have been using ATA hard drives (both 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM) from Western Digital and from Seagate with no problems reported in the last 18 monts. This is compared to Maxtor's 80+% failure rates... Also, I will disagree with you that you get more with SATA, SATAII or even SCSI hard drives. DVRs do not need "fast" hard drives, rather for basic storage. I peronally prefer 5,400 RPM hard drives that operate much cooler and are more reliable than the faster ones.

 

Casey are you bored yet?

 

Levon

[rory 0]

When I say cheaper, we have been through this on other threads, I think this thread has gone way off course and should be continued in a new thread or in one of the other many many existing PC vs Standalone threads

 

Now when you say Sanyo, how much cheaper is it? If its not that much cheaper, why would I switch from something that already works and has been doing it from day one (Kalatel - GE)?

 

Except from the Budget DVRs from AvTech, PT, etc, I only sell a DVR that does multi view Multi site, and one I can customize the GUI.

 

This is what I have noticed as the main differences, only goes for the "high end" systems, and not all DVRs are alike:

 

PC OS PROS:

 

1-Faster Recording Speeds and Higher Quality Evidence Sharing

2-More Powerful application customizing by client

 

RTOS PROS:

 

1-Simple and Quick to install and use

2-No Maintenance - Plug play and forget

 

Both can come Full Featured, and also cost around the same price.

[MetzLyov 0]

Casey, we very much apologize for going in tangent here and it does happen sometimes and that had nothing to do with your original request...

 

Looks like your first question was answered by Rory regarding to KVM switch. Another option is to connect your notebook or laptop to such DVR via your router.... This way the need for KVM switch is not required. You are connecting to the DVR via your local LAN through your router...

 

As for your second question "can anyone make a recommendation of a quality system that will provide real time viewing and playback? Finally I would like to run a camera into an outdoor building that is 150 feet away, which I would run through conduit with the other powerlines.Would this be alright?"

 

The answer is yes, you can! We need some more information if possible please.

 

1. How many cameras do you need?

2. Color or b&w?

3. How many of these cameras are for outdoor?

4. How many days of recording you would like to retain in the DVR? Number of days recording will determine the hard drive capacity of the DVR.

5. What is the approximate distance of the camera vs. control location?

 

Based on the answers, a proper power supply, cables and lenses will be recomended. I am also sure that several of our members will give you a quote accordingly..

 

Please let us know.

 

Levon

[jisaac 0]

Not sure which embedded system you use or used in the past, but your assessment on "What is best for my customer not neccessarilly means has the most features, bells, whistles, etc" is not exactly accurate. I can speak on my knowledge and experience on embedded system from majors.. They never shorted on features. Actually, I think it comes with more useless features that majority of end users do not use or ever will...

 

Levon

 

I agree totally. What i was trying to get across was that even though pc based has more settings and features that the reliability of a system precedes those settings and extras in importance and the deciding factor in a system. I also do provide high end settings and features. Not to the point that i would sacrifice the stability of a system by pushing pc based systems. Understand? Oh ya and i usually go with maces advanced dvr's. They work great for us. And they work great for everyone we selll them to.

[jisaac 0]

METLOYZ,

its good to see another engineer from 2 VERY similar majors. I have often thought about going back and getting a double major in electrical engineering. I forget the difference in hours between the majors but it is less than 30. Hell I could do 30 in 7 months.

[scottj 0]

I also do provide high end settings and features. Not to the point that i would sacrifice the stability of a system by pushing pc based systems. Understand?

 

 

What PC Based DVR's have you used that make you feel that they are ALL unreliable? I'm curious, because there are many people on this forum alone that have deployments of PC based systems installed that have had great success. I don't know if you have been to many of the trade shows (ISC, ASIS, etc...), but the PC based market still has the upperhand when dealing with large scaled commercial installations.

 

scottj

 

 

 

 

[MetzLyov 0]

Guys, cool off your horses

 

Lets keep the original question on hand from Casey... Lets debate in the Dealers section if you want, but lets get Casey the solution that needed... please!

 

Levon

[jisaac 0]

By the way when you are quoting someone and you dont want to quote the whole thing you still have to leave in the:

 

 

then the text:

 

TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT

 

 

then end it with :

 

 

 

Back to subject at hand. I have dealt with pelco, geovision, global technology ?, and several others. Like I was saying before. I think that if you have a IT staff on hand and a manned security station at all times. Most of the time I dont feel that it is the Pc's actual hardware fault. I think that most of the time the end user loaded their "new cool program they got off the internet last night" or decided to "explore" the settings and what happeans when you change some of them. Agreed it is not the manufacturers fault but that crap plus software and hardware faults happean and the rate is much much higher than embedded. That is why i feel this way. ( that is also why after getting my degree I did not go into the normal fields a person with the same degree would. I dont like to deal the average computer user and their problems. If you can and do then you have a quality/trait that i need to learn to have) Anyways.

Casey definitly get us the specs that metloyz asked for and we will provide you with exact equipment you need without all the arguing.

Edited August 23, 2005 by Guest

[rory 0]

Thats why ..

 

#1 - you strip the OS right down so they cant run anything besides basic stuff, and the DVR server software

 

#2 - give the users limited access and only in full screen, only 1 admin will have full access, and even then you can block their admin from exiting the server software.

 

Ofcourse these are things I do, and not many others probably do that ..

 

And back to the thread, I believe I answered her initial questions in post 2 & 4.

[scottj 0]

Thanks for being a critic of my posting methods, much appreciated.

 

Now I see why you feel the way you do about PC based DVR's. That was all I was trying to get you to explain. I can certainly see where those issues you mention related to the end user could pose a potential problem to some installers, but being a BSEE, I assumed that you already knew how to configure the machines to prevent those things from occuring. No need to debate, I understand where your coming from now.

 

As for Casey....I think Rory gave him some options about 2 pages back.

 

scottj

[DataAve 0]

"How about them Mets?" Still there Casey?

[scottj 0]

Hey Data, Do you have family on here that we don't know about???

 

hahaha

 

scottj

[qman 0]

Hey, I'm a heavy mets fan, careful what you say about them.

[jisaac 0]

hey man i was in no way trying to be critical of your posting methods. Alot of people do that and so i was just trying to show people how to do a edited quote. And in the mean time forgot to disable my codes and ended up not even doing the text only format without recognizing it as codes. Oh well you get the idea. Anyways. I hope you dont in any way think I was trying to criticize you or anything you said. I seriously respect and take in to consideration everything posted. I in no way think that I know everything or that i cant learn something new every single day. So i am always researching and discussing matter and experiences. So I really want you to know I am not being critical at all. Hell i forgot to turn of the coding in my post about coding. Cant take me to seriously. Because I am very laid back and dont take much seriously. anyways. I have enjoyed this thread.

[DataAve 0]

Hey Data, Do you have family on here that we don't know about???

 

hahaha

 

scottj

 

Busy drinking your mint juleps and watching your programmers cut your lawn?

 

Where have you been bud?...I miss your wit.

[rory 0]

certainly an interesting thread, it appears some of us like automatic transmissions and some prefer the manual shifters ..

[Thomas 0]

Some general replies:

 

1. Viruses are a red herring. For a small systems they should be firewalled. For larger networks there are other ways to handle it. And they should be firewalled if they are embeded or PC based. Embeded systems can be "owned" as well. Ask Cisco.

 

2. Embeded systems don't network well outside of a vanilla network. They don't scale up well at all. What if I already have my companies web server on port 80?

 

3. Except the replacement lifecycle for this kind of thing isn't three years. Companies are aiming for five to ten year life cycles for thier systems and most companies are running them that long. For embeded systems, if it's a cheap system then you can't replace a part. For one of the majors you're looking at the cost of a new DVR to replace a motherboard.

[jisaac 0]

if you server is already on port 80.

That is extremely easy. Set it up on port 87.

[Thomas 0]

You going to make the business owner change thier site to 87? Because I've seen alot of embededs in which you aren't going to change the web server.

[rory 0]

Yeah they've changed alot of those now, the newer versions, at least with the higher end units, can change the http port, just cant change the main TCP server port.

[cctv_down_under 0]

Wow what a thread... did you guys really think you could get away with a thread this prevocative and long without my typical lazy missspelt reply...

 

Well here goes... after all....... I should know I have sold and done both over many years.. even starting out with a quad and PC Anywhere when there was no DVR Cards.

 

I must say the following:

 

PC Based systems are stable only if you have a PC Nerd like me to maintain them,yes they are vulnerable to attacks and virus's but if ur a good nerd that should not be an issue, yes they need updates...once again nerd it up and no issue... yes they are unstable.... HOGBLOODY WASH !!!!!

 

XP is fine, so is embedded XP if you know how to lock out...yup if ur a nerd.. then it's really not an issue, to be honest I was deadset against standalones.. wanna know the reasons why PC was better... it's faster, its easier to network, it has more features, it is adaptable to your environment especially security and it is nowhere near as expensive.... or is it..to be honest any nerd will admit an occasional crash is par for the course and we still consider a crash every 3 months as stable.. to be honest I was the biggest and most ardent PC based fan in the world.. the arguments had between Rory and I are more than Infamous.

 

One thing I learned about embedded is that it is truley stable.. I am not talking fairly stable.. I mean truley, now PC may be cheaper but is it... not if you have to support it...as support=money.

 

Bottom line is..if your a geek or a nerd PC is the best way to go, if not, standalone, they are just as easy to upgrade (that's hogwash thomas) in fact they are easier to upgrade.

 

One thing worth mentioning is PC will always have the technology advantage, half the crud is made by microsoft.. example..packet writing for back up, back up programs, UPS software, codecs etc etc.. it will always be that PC will be the forefront of features.. so if you want features.. then PC but if you want stability then standalone.

 

Raw processing power grows in PC's and can't in standalones so I vouch for the ability to upgrade hardware.. as for port assignment, CMON most standalones have been doing this for ages...sheeesh mine has a firewall in it.

 

No matter what you read, no matter what you think, bottom line is this.. the new stuff will always be on PC, then it will be emulated by embedded but embedded will have less bugs and less issues, but it wont have pretty features or the processing speed.

 

Cop the speed of this baby!

 

 

http://www.austarsecurity.com.au/images/stories/brochures/ultimate_series.pdf

then look at res of the standalone.

 

http://www.austarsecurity.com.au/images/stories/brochures/professional_series.pdf

 

People will always be comfortable with what they are comfortable with... some like standalone some like PC, I personally can see the benefit of both, Standalone is a bit Exy and inflexible for my liking, but stability... cmon..it's head and shoulders above and nothing anyone can say will change my mind.

 

The race for HDD storage is no longer on so HDD's are much more stable than they were, sheesh Seagate offer 5 year now and with a buffer onboard so critisizing IDE really doesn't work, although I do agree that SCSI is better but who uses it these days, it's still too expensive excepting servers.

 

Bottom of a long line.....

 

Standalone = idiot proof stable and expensive.

PC = excellent features...speed and if supported well, easy to change dynamically as well as networking better.

 

It is a personal choice that should be offered with a simple question...."how pc literate are you on a scale of 1 to 10?" if lower than 5 ...only a standalone will do!

 

Another way to look at it... some people havean XBOX and love to use it.. these are standalone users and some will put Linux on it and format it and use it as their networked multimedia system and network it to file servers they have in other rooms.. these are PC people... pC people need tos ee things change..they need to improve things..they need the latest and the best...Standalone users are the guys that are happy to go to the store and PAY for the gameand use it how it is meant to be used...sure they will get ripped..sure it's expensive.. but it wont ever fail them.

 

Having said that it is important to note I refer to end users...not Installers, lets face it Rory loves embedded but I bet he would change his Xbox if he had time to do so between posts.

 

[rory 0]

 

if i had an xbox or time to use one ...

[jisaac 0]

I like your reference to xbox. I have to have 2 xbox's. One is my out of the box xbox with no changes (so i can play online easily ). And the other one is exactly what you said. My all in one mulitmedia center, ftp, and mass media storage device. Works great. The 360 is suppose to be like that out of the box though.