DIPOL Weekly Review - TV and SAT TV, CCTV, WLAN

"The place where zeros and ones change to billions" - CeBIT 2008. From 4-9 March, in Hanover, Germany, there will take place trade fair for information technology and telecommunications - CeBIT. The exhibition is described by the organizers as the "No. 1 marketplace for digital business". About 6000 exhibitors and half million visitors will attend this year. The companies will present their offer in the areas: "Business Solutions", "Public Sector Solutions", "Home &Mobile Solutions", and "Technology &Infrastructure". The event will be opened by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This year the official partner is France, thus the fair will be visited by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The central idea of this year's edition of the event is "Green IT" - the support of ICT industry for climate protection. There will be presented solutions used in power industry, transportation, and other industries. An innovation will be "CeBIT Global Conferences" - discussion panels dedicated to the newest trends in IT and telecommunications. Among the presented products we will see the new quad-core AMD processors that should revive the competition on this high-tech market with Intel. As usual, it will be highly visible progress in display technologies, like the difficult-to-miss 150-inch (381cm) plasma from Panasonic or the dazzling with incredible contrast OLED TV of Sony.
It will be also the next opportunity for Toshiba, the leader of HD DVD technology, to announce reduction in prices of the HD DVD equipment - in the war with Blu-ray technology developed by Sony.

From our archive: CeBIT 2007 - a beautiful disaster of European telecommunications

"The place where zeros and ones change to billions" - it is the slogan of this year's fair in Hanover. By the end of the day there are many who seem to wait for the transformation...

CCTV monitoring using antenna system. Community antenna installations (MATV/SMATV systems) and cable TV networks can be easily utilized for surveillance purposes. All the residents, along with the standard services, can have access to the images from CCTV cameras located in the desired places, e.g. at the entrance/s to the building, by the parking lot etc. The first purpose of the CCTV system is recording the video on a DVR, but the second - its conversion into RF signals that can be distributed within the network - made by modulators. The RF signals have to be amplified and combined. It may be a problem in the case of a larger number of the signals - the simplest method using a splitter is characterized by significant loss of signal level (e.g. 11dB - 8-way splitter R60108). Application of a building amplifier is not recommended due to interference of useful signals with unwanted products of modulation.
A much better solution is use of ZG channel amplifiers. In multi-camera installations there may also be used QUADS to group the images in fours. It allows to minimize the number of the channel amplifiers and the total cost.
The example system shown in the diagram below is based on 16-channel DVR M8534 - CPD-507/787 (LAN, Triplex). The video outputs of the DVR are connected to four M4024 quads. Their output signals control Terra MT-21P R871721 modulators. The modulated RF signals are amplified by ZG channel amplifiers. Each "CCTV" channel carries information from 4 cameras.

Remote IP monitoring of shops. Unfortunately only some occultists are reported to have ability of bilocation, but thanks to the Internet one can go even further and experience... multilocation. It is enough to use simple IP cameras with MPEG4 compression. PiXORD camera P405 K1133 and its wireless equivalent PiXORD P405W K1134 are economical devices used for video surveillance of offices and shops. An affordable price, easy installation, and real-time transmission up to 30fps at VGA resolution make the cameras the most popular devices in a variety of small businesses. The images from a number of locations can be viewed on any PC with IE, connected to the Internet. There is possibility of extending such CCTV network up to 32 PIXORD cameras. Using the most widespread ADSL service, the locations have to be equipped with ADSL routers, e.g. N2901 (annex A).
More on IP CCTV applications in businesses (also suitable for homes) can be found in the article Pixord - video monitoring of offices.

Simple IP CCTV system based on PiXORD cameras

IP cameras of ACTi in high-tech industrial plant. Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. (CPT) is one of the world's largest manufacturers of picture tubes and LCD screens. To monitor the whole plant, the company has decided to implement fixed IP cameras ACM-1431 IR K1118 from ACTi and dedicated ACTi NVR software package. The backbone network is based on optical fiber, the local connections are made with UTP cables. The cameras and active devices are powered with PoE technology. The NVR server is also under video surveillance. The staff of the managing center as well as of some other sections have access to the live resources and archives according to their access privileges.
ACM-1431 K1118 is a compact day/night camera with integrated IR illuminator. The ACTi NVR software package allows to record 64 channels (total: 1920 fps at D1).

Block diagram of the ACTi system in CTP plant

A screenshot from ACTi NVR surveillance management system

Protection of CCTV equipment. The statistics show that about 25 percent of damages of electronic equipment are caused by overvoltages induced out of electromagnetic field during close lightning strikes.
The video surge protector OPV-1 M1701 effectively protects video line, carrying away the stroke current to the ground. This way the excessive voltage is strongly limited and does not harm the video devices. The protector does not affect video signal quality and no supplying is required. It is important to use proper grounding installation.

Application of two M1701 devices protects the equipment on both sides of video line

How to configure wireless card. Before purchasing the card you need to know the kind of available interface (PCI, USB, PCMCIA). The installation and configuration of the card is not complicated:

• if needed - open the computer case,
• gently press the card to push it into the slot (in the case of PCI - screw or fasten down the card to the case at the PC card slot),
• install the supplied software (in most cases you will have to restart your computer),
• set appropriate IP address, address of the gate (router), or using DHCP server - automatic network configuration,
• choose suitable mode of work - in the case of connecting with access point - Infrastructure,
• set SSID of the AP,
• set data encryption and cryptographic keys,
• you can also use the connection manager utility that is usually provided by the manufacturer of the card.

A screenshot from wireless client utility showing the status of WiFi connection

Is it really defective? - part 1. There are many cases when WLAN devices land in service center with a description like: "it doesn't work, no access to the device, cannot log in, doesn't ping, no LAN... etc.
About 1/3 of the WLAN devices is in perfect working order, but they have been improperly configured. The basic steps of configuring wireless card are described above, similar description for routers has been featured in the previous issue of the Weekly Review.
In general, the user of a network card needs to set parameters of the external network, in the case of a router - also those of the internal network.

The most common mistakes include:

To log on the router, we have to know its IP address. If we do not remember the address, we can only reset the device to the factory default settings.

By the way, the "newbies" may need some help from more experienced users.

About resetting and other problems - in the next issue.

We have written about:

Multiswitch installation in building with many staircases. As an example we may consider such installation in a 5-story apartment building with three staircases. Each of four apartments on a story has to be provided with satellite and terrestrial signals....
- archive DWR of Jan. 7, 2008

Cameras with Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) sensors. WDR cameras use the newest generation of sensors from the American company Pixim. Every pixel of the sensor is an independent analog to digital converter...
- archive DWR of Dec. 17, 2007

Professional IP monitoring system in MZK Kedzierzyn-Kozle based on PiXORD P400 cameras. MZK (municipal transportation agency) in Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland, have been using professional monitoring system equipped with 16 IP cameras, for several months now. The system has been installed in bus depot and monitors the whole ground and the buildings...
- archive DWR of Nov. 26, 2007

Index of published issues.

Marathon housings are CE, IP, RoHS compliant.