Lyndhurst Garden House

Lyndhurst Garden House
Lyndhurst Garden House

Saturday, June 18, 2016

New Loveseat

The living room layout is changing.  First, last month, I removed the keyboard and keyboard table (and endless associated stuff) from the back left (north) of the room.  That permitted me to move the existing couch (actually, a large loveseat from the 1950's recovered in the 1980's) to the back of the room.  During the last movie party two guests watched the movie from opposite ends of the couch.  Previously the moving was barely watchable from the farthest end of the couch.

But my friend still strongly wanted the couch moved to face the screen (and stereo, etc).  I argued that would not work, as I figured out years ago.  The existing loveseat is not as wide as the existing space, but would leave a useless 18 inches in the corner.  And then a chair couldn't be placed along the opposite wall for 50 inches or more, because of the deepness of the old sofa, and a bit of extra margin.  That would mean the ONLY possible seating along the side wall would be a single chair.  Now 3 and sometimes 5 people can sit along the side wall (up to 4 in couch and one in a side chair) along the north wall, facing as many as 4 people on the inside wall and 2 in the center, for a lively discussion.

So, moving the couch to the back wall facing the screen would destroy the discussion layout, and not provide much for video other (the new side chair would be unuseable for video), just the 3-4 in back, whereas a proper arrangement as I'm achieving will permit 6 or so.

I first researched reduced size loveseats to go on the back wall, permitting the couch to remain on the side wall but jogged out by the bookcase, which conveniently jogs it out for sofa positioning.  Even at comfy1.com, who produces non-oversized furniture, just the basics, 50 inch wide loveseat is the smallest of 3 options.  That would not work, 47 inches is stretching it even.

47 inches is what I ended up getting, in a deep comfortable looking Carmen armless loveseat from Pier1 (discontinued and disappeared from website after I ordered mine).  Measuring 47 inches wide, it just reaches the maximum that will work for me.  The standard Carmen is 63 inches wide, a standard loveseat width.  This is just that, minus the large rounded arms, 8 inches on each side.

Either an armless or a 1-armed loveseat might work, as suggested in an article at Houzz, to fit a loveseat in limited space.  I spent most of my research time looking for one armed loveseat, seeing that to be the perfect compromise.  I came very close to ordering the Carolina Accents model CA5005-DDNL from Mackenzie.  It had a lot going for it.  A one-arm loveseat makes huge sense, since sitter #1 will be the only one mostly, then number 2 will be leaing on #1, and so on.  People described the Mackenzie as being suitable for 1 large adult and two smaller children.  But at a maximum width of 45, and 6 or more lost to the arm, it has barely 40 inches of width.  And it was only 29 inches deep, whereas even the space minimizing furniture of comfy1 is 33 inches deep (and most big box furniture 36 to 40 or more).  It partly achieved this by limited height back, only 28 inches heigh.  So this looks more like "occasional" furniture, much like the "accents" name, for occassionally having a chat with neighbors or kids, not for 6 hours of discussion and movie.

That was why I chose the Carmen, it looked suitable for extended sitting of at least two normal sized people.  I experimented sitting in the middle of the couch for a sense of the "armless" feel...and I think it feels OK.  It may even be an advantage, in this limited space room, in being able to pivot out of the chair.  And finally it allows pulling up a chair on the door side during movie time, making for at least 3 integrated back wall seats, plus the side wall couch in which one can sit slighly diagonally...exactly as one would do in a sectional sofa...but better in my view.

This combination of armless loveseat and sofa actually seems like an inherently adaptable idea, similar to the sectional sofa but better in a way in permitting more normal seating in a limited space.  During discussion, the person at the end of the existing sofa sits square back in their seat, as in a normal sofa, and not like in a sectional.  Only during movie watching does the person turn to an angle, just as at all the other sofa seats, but it's still quite tolerable up the the far end of the sofa.

The other huge advantage of the Carmen over the Carolina Accents was in the fact that the Carmen had actual removeable cushions.  I decided that's an essential advantage, since cushions can be turned or replaced easily.  Without removeable cushions, once the top gets stained or damaged, out goes the entire sofa as repair probably costs more, and is far more inconvenient, than replacement.

Now it turns out I found a review of the Carmen (or possibly more...it appeared in several different forms and places) where the cushions collapsed.  That person actually got their money back from Pier1.  So I figured it probably doesn't happen often, and anyway, hopefully one can just replace the cushion foam.  Now I wonder if the cushions have zippers, making foam replacement or "professional cleaning" easy.  Replacing the cushion foam would be a sort of upgrade one might chose to do on day one anyway.  So I didn't consider this problem or potential problem to be definitive and didn't cancel my order.  At worst I'd have to get zippers added to the cushions, and then new foam.

I got a discount price about 50% off list which is rare at pier1.  I think they never managed to put this item into any serious marketing, it just sat there, and then Pier1 decided to discontinue this item.

That made it a tiny fraction of a US made 50 inch (too wide) loveseat from comfy1.  I wonder about what the extra cost would be to make the comfy1 one armed and narrower.

I did learn, however, about the importance of having removeable cushions at the comfy1 site.



Friday, February 12, 2016

Security Cameras

One of the well known brands of security camera is SECO-LARM.

These are no-nonsense wired cameras.  Some use/require the Zeta OSD controller to use the special features.

Often with security camera, it's hard to figure the field of view.  With SECO-LARM cameras, it appears to be related to the focal length as follows:

2.9mm    is 120 degrees view
3.6mm    is 92 degrees view

The "varifocal" models go 2.8-12mm so from just over 120 to 40 degrees or thereabouts.

120 degrees is a nice wide angle for my front yard camera.  170 degrees, available in the SECO-LARM EV-1665-N2BQ seems excessive.

So either the EV-1606-N2SQ or varifocal cameras include the EV-C1303-NMCQ look good.

SECO-LARM does not specify that any of their cameras are 960H or AHD.  Perhaps there is little point in getting their higher resolution models for that reason (though I think there would still be some point…the higher the captured density the better noise-reduction and the like processing can be done).  One expert even argues that 960H and the like is pointless anyway.  No matter how good your camera is, forcing the signal through NTSC video means that it has a maximum 340 (!!!) lines of resolution because of the implied horizontal bandwidth of 4.28 Mhz.

I'm not as expert as that person, but I don't think I believe all of that.  For one thing, the actual "luminance" carrier in NTSC has a 6 Mhz bandwidth.  True, parts are carved out for other carriers, starting around 4.28Mhz, but if the filtering is done to specification (i.e., using real comb filtering) I think you can get close to the often claimed 540 lines, or 720 pixels, not perfectly, but closely, just as I have seen tests show the 500+ horizontal lines and they can be seen, if not with perfect clarity, on the best equipment.

Here's another put-down of 960H that doesn't make complete sense.  They say there isn't any more "quality" just an increase in picture area.  But that doesn't make sense, a wider picture of the same density is a higher quality picture in that it captures more information.  This is certainly true if you have 960H recorder which can then display the 960 pixels in a wider image, say 1080p.  Otherwise, on standard video equipment the enhanced horizontal resolution indeed may be lost.

Though I worry that this may not actually be the best choice, given that there are now read IP cameras with true High Definition, I'm tempted by SECO-LARM's best camera , the Elite 3X, because of the Wide Dynamic Range, Defogger, Digital Slow Shutter, and 3D noise reduction (which probably does take advantage of the megapixel cmos, even if megapixel pictures are not actually delivered to the user).

That camera doesn't appear to be widely stocked, however it can be ordered by the largest security camera vendors.




Monday, February 8, 2016

CCTV Security Cameras

I would like something better than the Swann Security DVR I purchased 4 years ago for around $450 with 4 cameras.  I went out of my way to get Swann instead of one of a never ending succession of unknown companies at familiar stores like Smarthome, figuring that Swann would be better.  Now I don't know if it is better.  The Swann unit physically looks like essentially all the other security camera DVR's.  They all look so similar you imagine them all being made by the same Chinese OEM.

Like most computerized devices these days, the User Interface of the Swann system from 4 years ago is deplorable.  But how do you know where to get a better interface?  All these systems are promoted on the basis of hardware and features, and the low price.  Typical 4 camera DVR's sell for $75-$200 now. At that price one can barely expect much refinement.  (Horrid user interfaces are the norm with all these kinds of systems in my experience…I haven't had time to write and describe how horrible they all are.)

As just one example of how horrible the User Interface of my system is:

My system was actually an 8 camera system.  The problem with that is that it defaults to a display with 8 panels--one for each of the 8 cameras.  But if you have only 4 cameras connected, half of the panels will simply show the message "Video Failure".  So with only 4 cameras, half of the screen space is wasted and in the other half the pictures from each camera are only half as big as they should be.

You can go into the software--this is sometimes very tricky--and change it to a 4 camera display.  But that will only stay that way for a week or so.  Because, for reliability reasons, the system reboots itself on programmed intervals from 1 week to 1 month.  When it reboots, your display reverts to the 8 camera display again.  That means, once again, you have to go to the system and change it again.

You'd have thought that they would have thought about this problem, especially as they are selling the system I bought with only 4 cameras.  I emailed Swann and asked if I could make it stay with the 4 camera display after rebooting.  I was glad to get a quick email response from Swann, but the answer was no, you have to reset the 4 camera display after every reboot if you have the 8 channel DVR, and they do recommend the periodic rebooting.

One thing for sure, next time I get the 4 camera system if I'm only going to have 4 cameras.  Well I thought I might soon have 8 cameras, but this didn't play out as expected.  The system with 4 cameras was, I thought then, an incredible bargain for only $450, and I could get more cameras for $100 apiece or less.  What I failed to consider was the cost of actually installing the cameras.  Given that these are wired cameras, they must have wires running all the way back to the DVR.

If you don't want this to be extremely tacky and/or unreliable, you have to have an electrician install the cameras.  They will do it very nicely with a box in the wall where the camera mounts and wires running through your attic.  That can run you about $1000 just to install one camera if you are doing one at a time.  I've installed 3 cameras in two projects and the cost was about $1000.  It was lowest for the first camera because the wire simply goes through the wall and didn't need to get run through the attic, and the other two I did at the same time as other attic electrical work was being done.

I suppose as an alternative you could simply staple the video camera wires to the outside of your house.  Now how secure is that going to be?

Anyway, I'm trying to find a nicer 4 channel replacement for my now 8 channel DVR.  Here's the nicest looking one in print, for $599.  At that price it ought to be better than those which are more typically selling for $100.  But you can't really tell from online information.  It might be just the $100 unit marked up to a higher price.  OK, it does have the nice feature of being able to attach High Definition cameras.  But I don't need that feature as none of my cameras are High Definition.  And this company doesn't offer any unit without that feature.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Are Black Lights dangerous

I'm currently using a Dynatrap indoors for mosquitos.  It has proven to be marginally effective.  If there are a bunch of mosquitoes around, it will vacuum some of them up eventually.  This is basically the best that can be done indoors without having nets or applying repellent chemicals directly to your skin.  It's provably better than nothing, though not much.

Now I'm going to get some actual bug zappers, once again for indoor use.  Because of warm winter, I'm expecting this year to see massive amounts of flying bugs outside.  Some will get inside.  So I need some indoor traps.  Indoors I don't care if I zap a few "beneficial pollenating insects."  They should not be inside.  I agree that such traps should only be used outdoors on a very limited basis so as to not interfere much with beneficial insects.  It is claimed these can catch mosquitoes too, but I'd expect even less performance than the Dynatrap which was specifically designed to catch mosquitoes.

Now the question is, what about the blue bulbs in these lights.  Are they harmful?

The answer appears to be no, or at least not much.  Prudence suggests not staring at or remaining in close proximity to such a light for very long.  But since they produce mostly UVA, and not at huge quantities either, they are not likely to be harmful from casual exposure.

Here's a relevant article which addresses the question about black lights and the blue lights in bug zappers.

It's UVB lights, sometimes used in tanning salons and germ killers, that are more dangerous.  UVA is longer than 315 nm.  UVB is less than 315 nm.

UVB bulbs are considerably more expensive, and potentially unsafe, so it's doubtful they are used in black lights or bug zappers.  A typical wavelength from UVB bulb is 295nm.