[jrsmith12]

Good Afternoon all,

I'l get straight to the point. My company is installing a market research video room in there London offices and as well as having a viewing room concealed behind a 1 way mirror they would like to record the highest quality video and audio possible. The AV captured in the room needs to be transmitted over Cat5 to the viewing room were it will be displayed on a plasma and recorded, ideally to a USB drive.

I have been trawling the net for a few days now and I have come up with a few solutions but I can't help but think there is a more obvious, and better thought out, way of achieving the objective.

Thanks for your time and help.

[gce123]

Does it really need to be transmitted ove Cat5? How about simply running analogue video and audio cables from the room, back into a DVD recorder or something. And then the monitor output of the DVD recorder could feed the TV screen.

Depending on the camera and mic/preamp used it could give you very good results, and be much easier to operate than a PC based system with IP cameras etc. he clients then go home with their recordings on DVD.

[jrsmith12]

I have spec'd a system that does just that but the company director wants it to be transmitted over Cat5 so the recording can be done from anywhere in the building (don't ask me why). When I say transmitted over Cat5 I'm not talking IP cameras just the video and audio signals being converted to run over Cat5 for transmission.

Ta

[smartahome]

did you come accross Smart-e on your web trawl..?

Manufacturers of Video Switches, Routers and Extenders.

[gce123]

Yes, would agree with smartahome. Smart-e will have exactly what you need.

[hornydragon]

Better to just fit a good IP camera. That way you can acces it anywhere on the network rather than patching over analogue and then to an IP capture device. Smart-e4 is brilliant but this is the wrong application and will cost not far off a decent IP cam....which can be displayed on a plasma using any networked PC or laptop, as well as recorded to central server or USB (depending on your network)

Also be very careful about the legalities of covert recordings of voice and image data.

[jrsmith12]

Hi,

Ta for your responses. No need to worry about legalities as the recordings will be of research focus groups who have paid to be recorded. I'll have a look at the IP camera route and the smart-e suggestions. Time is getting tight now so I need to come up with a soution quick.

Thanks for your time chaps