Here is a suggestion for the GEO Hardware Designers

[cctv_down_under 0]

I wish to hell that they would design a cable and a plate for easy removal of a DVR.

 

For example.....A lot of us use rackmounts, but we all plug in the messy little crappy fly leads, why not make a small EXtension of the VGA type connection that they have for these fly leads...IE same on both ends so that you are basically extending the fly lead socket back some way towards the back of the rack, then on the back of the rack it plugs into a small thin plate that spans the width of the rack, this has 16 BNC connectors in a nice straight line....that way if you ever need to service the dvr, you can simply unscrew the flylead extension and never have to touch the BNC's...plus its neat (I am anal).

 

I have seen one othe system do this, it was a standalone rackmounted device, it had a caddy that the DVR slid into and pins that connected it to the caddy and then had 16 BNC's on the back of it, it meant removing the DVR was just a turn the key and slide affair and all the cables stay put....even an upgrade of DVR model meant it was so eacy to swap one out.

 

I understand that every DVR Rack is different, but it would be so easy to map the pin outs to this back plate that stays fixed, additionally it would be awesome if you could have some way of either powering the back plate or using one of the USB's found on the back of most motherboards to allow the Geovision system to identify the back plate by way of dip switch representing a Hexidecimal number.

 

WHY..... because that way if you have 70 in the field and you only want to update 20 of them who are all owned by one customer you could roll out to all the DVR's that are mounted to the backplate with the same dipswitch number or range of numbers and it could be done through the net.

 

Perhaps the second part could be done within the software anyway, but DVR's can be upgraded or rebuilt on site, but the back plate will always have the right address becasue it wont change....so go on Geo make em up for us will ya!

[rory 0]

I was going over plans with someone else for a BNC Box, basically the VGA Extender would go into the box (or come from the box and plugs into the DVR), and inside the box is a BNC Backplane or similar, with Ground Loop Isolators. You then just pull your cable into that and connect to the BNC there.

 

I found some sources for the parts for that out of the US, but they were going for cheaper and in bulk as well have it ready made. Have not heard anything about it in a few months though, but it is something that is really needed, for all PC DVRs, cause as you mentioned, I also do not like the flyleads.

[cctv_down_under 0]

So hopw do we get Geo to read this post ...Just Kidding

[rory 0]

ok very rough example here, note actual depth of enclosure would be much less.

 

[rory 0]

To be more realistic though, using a typical Power Supply Enclosure as an example, it would probably have to be more like this:

Also going to need a female-male BNC Bulkhead, but cant find any.

 

[rory 0]

for your rackmount idea ..

 

Simply measure the width of the rack and have a plastic shop cut a piece of plastic for you, of a certain thickness, and have them also drill 16 holes for the BNC Bulkheads. Drill holes for mounting to the rack also. BNC Flylead attaches to that, and the camera BNCs connect on the other side of it. Could have it made as a small rectangular box and keep the flylead inside that with a small hole to run a VGA Extender.

 

Or use a BNC Patch panel?

http://www.minitran.co.uk/images/products/through_coupler_panel_minilink.jpg

 

As for the Dip Switch thing, just need something that gives the software developer a serial number, such as a, yes, a dongle.

 

Get a USB Dongle and put that on that plastic plate, or inside your box, somehow, then add a USB extension cable. That would plug into the USB port on the DVR.

 

What kind of updates though? Like update the geo software remotely? You can make a small server that runs in the background, and waits for commands etc, downloads updates when needed from a remote central server, but then the biggest problem is working with the outdated installer that Geo uses. I got all kinds of errors when trying to automate that. They have such an old version of the installer, it does have a silent uninstall feature, but no silent installer was ever created by Geo's installation team, and creating your own is like pulling teeth, memory error after error, I gave up after a few weeks of that.

[cctv_down_under 0]

I was thinking more along the lines of a docking station...its hard to explain but here is my best effort.

 

imagine a BNC patch panel...small and thin, mounted at the back of the DVR inline with the cable management system, this way the cables all stop at the back of the rack....no traveling through the rack, but rather than the inside of the patch panel having BNC's to connect your fly leads, I was thinking more along the lines of just the VGA input on the other side, with the inside of the patch panel just simply following the pins for the VGA connection so that...side a has 2 x vga connections and side b has the 16 BNC's running horizontally like the back of a standalone....now ideally the VGA type connector on all mother boards would be in the same spot so that you couls slide it in on a shelf and just click it in..but it wont be...so eliminating the actual whole flylead that currently exists and making a quick release vga to vga fly lead would be ideal..

 

So it works like this...back of the dvr out of VGA on VGA to VGA flylead, then to the patch panel into the vga socket, the panel is set back at the back of the rack so that only one cable is inside the rack and on the other side of the patch panel is 16bnc's.

[rory 0]

Ok. Yeah thats where the wall mount box idea above comes in, but for rack mount (never used one) could just make a slightly thicker patch panel using strong plastic and BNC bulkheads, then inside that box put the flyleads and screw their VGA onto the back part of the box (somehow) .. box could be as thin as a couple inches. Basically the VGA ports have to split off to the BNC bulkheads somehow, thats where the flyleads come in, though I guess could be done without the flyleads, will still need to be wired up though.

 

eg. something like this?

 

[cctv_down_under 0]

Thats exactly it rory...not talking about us having to make one, too hard to wire all the tacks....but geo could get it manufactured easily

[mcs 0]

Same as on the Ness edr dvr's

 

yeah I like the idea to,

those octopus connectors suck...

 

 

Comart make something like your talking about,