buellwinkle

Cameras I review can cost several thousands of dollars, used in commercial high security situations. The risk to national security can't possiby rest on the shoulders of Avigilon. I know of camera brands that are exclusively sold to government agencies and actually they offered to provide me cameras for reviews. Not to mention, why would the U.S. risk it's national security on a product not made in the U.S.? So you say it's not for home or small bunsiness use, yet most of the people on this forum are looking for security for just that and you recomend Avigilon. Sort of a contradiction, no? Don't they make a lower end product just for this purpose? Or is it for national security of smaller countries like Liecthenstien?

Just what I would expect an elitist secret society to say. They hold their head up high and put themselves in a catagory of their own inferring that Milestone XProtect Enterprise, ExacqVision Pro, Luxriot Pro, NUUO, Geovision that share pricing and offer trial downloads to anyone with a computer are non-pro software that are not worthy, yet they fail to show any evidence of their superiority.

Offered to do a review, nobody including Avigilon stepped up to the plate and provided me the software to try out. Me thinks it's a secret society, a cult if you will where they want people to know they exist and they are superior for being in their circle. You have to be invited/recomended by a current member to join. Like Masons, Knights Templar or Illuminati. Information like pricing are very closely guarded. They talk about how great Avigilon is but you can't have it or it won't work with YOUR camera closely mimics Seinfield's Soup Nazi where they limit accessibility to people they like and use language to discourage non-believers.

Most day only cameras like this have a lens coated with an IR filter. Odds are you will have to replace the lens with one that does not have this coating, which by luck would be most 3rd party lenses. Dx.com has a collection of lenses that may work for you.

What's your budget? NVR software solutions are priced from free to low cost all the way to a lot.

Axis may be the best bet for you as they include CMS software that works pretty well for free. They don't make a 2MP, so it's going to have to be their 3MP then, the P3346, vandal dome, set you back about $900 give or take. You can even go for their 5MP (P3367) for about $1,100 and still be under budget. Then buy PoE switch like a ZyXel 8 port for about $60-80. Add a NAS like a WD MyBook Live 1 or 2TB for $150ish. Then download and install Axis Camera Companion and use that to configure the motion detection, NAS for storage and the camera will do all the work of motion detection and writing to the NAS. So think of the NVR as a combination of the camera and NAS. So all out, should run $1,200 give or take or $1,400 for the 5MP. Then for added safety, buy a UPS (battery backup) for $60-80 and plug the switch and NAS to it and you'll be able to record during power outages/glitches. You only need to look at Axis Camera Companion on a PC when you want to view the cameras or the recordings, does not have to be on when you are not looking at it and it can be run on computer you use for something else. Check my blog, I have an article on Axis Camera Companion and one of the Axis P33 models. Where's the hair salon?

Because there's new features like WDR capabilities in the newer releases.

Alpine0000, better than I would have thought for a 5MP camera. With external IR lighting, the noise reduction woldn't have to work as hard and you may have gotten better detail in their faces and the license plate.

The fixed that since the TCM-1231 and yes, very annoying trying to crimp an rj45 on a ladder.

Thewireguys, weren't you going to ISC East which I believe is today. If you pass the ACTi booth, ask them about availability of all their new cameras including their recently annouced 1080P PTZ speed dome.

We use a 4G solution where we have a mobile router that uses a USB stick from Verizon. Then you can connect any network camera to it. If you want an all in one solution with 4G built into the camera, check out my review on Brickcom as they can do 3g/4g in camera. That camera is more expensive being HD and outdoor where they may have an indoor vga camera that is 4G that is way less expensive.

I will PM you this info as I don't want to start a where to buy it discussion.

Last car part I bought was on eBay and yes, I would buy brake pads on eBay if that was the best price and change them myself using tools I got on eBay on a jackstand with a 4,000 lbs car above my head. OK, I exaggerated, the jack stands were from Pep Boys, best that $20 would buy. I've bought used surveillance cameras on eBay from as far away as Venezuala, probably used by Hugo Chavez himself. I've sold used surveillance cameras on eBay. But I would not buy new cameras on eBay as I can get them cheaper through my sources.

The TCM-1111 will do what you want and ACTi come with free software that's very good.

I can tell you, in my driveway, a 2MP camera can ID someone about 25' away, barely, with the 4.5mm lens. I'm upgrading to 3MP as soon as I have time to get a ladder out and put it in. Could use that with the same viewing angle to get 50% further out, or increase my viewing angle which is what I'll probably do.

When you buy a microphone for this purpose (check with owners manual as to what type of microphone is required, it will have wires you attached to a terminal block that should of come with the camera that you plug into wide green connector on the camera.

Do you have a PoE injector or switch. That's what powers the camera and connects it to your network. Less expensive switches include Zyxel and Trendnet, maybe $60-70 for an 8 port (4 PoE port) switch. The long green strip is for your alarm in & out (most people never use them), audio in/out. AC24 is if you want to use an external power supply in lieu of PoE.

I'm sure there are backdoors put in by a software engineer in just about any product.

Turn the thumbscrew pointed by the green arrow counter-clockwise to losen it. Then grab the lens assembly and rotate/spin it to get the desired results without panning it left/right or up/down. If it doesn't rotate in one direction it's because it's reached it's limits, so rotate the other way until the image is upside down and then set a 180 degree flip on the camera settings.

I know what you are talking about, I get it, you need to rotate the lens without moving it side to side, trust me, it rotates. Let me go take a picture of it now and I'll post it.

I've been waiting for the P3364-LVE version of this camera due out soon to do a review on. The LVE version is the same camera, but one of the first outdoor Axis cameras with an illuminator. I just reviewed the precedessor and low light performance is very good, but it only had 800x600 resolution, the newer models are 720P. It's a good camera, solid construction, good automatic back-focus. You don't even need NVR software, you can use their Axis Camera Companion, it's free software that views the cameras and recordings made directly by the camera to an SD card or to a NAS. They in theory have an Android and IOS app, but the reviews are not encouraging and I say in theory because it's apps recomended by Axis, but not developed or sold by Axis. I can tell you that with a wide view of the cul-de-sac, 720P resolution, you will not likely be able to ID anyone further than about 15-20' away. At 150' away, their heads may be 1-2 pixel tall. So it depends on your objectives. Do you want to just see stuff happen, for example see that Fedex truck came through the cul-de-sac or have enough resolution to identify a person? If you want to ID people, you may need much higher resolution or a PTZ camera.

It's a 3-axis camera, you can rotate the image to any orientation you want, albeit there's a point where it won't rotate anymore so you have to rotate it back the other way. If you can't figure it out, let me know, I was just about to pack one for shipping today.

For me, ACTi has good support and customer service and my oldest ACTi camera is 4 years old. They are coming out with a new series of cameras very soon. They just announced one today, the 1080P PTZ camera.

I don't know what happened then because I had three ACTi 1231 cameras and one Dahua HFW3200C on one Trendnet tpe-s44 switch and at night, when the IR came on, the Dahua stopped working. That's when I got fedup and got the Zyxel with full power. Could be the Trendnet switch was not up to it's stated rating of 30W for 4 ports.

According to the description of your camera, it says it can record to SD card, so that would be the least expensive thing you can do. Try that and see if it meets your needs. You'll just use your web browsert to view the camera live and recordings. The manual should explain all that. If you get a few cameras it gets more complicated as you may want to see all the cameras on one screen, watch recordings synced together and such. Wish I can give you more detail but JVC is a very small player in this market, but maybe someone that has one can chime in.