affordable high res cctv camera & dvr card..

Eurorunner

I am in the market for a diy cctv system and would be grateful for feedback from those with systems in place.

I need...

- A DVR card for the pc - to record video. Must have ability to activate record following movement.

- A day/night InfraRed camera for outdoor use that doesnt require additional lighting at night time - range 15-20 metres - visual ID quality

Any suggestions?
Anyone using something like this?

tapest

Eurorunner wrote:

I am in the market for a diy cctv system and would be grateful for feedback from those with systems in place.

I need...

- A DVR card for the pc - to record video. Must have ability to activate record following movement.

- A day/night InfraRed camera for outdoor use that doesnt require additional lighting at night time - range 15-20 metres - visual ID quality

Any suggestions?
Anyone using something like this?

Hi

Just to "put you in the picture"...(forgive the pun,couldn't resist)
In my office we have video cameras +video tape recorder (high spec) +multiplexor to handle the diff feeds. This covers immediate compound. Soon to be upgraded to digital video recording to hard disk.

Also 2 remote locations (up to 5 miles away) monitored by digital video recording to hard disk. A seperate pc (high spec) for each location...using broadband, of course. Alarms remotely activated etc. Hugh company, no expense spared, money thrown at it like no tomorrow.

The picture quality is no better on the digital than the analogue video( when it's not giving trouble) and to be quite frank, even though the chiefs are happy, it's crap. Unless the images can be enhanced significantly by Gardai., I would not be afraid of going up against it in court of law.

Just a warning before you spend your hard earned, try and get a preview. Our system is supposed to be the best.
regards
t

patrido

lots of people on ukha_d on yahoogroups seem to be using geovision (650) and there are regular posts on the subject.

Also try...
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7

antoinolachtnai

I am a bit of an old-hand with the GV800 from geovision. The problems that tapest mentions are indeed the sort of stuff that comes up. The frame-rates quoted are often for the 320x240 resolution, which is fine for a time-and-motion study, but not much good if you want recognizable pictures.

I must say that I am not fully happy with the geovision solution, although I have not tried the latest version of the software yet. But that is because we have installed it in a very busy situation where we need a high frame-rate.

I would be inclined to consider buying a free-standing system rather than something that goes on your gv.

If you can, get a demo before you buy.

We bought this system from Henry's Electronics in London.

Antoin.

Eurorunner

I'm thinking in terms of the Geovision GV600-4 at the moment. It will be attached to a pc thats high spec but used very little.
@antoinolachtnai: Have you any knowledge of the other DVR pc cards? Geovision seem to be the most popular.

Still not clear on the camera side of things - need to do a bit more reading.

antoinolachtnai

I don't really know the other cards. I do know there is an issue with counterfeit geovision cards, so that might be something to watch out for.

It's basically all about the software, rather than the cards themselves.

Camera-wise, it is a matter of what you want. For sure, avoid really cheap cameras but the larger, slightly more expensive cameras seem to be mostly ok. The cost of the camera is very small in the context of the cost and hassle of setting up the whole system. Get a camera that can do infrared if that's what you need.

One thing I would say is that you shouldn't expect to be able to identify someone at that range with an IR camera if it is not zoomed quite tightly. You need to think about how to design this. You may need a few cameras, rather than just one.

You can actually get pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras for a reasonable price nowadays. But make sure the camera has a 'preset' facility. Without presets, PTZs are not very useful in practice.

You also need to consider how you are going to cable this and power it. It may well be that some sort of IP camera (which works with ethernet cabling) may be a better solution for you. (But then the architecture will be completely different, obviously.)

The other thing is power. Think how you are going to power the cameras. Personally, I use a repurposed PC power supply - cheap and reliable, but a little fiddly to set up -.