PC CCTV card and camera

[elootos]

Got one of these CCTV cards from ebay and so far so good. Records 120fr, so between the 4 channels that's 30fr (or 25fr for PAL) per channel.

   

Ordered it Saturday and it arrived Thursday, all the way from Hong Kong as well.

Only problem was that I had 64bit Win7 installed and the drivers are 32bit only, damn!

So I reinstalled 32bit Win7 to facilitate the card and it does well.

The bundled software is a little Chinglish, but records a single channel @ 25fr with only 10% 4% CPU load. Not sure what the load is for exactly but when I get another camera I'll know then how it handles more than one. The software seems comprehensive and allows for far more than a basic home-monitoring setup would need. Good to have options though.

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Also got one of these cameras to go with it, but it's a little over spec'd and I see you can get similar for around £25. The next I get will be the cheaper ones.


Only been running it for 24hrs at the moment but no glitches so far, the software does allow for motion detection and I think it will be better to have that setup instead.

[Kets]

(07-12-2011 10:32 AM)elootos Wrote:  Got one of these CCTV cards from ebay and so far so good. Records 120fr, so between the 4 channels that's 30fr (or 25fr for PAL) per channel.



Ordered it Saturday and it arrived Thursday, all the way from Hong Kong as well.

Only problem was that I had 64bit Win7 installed and the drivers are 32bit only, damn!

So I reinstalled 32bit Win7 to facilitate the card and it does well.

The bundled software is a little Chinglish, but records a single channel @ 25fr with only 10% CPU load. Not sure what the load is for exactly but when I get another camera I'll know then how it handles more than one. The software seems comprehensive and allows for far more than a basic home-monitoring setup would need. Good to have options though.

___________________________________


Also got one of these cameras to go with it, but it's a little over spec'd and I see you can get similar for around £25. The next I get will be the cheaper ones.


Only been running it for 24hrs at the moment but no glitches so far, the software does allow for motion detection and I think it will be better to have that setup instead.

what O/S u running that card on ?....Windows 7 or WHS ?

[elootos]

(07-13-2011 08:11 AM)Kets Wrote:  what O/S u running that card on ?....Windows 7 or WHS ?

The Lounge machine has now become the master for the whole house, so Windows 7. The cards drivers are 32bit only. They do a PCI-e version but I thought that I'm more likely to be needing the PCI-e slots for tuners etc in the future so went for the PCI.

Looked at the software and performance yesterday a bit more and for 1ch record it averages 4% CPU usage on my E7400. It records .H64 file extensions that play in Media Player ok, but playing them within the CCTV software gives you proper timeline control and event management. Although a little clunky with its English and functions, the software (iDVR 4000) it does do the job of CCTV very well. You can set it to minimise to the system tray when Windows boots so you get a couple of icons in the bottom corner showing you its running. I set it to best quality record and it churned out 24GB in 24hrs. Not a lot happened thought as the camera is temporarily in my loft (b/w in nightvision mode) so that figure could go up if a lot of movement happens in daytime vision outside. I found the average quality setting to be a little blocky.

There is also a client software installer but I haven't looked at that yet; I keep Teamviewer'ing into it instead.

The card does only record at PAL (480 lines) and the camera I bought can output 600 lines, so better to save money and go for a standard 480 line dome camera in future.

[Kets]

(07-13-2011 08:59 AM)elootos Wrote:  

(07-13-2011 08:11 AM)Kets Wrote:  what O/S u running that card on ?....Windows 7 or WHS ?

The Lounge machine has now become the master for the whole house, so Windows 7. The cards drivers are 32bit only. They do a PCI-e version but I thought that I'm more likely to be needing the PCI-e slots for tuners etc in the future so went for the PCI.

Looked at the software and performance yesterday a bit more and for 1ch record it averages 4% CPU usage on my E7400. It records .H64 file extensions that play in Media Player ok, but playing them within the CCTV software gives you proper timeline control and event management. Although a little clunky with its English and functions, the software (iDVR 4000) it does do the job of CCTV very well. You can set it to minimise to the system tray when Windows boots so you get a couple of icons in the bottom corner showing you its running. I set it to best quality record and it churned out 24GB in 24hrs. Not a lot happened thought as the camera is temporarily in my loft (b/w in nightvision mode) so that figure could go up if a lot of movement happens in daytime vision outside. I found the average quality setting to be a little blocky.

There is also a client software installer but I haven't looked at that yet; I keep Teamviewer'ing into it instead.

The card does only record at PAL (480 lines) and the camera I bought can output 600 lines, so better to save money and go for a standard 480 line dome camera in future.

ahhhhh shame - my whs is running a gigabyte board......not sure if this will work with it after checkin out specs...doh!

[elootos]

Picture quality ain't that bad on the card/camera I have, but it looks a bit shitty after staring at nothing but HD for the past couple of years.

Seen you can get 1280x720 IP dome cameras on ebay for £140 which although much more expensive will give a much better output.

Also seen that DVBLink do something called IPTV which is for adding internet TV to your guide but it can also add IP cameras to it as well, so you could just watch and record an IP camera within Media Center. Nice!

[Kets]

(07-15-2011 02:42 PM)elootos Wrote:  Picture quality ain't that bad on the card/camera I have, but it looks a bit shitty after staring at nothing but HD for the past couple of years.

Seen you can get 1280x720 IP dome cameras on ebay for £140 which although much more expensive will give a much better output.

Also seen that DVBLink do something called IPTV which is for adding internet TV to your guide but it can also add IP cameras to it as well, so you could just watch and record an IP camera within Media Center. Nice!

does it have to be IP camera ? could u not capture the video using normal camera and pci card....then feed that into VLC ....then stream out again.....1 IP per camera stream ?....then use that within DVBLink ???

[elootos]

(07-15-2011 03:20 PM)Kets Wrote:  does it have to be IP camera ? could u not capture the video using normal camera and pci card....then feed that into VLC ....then stream out again.....1 IP per camera stream ?....then use that within DVBLink ???

I was thinking of an IP camera more for a higher res output. The analogue camera I have is a little sketchy trying to cover the entire garden.

Good thinking trying to use VLC as a go-between

[Kets]

(07-17-2011 10:57 PM)elootos Wrote:  

(07-15-2011 03:20 PM)Kets Wrote:  does it have to be IP camera ? could u not capture the video using normal camera and pci card....then feed that into VLC ....then stream out again.....1 IP per camera stream ?....then use that within DVBLink ???

I was thinking of an IP camera more for a higher res output. The analogue camera I have is a little sketchy trying to cover the entire garden.

Good thinking trying to use VLC as a go-between

did u ever manage to setup with dvblink and mce ??
if so does the card give each camera its own ip or sumat ??