buellwinkle

Bit rate is the h.264 way of specifying compression. Back in the old days, like 3 years ago, most cameras were MPEG or MJPEG and you specified compression as a percentage but with h.264 you do it by bitrate and the lower the number, the higher the compression, meaning the camera and NVR work harder to decode the compressed stream, but takes up less network bandwidth and space, but you get lower quality. So it's up to you to experiment and see at what point it bothers you. For me, with 3MP cameras, I found 5K to be the sweet spot with noticeable compression artifacts at 4K and not much difference after 5K but everyone's needs are different. To further confuse you as that's my intent, there's different h.264 profiles and some cameras you can specify them. There's Baseline (lowest), Main and High (highest). Lower like Baseline means lower compression, Main and High are higher compression.

The reflection of the sky or pool on the shiny surfaces?

If you can use it like a USB webcam, it could be possible you can use it with BlueIris. Not sure about VLC and re-streaming it so you can look at it on a browser, but could be possible to re-stream it as RTSP for NVR software to recognize it. So 8MP for $400 when you can already get a 10MP IR dome for $300.

Seems like there's more news reports on how surveillance cameras foiled a crime in progress. The first one is funny because the guy yells at the burglar to leave and he does. He has 3 Dropcam cameras, $199 each, plus $99 each for recording and he says it all cost $150, not very good at math, LOL. Watch this for a period of time as they play related new segments back to back with the same theme. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/05/man-foils-home-burglary-thanks-to-smartphone-camera-app/

Speco is sort of the low end entry level analog cameras. They came out with IP cameras but nothing impressive and to me, overpriced for what they do.

First understand RTSP is not a protocol supported by HTML, so can't be done. You need to get a media server that converts RTSP to RTMP. On a commercial end you can use Wowsa. On a smaller scale, you can use Unreal Media Server which is free for 15 concurrent users and 5 cameras. Lastly, not the best but VLC is free and can re-stream. The easiest way is to use a re-streaming service like ustream or even Google Live. You stream RTSP to them, they host the live video on their servers. Imagine trying to stream 1080P from your home network, you would need a few Mbps upload bandwidth per connection.

What driver are you using? I found that the generic rtsp h.264 driver works better than the ACTi driver on BlueIris. Also, don't be afraid to ask Ken, the author. His email address is on the BlueIris website.

Not familiar with Multicast, but it is an option on the camera, under Network -> Multicast and it's enabled by default, multicast address is 239.255.42.42 an port 36666. My best guess is you need a multicast enabled player. Have you tried VLC?

You can easily get 5.1.2 back to English by applying the fix I published earlier.

What does it cost, how accurate has it been for you day and night and can it handle U.S. plates (I see the company is in Africa, so I would assume plates there look different than U.S. plates.

I don't get how they have a 1080P cube that is day only, no mic or speaker, no built in illuminator. Doesn't say when it will be available. The micro-HDMI port is interesting.

First, it's all very well documented in their manuals. Second, have no idea what you are talking about. You can connect to the camera using a browser from many locations. Don't know what the limit is, I think it's 10 or 20 but if you need more than a few, make sure you have the internet upload bandwidth to support what you are doing or use a re-streaming service like UStream or YouTube

Just get the firmware from where you bought the camera from. PM me if they can't provide it for you.

The 733 series are nice, but 1MP, this new one is 5MP with supposedly the same low light performance.

I would go with a low light camera over a lot of illumination. A Raytech RM200 with a wide spread to cover a nice area is going to cost more than the camera. Here's the specs on the new camera, not even sure it's out yet as I can't find it at the distributor. https://de.boschsecurity.com/master_product/02_products_1/st_bu_f_277305_nsode_catalog_prod_de/st_section_f_276651_nsode_catalog_prod_de/st_prodfam_p_276651_nsode_catalog_prod_de_333125

Sorry to hear it's illegal there, they'll come around one day. I know, smell permeates walls. In our unit which is a highrise steel & concrete building, double paned windows, doors/windows closed, I can still smell it, cheap weed, so we had to smoke our good weed to get rid of the smell of theirs. One has to do what one has to do. The building is full of cameras, inside, outside. Very cool setup, where if you stand too long near the camera, it has a recording that comes on and tells you to go away.

You sound British and isn't that the part of the world that has the most surveillance cameras per capita in the world? In the U.S. if you are a tenant, you do not typically have much say in portion of the building that is not for your exclusive use. You can complain if there's a chance some of the video captures your private space or violates the personal space of others. In the U.S., you can record anything visible in public except spaces considered private like a bathroom. Is weed legal in the U.K.? It's legal in most of the U.S. (26 out of 50 states permit Marijuana use for medicinal purposes, 2 for recreational use) so it's a tough battle for flats, condos. You can't prevent people from smoking weed if you allow smoking in general so recently in one building where we have a weekend place, they now disallow all smoking. At public spaces, say at a ballpark, one could smoke weed in the area designated as the smoking section as there's no differentiation between tobacco or weed, at least in California smoking laws.

The letter coding for Hikvision is if it has an F in the number, it has an SD card slot, if it has an S it has alarm input/outputs and audio. For example, the I version of the 2732 is about $30 cheaper at ADI Global (wholesale) than the IS version. The Swann is the I version. The difference besides size is the 2732 has a varifocal lens, the 2532 is a fixed lens and comes in 2.8 and 4mm I believe. If you never installed a vandal dome before, focusing a varifocal lens may be a challenge. They also make the lower end mini-dome, the ds-2cd2132-i, 2-axis design so must be mounted with dome facing down, not wall mounted. I see what you mean at the Amazon listing, manufacturer says Hikvision USA. When you put an item for sale on Amazon, you have to put a manufacturer that they recognize the bar code from. So it's not the reseller misleading you, it's just the way Amazon works. Sometimes, the seller is in China, but Amazon hides that from you.

Yes, forgot about the iVMS4200 software for Mac. SADP is much easier, quicker, but you'll need Windows. If you have a Windows computer hanging around, old laptop, friends laptop, SADP is quick, shows all the cameras connected, you type in the new IP, enter password, save and done.

To get the Hikvision USA version, you would have to register with one of their wholesale distributors like Tri-Ed or ADI Global as an installer or integrator and buy from them. To give you an idea, the highest number you quoted would be lower than wholesale from the distributor. They don't allow sales to resellers. So call it Chinese (all are made in China), English, Mexican, they are all the same, the menus, screen displays are in English. I seriously doubt any would sell a camera they got from a legit distributor like ADI Global and sell it to for you at a loss on Amazon that charges about 10% to do fulfillment, so don't be fooled by marketing double-talk. The USA office will not support you unless you are a customer of one of their wholesale distributors. OEM's that sell them like Swann also will not get you Hikvision USA support so not really much of a difference. Regardless of who you get it from, the seller is your support line. Same with Dahua. The big plus is bang for the buck, but not for everyone. An alternative would be ACTi, a D71/D72 or E71/E72 dome would work well and give you the level of support you may need.

That's not magic, it's putting the older 5.1.0 firmware over the 5.1.6 firmware that comes with the camera.

The best I've seen at the ISC show was the 5MP Bosch with their Starlight technology. Same tech as they used in their popular 733 series 720P cameras last year. Funny you say the Axis P3367 because that's what they put it against. A box camera, so you need to put it in an enclosure, but priced well. I just requested one to review, we'll see what they say. The trick with plates is set the max exposure way high, maybe 120-250/sec so the scene is very dark, then the headlights won't wash out the image and the plates will be readable. What you also need is a IR illuminator pointed at the plates so the reflectivity matches up with the headlights. Last project I used a Raytec RM100-30 (cost more than the camera) and that was good for say 50-80'. The image at night won't be good for anything else as it will be very dark, but that's the magic of license plate capture. Just don't expect to do license plate recognition with that 5MP image. You best bet is to get two pointed the same direction, one exposed at night to capture action and one for capturing plates. We use an Axis Q1604 for plate recognition (LPR) and plates come out very nice indeed, day or night. We crank it down to 4fps and VGA resolution and 720P is sort of overkill for LPR.

I like the Hikvision branded version of the Swann, the ds-2cd2732f-is and here's why. The Hikvision version has alarm input, so you can do one of two things, you can tie a notification to a door bell for example, ring the doorbell, camera sends you a text, or put a pressure mat under welcome mat, someone steps on it, sends you a text. Then you can view the camera from your smartphone and it does have audio if you chose to implement that later (the Swann does not) and pricing is about the same (pm if you need help). The camera has a varifocal lens, so no need to worry about selecting a lens, you can adjust the lens from a very wide 105 degree view to a narrow 22 degree view (2.8mm to 12mm). I use one at my front door, works well there and I have mine set to 2.8mm inside a 15x15' courtyard and I can still ID someone 25' away standing at our gate into the entrance courtyard. But you may want a narrower view, no problem, just adjust it to your liking. You don't even need BlueIris as it can record in-camera to a 64GB microSD card and have very good playback capabilities using a timeline (better than BI in my opinion) from the web interface. If you want to use it with BI, there's been support for Hikvision cameras for a long, no need to worry there. I use this camera with BlueIris on a commercial project, works fine. The only downside to the 2732 is it's a full size dome, so large. They also make a very nice mini-dome, the ds-2cd2532f-is, similar features to the 2732, but has a fixed lens bit is much smaller, I think I did a picture of the two side by side in that review. It provides it's own infrared light, so no additional lighting needed but I have two 9W LED bulbs I got from Home Depot at my front door and the camera does not even go to black & white when that's on.

If you would have gone with network cameras instead of analog cameras and chosen a better company to work with rather than Lorex you would have a greater chance of success. It's best to buy from a company that only sells surveillance equipment instead of a big box store were it's likely you won't get much help. I own vacation condos, one that is concrete and steel construction as well as one that is stick built, so I understand the issues and last thing you want to do is start chipping away at concrete floors, ceilings and common walls in a high-rise. So what's the answer? Use your unit's electrical wiring to connect the cameras to an NVR or PC with NVR software using Powerline adapters. Heck, there's even a camera line that uses Powerline completely, forgot the brand. So what you would do is buy any PoE network cameras of your choice and place them were needed. Then use a Powerline adapter plugged into your home router and one at each location you have a camera or groups of cameras. Then use a PoE injector or PoE switch to connect and power the cameras. Most modern day high-rises use stamped steel studs on interior walls. Just run the Ethernet cable through the wall to the nearest outlet for a nice clean look. Any competent electrician can do a nice clean looking install for not that much money. For example, at one condo I have a 2 story ceiling over a wall of glass and tile floors and no way to cost effectively run a wire from one side of the condo to the other. So I use a Powerline adapter and a 4 PoE port switch that sits under the sofa and then have the wire run inside the wall to 2 cameras on that side, one peering out the window and one covering that room. Also, for interior coverage, you can use WiFi cube cameras with built in mic & speaker that are easy to place on a table or cabinet and hide the power wire behind the cabinet. I would hard wire using Powerline as much as possible and keep WiFi use to a minimum as it's not perfect. My biggest problem in my steel and concrete construction building is the windows, they have some sort of metallic E3 coating that affects radio signals but that was built in 2007 where most of my other properties are much older, built in the 80's and 90's. Lastly, and this is more higher end. They sell Ethernet cable that is flat and sticks to the wall like drywall tape. The idea is that you run this wire that's not much thicker than drywall tape and then mud & texture over it and it disappears into the wall, just don't put a nail through it to hang a picture, LOL. I've never tried this but if you find an installer of high end audio/video equipment, they are more likely to have experience with this. I see this at CES every year. Lastly, since security and recordings have little value, consider cameras with built-in SD cards as they can record a few days of events allowing you to go back and see if something happened in the past, for example, if which cat peed on your new rug, what time a package was dropped off, and other things of great importance. As for bandwidth with DSL, the best you can hope for is VGA resolution with remote access 1 or 2 cameras at a time. So don't stress over 3MP cameras. Just get 1MP cameras, they tend to have better low light sensitivity and cost less. I would not mess with the cameras you mentioned above in this case and get the Samsung Wisenet III domes for indoors, incredible low light performance and 720P/1MP resolution.

Same hack, same bits changed.