Thoughts on purchasing either a GV-800 or GV-2008

[JimS_99 0]

I'm in the process of putting together a PC for use as a dedicated DVR. I'm at the point with the system build of ordering a GeoVision card. I understand the differences between the 2008 and 800 cards. I'm undecided on purchasing a 800 or 2008. I read lots of good about the 650 & 800 cards but almost nothing about the 2004 & 2008 cards. I think onboard hardware compression with the 2004 & 2008 cards is good but I haven't heard much of anything about these cards compared to the 650 & 800. Anybody have any opinions or suggestions (don't let $$$ influence your suggestion)?

[501 0]

I have been waiting a long time to test out the 2004/2008 cards. The only reason i would switch from the GV800's is if the Pic quality was superior. In terms of frame rate, I've never had a problem with an 800 not supplying enough frames and with the new compression methods, you can get a lot of recording out of them. If anyone HAS tested the 2008 cards, I think we'd all love to see a sample of the video quality.

[rory 0]

Yeah the 2004 and 2008 are still new, so not as tested yet.

They also cost considerably more.

[JimS_99 0]

Another thought I have is, is onboard compression a good thing? About the only reason I can think of for onboard compression is to increase FPS. Wouldn't just upgrading the PC as new technology comes available increase the FPS (dual & quad core processors, new BUSS technologies etc...)? A dedicated card would not be upgradeable.

[rory 0]

as you upgrade versions of Geo they should upgrade the firmware

[JimS_99 0]

I guess I should have mentioned firmware upgrades. Firmware upgrades are just software patches for existing hardware. As new technologies become available for PC hardware wouldn't this make onboard compression the bottleneck in the future?

[JimS_99 0]

Hmm.... Just thinking about this a bit. Maybe onboard compression would be better. This is the direction video board and sound board developers are heading. It frees up the BUSS and CPU for other tasks.

[CollinR 0]

What are you tring to do?

 

I'm pretty sure the 2004 & 2008 only do hardware compression to MPEG2.

 

Thats the same thing the GV-800 does it just won't let you stop there, it forces you to transcode to something else.

 

 

 

On my home theater systems MPEG2 in all it's glory lays down about 2.5 GB per hour, so if you leave the 2004 or 2008 in MPEG2 mode across 4 channels a 250GB you'll be lucky to get a weeks worth of recording on MD. On 24/7 it'll eat 250GB per day!

[JimS_99 0]

The specs for the 2004 & 2008 say software cpmpression MPEG2 & MPEG4 and hardware compression MPEG-2 & MPEG-4 (no idea if the hyphen means anything but it has it in the specs).

[CollinR 0]

My bad the 2004 and 2008 use a different ecoder and may well be able to do MPEG4 with hardware.

 

All the Geo cards have some level of hardware compression going on, most are based on the Conexant Fusion and they go to MPEG2. Geovision's software is what keeps the GV100-800 from doing straight hardware MPEG2 compression, the hardware is on the board.

 

This is also probably why people say the quality on the GV-800 is better then the combo cards. The GV-1120 and up (dunno about the 2004 and 2008 as they have heatsinks on their encoders) are not using Conexant's fusion encoders. My theater systems use the same basic hardware but don't multiplex so you only have 1 channel A+V per chip.

[501 0]

Is this true about the chipsets being different? I got into an argument with my suplier (Bernclare Multimedia) because I said they were different chipsets and he said they are the same. He in fact insulted me over this. We almost stopped doing business all together because of his rudeness. I would love to get some proof of this so he could eat his words.

[CollinR 0]

Salt with the crow?

 

GV-800

 

 

You can't read it in the pic but the encoders say Conexant Fusion 878.

 

Combo card

 

 

Obviously says "Techwell" on the encoders, IIRC thats a Samsung product.

 

 

Like I said before the 2004 and 2008 have heatsinks so you can't easily read what they are but the Conexant Fusions can only do MPEG2.

[rory 0]

my GV250 siting here on my desk is Conexant also ..

[CollinR 0]

All of them up to GV-800 are.

 

 

I will only use those chips in my theater systems due to their high quality picture. Really you can't tell which is the analog feed from the digitized version, even after running it through Divx.

[501 0]

I actually had noticed that and pointed it out to him but he argued that the chipset in the techwell's was the same. I knew all along they weren't.

 

On a combo card the video controls (Sat,hue, etc...) all have different numbers then on the 800's and down, leading a person to believe the capture chips are different. The smart record feature is also grey out on the 1120/1240 cards.