Dedicated Micros Digital Sprite Lite Setup Manual

Setup Guide
Guide d'installation
Setup-Anleitung
Guía de programación
Guida per l'impostazione

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Introduction

What is Digital Sprite Lite?

Digital Sprite Lite is an easy to use, cost effective video multiplexer, digital video
recorder, with optional network transmission in one box.

A video multiplexer?

• Designed with security in mind

• Easy to use

• Operates like a traditional analogue multiplexer, not a PC

• All the features you would expect from a Dedicated Micros multiplexer:

- Main and Spot monitor

- Multiscreen displays

- Activity detection

- Alarms

- Scheduling

- Variable record rates

- c-bus networking

A digital video recorder?

• Playback and record simultaneously, without affecting recording.

• Up to 14 days of 24-hour time-lapse recordings in the box.

• Instant access to images recorded onto the hard disk.

• No tapes required.

Network transmission?

• View live and playback images from Digital Sprite Lite across a network.

• No extra software to buy, uses Microsoft IE5 or Netscape Navigator 4.7.

• Telemetry control.

✔

Remote Keyboard Control (optional)

Remote keyboard compatible ✔
Control of multiple units ✔
Telemetry Controller ✔

Network viewing (optional)

Live viewing ✔
Playback viewing ✔
Telemetry control ✔
Microsoft IE5 and Netscape Navigator 4.7 compatible ✔

External storage devices

Zip

®

✔

Jaz

®

✔

RAID ✔
Hewlett Packard DDS and Ecrix VXA Tapes ✔

To make the installation and operation as simple as possible this installation guide
has three sections:

1. Installing Digital Sprite Lite

- guiding you through the installation process

2. Configuring Digital Sprite Lite

- giving details of setting up the unit for the customer’s needs

3. Operating Digital Sprite Lite

- a card which can be removed from this manual provides a guide to
operating Digital Sprite Lite

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Regulatory Notes FCC and DOC Information

(USA and Canadian Models Only)

Warning: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits
for a Class A digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC rules. These limits are
designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference when the
equipment is operated in a commercial environment. This equipment generates,
uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in
accordance with the instruction manual, may cause harmful interference to radio
communications. Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to
cause harmful interference in which case the user will be required to correct the
interference at their own expense.

If necessary, the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television
technician for corrective action. The user may find the following booklet prepared
by the Federal Communications Commission helpful: “How to Identify and
Resolve Radio-TV Interference Problems”.
This booklet is available from the US Government Printing Office, Washington,
DC20402, Stock No. 004-000-00345-4.

This reminder is provided to call the CATV system installer’s attention to Art.
820-40 of the NEC that provides guidelines for proper grounding and, in
particular, specifies that the cable ground shall be connected to the grounding
system of the building, as close to the point of cable entry as practical.

CE Mark

This product is marked with the CE symbol and indicates compliance
with all applicable directives.
Directive 89/336/EEC.
A “Declaration of Conformity” is held at Dedicated Micros Ltd.,
11 Oak Street, Swinton, Manchester M27 4FL.

A quick overview of digital recording

Digital multiplex recorders work in exactly the same way as analogue multiplexers
except that they use hard disks and digital tape to store video, instead of VCR tapes.

Analogue recording uses time-lapse recording to extend the length of time
recorded onto a 3-hour tape - recording fewer pictures every second.

Adjusting the number of pictures recorded every second also extends the length
of time recorded onto the hard disk of a Digital Sprite Lite. However, other factors
also determine the amount of time that can be stored on the disk of a digital
multiplex recorder:

• The image quality

• The record rate

• The hard disk capacity

Image quality

Digital multiplex recorders store images in a compressed format, allowing images
to be recorded more efficiently. The higher the compression, the smaller the file
size, but the image quality will suffer. Digital Sprite Lite can compress images from
between 6KB to 30KB

Kilobytes and gigabytes are units of storage:

1GB = 1024 Megabytes (MB)

1MB = 1024 Kilobytes (KB)

With analogue recording, the image quality is dependent on the type of VCR
being used; VHS or S-VHS. Digital Sprite Lite allows the image quality to be
altered by adjusting the image size, for example, VHS quality is 14KB, S-VHS is
18KB, and greater than S-VHS is 25KB.

Using a larger image size will fill the hard disk faster than a smaller image size, as
more space is required to store it. To achieve the same amount of recording time
when a larger image size is used requires the record rate (PPS) to be reduced.

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Digital Sprite Lite can be installed in as little as 4 steps, and being plug-and-play,
cameras can be recorded within minutes.

STEP 1. Connect cameras

Connect cameras to the video inputs marked VID1 to VID9 (9-way unit) or VID16
(16-way unit). Use the bottom row of connectors for looping through to other equipment.

STEP 2. Connect monitors

Connect the video output marked MON A to the Main monitor (digital playback
and multiscreens).

Connect the video output marked MON B to the optional Spot monitor (analogue
full-screen images).

STEP 3. Connect the external devices

If external devices need to be connected to Digital Sprite Lite, go to the next
section – ‘Connecting external devices’, before proceeding to Step 4.

STEP 4. Connect power

Once the Digital Sprite Lite is in its final position and all external devices have
been fitted and powered, connect the PSU to the rear of the unit and apply the
power. The power-up procedure may take up to one minute before Digital Sprite
Lite can be used.

will now record all cameras in a 24-hour time-lapse mode
without any further programming!

cameras

main monitor

RJ-45 ethernet

connection

S-Video main monitor

RS-485/RS-232 connector

SCSI-2 connector

spot monitor

loopthrough

AUX IN

-+

Quick install

Serial telemetry

Digital Sprite Lite currently supports serial telemetry for JVC and Ultrak domes. Serial
telemetry requires a twisted-pair connection from Digital Sprite Lite’s serial port to
the telemetry receiver. Serial telemetry can be star configured – from the Digital
Sprite Lite serial port to each receiver, or delta configured – each receiver daisy
chained together, or a combination of the two. Each receiver needs to be addressed
according to its camera number – consult your receiver documentation for details.

Serial port connection

The serial port on Digital Sprite Lite is a 9-way male D-type connection. A 9-way
D-type female plug is required with the following pin-outs:

PIN RS-232 RS-485

1 nc Data A
2RX nc
3TX nc
4 GND GND
5 GND GND
6nc nc
7RTS nc
8 CTS nc
9 nc Data B

nc = no connection

Note: The serial port must be configured for JVC or Ultrak telemetry in the
System Options menu.

c-bus/DTMF telemetry

Dedicated Micros telemetry receivers can be controlled using c-bus or DTMF
(telephone tones). When using c-bus telemetry the receiver is connected directly to
the c-bus connectors on the back of the unit. When using DTMF telemetry a
telemetry adaptor (TAD3) is required to convert the telemetry commands into DTMF
tones. DTMF and c-bus telemetry can be configured in a star or delta configuration.

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®

or Jaz

®

Zip®and Jaz®disks are available in different disk capacities, the table below shows
the recording times at typical recording rates (at S-VHS image quality, 18KB):

1PPS 2PPS 3PPS 6PPS 12PPS 25PPS

Iomega Zip®100MB 1h 30m 45m 30m 15m 7m 3m
Iomega Zip

®

250MB 3h 46m 1hr 53m 1h 15m 37m 18m 9m

Iomega Jaz

®

1GB 15h 4m 7h 32m 5h 1m 2h 30m 1h 15m 36m

Iomega Jaz

®

2GB 30h 8m 15h 4m 10h 2m 5h 1m 2h 30m 1h 12m

Times indicate all cameras being copied to the disk.

3. DDS and VXA tapes

Images recorded to the internal disk can be automatically archived to Hewlett
Packard DDS and Ecrix VXA tapes. This allows a tape a day solution, similar to
that of a multiplexer and VCR. The disk size does not have to be large when
using tapes to archive images, although the disk size determines what is instantly
accessible from the Digital Sprite Lite.

The table below shows the number of hours a tape will last for when used at
different record rates (at S-VHS images quality, 18KB)

6hr 12hr 24hr 48hr 72hr 168hr

HP DDS-3 12GB 25PPS 14PPS 7PPS 3PPS 2PPS 1PPS
HP DDS-4 20GB 25PPS 23PPS 11PPS 5PPS 3PPS 1PPS
Ecrix VXA 20GB 25PPS 23PPS 11PPS 5PPS 3PPS 1PPS

See Appendix 1 for details of configuring Digital Sprite Lite for tape archiving.