can i build a system and get pos overlay?

[nuttcase21 0]

i've been all over hell and high water trying to find a POS overlay module for a system i want to build myself. i've read a lot here on the forum and have come up with a modestly priced NVR system with 9 cameras for a friends business, but i can't seem to find a solution to integrate the POS into the video like he wants. everything that i've found is made by a specific manufacturer and is proprietory. can i build a PoE system using a combination of axis/dahua cameras and a dahua NVR and integrate overlay? any help is appreciated.

[ssnapier 0]

What is the output of the POS? If you are using RS-232, there are options out there for sure.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

you'll have a hard time finding something that will do *text overlay* with ip cameras. there are systems that will log the pos data synchronized to the video, and overlaying text data on analog cameras is easy (look up 'honeywell smartpit').

[nuttcase21 0]

What is the output of the POS? If you are using RS-232, there are options out there for sure.

the output is rs232, but its on a POS hybrid register that was discontinued last year. its a sharp up-810f register with an rs232 printer output that i saw most overlay products exploit to get the data out of, but none of those overlay products i found had ethernet for an ip system. i did find 2 systems that would do the overlay over ip systems, but they were a complete setup that is way out of the price range i have to work with.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

the problem is, to overlay data directly on an ip stream, you have to know the composition of the ip stream... and they almost always vary from one manufacturer to the next, and sometimes from one model line to the next - essentially the software would be "photoshopping" the pos text onto the individual frames.

 

it's easy to do with analog because all analog cameras use pal or ntsc standards and it's very straighforward to process text onto that video (think of old tv shows from the 50s overlaying titles and other text on the show - same process).

 

i know of one nvr/vms that will log that info from the rs-232 (it's just plain text) into a database, and when you export playback video, it can "overlay" the text on that, because at that point all the video is in the nvr's own data format; it doesn't have to deal with hundreds of different stream types. but you're right, those are expensive. unfortunately, expensive is probably going to be your only option if you *must* have *text overlay* on an *ip camera stream*.

 

the other alternative i've used is an ip camera that has analog out, running the analog out through a standard overlay box, and recording it to a separate channel.