$5000 budget for 8 camera system... suggestions?

[amblix auto]

I have about a $3000 budget and am building a rack mount solution for a surveillance/ha setup.

Can anyone recommend good 4 port capture cards and software
Recommend day/night IR cameras

[Rupp]

If you have that budget you should go with high end pan and tilt IP cameras. This eliminates the need for a hardware controller.

[redthebartender]

i bought a geovision card about 5yrs ago & have been extremely happy with it. geovisions website is http://www.geovision.com.tw i bought mine from digital watchguard http://www.digitalwatchguard.com

these cards are not cheap & are high end cards, but they work better than anything else i looked at at the time. chk out this forum for some good info on dvr cards http://www.cctvforum.com/index.php look for the 'dvr cards & software for pc-based systems' forum.

if you are a reseller, you could probably setup an account w/digitalwatchguard as well. like anything else you get what you pay for, so be careful if you go with that card there were a rash of bogus ones on ebay not too long ago. make sure you get one w/ a fast frame rate on a fast pc. the one thing i like about my card is that it will throw the highest frame rate at the camera that is recording. if more than one camera is recording then it will divide the frame rate by the number of recording cameras. some of the cheaper cards just divide the frame rate by the number of cameras & thats it.

try not to buy a used one because it most likely wont run the latest software. ask away if you have any questions.

[DC]

I am in the process of evaluating DVR systems myself. I am leaning towards the 16-port, 120 FPS card from Video Insight. www.video-insight.com

One feature that is essential to me, that isn't available in all DVR cards, is the ability to start recording an individual camera based on an external contact closure. The Video Insight cards have an optional I/O card that allows this function. http://www.video-insight.com/productaddons.htm

Since you are (apparently) using HomeSeer, this might be important to you also. It would allow you to use HS to control camera recording. Most of the DVR cards/software have software based motion detection but I haven't found that to be very reliable for outdoor cameras. They detect "motion" based on pixels within the image changing. Outdoors, that "motion" could be a tree limb blowing, a bird flying through the picture, even a shadow cast by a cloud. I think software based motion detection would work very well indoors where you have constant lighting and none of those environment changes that will be interpreted as motion, but for outdoor cameras I prefer to have real motion detectors.

As for cameras, a good source is www.securityideas.com. I have several of the CVC870-EX and one CVC550-EX and I'm very happy with them. They are on this page: http://www.securityideas.com/cylindercamera.html

If anybody has used the hi-res, IR camera with 350 ft IR range that Automated Outlet is selling, I would be interested in knowing if it's as good as it sounds.

http://www.automatedoutlet.com/produ...288&cat=0&page=

[AutomatedOutlet]

With that kind of budget, I would recommend not getting a PC based DVR and using a standalone.

[Michael McSharry]

I have no opinions on the subject, but found the cocoonTech thread on the Kodicom Diginet interesting. http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=2931

[DC]

What are the advantages of a standalone DVR over a PC based one? Considering how much more expensive the standalone ones are, I don't see any benefit. Seems like the PC based ones offer more flexibility such as installing larger/more hard drives.

[amblix auto]

What are the advantages of a standalone DVR over a PC based one? Considering how much more expensive the standalone ones are, I don't see any benefit. Seems like the PC based ones offer more flexibility such as installing larger/more hard drives.

I have heard the same thing from numerous installers, that with the money you shell out on stand alone you get half the options, yes it would be rock solid I'm sure but I'm in the process of building up the main home controller servers (DVR / HA / WHA)

When the systems are installed they are pretty much locked down to where the end user is limited in what they can "currupt" lol

Good ol XPe

As far as the setup i'm going to test both the geovision and the Kodicom and go from there

Thanx everyone- Them damn pico2000 cards blow!

[AutomatedOutlet]

Yes, reliability is the primary reason for a standalone and also there is less chance for the user to mess up the system. In addition, standalone systems offer the ability to use hot-swappable drives.

As far as pricing goes, if you factor in the price of the PC and your time to set it up, I think you'll find it in the same ballpark if not cheaper. Time is money you know....

[amblix auto]

Yes, reliability is the primary reason for a standalone and also there is less chance for the user to mess up the system. In addition, standalone systems offer the ability to use hot-swappable drives.

As far as pricing goes, if you factor in the price of the PC and your time to set it up, I think you'll find it in the same ballpark if not cheaper. Time is money you know....

I completely agree with you and have installed stand alones for quite some time but now that were installing automation products it seems easier to have everything under one solid system locked down to a point much like the Pro-100 controllers are. What I'm in the process of doing right now is buidling up a server meant to handle HA and Security/Surveillance, image the harddrive to the hundreds I have in stock and plop them into the servers that I get pre-built from another local business for a fraction of the cost. This makes the "build" time non-existant.

Only time and testing will tell

BTW Martin, I'm finally going to take your advice on switches lol

No more insteon, I want to purchase both UPB and ZWave to see which I like better. Would you suggest a bit of both? Do some products Zwave work better than UPB and vice versa? Would a hybrid setup be best?

All our customers thus far have been happy with their installs but I just dont really want to deal with Smarthome anymore for personal reasons, plus I dont like some aspects of the Insteon setup

[AutomatedOutlet]

I want to purchase both UPB and ZWave to see which I like better. Would you suggest a bit of both? Do some products Zwave work better than UPB and vice versa? Would a hybrid setup be best?

Well, I have no doubt that people will debate this many ways, but, in my opinion, UPB is really the best way to go. There are more devices available, easier set-up, higher reliability (stats prove this), and more features available. There will be some new zwave devices coming out shortly that will close the feature gap a somewhat but they will come at a much higher price. Higher than zwave for sure and with still fewer features.

At this point, if you look at the professional installers that buy from us (hundreds), we're seeing about 74% using UPB, 12% using X10 (mainly Lightolier Compose), 5% using harwired, 5% using Zwave, and about 4% other.

[jackpod]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I too am unhappy with Insteon, i thought i read somewhere that UPB has a local delay, is this true? I installed 15 Icons in my new addition and I am unhappy with them.


DC check your messages!

Jack