buellwinkle

You can't really compare two cameras at night without knowing the shutter speed. Heck, Arecont in Midnight mode is fantastic a long as a snail doesn't enter the picture or a small breeze blurs it all. Also, the contrast can be turned up/down to achieve images with similar contrast. So it's a trade off, the Sanyo has poorer contrast providing for washed out blacks in return for dimmer, less blown out whites. You can always turn down the contrast on the Mobotix. From my experience, Mobotix does really well in harsh lighting situations, but the metering is usually spot on so it doesn't darken the surrounding area. Also Mobotix allows you to have metering areas so you can sometimes avoid it having to meter on a known bright spot.

Personally, never had good sucess with Ubuntu, wasn't too stable for me, I have to do apt-gets to get every little feature I need (no wonder it fits on a CD instead of CentOS, RHEL or SUSE on 2 DVDs). For example, today I wanted to SSH to it, no SSH, WTF, I had to install it seperately. If they want to support a free OS, they really should support something more serious like CentOS or even Debian which Ubuntu is based on. My guess is if they only support Ubuntu, it probably comes as a Debian package install. Back to the real subject, I don't have the 3511 camera, but have considered it. I do have other cameras with that very same sensor and it does quite well, much better than my Axis in indoor lighting.

Stardot is pretty good, seen them at CES last January, very clear sharp image and up to 5MP. But their short fall is they only make a small set of models. The ACTI TCM-7411s are h.264 and WDR. Indoors you can use the smaller dome TCM-3511. Same sensor, same wdr, same h.264, same day/night filter, BUT it has IR illuminators built in, very cool for indoors where you don't want to have visible light and external illuminators. The ACM equivalents are not h.264 and not wdr, but less expensive. ACTi is a well know commercial grade camera and most NVR software supports them. The only limitation with ACTi is 1.3MP and some people want more, but at home, 1.3MP works really well for me. I'm not a dome fan, but outdoors, I like the ACTi bullet cams that have the IR illuminators built in. Theya re the TCM-1231 and ACM-1231 depending on if you want WDR and h.264. Good to see you know to buy a server grade box and Dell's are a good value. I see that Exacq started supporting Ubuntu 10.04, suprising because when I last checked a month ago, they only supported 8.04 which is pretty old. Why Linux, why not Snow Leopard Server Edition or dare I say, Windows to run Exacq? Just curious because we sell software that runs on a variety of Linux distributions, Solaris, Windows and there's always this strong passion for the OS people chose, even if they are wrong, haha!

Hey, give them a break, you think it's easy assembly cameras in 110F heat wave in Glendale Areconts are not made in Taiwan, they are made in the U.S. or at least that's what it said on the box, it was it the box that was made here. Of course the parts may come from anywhere and the lens I have says made in China

Just a curiosity, what made you narrow it down to those 2 cameras? If price is a concern, why not go with ACTi acm-7411, has 3.3-12mm varifocal lens, 1.3MP, free NVR software and about half the price of the Axis. I know Axis has more name brand awareness, but I personally replaced Axis with ACTi because of image quality and does much better in dim situations. There are some good Axis cameras, but they are not consistant. But I agree with Danielsan, Mobotix is the camera of choice. Also consider that one D12 may replace a few Axis Q3344 because it can be configured with two 3MP lenses, each can be pointed in different directions for a total of 6MP or about the same pixels in one camera that a few Axis Q3344 will have. Also, not having a PC to record is a huge plus, afterall, you weren't going to use a cheap home PC for this, right? I don't think it will hold up to 24/7 operation with no power save mode, hard drive going constantly. With h.264, I would start of with an i7 computer, you'll need the processing power. Then you have the electric consumption costs, heat dissapation, noise, single point of failure. There's a lot to be said on not having to have a PC to record. I look at this in more of a black and white, either I want the best camera for the job which is Mobotix, or I want the best value which is ACTi. Panny and Axis are sort of in the middle for me.

Typically you need a face to be at least 40 pixels tall to be recognizable and preferabley 80 pixels tall. The easiest way to achieve this is with higher resolution cameras. I think the best in this segment is Mobotix, either the M12D-SEC-DNIGHT or the equivalent D12 if you like dome cameras, but judging from the location of the cameras being indoors looking out, the M12 is a better choice. I would take a guess that their 43mm lens would suit you best. These cameras do not need a PC or software to record. They will either write to an internal SD card or to network attached storage. All the NVR software is built into the camera. I used a WD MyBook World Edition that was fairly priced. This way you only need a PC or laptop to view the cameras or the history. They provide MX Control Center software for free that allows you to view the cameras or history. Since all recording is done by the camera, you don't need any software to record. They come with built in PIR motion detectors good for 30', but putting them behind a window is going to probably negate it's effectiveness, so I would recomend getting outdoor pir motion detectors with the range and width you need and then run a wire back to the camera. Don't rely on software video motion detection outdoors, you will get so many false positives it will make it useless. Every bird, cat, squirrel shadow from a passing car, headlight beams, leaves blowing, neighbor turning lights on/off will trigger. Next, despite how great the night sensor are on the Mobotix, you still need light. Check out Extreme or Raytech for IR lighting. There's all sorts depending on area covered (width and length) and they are usually powered seperately with 12v, but some are PoE. If you want less expensive, Stardot makes a 3 & 5MP cameras that have image quality comperable to Mobotix. But like Arecont, by the time you buy an outdoor housing and cost of lens, they prices are not that far apart and Mobotix is the better camera. I know you like free software, but consider that free doesn't always work. The type of people that use free software are people that don't buy cameras in the price range you are looking at, so don't expect support for higher end cameras. Also, when you setup a PC to be an NVR, it has to be on 24/7 and no power saving modes, it's on on, meaning there's electrical costs and life expentancies you may be ignoring. Home market PC's are really designed for occasional use, not as a 24/7 server. Lastly, it's hard to figure out how much resolution you need. Take your digital camera, take pictures at different 35mm equivalent focal lengths and on your computer, resize the image to various resolutions like 1.3MP, 3MP, 5MP and see if you can identify a person using a certain lens size and resolution.

I know many of you, including myself love our commercial grade cameras, but to many, getting a $600+ camera as a first is scary. For those that don't know what this camera is, the FI8908W is a pan/tilt indoor camera, built in IR illuminators and costs about $80 and at that price, I probably don't need to say that it's made in China. Foscam has updated the camera and is releasing the FI8918W at the end of the month. There's more details on the differences on my blog site.

Check out BH Photo, a very popular store for camera equipment since I was a kid and that's a long time ago, but they carry all sorts of cctv lenses. Here's a link to get you started - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=cs+mount+lens&ci=3657&N=4294202900

Sorry you had a bad experience with ACTi, but they don't come pre-focused or even setup properly, you need to fine tune the focus which means removing the front of the camera to access the focusing adjustment. Also, they cameras come in all sorts of firmware versions, so updating that is a must. Also they offer picture profiles so you can download a profile and helps you get started. I have 4 ACTi camera and I have them setup pretty well for a resonably sharp in-focus image and low grain and good contrast. You can see sample images on my blog. I actually got newer ones that are even better than that. Arecont is a very unique camera where the camera does not have any of the typical features you get with just about any other camera. You configure it from their software for things like ip address. You can view the camera from a web browser, but nothing else (no motion detect, no email, no ftp). Also, compared to ACTi, their support is not that good, took me a week to get a response back. As for Axis, I think one of their best cameras for value and IQ is the M1114. It's able to see in fairly dim light in color. It does not have a night mode so you have to have white light on (not IR) and you need to buy an enclosure (they don't have a -e outdoor model).

Mobotix does have excellent image quality, especially the dual lens models like the M12 and D12 that work well in low light. IQinVision, made in China, not sure of the quality. The Axis M1114 is a very good camera, much better than most of the Axis line I've seen (review on my blog site). Stardot has excellent image quality from the cameras I've seen, almost as good as Mobotix and a lot less expensive. Don't know anything about Sanyo. It always comes down to what software you will use so definately verify this first. As for h.264, again, if the software you are using does not use the h.264 compression, then what's the point, so verify that with Milestone. I've been getting ACTi cams for myself because of the value. Certainly not as good as Stardot or Mobotix, better than some Axis, not as good as other Axis cams, heck I replaced my Axis cams with ACTi for image quality, but the Axis M1114 is better, but twice the price.

Rory, I know you like cost effective solutions, check out a Foscam FI8908W. They run about $80, has pan/tilt capabilities, is WiFi, you can change lenses and it has an IR illuminator good for about 3-4m. You can mount it in the ceiling and they come in white or black, not hidden, but most people wouldn't notice it. You can always put it inside a shoe or tissue box and cut a hole for the lens. I know it's low end, but I use them and at night, with the IR illuminators on, it certainly outperforms the any day cams. The lens that comes with it is no good. Go to DealExrteme and order the 2.1mm lens for $6. It's much sharper and the extra wide angle will give you better coverage in that closet.

Mixing cameas with Mobotix sort of defeats one of it's most important features, the built in NVR software and decentralized approach. If you use an NVR or PC, now it has to transmit the image back to a central location. Their control center software does work with some other cameras, but only to view, not to record. Arecont do not have any ability to record on their own. They also have lousy customer service, I would avoid them.

Indoors I have an ACTi ACM-4201 (1.3MP) and with indoor lighting, it works very well and is cheap, about $250 and has interchangeble lenses but comes with a 4mm. The 5311 is nice, but having IR leds, IR cut filter and varifocal lens maybe overkill in the environment you stated. Another camera that does well in dim lighting is the new Axis M1114 (or M1113 with a fixed lens). Very sharp image, works well indoors and priced well, about $450-500. I normally don't like Axis because of it's poor image in low light, but this one really works well. I had an Arecont AV3100DN and didn't like it at all, dumped it on eBay for cheap. Be careful with Arecont, they do not include a lens in their price. Also service is slow, took weeks for them to respond where Axis, ACTi, Mobotix responds within 24 hours each time. The reason I've never gotten Vivotek was people's experience in getting defective cameras replaced and stories of inconsistant quality. IQinVision is another one that I've avoided because even though the company is in the U.S. and they charge top dollar for their cameras, they are made in China.

$600 is not going to buy a Mobotix, but it can buy an ACTi acm-1231, Messoa NCR875 or Vivotek IP7361. They all make cameras with built in illuminators good for about 15m. The Vivotek is 2MP, the others are 1.3MP but I feel that the Vivotek is soft, so 2MP may not be much better than 1.3MP from a better camera. Vivotek will write to a NAS though and an internal SD card. The ACTi will write to a NAS via FTP and I can comfirm that it works. The Messoa's benefit is a better illuminator (about 25m) and a 5MP sensor used to create a 1MP image that is sharper and better at night. I never used a Messoa, so don't know if it can write or ftp to NAS. They all have varifocal lenses, they all have IR cut filters, they all PoE, I believe they all come with free NVR software (not sure of Messoa, but for sure ACTi and Vivotek). As for a high frame rate, it's overated and it's under the best lighting conditions, not at night for many of these cameras. I would think that for what you need it for, probably anything higher than 10 fps just means you'll fill up the disk faster.

It could be that the lens is bad. I know you don't want to remove the perfectly focused lens from the other camera, but it may be worth it to see if it's the lens or the camera is bad.

Clearly there advantages to both, writing directly to a NAS vs. having a computer. At home, I have 6 cameras, 4 of which are megapixel cameras (not h.264) and use a small Atom processor based PC that's tiny, doesn't use much power and I have to have a PC to view the cameras and manage the recordings anyway, so not a big expense, not a lot of maintenance. Cost me $300 for the PC and $50 for BlueIris software. I've also setup Mobotix cameras writing to an inexpensive NAS, like a WD World Edition, but keep in mind, this is a very low end NAS, no RAID capabilities and handling more than 2-4 cameras would be a challange this low end of a device. Step it up to something like a ReadyNAS to handle more cameras and the price jumps too. If you have a lot of megapixel cameras, you can always split them into seperate subnets and put like a 4 port ethernet card in your PC. Then there's a tradeoff, using H.264 require more processing power then mjpeg, so while you may have lower bandwidth requirements, your CPU requirements just shot up. For example, I personally avoid using h.264 because it would overwhelm my Atom processor. Then it depends on what you want the cameras to do. For example, at our cottage, we have cameras that just email us pictures on motion detect. I then can connect to each camera remotely and view the live feed. I have no requirements to record events as videos. But if you do, there's a few brands that have this capability and not necessarily on all of their products. Mobotix and IQinVision Pro will not only write to a NAS (usually via CIF more so than NFS) but will also provide the built in NVR software to view and manage the recorded events. Vitotek will write to a NAS, but don't think you can view the recorded events, you are on your own to play each one using external software. As for fixed lenses vs. changable lenses, your choice. Mobotix does the fixed lens thing on their M12D and they are crystal sharp, never needs focusing, can only be changed at the factory. They do offer the comperable D12 that's a dome with the same features as the M12 but with interchangeable lenses. I'm very chareful on lens choice, so I prefer the M12. Outdoors I also use ACTi acm1231's which have a 3.3-12mm varifocal lens that is theoretically changeable, but there's nothing that I can find that's better. Varifocal allows you to change the focal lens similar to a zoom, but keep in mind that doing so also means you have to refocus the lens, a true zoom would only require focusing once. This is useful if you don't have a clue what you need and you can adjust the focal length on-site, not something you want to change every day. The downside is you get distortion, barrel distortion at wide angle, pincushioning at telephoto, it's a compromise between fixed focal length and zoom lenses photographers have had to deal with for many years.

Check out the Messoa NCR875, has 25m illuminators built in, or about 80'. Besides that, from what I've seen, it also has pretty decent night vision without the illuminators.

The ability to changes lenses would enhance this camera, but finding a high quality compatible megapixel board mount lens has been the challenge. I would imagine the equivalent bullet cameras from Vivotek and Messoa have the issue of non-changeable lenses. Also, the lens is set at it's widest angle setting, 3.3mm. It does have a lot of barrel distortion, so setting it closer to it's sweet spot, probably around 6mm would give you a better image, but for home use, most people are going to want a wide angle setting. The best IR images come from cameras with a separate night sensor like Mobotix, albeit at a higher price.

Is this a wifi camera? If so it could be signal loss. Have you opened a help desk ticket with Axis?

Just to make sure it was the lens vs camera, I had my rep send me a demo ACTi acm-4201 and I can tell you that the included lens is as sharp as when he put the other lens on it, he must of not have had it focused or it slipped out of focus. The problem with that lens was that it doesn't have any focus lock so vibration can cause it to shift out of focus where higher end ACTi cameras have a screw to lock the focus setting. But cameras from China seem to have very poor optics, for example, I upgraded the lens on my Foscam wth one that costs $6 and it was a huge improvement in image quality. Also, some cameras, like Arecont require that you put shims in to set the backfocus to get the sharpest image. Honestly, if you are not happy with the image quality, why throw a $150 lens to make a cheap camera work, just get a decent camera to begin with.

Powerline works great for me. I use it to stream video from my Tivo to the internet so I can watch my Tivo while I travel. Powerline uses your electrical wiring to transmit the tcp/ip signal, has nothing to do with actual A/C power other than it's plugged in the wall for power. It was popular years ago and lost popularity when WiFi came out, but it's making a comeback. There was a lot of activity with it at CES this past January, the product actually had it's own corner at the main convention center building with several manufacturers showing off their new stuff. I even saw powerline with PoE built in, pretty cool. Imagine plugging in a PoE camera wherever there's an outlet and having it power the camera and provide network connectivity.

Hard to say if it's any good, but my experience with Logitech products has been very bad, from very poor quality to equally poor customer service and virtually zero tech support. Doesn't quite say if it's a true day/night camera with an IR cut filter but says in can see in complete darkness. While $349 seems appealing, the proof is the image quality, day & night and it lasts. Would hate to spend $80/yr per camera to make them record or can you setup your own PC for this, considering that most software will take a while before they directly support this camera. Kudos to Logitech for being the first that I know of to use powerline for networking instead of the annoying WiFi that is worthless for 1MP resolution.

Always interested in images, with rapid changing technology, it certainly helps. The ACTi was set with a 1/30th second mininum shutter, It gets pretty good clarity on moving objects.

Didn't say the P's where average, just the P13's. Here's two images, day/night. Of course these are 3MP, so you can't compare to a camera costing half as much like the P1343, but I can tell you, this is no better in image quality than my ACTi cameras other than the 3MP resolution of this camera vs. 1.3MP from ACTi. Ironically, the Axis M1114 is outstanding in comparison to the P1346. From my experience, there's a lot of varience in image quality among Axis, even within the same family and it ranges from average to very good (almost Mobotix quality in some cases, but certainly not the p1346. Axis P1346 ACTi ACM-1231

It's funny, but I asked ACTi this a few days ago and they said weather can still get to it like moisture from dew or a heavy rain bouncing up, so they recomend their outdoor dome, I think it's the 7411. Frankly, putting a dome there would just get the tops of people's heads which in my case is a large shiny object. I decided to just put a 1231 in a similar situation because of the built in IR illuminators although the dome would look better.