buellwinkle

I would concur on the 5120 for 3MP at 15fps, that's what gives me the highest perceptible quality without going overboard.

Could be your network. Cameras are 100Mbps, your NVR or PC are gigabit. Common rookie mistake is not have one switch to do all the cameras and then have a gigabit port for your NVR or PC.

The only decent PoE PTZ I know of are the ACTi mini PTZ. Small like a regular 4" dome, runs on standard PoE. Sorry, they don't make a 3MP, but they do make a 1.3MP, 2MP (1080P) and a 5MP. I reviewed the B95 (1080P version) and it's a good fast performer. They have 10x optical zoom. ACTi has very good free NVR software if you have spare PC that does not use a lot of CPU and has a nice remote web based client. If you want IR LED's for night viewing, the best of the breed, and ironically the best priced are the Dahua's. The SD59212S-HN you can get locally for $609 would give you 12x optical zoom (they have a 30x version for more money, the SD59230S-HN) and does very well but only 1080P and not PoE but comes with a power supply. Dahua does make 3MP but in their higher end so the prices somewhat doubles. Also, if you don't need IR, Dahua makes a mini PTZ that's 12x zoom, about $499 and runs on PoE+ (a higher power version than PoE, but same concept).

1080P is 2MP, 720P is 1MP. Some of the 1080P cameras are also 3MP in 4:3 aspect ratio, some of the 720P cameras are 1.3MP in 4:3 aspect ratio.

If Q-See can't get it working the way you want, I would return it to Costco. That NVR is rated for 56Mbps so can easily handle 4 1080P cameras and can do 1080P synced playback of all cameras. The price to me seems high, for an NVR with 2 720P cameras. You should be able to get the Dahua version (they are the manufacturer) with two 1080P cameras for that price.

No hablo Ruso. But I do know how to use Google translate. No download there, oh well, must be a reason, probably not finished yet. I do like that they made it client/server and there's one product that's the CMS and PCNVR in one.

Are u sure ? Are you not sure?

I can watch people water skiing in front of my lake house from my camera and I live 100 miles away. I tried looking out the window, just see my backyard.

Mine work fine out of the box and I have 7 Hikvision 3MP cameras at 20fps (3 other brands). Check the CPU/memory stats in Task Manager to see if you coming close to any limits. Make iframe on the camera the same as the frame rate, so if it's 20, make iframe 20. Try increasing the max bitrate, maybe to 6144 (lower compression means less CPU work needed). Last thing it could be is your network, so you Task Manager, Resource Manager to see the network on Win7 of just the performance tab in Win8.

Do you have a link to the software download?

That's great, it's what it needed. Always wondered why others like BlueIris have not done this.

Yes, it can tilt 15 degrees above the horizon down to 90 degree below or straight down.

Their purple line they claim is purposely built for NVR use but could not tell you why, heck, they can't explain why, so could just be marketing hype but the prices are the same or close enough to other colors. RAID depends on your software. For example, I use JBOD because Milestone Express we use has the ability to keep a second archive copy on another disk, so in effect it's doing it's own mirroring. Figure you'll lose capacity when going to RAID, so get larger drives, maybe 3TB instead of 2TB to make up the loss. I would not do software RAID as it's going to be slower and use up CPU cycles. If you go RAID, get a hardware RAID controller.

Their $100 cameras are day only, 1MP and should be fine in very well lit areas. They are replacing them sort of with their new UVC cameras like the Ubquiti UVC, about $150ish, indoor bullet, day/night. Also available soon is their UVC Pro, 1080P (2MP) and you should be able to find it for under $500ish. Their NVR software is a re-skinned Zoneminder that makes it easier to use, so people like it, but it's still Zoneminder which is CPU intensive, so you pay for faster PC to run it on, or pay for better software.

Dahua used to not allow their brand name to be used in the U.S. so OEM's popped up all over the place, who can keep track. Now Dahua allows it's name to be used and has U.S. authorized distributors. It's up to you which way you go and not sure any OEM is better than any other as it's the same exact camera but what I find is OEM's never have the latest and greatest from Dahua so I go with Dahua.

The Samsung you mentioned has a varifocal lens. Is that a requirement or are fixed lenses OK. Varifocal tends to add $50-100 to the cost of a camera.

I did look at it, but it's more expensive, noisier, more power consumption.

What's your budget? For PTZ control from a joystick, you'll need cameras with an RS485 port. The PTZ joysticks are relatively cheap, maybe a few hundred each. PTZ with RS485 ports may cost a little more, may $1,200 on the low end. You could get a small NVR from the company you get the cameras from and that will be cheap. You can even use it without putting a hard drive in it, but may need to disable the beeping that may happen when the HDD is missing. PoE is tough. At best some smaller PTZ support PoE+ but then those don't tend to have RS485 ports. Also, do you need the PTZ to have IR LEDs or not?

Atom may be too slow, but what I think is a cool PC is the Intel NUC that I reviewed not long ago. You can get the Celeron version for about $135 (make sure you get the one with space for a hard drive, they have vent slots on the side). Then get a 1TB drive for $60 + 4GB RAM for $40 and you'll have a nice little 4x4" PC. You can load Linux with Zoneminder for no cost or get Windows and BlueIris.

Samsung has been getting better, but that dome does not have IR LEDs, don't know if that's intentional or if you want it for indoors or outdoors as that's not IP66 rated so I'll assume indoors. Before anyone here can recommend a camera, we need to know if it's indoors, outdoors, do you need a varifocal lens or fixed lens, IR LEDs or not, Day/Night or day only is OK, resolution and price range. As for PC, the i7 is a nice consumer grade processor, but make sure you have a case that is server grade with server grade fans and quality CPU fan. For that many cameras, I would get a commercially made server like an HP Proliant that is rack mount and get a short rack. You'll have to have a big PoE switch, like a 48 port managed switch and that will be as large as the rack mount server. Then you can get a rack mount UPS to protect the switch and server. Rack mount keyboard/mouse to check on the system. This way you can lock the rack and keep it secure. As for 1080P cameras, 720P record, don't get it but you know what you are doing. I would go the other way and record at 1080P but display live at 720P. Disk is cheap. Upgrading the 2TB to 4TB drive won't add much to the total bill and you can never have enough resolution when you are trying to identify someone. As for NVR software, depends on your cameras choice as some brands come with free or low cost NVR software that is quite good like ACTi and some don't.

The Brinno does not but claims low light performance, the Bushnell Trophy HD does have night vision, IR LEDs and 60' PIR motion range. Both about the same size, different shape.

I use dual streams with Hikvision cameras on Milestone XProtect and see smooth video. I have the second stream setup as 640x480, other than that, all the defaults. It worked fine on Milestone 2013 and now on 2014 version.

The Dahua PTZ has 4 LED's that adjust to the PTZ amount from wide angle to full telephoto. Even then, don't think it will add much value on the lake. Most PTZ can only go to the horizon, so mounting it too low, you will not be able to see things higher when you zoom in, maybe the shoreline, but not much above it if there's taller objects. That's why I like the sd59212s or sd59230s because they are the only ones on the market that I found that can tilt up 15 degrees.

The only cameras I know of that have awesome WiFi radios are the bullets from Brickcom. They have external antennas for WiFi. One 1080P model that comes to mind is the WOB-200Np V5. Look for models that start with W. Also, they can work off 3G or LTE, so you can go that route if WiFi. The other alternative is to go with wireless bridges like the Ubiquiti NanoStations or Engenius bridges. More complicated than having it built in but more flexible. They can go for miles given line of site.

It's funny you asked because a friend of mine just asked me about the same thing. Someone is scratching his car and wants to put a camera somewhere to see who it is.