Surveillance software: help me get my head round what I really need

[Shambles]

I'm a bit out of my depth here, but as I've bought and installed all the hardware I might as well draw on the experience of you good folk to tell me exactly what the hell do I really want?

I have the following:

• Wireless colour camera, with audio & nightvision (30 leds) now mounted outside, but under good cover
  
• Matching wireless receiver
  
• 4 channel PCI DVR card, allowing 1 active cam and 3 passive recording cams

With the card came PICO2000 software which provides the drivers and some really shitty pc-based interface.

In short, when the receiver is connected to my LCD telly I get a perfect colour picture. When connected to my DVR card, and using the PICO2000 package, I get a mostly shite pic which is almost completely black, unless I peer down from the top of my screen when it seems brighter. It's defo the card, drivers or interface that's rubbish. I've got the latest drivers as far as I'm aware and I've looked unsuccessfully for v2.3 of PICO2000 (it came with an obsolete copy of v1.8 ) and the imaging takes 99% CPU all the time, while it's showing me a very dark screen.

But do I really need this PICO software?

I downloaded trials of Watcher and Visec (both are surveillance software tools) but neither sees my camera. In fact I can't even see my camera. It shows up in device manager "Sound, video and game controllers" sections as "Pico2000 audio capture" and "Pico2000 video capture". I presume these mean my camera.

Anyone got any experience of these types of system? I just need to be able to switch screens to my camera and possibly record in realtime.

Any help or pointers will be well appreciated.

Thanks for listening.

[ian_jedi]

Support full resolution video (768X576 PAL, 640X480 NTSC)

Provide real-time digital video compression

Provide configuration retaining

Provide status retaining for auto start

Easy to use graphic user interface

Easy to expand by software upgrade and system integration

dude looking at the the card, it only gives the same video output of that of a moble phone thats why you get a crap picture.

cheers

ian J

[ian_jedi]

http://www.activewebcam.com/downloads_fr.html

can't test it mate don't a cam here.

[Shambles]

dude looking at the the card, it only gives the same video output of that of a moble phone thats why you get a crap picture.

Cheers ian, I feel better now

Support full resolution video (768X576 PAL, 640X480 NTSC)

So is that poor? I would have thought it was ok tbh. Doesn't explain why I can sometimes see a good pic for a short while followed a gradual decline in quality.

I need to try other PC-based software before I ditch the system entirely, as I;m sure it's down to that, or drivers.

[Shambles]

http://www.activewebcam.com/downloads_fr.html

can't test it mate don't a cam here.

Right thanks very much for that pointer. It's unregistered and plasters that info over the screen but it's far better than that pico shitto

Plus, it reported I had a conexant 878a capture card with an invalid driver, which it replaced with a BtPCI WDM vidcap driver. The difference is that I can now adjust brightness and contrast levels, which means I can see outside now

So, I'll be making do with AWC 7.1 until something better comes along, or I can get it registered :

Cheers ian, take a closely monitored dose of surveillance vidcapped karma ;-)

[ian_jedi]

no problem

thanks

Ian j

[Tony92]

Have sent you a PM mate which can help you out.............Tony

[Shambles]

Thanks Tony. Already sorted I should have updated my post

[Tought You]

i also have the pico2000 sh1t
its crap and the nachine keeps locking up
i have tried to find difrent software but dont fancy paying just to see if it works any better any help would be great
thanks for your time and help

steve