buellwinkle

It's hard to say what will work with your cameras, but the following are free and in the order I would try them; 1. Milestone XProtect Go - Windows - 8 camera max 2. iSpyConnect - Windows - Open source 3. Axxonsoft - Windows - 16 cameras free 4. Zoneminder - Linux - Open source You can also play with VLC, open source and lets you view a stream from a single camera, but you can have multiple open on your desktop at a time, create your own grid of cameras that way.

So I understand, you just want a keypad with a generic code that opens the gate, no tracking of who came in. And you want these keypads connected to the internet so you can change the code at will without having to physically visit each one individually. For that we use Doorking - http://www.doorking.com/access-controls/1500-digital-keypads.php

Use eBay buyer protection and threats of bad feedback to get it taken care off but honestly, you are not a good position because they will likely refund the money if you send it back and I bet to send it back the cheapest way with tracking & insurance as required, it will cost you more than what the camera cost as there's no ePacket equivalent back to China. But consider this, you learned a valuable lesson about buying unbranded cameras on eBay from China and it didn't cost you that much.

That's my kinda town. My daughter loves is so much she left So Cal for Chicago and they are at 3x their normal snowfall this season. I'm from NYC, moved south not for the obvious winters, but because I couldn't take the hot sticky summers. We vacationed in Ushuaia a few years ago, I can certainly live there, the southernmost city in the world. We normally get a good amount of snow at our local mountains, it's just been a weird year. When the weather report says snow in the mountains, I start packing. It's so odd to see buds blooming on the trees in the mountains in mid-February.

Are you trying to compare Axis Camera Companion, their free software to Synology Surveillance Station (free for 1st cam, ~$50/cam after that)? Or are you trying to compare Axis Camera Station (~$100/cam) to Surveillance Station?

That's what we use, HID Edge or VertX controllers but it's card based access control. Do they have keypad access control? Is this for people or cars/trucks? if it's for cars/trucks, we use LPR based access control.

They have a retail component to their NVR software but never tried it. Also, if your printer can send an URL command for what it's printing, you can have it send instructions to the camera to display that text.

It's because they are based in L.A. so you have to speak Spanish or press 2 for English. Yes, they are bad, but certainly no worse than Mobotix or Dahua.

OK, now I understand, you need a good omnidirectional mic and a camcorder. Having an IP camera would not be a good idea for this. The microphone you mentioned, the one that comes with a dead cat will not work because it's like a shotgun mic, designed to reject lateral noises and focus on a narrow area in front of the mic. Good for doing press interviews, not so much for covering a large sport field. Mic's usually have a sound pattern in their specs, so you can see what they cover. Also look for a stereo mic as they have 2 mics inside of one to cover left and right sound. Look for one with a big foam head to reduce wind noise.

I would get it just for the "Dead Kitten Windscreen" since I've never seen one and don't like cats. Seriously, do you want a microphone that runs 24/7 and uses batteries so you have to change them every few days?

I use a program called Handbrake to convert from one format to another. It's open source, so if it doesn't work, you can just fix the source .

It requires two wires to connect a microphone. If it's a powered microphone as most CCTV microphones are, you'll need a separate 12V power supply for the mic, but this camera takes an un-amplified mic, so 2 wires is fine. Just solder them to a jack and plug in the mic. Someone here tried the Olympus ME-42W noise cancelling mic and was happy with it but it's not intended for the outdoors so put it where it's sheltered. Here's the post with pictures, scroll to the bottom of the page - viewtopic.php?f=19&t=37523&p=230129&hilit=olympus+mic#p230129

M2M stands for mobile to mobile, usually free calls between calls on the same carrier. The $500 pays for as static IP, don't take my word for it, a former Principal Engineer for Airtouch, then Vodafone which became Verizon Wireless for 6 years, call them. Try Millenicon, they charge about $70 for 20GB of data on VZW's 4G LTE network and I believe $10/mo for the static IP address. We use VZW's 4G only because our priority is feeding the access control system and camera access was not important. Given the $20 per connection + 4GB data, it was actually the cheapest way to go. We've been using it for over a year now, works well. Also check out Page Plus, they are also on VZW's network and charge less. They very recently launched 4G LTE. If carrier is not important, I use 4G on FreedomPop, also very low rates on Sprints 3G/4G or ClearVision's 4G network.

Here what happens is I shovel my driveway so I can get out and then the snowplows comes and push the stuff off the street back in my driveway, so then I have to shovel it back out on the street, I don't want it. This constant shoveling/plowing back and forth is what eventually melts the snow. Paid good money for my 4x4's with all the cool features, I don't want them to plow, leave snow on the street, it's what justifies the premium I paid for that option. So I gave up the fight, switched to a condo. they have people to shovel and plow. But hit 68F today at a mile high, something reserved for summer. I do have the fireplace on for effect, LOL

See if you can get the E77, has a great daytime picture, 2-way audio, alarm i-o and is price pretty low. Has basic WDR. Side by side during the day, it's as good or better than my E32, at night it's not that good so I would recommend a location with good light. E33 is comparable to the E77, but double the pixels.

I think snow is awesome, sitting here near a ski resort in the mountains and it's 68 degrees, warming up like Sochi, where's my winter wonderland, rude plow drivers and all?

It's not so much about the "one million pixels", it's the aspect ratio assuming you are referring to 1080P for 2MP. For example, imagine you have a camera looking at your driveway. Most suburban 2 car garage driveways are square, say 20 x 20', some more longer than wider and the exception is maybe a condo with a shallow driveway. Given the same lens, having a 16:9 aspect ratio may not capture enough depth relative to width to get the entire depth of the garage as well as a 4:3 aspect ratio. Also, most of the extra million pixels is the height of the image, so someone walking in your driveway would be represented by 50% more pixels allowing you to identify them 50% further away. Most experts agree that you need a person face to be about 85 pixel tall to identify them. To reach that goal say with a 4mm lens and 1/3" sensor, with 1080P, you may be able to reach that goal at say 20' but with 3MP you may reach that goal at 30'. Of course there are equally valid reason for 1080P where capturing more sky or more earth may not give you any value, then having the wide aspect ratio makes more sense. Actually just set a 3MP to 1080P for that same reason as having too much sky at the wrong time of day created lens flare. Having the ability to chose what's best for the circumstances is what makes the most sense. In regards to video, most people have 1080P monitors making anything above that in a video meaningless except for taking snapshots and generally that's what I show the Sheriffs first and if they want more, they usually take the raw video to their crime lab people. On the other hand, 2K monitors (1440P) are become more popular and then you can view your 3MP video at pretty close to full resolution. I see 4K (2160P) TV's and Monitors becoming more affordable later this year. It's like when 3D TV's came out, you paid double for that feature and then within a year or two it was maybe a $100 difference.

There is just two wires for audio in and you can chose if it's line in or mic in from the firmware. Very few if any have actual jacks. Sorry, don't have a mic recommendation.

What do you mean Hikvision doesn't use SSL. I can access the camera using HTTPS which is SSL. Let us know how the cloud thing works, looks interesting.

The only camera I have in commercial use with an SD card has been in operation since later in 2012, a Mobotix D14 no problems. Then we have a Mobotix D15 that died yesterday but the microSD card is fine, so we toss the D15 and keep the card

You can have cameras record locally like to a NAS or even an SD card at full resolution but use a second stream that's much lower resolution and frame rate for remote access. For example, I have 3MP cameras recording at 3MP, but when I connect to the camera, I use the sub-stream and it's VGA resolution at 5 fps which is certainly good enough to check on the camera or change a configuration. As for remote access via 4G/LTE, we use a Cradlepoint mobile broadband router with a VZW USB stick. To use that, you have to pay their $500 ransom for a fixed IP address. Smaller providers then to be more flexible in this area.

Just buy them at MicroCenter, I believe they provide a lifetime warranty, bring it back, get a new one. Of course you would lose your recordings.

Actually Sony was coming out with cloud cameras soon if not already where you can connect a non-cloud Sony camera to the cloud one. But I'm not a fan of cloud, I can't get decent internet speed where I am, maybe support one camera at best. it's funny but we have a condo in a building that has 200Mbps upload/download, but not cameras and where I have cameras I'm lucky to have 1.5MP upload which is maybe 1080P at 3-5 fps. ACTi NVR 3.0 software is very good, i can see where you are going. Their NVR has a similar interface, actually does run on Linux, but their software has advantages but runs on Windows. I have not tried it yet, but they should support the Hikvision cameras by now. If you are interested, i can ask, but it's not free and my best guess is for non-ACTi cameras it's about $50/cam but may be cheaper than selling the Hiks used and taking a possible loss. As for Windows, really it's not like it used to be. I've haven't had an outage on my NVR PC since new. The best buy in Windows if you need to pay for a license is Windows Home Server 2011, about $50.

I like ACTi for good bang for the buck in commercial installs because to me, they have comparable service to Axis. What I like is their NVR 3.0 software, free for up to 16 cameras, works very well and the entire interface is web based, meaning it's not just a client. Hikvision is the up and comer, good products, support (if you get the more expensive Hikviion USA versions). Actually looking to replace Mobotix D15's with Hiks at one project. Just had one of the D15's die yesterday, not like they used to make them. I was going to use Axis but I have some dark spots where having the built in IR will help. They need to start making the higher resolution P33s with IR illuminators as an option. We still use Axis cameras for where they are needed, works well, but they tend to have buggier firmware than most, dunno why, but I don't like to use Axis cameras the day they come out, I look for people like you to work out the bugs, LOL.

Do you think that China will enforce a GPL license violation? Also, you don't know if they are paying royalties or not. I worked for a software company that used the GPL license and basically you have two options, make you code GPL or pay a royalty. Again, we are talking China, not Cisco in San jose.