Hello,
Unfortunately, I do not have good news for you. Although you can easily find CCTV video capture cards on the Internet, VERY VERY few are worth anything. Here is the problem:
Most CCTV capture cards sold today via the Internet are no-name knock off copies of mainstream cards. Although the hardware is relatively easy to replicate, the software is not as most mainstream CCTV card manufacturers have powerful anti-piracy controls integrated in their software, keeping the software from running on a PC that does not have a legitimate matching capture card. As a result, the knock-off card providers typically bundle the CCTV cards with either old software from a mainstream provider (from 6 ~ 8 years ago during the time before they perfected their anti-piracy measures), or they bundle it with 3rd rate generic software that we see circulated a lot.
Should you have old software, you may very well have to use an old Windows XP service pack 1 PC or worse yet, a Windows ME machine to run the software, being that the older software was written before XP service pack 2 or even XP. Should you have a copy of some generic 3rd party software, you may be able to get it to work (probably not), but then the software will most likily be very unstable, difficult to use, and probably completely unsupported.
Now... on to the flip side. Let's say you purchased an authentic mainstream card bundled with a current version of the software. You're certainly in a better boat, but you may still not be able to get it to work properly. Here's why:
The chips used on multi-capture CCTV cards are designed and tested to work with specific motherboards, video graphics controllers, and depending... even certain RAM types. If you are trying to install a cctv card into say... either a Dell, HP, or other mainstream PC, their is a very good chance that you are very frustrated right now because you cannot get it to install or work properly. It's probably due to an integrated video graphics controller on the motherboard, or perhaps to do custom drivers loaded on the PC during the manufacturing process.
For all reasons above, I really wish that people would NOT openly sell video graphic controllers on their web site. In my mind, consumers that unknowingly purchase CCTV cards via the Internet are being set up for failure.
The bottom line.... CCTV surveillance cars are a wonderful thing... provided that you are not working with a knock-off... and you are installing them into a custom PC that was designed and built using vendor approved parts.
Going back to all those vendors online that sell the cards without warning users... my take is that they really just want your money, and that by selling the cards REALLY cheap, they hope that consumers will be just to lazy to try to return them.
SUGGESTIONS: If you are having difficulties installing your software, you may want to visit
www.techstring.com . There, you will find a service whereby a professional CCTV tech will securely remote into your PC via the Internet and attempt to install your software for you. Techstring can also help you configure your software, or help give technical assistance on your card. It's not that the techstring techs were necessarily trained on your particular make/ model of CCTV card... it's that they are very familiar with the technology as a whole and how it relates to PCs and networks.
So that you know, both techstring.com and aboutcctv.com (the web site you are looking at now) are provided by CCTVwholesalers.com .
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Nigelweir
