buellwinkle

Day = Color, put it in color mode and the IR illuminators shouldn't come on. I've heard of higher wave length IR illuminators but have never seen them. Not all image sensors are sensitive to the higher wave length. I asked Raytec, one of the largest illuminator companies and they said you will still see a glow. The problem is if you turn off the IR illuminators, you will likely see nothing unless you have the area well lit with white light. A better camera, same price, is the 1080P mini dome made by Dahua and also sold by Q-See. It's double the resolution, but does not have illuminators. Has a pseudo day/night, but really it's a day camera. Slightly more sensitive in low light than the mini-bullet you have. As for the Bushnell, first, it's a still camera, not video, it uses IR LEDs as flash, not continous. If you flashed regular leds for 1/6th of a second (their claim), you probably wouldn't not notice it. Animals are more sensitive to the IR wavelength than humans, so I can see the use of them as a flash as being appropriate for what Bushnell intended them for. Also, they are using a PIR motion detector which you can't do with the mini-bullet, it doesn't have alarm i/o to attach one. Without the PIR motion detector, the camera can't see in the dark and you'll get no motion events. Cool camera though for wildlife enthusiasts.

In our community, we've given up on NLOS (900 Mhz) and went with mobile broadband routers. We do local recording using Mobotix cameras and very little remote access so 4G via VZW works for us. If there's an event, we go to the camera, plug a laptop into the mobile broadband router and download all the events we may need and view it later. At our main entrances, we hardwired using ethernet extenders back to our control room. We are a small community about 1 sq. mile but very hilly, tall trees. We looked at a mesh network but was too expensive.

One could blame the network, but when I tested the camera, I wrote directly to internal SD card, class 10, video never left the camera. It's a Vivotek, they have some the best camera brochures on the market.

Its funny that you say motion detection is too sensitive because this camera records 2-3x more events than 1080P and 3MP cameras from the same manufacturer. Complain to Q-See in So Cal. The more complaints they get, the more likely they are to fix it. My biggest pet peeve is it has terrible white balance while their other cameras are perfect. Also, don't know what you mean that IR is visible, IR light is invisible or are you talking about the pink glow you get on the IR LEDs, because that's normal regardless of the brand, heck, I installed an $800 illuminator that glows brighter than most cameras have built in. You can turn that off pretty easily on that camera, just set the camera to DAY mode instead of auto, that turns the IR LEDs off.

This is the best that Vivotek has to offer, how can it be bad? Hahahaha. Here's my review of it. I don't have a video since I started doing that after this camera review, but I do comment on the dropped frames. The owner of the camera spent quite a while with their support and updating firmware after firmware without any luck. http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?cat=15

What specifically do the error messages say?

You best bet with the budget is ACTi. Their new indoor domes are priced well under $200 the D51. They also have an active offer with the NVR also priced low. Can probably do it for $1,500-2,000. Dahua cameras are good, they are just not supported well in the U.S. You can get Dahua sold as Q-See in the U.S. from respected distributor Ingram Micro with a U.S. warranty if you are a reseller/installer.

Exactly, who knows, who cares, don't buy a burrito from an unknown source.

Avigilon, but serioulsy, does anyone take cameras made in Mexico and Canada seriously. Beer & Hockey, that's another story.

If you are starting from scratch, stick one one brand and the NVR's will be less expensive and you'll have one throat to choke when something isn't working the way you want. On the very low end, Dahua makes very good cameras ranging from $100 up to as high as $800 with a very good mix of products. Their NVRs are dirt cheap, maybe $400 for a 16 channel NVR with a 2TB hard drive. Dahua has pretty close to zero service and support. The next step up are the Taiwan companies like Vivotek, Geovision, Messoa, ACTi, Avtech, and to me the top is ACTi with a broad product line, prices that are probably double Dahua. Figure an average outdoor camera runs about $600. They have a 16 channel NVR, it's about $800. ACTi has excellent service and support. The next step up are the European companies like Mobotix and Axis, excellent cameras, excellent support and services. Figure 50% more for European over Taiwan brands. There's a few American made brands and I have not been impressed by any American brand which includes Arecont, Stardot and others. Suprisingly, I received poor service and support from Arecont only 60 miles from my house. There are also the Japanese cameras like Samsung, Sony, Panasonic. Panasonic is probably the largest, I've heard #2 in the network camera behind Axis. They have some good PTZ cameras that are reasonably priced. Sony and Samsung I rarely hear anything about. Toshiba basically buys cameras from other companies and rebrands them. Sanyo was popular for a little bit, now I don't hear anything about them. My issue with support from a large consumer electronics company like Sony is you may get lumped in with the guy trying to get his alarm clock radio doesn't work right. Just saying, don't know, never had a Sony camera, only cameras with Sony guts. If you are doing it for someone else for a commercial environment, and your reputation is important, avoid Dahua, avoid any boutique brands were you are not sure about support and I would go with either Axis or ACTi. In special situations, where a distributed network is key, Mobotix. If you buy a lesser known brand, first them may not even make an NVR and companies that offer generic NVRs may not support them. Also, there are alternatives to NVRs. With Axis and Mobotix, you can have the cameras do all the NVR work including motion detection, notifications, recordings. Then you use free client software on a PC only when you want to view the cameras or recordings. With Mobotix it's called MxControlCenter and with Axis it's called Axis Camera Companion. The client software is free, and in reality, you'll need a PC to view the cameras anyway.

It may be a pawn shop with a legal obligation to retain merchandise in case it's hot. I bought an ACTi dome that way on eBay and it took like 2 weeks before they even shipped it. Luckily it was still under warranty because it did not work but how would a pawn shop know (I found it was a pawn shop by googling around). ACTi fixed it while I waited, so no extra delays but I can imagine having to ship it somewhere for repairs and wait for them ship it back, certainly stretches your patience. It's like Guitar Center, when they sell you a used guitar, sometimes they have to hold onto it for a few weeks to see if it's claimed as stolen. Nothing more annoying than playing an instrument, having it in your hands, paying for it and having to wait 2 weeks to see it again.

Chicken and egg, you want to record but you haven't selected cameras. Select the cameras you want to use, and then find an NVR that works with them. Some cameras don't need an NVR to record.

People here have been able to put a 3.6mm lens from m12lenses.com for about $14 and there's other places that sell board lenses for less, dx.com for example has them for $2-3 but not as sharp as the lenses above. Check the post about Dahua Cameras now at Costco, that has more details on lens swapping. You can get the same camera for about the same price individually with lens of your choice from K&D as I've mentioned if you don't care about the NVR. This is a 4 camera NVR which you may quickly outgrow anyway. The advantage of the NVR is it's cheap, it's low power consumption compared to a PC, it's quiet, plugs into your TV via HDMI.

Nope, wrong ones. Looks like they ran out of them but they'll be back. They have the 4 pack with the NVR for $699 which isn't bad either as it comes with 4 camera (normally $600 by itself), 1 TB hard drive and the NVR which has the 4 port PoE switch required to power the cameras built in. http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-HD-Digital-NVR-with-1TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-HD-720p-IP-Cameras.product.100003211.html?catalogId=10701&langId=-1&keyword=q-see+720p&storeId=10301

Costco has the Q-See 720P cameras for $299 for 2. If you buy directly from China, the same cameras (IPC-HFW2100) will be a little cheaper and it may be possible that you can get 4 for $500 like from K&D in Shenzhen. You can use their free CMS software called PSS and their iPhone apps. If you don't like that software, there's the free Zoneminder software for Linux. For $50 you can get BlueIris, sometimes cheaper on eBay.

I better get my order in now, beat the rush.

I buy from a distributor, but B&H Photo Video where I buy photography equipment seems to have good prices.

Having 4 & 5MP cameras sounds good, why not, more MP the better, but I've yet to see any that work well in low light. Keep in mind that many 5MP cameras can only do a limited number frames per second. I have the Dahua HFW3300C, 3MP in the front of my home now and it does well there during the day or night. The Dahua IR domes do not do well, they have soft edges and IR light bleed that varies from OK to really bad depending on the angle of the lens. If you go with those, get the model without IR and run seperate IR illuminators. The new 2MP model claims to be better, don't know, we'll have to see. Don't get the 1080P mini-dome unless you are in a very bright urban setting. The HFW3200S should be out, K&D is advertising it and I'm hoping to order one tonight to test out if they have any. ACTi has some awesome cameras coming out any day now, the E44 bullet will use the same low light sensor in the KCM-5611 but in smaller bullet form factor and wider angle lens, probably the same 3.3-12mm in the other bullets and I'm sure a lot less expensive since it won't have the 18x zoom lens. They will also have a matching dome shortly after with the same specs. The advantage to ACTi is good service and support (compared to near zero for Dahua) and their free NVR 3.0 software is the best NVR software I've ever used and has a free IOS app. At least from my test of the KCM-5611, it has really good WDR where the Dahua 1080P bullet does not. Axis has some nice domes, but the P33 with their "Lightfinder" only goes to 1MP at the moment. They will have a model with IR illuminators soon but it's been delayed. Sure, you can get 3 and 5 MP P33's but not sure how well they will perform at night and you'll need to add your own IR lighting.

Did you try and access it remotely via a web browser on a PC at another location? Also, you can verify if the ports are open using a free port scanner program like nmap. It will scan the IP address for all open ports. I'll assume you did the obvious which turn everything off and back on.

In the front of my home, the Dahua does not go into night mode because of the street light across the street, yet there really isn't enough light. What I do is set the day/night mode to a schedule, so by 7PM it's in night mode regardless of what the camera thinks.

I would agree the Mobotix M12 color sensor is bad in low light, but they typicaly sell it as their dual night version, with a color and b&w sensor. The b&w sensor is excellent in low light with very low noise. To me it was the leader for a long time but other cameras are catching up, so Mobotix has to step up their game. The M15 which I beleive replaces the M12 may be that camera with 5 MP.

Hey, we had a cold snap back then, overnight lows dropped to about 40F, I know, makes we want to move to Costa Rica.

I love it, very artsy, like looking through a peep hole.

I ran the P33 with the very same ZyXel switch for a few weeks and no issues.

The Dahua mini-dome shape is different. I don't think it's Dahua