42" Plasma Recommendations for Control Center & MV

[501 0]

I have an large install planned (48 cameras) and the customer will be using "Geo Control Center" hooked up to a 42 inch Plasma as well as a 42" at home hooked up to his PC for Multiview. I know version 8.1 supports very high screen res's for things like TV's, I was wondering what brands of Plasma's and what resolutions people found worked the best. i've used cheap "Best Buy" specials (LCD's and Plasmas) with good success, but wanted to use something better for this one. Ideas?

[rory 0]

They have a cheapo 32" LCD at the alarm monitoring company here running Center, and its great .. only thing is they don't have it set to wide screen .. which means you cant move or hide the log window. They didn't get me the model number yet to find out the native resolution, and as I didnt install it, is up to them to tell me when they want to deal with it.

 

If you want a really good one maybe look at the Panasonic.

Not sure how much better it will be though, the quality on this one here is great ... even not in native resolution, which is impressive. The pano may last longer and in the US you probably get a longer warranty.

 

I was just looking at a Pano with a 10,000:1 contrast ratio online ..

check it out.

 

Most of the large LCDs have HDMI now anyway, so make sure you get a decent video card, maybe a 512 ATI or similar, with a DVI and use a DVI-HDMI cable .. does it help? cant say, but why not.

[501 0]

I was looking at a couple of LG's that were on sale locally for a good price and they had a natiive Resolution of 1024X768 which Geo liked, but I wondered if one of the new widescreen resolutions (1600 x 1200, etc... might be better) I know the Pano's are Top rated in Consumer reports, but they are quite a bit pricier then the LG's and without real HD content, I don't know if you'd see a huge diff.

 

Rory, have you used, setup or played with the Control Center yet? How was it and how were the Matrix views? This customer will have 3 GV systems at different parts of the building and I though this would be the best way to manage them. I was going to connct all of them to a Gigabit Router for the extra speed, although I doubt it's necessary.

[rory 0]

Yes i have, CenterV2 anyway, for a few months. We didn't have extra monitors to test though, so was just one monitor. See my thread on Hiding the CenterV2 Log also.

[501 0]

Ya, I have a Center V2 server running at my office, but I haven't used Control Center yet, and not a lot of people have. I can't imagine it will be all that complicated, I am just curious to see what people's experiences with it have been.

[CollinR 0]

I have it, it's alot better for maintenence then remote viewing.

 

It does have a Matrix option that I have just started looking into because of this thread. I wasn't overly impressed initially and I suggest you use a 4:3 display if thats what you want it for, it supports 4 1024x768 displays. I'm thinking it might be better to use 4 20" LCDs at 1024x768 the one 42".

 

I'll keep playing with it, it works well though for customer support. It has it's own RDP system so you can RDP into systems even if they use XP Home. It has a remote DVR function as well which basically gives you the local Geo interface.

 

Playing with the Matrix again makes me more firm in thinking 1024x768 only. I wouldn't look at widescreen displays unless you want excess desktop shown or a streched image. Unless that is you can find somebody who can make the matrixes sizes other then 1024x768.

 

 

By FAR I use this more for service maintenance, the remote DVR locks up over time though. It's not quite as stable as MS RDP but it does allow you to monkey anything on the system you need to.

 

EDIT: Yeah I further push for multiple monitors if you want multiple matrixes. Why would you though? Each matrix supports 64 channels.

[CollinR 0]

Here is an image you might find helpful.

 

 

 

<<

 

It shows a single matrix of 9 @ 1024x768, the only option I have found. As you can see I set my display resolution to 1280x1024 so you could see everything at once.

 

That little toolbar is what you get when you load Control Center. It really hasn't taken me too long to get it though, you can do the host database like multiview, you can then group hosts, you can matrix either hosts or groups

 

It also gives you an idea of the control center configuration, 5 tabs pretty basic.

 

It also shows you the matrix config screens specifically.

[griffonsystems 0]

go with a lcd over plasma for the monitor, i have a few clients running on large flat screens and the lcd was much better than plasma for viewing live shots

 

my2cents

 

pg

[CollinR 0]

Plasma typically 0wns LCD starting about 50". Plasmas don't have the responce time issues of LCD, especially noticable at these larger screen sizes.

 

I would only look at displays you can demo from a laptop. Video is not nearly as good of an indicator of clarity. A word document in 4pt font tells you alot.

 

It's going to be hard to find a 42" 4:3 display, your customer will probably be pissed with columns or streching. I would be anyway, the 4:3 columns to 16:9 take up a significant portion of the display. Think 27" 4:3 would be about the same size image.

 

For the guys home I would get a true 1:1 1920x1080 display, then he can matrix or multiview at 1024x768 and still have display for other home stuff, stock/sports tickers, encoded TV is always nice too (640x480) which could fit beside the matrix.

[LLC 0]

In v8.1 Matrix will support the following resolution...

1280x1024; 1600x1200; 1680x1050; 1920x1200, FullScreen

And GV-remote desktop will support file transfer too.

And new PTZ & 2-Way Audio functions hope it good for you

[501 0]

Thanks for all that work you put into making the screen shots for me CollinR, it's much appreciated. I know that the customer definitley wants widescreens so we will loose some of the screen due to bars on the side or I could also stretch the pic to fill although with the new Geo widescreen modes, It might work out ok.

 

You said that it wasn't that great for remote viewing. Why is that? Poor pic or bad fram rates or something else? Would you think it would work good if all systems were on the same gigabit LAN? From home the customer will just use Multiview and the Remote Viewlog. I don't think there is any need for multiple matrixes, also how would you hook up 4 20" LCDs to one PC? 2 - dual head video cards?

[CollinR 0]

LLC is on the nose, thanks to Pheonix at Geovision I got my installation updated to v8.1 and understood.

 

When you go looking for a monitor it is VERY important to get one with one of these resolutions as NATIVE.

 

1280x1024; 1600x1200; 1680x1050; 1920x1200

 

Many other things can work but for a quality job you should have a 1:1 pixel map if the user is going to be anywhere close to the display.

 

These are ALL PC monitor resolutions so don't be looking at TVs

(1280x720, 1366x768, 1920x1080)

[501 0]

I've decided to go with LCD's becuase of the Burn In factor and the high contrast. So with the resolutions, could I get a TV that is Native 1366x768 and run Geo in 1024X768? Or would I be better of with one that is Native 1920x1080? I want to get this right. I looked at a 1366X768 TV and in 1024x768 it was terrible, but at 1366x768 it was great.

[CollinR 0]

You'll be hard pressed to find a 42" 16:9 display that fits the other requirements.

 

 

You might go back and look at those 1024x768 LGs.

 

 

 

How far is the viewer from the screen?

[501 0]

About 10 feet. We are looking at 42 LCD's and I figure we can have the Geo running in a lower res then the display (Set the display to native and geo to 1024X768) but when he chooses a matrix to full screen it should fill the screen and look good.