Now that TV cameras have become so cheap, maybe more model railroaders are using closed circuit TV to keep track of trains in obscured areas. Our club has had about 8 cameras and half a dozen monitors (old Commodore-64 monitors $10 ea) for a number of years. A recent desire to expand the number of cameras requires a new video switcher with more inputs (like 16). When considering building a new one, I'm wondering if there may be a market out there for this kind of product. The new unit would have features similar to our present one. That is, a small box (not a big rack mount thing) using regular cheap, easy to install cable F-connectors (not BNC's). All cameras & monitors plug into this box. Touchtone button pads (as many as desired) are placed around the layout to select which camera to view on which monitor. Wiring is minimized, and operation is simple. To select a monitor/camera combination, you press *, then the monitor number and the camera number. Sure, if two people start pushing buttons at the same time, you get gibberish,but we find there isn't THAT much activity. Would there be interest in a unit like this for about $150? I haven't found even security grade switchers that offer this flexibility for this kind of money. Let me know. Regards, Don
- posted
19 years ago