clivem 0 Posted May 31, 2004 friend of mine wants to set up a cctv system (1 or 2 cameras on a house). Rather than use a time lapse recorder which tend to be unreliable I feel that using a PC / PVR to act as a time lapse system may be the better option. His current pc system is out of date (a slow celeron), and so would need replacing, the question is: Is it better to have a) one pc for general use and one pc for CCTV recording - and network them. If so what specs would people recommend for both systems? or b) One more powerful pc that can cope with recording cctv - and general use at the same time? Is so, what spec should this system be? General use is: Internet (cable) and Word - although he has just bought a digital camera!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
qman 0 Posted May 31, 2004 It's always best to use a separate PC to do the recording. As per what specs the machine should be, it all comes down to what DVR card you are going to use, if, for example, you are looking at a Geo 250, or 650 4 port, then as long as the CPU is a Pentium 4, or celeron, it does not have to be top of the line, I think that even an older 1.5ghz will do the trick, and at least 256 megs of ram, and a separate AGP card that supports directx 9. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cctv_down_under 0 Posted June 1, 2004 Spot on again Hermin!!! I would advise you to use two machines... keep in mind that Geo always brings out new stuff so the higher the spec of the machine the more updates you will get later. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AVCONSULTING 0 Posted June 1, 2004 You might want to just consider a low cost embedded (standalone) DVR so that you don't have to go out and buy a computer just to load in a DVR card. 4 camera embedded systems are pretty inexpensive these days and provide excellent quality video. Or you could get a two camera server and put it on your network and then download the images onto your computer. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cctv_down_under 0 Posted June 1, 2004 Good point.. wopuld be cheaper.. mind you netwroking options would be limited Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zyra Tech 0 Posted June 6, 2004 The only exception would be if it was his personal system and he understands having a combined system can and will affect system performance somewhat. We always use a dedicated computer that we supply. We don't even allow clients to use an exisiting computer that they have anymore. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
