buellwinkle

The problem I found is that if you pay for DHL to get it quicker, on small 1-2 camera orders, you are not saving a lot. Sure, on larger orders, 4-6 cameras you can save a significant amount. I've gotten cameras from China as fast as 2 days with DHL. For me, when ordering from China, it takes about 10 days, sometimes a little more to get stuff from there using their normal mail delivery. But consider that China was closed last week, so no services were open and that may have contributed to the longer ship time. I know I ordered something (not a camera) the first day of National day and they just shipped it this Monday. Don't vacation in China that week, not fun, nothing is open. Don't know why they wouldn't give you support, firmware updates and such. Did you ask them?

I love the D14, use a lot of them, but consider that you will only get 1.2MP resolution at night and there's some really nice cameras that give you 1080P (2MP) resolution with pretty close to the same low light performance in b&w and built in illuminators. We use the D14's with overview cameras and then seperate close up cameras. Don't know outdoors in a commercial situation where a lens with overview capabilities will also give you good detail. Maybe with Avigilon with their 8,16 & 29 MP sensors, but then the price is much higher. In your case, consider the ACTi KCM-5611, very good low light peformance (see my review), autofocus and 18X zoom. Don't know %100 if you can, but I think you can set a motion detect zone that triggers an URL command back to the camera to make it zoom in on the action allowing you to get a nice overview at a wider angle then zoom in automatically to capture more detail.

Dahua can be used in some generic mode via ONVIF or RTSP with some software, not sure if Luxriot is one of them. I can give you remote access so you can try it with Dahua from your Luxriot software. I would have to set the camera to it's lowest resolution so I don't bog down my network. I would use Dahua myself, not sure if I would put my reputation on the line with a customer. What if a camera breaks, what's the warranty turnaround to get it too China and back, who pays that postage? Do the local US resellers do that for you or are you on your own? Not saying they aren't great cameras at a great price, but are you ready to stock replacements? I know with Axis or ACTi, I can send a camera in for repairs, get it back in a week and never had an issue with them. Don't know Geovision, something to ask your distributor. Some brands like Vivotek can take 6 weeks from what I've heard on this forum. Imagine sending something to China, if you use DHL and they DHL it back, that's 3 days each way plus their time to turn it around, you probably spent close to what the camera is worth in shipping.

I thought Milestone was a Dahua partner and had native support for Dahua. Maybe you need to install the latest version and drivers.

What brands of cameras do you own?

Ditto on ACC from Axis. I'll be doing a review on it when I get some of their cameras to test. Dahua has PSS which is their free CMS software to view the recordings on SD card. I've played with it but it's not intuitive, at least for me.

Cool, I like part of the city, not hectic and touristy at night like midtown, short walk across the bridge to DUMBO. I did a project for NYSE next door at 100 Wall. Do they have great views from their offices? Now I know why their cameras are expensive.

I don't think you'll save much on the hfw3200 bullets. The places on Aliexpress are well over $300 and may be the same price as buying it in the U.S. Just go to Aliexpress and enter the part number or just 1080P bullet.

It's the one from Linovision that others have mentioned. Be careful when buying it. They sell it by the camera, but then it's tied to a specific camera, if you swap out the camera, say for warranty purposes, you have to buy a new license. They also sell USB stick license keys. So say you got an 8 camera USB license key, then you can use any 8 cameras at a time. I would strongly recomend it for Dahua cameras. Other cameras, not so much.

Which 2100, they make a few, the mini dome, mini IR dome or mini bullet or their IR vandal dome? I just ordered their 2100 mini IR dome, just came out, I like the format, sort of a cross between a dome and a mini bullet. Also, out of curiosity, what did they charge you shipping from China? I heard people pay $80 for 2 cameras, but don't know if others have experienced that.

When you say under $500 per camera, are you including the costs of the poe switch, the recording device be it a PC with software or an NVR? Indoors I use ACTi ACM-3511 (now I believe it's the TCM-3511 and there's a new replacment coming at the end of the year). It's a small indoor dome, gives me clear contrasty images in complete darkness. I have them wall mounted and ceiling mounted. ACTi provides very good NVR software for free, just supply a PC. Outdoors is trickier, I really like the ACTi KCM-5611, very good low light performance, very good WDR so you can use it to read plates and 1080P resolution. The problem is price, not under $500. I'm hoping their new low light bullet will perform as well but closer to your price range and it's supposed to be out in January. It's difficult to find a camera with good WDR for under $500. There are very good cameras for under $500, but not ones that I've reviewed that have excellent WDR. For example, you can get a Dahua bullet or ACTi bullet for well under $500, and you'l be impressed with the image day or night, but try and capture a license plate surrounded by bright brake lights or bright headlights, not going to happen. May pay to splurge on that one camera where you need the WDR capabilities and then save money on the other cameras like your backyard or side yard where WDR is not really needed. For example, get the under $300 ACTi TCM-1111 on the side or even a used ACM-1231 and then put the better camera in front where you are covering the street. Again, what I like about ACTi is the NVR software is free and very good and they have very good service and support. Some people complain, but reality is, I get the same level of service from ACTi as I do with Mobotix with $1,500 cameras and Axis. Sometimes they get back to you right away and sometimes it takes a day. As for PoE switch, look at for a Zyxel 16 port PoE switch, on sale I picked one up for a little over $100. It will support 8 cameras all at full power (some PoE switchesn like from Trendnet or even lower end Cisco say 15w per port if you have 1 or 2 cameras, but they have power totals, like 30w for a 4 port switch, so yes, 15w per port, but you can only plug in 2 15W cameras and many of the cameras with illuminators can be 8-12W). Also, assume the camera uses more power than the specs. I had 3 cameras rated at 10W plugged into a Trendnet switch and at night when the IR LEDs come on, I would lose a camera. For recording, if you already have a PC, take advantage of manufacturers that give you the software for free. If you don't, there's some low cost NVR's out there, but even then, may cost more than a cheap $399 PC and free software. AXIS gives software for free called Axis Camera Companion but only works with some of their cameras. Most of the Taiwan companies like Brickcom, ACTi, Vivotek, Geovision give software for free.

Check out the review I did on the Panasonic BL-C230A, that's in that $200-300 range. Below that in price are the Foscams, you can compare my review on that. Runs about $100 has more range than the Panasonic and an IR cut filter and built in IR illuminators. Those are pan/tilt and digital zoom. If you want optical zoom, the least expensive I know of is the Vivotek PZ7131 and buy.com seems to carry it for $249.

From my experience as a customer, we search for specific time ranges, a home got broken into, a vandalism occurred and we usually get pretty tight time ranges, usually a 2-4 hour window at most. So not sure I see the need to find an event that happened weeks or months ago with an indetermined time frame. What would be a use case for wanting to review months of video where there's no time frame specified?

Since you brought it up, I've been seeing the new Dahua IPC-HDW2100 trickling out in China. They call it a dome but it's a domeless dome so it may not have some of the problems that plague their IR vandal domes. The price is higher than their mini bullet with the same specs. I'm trying to get one but China is closed this week. Then we can compare the new P33 with Dahua

How is the search speed for finding recorded videos on Exacq? For example, if I want to look at video for a specific camera for October 1st from 8PM to 10PM, how long does that take? If enough people ask for Dahua support on Exacq, then they will likely put it in.

Actually it's a big holiday in China from the 1st to the 8th, then Kyle is traveling the week after. What will we all do without Dahua cameras

Different with different sensor. I believe on the 1080P sensor, like on their minidome, I pushed it to about 80 and while there was some noise, it did lighten the scene and going to 100 did not add much more noise and lightened it even more.

More than likely it's because he sold out.

I see that in the file name now. You may need a good powerful illuminator if you want to light up the area behind the patio. I use the Okeba which run under $40 on Amazon or similar ones on eBay and light up pretty far and looks well made. You'll need a 2A 12V power adapter. I run it at about a 30 degree angle to the camera, so I get the effects of both illuminators, where the one built into the camera lights up the first 30-40' well, and then additional one is pointed further out. Also, crank up the gain to get a brighter image at night. The noise reduction does a good job of cleaning up the extra noise from the higher gain.

When released, it will be in small quanitities with a backorder, do don't expect to get them the first month or two they are out.

Why, good question and I think I answered that before but it's slated to come out at the end of November, which is manufacturer talk for maybe next year. I'm still waiting for a camera they announced months ago Heck, I'm still waiting for a camera Axis said would be available in August.

Sounds like it's broke. Can you send back to where you bought it from for warranty service?

You can post videos on Vimeo or Youtube. Are the cameras set for autoexposure or 1/4 second, wasn't sure about your comments. I don't see any halo or IR light bleed in your shots, good job setting the rubber grommet. Definately, the image from the 3MP bullet looks way better than the image at night from the 3MP dome. Look at the trees and such, they seem soft/blurry on the dome and sharp on the bullet. The some seems to have center sweet spot where it looks sharp and quickly diminishes as it gets closer to the edges of the image.

The daytime image looks good and in focus. You can chose 1080P if you prefer on that camera to get a wide screen format. Depends if you want to capture as much height. For me, I prefer to see 4:3 format because I'm typically looking at a handful of cameras on my wide screen TV and the format fits well. In my driveway, 1080P is not tall enough so I end up getting a shot that's too wide and not enough height. Also, narrower areas like front door, side yards, the extra wide format doesn't work for me. Of course, watching 3MP 4:3 format on a 1080P TV is not going to give you the full resolution of the camera but comes in handy when you are viewing single frames to ID someone. Keep in mind, that extra 500 or so lines of resolution means you get about 50% more pixels to ID someone's face. You could get their 1080P PTZ speed dome, with it's illuminators, you can cover your entire back yard.

Absolutely, I pay to go to gym to get that kind of workout.