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Citizen
 
location:
Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
 |  | CCTV and Power Cuts
< on 7/26/2005 5:49 AM >
|  | | | Do surveillance cameras have any sort of back-up power supply to keep them operational during power outages the way alarm systems do?
There's a site near me with some nice abandoned WW2-era factories which have no alarm systems per. se., but which are watched by cameras mounted on neighbouring, still-active buildings. (The site as a whole is being progressively shut down over a period of months.) The site entrances are also in view of those ghastly street-mounted CCTV cameras of the type that infest much of the UK, and are now spreading here. (Strictly as an anti-terror measure, of course)
All these cameras make the place pretty much inaccessible normally, but today I got a nice little card in the mail from the good people at AGL telling me that there'll be a scheduled outage in my area this Sunday, which will also affect this site. I'm thinking that this might be a great opportunity to have a look around while (if) the cameras are all blinded.
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rapcw
   
location:
Antioch, CA
Gender: Male
| | Re: CCTV and Power Cuts
<Reply # 1 on 7/26/2005 6:46 AM >
| | | | It seems from what I read on the internet, that if the camera doesn't have a back up battery pack, it will turn off with the power outage. Unless they have a Toshiba IK-WB02A. Which uses PoE (Power over Ethernet) to maintain constant surveillance.
http://www.toshiba...sd/news/112904.htm
“Besides cost efficiencies and mounting ease, one of the great things about PoE is that it assures continuous surveillance in the event of a power outage by delivering battery backed up uninterrupted power via the local area network,” notes Joe Cook, Product Manager, Toshiba Security & Network Video. “Plus, in an crisis situation, the camera network can be remotely accessed by police, secret service, the armed forces, or firefighters to pinpoint an emergency using only an Internet-ready PC, cell phone or PDA.”
So watch out for that camera.
http://www.poweroverethernet.com/
This site also has more PoE cameras, so I would watch out for those, but if it's not PoE it will probably go out. I hope you don't get arrested because of my advice.
[last edit 7/26/2005 6:57 AM by rapcw - edited 1 times]
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grit1
location:
University Campus - Minneapolis, MN
Gender: Male
Got Shear Line?
| |  | Re: CCTV and Power Cuts
<Reply # 2 on 7/26/2005 7:46 AM >
| | | | The systems in place at the schools I work in have small UPS units to maintain the computers that record the video - I would also assume that the power supplies to the cameras around the building are backed up with the same UPS ... they are small APC desktop type, so they wouldn't last too long powering 10+ SCSI drives, and two monitors for that matter ...
Chances are that if they are using PoE they're pretty serious about security, and probably will have their network on some sort of UPS ... it is interesting, however, that on smaller networks often the switches/hubs are not on UPS's...at our school the servers automatically down themselves on the backup power, but the rest of the system just goes down [the thought being that none of the desktop client side machines have backup power, so we don't need the network during a power outage anyway] but you probably wouldn't be so lucky in a PoE surveillance situation. Good luck! ~Grit.
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Citizen
location:
Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
| | Re: CCTV and Power Cuts
<Reply # 3 on 8/1/2005 5:39 AM >
| | | | This setup looked way old enough to predate PoE, so I went over yesterday, kit in tow to have a look around. I guess the system was out because for that day only they had a bunch (well, three) guard dogs running around inside the perimeter.
Confronted with a trio of snarling, barking Alsatians with only a rusted, rickety (tilted 60o over in places) chainlink fence between us, I pretty much bailed on the spot.
The lesson, I guess, is not to mess with the government. Mores the pity, really, as the entire place will be a lame, new, medium-density housing estate before the year is out.
Now I have to go and reset all the clocks...
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mushrea
location:
North of Boston
Gender: Male
| | | Re: CCTV and Power Cuts
<Reply # 4 on 8/1/2005 4:39 PM >
| | | | You should have come back with a few juicy steaks! Haven't you ever watched cartoons?
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Citizen
location:
Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
| | Re: CCTV and Power Cuts
<Reply # 5 on 8/2/2005 11:08 AM >
| | | | Heh, unfortunately they actually train guard dogs to refuse food from anybody but their handler while 'working' and not to eat anything they may find lying around.
Apparently they do this by having someone offer the dog food, and then belting it.
Some guy who lived behind my parents had this done to his dog, and though it always used to accept any food we gave it through gaps in the fence, afterwards it just flat out refused. I always thought that was a tad extreme, until I learned he had a hydroponic cannabis plantation in the garage that needed protecting.
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