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[marioherrera]

Hi,
As I mentioned in the subject my configuration is eight cameras with a motion sensor each, i used to configured 4 cameras easily with movement detection but i both 4 cameras (and sensor) more but it's impossible to configure them without manual intervention, is there a way to activate the 8 cameras automatically to transmit one camera at time (with motion detection) to my receiver? i know they are in groups of 4 and by default on that group they turn off automatically when one of them turns on, but with two groups 1-4 and  6-8 there are always two cameras on... please your advice.

Best regards,

Mario

[KDR]

You can give this a try. If you put all 8 cams in the same room in AHP, when 1 cam turns on it should turn off the other 7 cams even though there in 2 differant groups. I have 2 groups of cams and as long as there in the same room it works fine for me.

I have been waiting for someone else to give this a try. Somewhere I read this but haven't been able to find it again.

^{----------------KDR}

[Puck]

I have been waiting for someone else to give this a try. Somewhere I read this but haven't been able to find it again.

KDR: Do all your cameras use addressable power supplies? I have 7 cameras in one AHP room and on one house code numbered 1 thru 7. Cameras 1 thru 4 use addressable power supplies, but cameras 5, 6 & 7 are controlled with appliance modules. If I turn the cameras on in numerical order, then when I get to 5, 4 will go off, but 5 will not go off when I go to 6 (nor will 6 when I go to 7). But if I am viewing a Group 2 camera and switch to a Group 1 camera, the Group 2 camera will go off.

So from what I see, your method of all cameras in one AHP room works as long as they all use addressable power supplies.

[KDR]

Puck I have 3 cams that stay on 24/7 but I will put some appliance modules on them and give your setup a try. The other cams do have switchable power supplies and are working across 2 groups. I feed the 3 on all the time cams into a video capture (DVR) card, then "Y" each of those cams into a video switch and the output of the switch into the VA11A and into a TV monitor as well.

The activity monitor shows an OFF being sent to whatever camera that's On then the On command of the camera that was selected even across different groups. Take a look at your setup in activity monitor and see what it shows for Off commands being sent.

One other thing I would like to note is that in AHP the modules I use to drag into the room are all Ninja modules since all the cams are on Ninjas. The Anaconda cams mounted on them are set to the same H/U code as the ninjas.

^{----------------KDR}

[marioherrera]

i have all cameras with their own addressable power supplies, from A1 to A8 in the same room there are always two of them active, I mean 1 in group 1 to 4 and the other one in group 5 to 8.

[Puck]

The activity monitor shows an OFF being sent to whatever camera that's On then the On command of the camera that was selected even across different groups. Take a look at your setup in activity monitor and see what it shows for Off commands being sent.

The only time I see an OFF being sent is when I go from one Group to the other Group. It does automatically turn off the last camera viewed in a previous group. It's just within a single Group of all appliance module power controllers that switching between them does not turn off the others.

The question is, when selecting cameras across Groups, is the fact the previous Groups camera gets turned off a function of AHP? Based on what marioherrera is seeing, it sounds like it is. It appears that without some software control there is no way to turn off the camera in a previous Group with using just motion sensors. This is probably the reason for the groups being limited to 4 units as opposed to stating the entire house code for camera control.

[Puck]

It appears that without some software control there is no way to turn off the camera in a previous Group with using just motion sensors.

I should clarify that there is no way to turn it off prior to its dedicated motion sensor timing out and issuing the OFF signal. 

[KDR]

Puck, I just finished testing with appliance modules and ended up  just as you indicated above.

Activity Monitor response as you described above also. It looks like within a group of 4 there is no off command indicated but when you switch from one group to another an off comand is issued first for the group you are leaving then an on command to the cam your switching on. The ninjas respond the same way. This must be why you can jump from group to group in the same room if you have switchable power supplies. What I don't understand is why no off commands are recorded in the activity monitor within a group? Although AHP must be needed if you want to jump from group to group... jumping around within a group the off command must be coming from the power supply and not AHP or the command is something that the activity monitor can't detect.

^{----------------KDR}

[Puck]

... jumping around within a group the off command must be coming from the power supply

My take on the way the addressable power supplies work is that if they see an ON command for another unit within their group, they shut off.

E.G.

Something external creates the PLC signal to turn Camera A3 ON

The addressable power supply set to A3 turns ON.
All other addressable power supplies in that group (A1, A2, A4) see A3 ON and interpret it as a command to turn OFF.

[KDR]

ok puck that makes sense. That explains why AHP issues an Off command first for the camera that's on in a group before going to another group and issuing the On command. That's how they overlap groups within a room using AHP, iWatch plug in.

^{----------------KDR}

[ericb]

http://kbase.x10.com/wiki/Use_A_Video_Sender_And_An_Appliance_Module

For any cameras on Appliance Modules, just make sure they're on Unit Code 1, 5, 9, or 13- ActiveHome Pro will turn them off when switching.

[Puck]

http://kbase.x10.com/wiki/Use_A_Video_Sender_And_An_Appliance_Module

For any cameras on Appliance Modules, just make sure they're on Unit Code 1, 5, 9, or 13- ActiveHome Pro will turn them off when switching.

Good point, that basically says to ensure you change Groups when switching between them. They don't necessarily have to be 1, 5, 9 or 13 as long as there is only one in each group of four (e.g. 2, 7, 11 & 16 would work too). However, this limits you to 4 cameras because you still could not have any other camera (even with addressable power supplies) addressed to a Group that has an Appliance Module powered camera; the appliance module camera would not be turned off if you switch to another camera in the same Group.


marioherrera: Your best option would be to use some software. Either that or (if possible) try to keep the location of the sensors from the 2 Groups apart as much as possible to avoid someone double triggering. If your cameras are divide such that 4 are outside & 4 are inside, have the outside on one Group and the inside on the other. If there are more than 4 outside, then this gets tougher to isolate.

If for example you have a frontdoor camera on one group and a backdoor camera on another group, someone could trigger both cameras and break-in and you would be left with unintelligible video.