buellwinkle

I see someone asked this recently on the Dahua support site and I believe they were suggesting that you upgrade the firmware. Their support can be found at http://www.dahuasecurity.com/onlinesupport.html Your reseller/distributor should be able to get you the latest firmware.

First, to ID someone with say a 3MP camera at 20m, you would have to get 12mm telephoto lens and have a very narrow field of view, like 22 degrees because of the 12mm lens. You can get a wide angle lens, but then you can only ID someone say at 7-8m. And since you want to change lens, what I hear you say is you want to adjust the focal length to suit the need, get a varifocal cameras, many that are 3-12mm.

The difference is $50, can't go wrong with either one. I would personally get the 3MP Hikvision version, get the extra pixels and pay in-between the $299 and $349, save the sales tax and have lens choices.

Sure, Internet Explorer lets me see either camera. VLC lets me see either camera. Do you mean on a smartphone or are you looking for NVR software? I use IP Cam Viewer and that works with both on my Android devices. I use Milestone XProtect and that has very good smartphone apps for free and they have a free version for up to 8 cameras, works fine with Dahua and Hikvision.

I have no issues watching my Hikvision vis IP Cam Viewer.

The both have their benefits and image quality is subjective.

The Hikvision varifocal bullet is $259 shipped, so under $300. Very good image quality and well priced.

I've had that happen to a large Dahua PTZ and powering it off and back on fixed it and never happened again.

They are tiny and I opened one up and it's such a dense layering of boards, they certainly packed a lot into a tiny package. It's not that a 4mm lens can't perform in a narrow side yard, but my side yard is 70' long but maybe 15' wide. So for me, I put the camera on corner of my house. With 4mm, If I point it straight down the side yard, down the middle, maybe 1/3 of the frame is just wall, 1/3 is just fence and 1/3 is the side yard. With a 6mm, maybe 1/4 is wall, 1/4 is fence and 1/2 is side yard. It depends on the dimensions of your side yard, but if you can use a 6mm or 12mm to get a narrow viewing angle, that means you are using more of those pixels to your benefit. Instead of being able to ID someone at 25' with the 4mm lens, the 6mm maybe 38' and with the 12mm it maybe 75'. Also, what happens when you mount the camera to the side of your house parallel to the wall is the IR illumination bounces back off the wall and causes issues, so a camera with a narrower focus may do better at night.

I had issues with Dahua and Hikvision when a Microsoft Update came through that pushed me to IE 11. In IE 10, you can see the broken page icon on top and click it for compatibility mode. On IE 11, it's on the settings drop down, the gear icon in the upper right, then select compatibility view settings and add the camera's IP address. I wish there was a setting that says run everything in compatibility mode. I usually set the HTTP port and the 3777 port to sequential numbers, like 15001 and 15002, and forward those two ports. I would also forward the RTSP port as well because if you use an app on your smartphone, it may want that port as well. In the future (or now for some), your ISP will give a bunch of IPV6 IP addresses and you won't have to port forward or use DDNS. I checked with mine and they are not ready for IPV6 yet. In the meantime, if you don't have a fixed IP address from your ISP, you may want to setup a DDNS account. DDNS assigns a domain name to a dynamic IP address and you need to have a single device on your network that updates if the IP changes. Dahua supports updating NO-IP (free) and I use that and it's been fine for me for about 2 years now.

No, the ipc-hfw4300s is from their official U.S. distributor, the only one that Dahua allows to use their name and model numbers here and warrantied in the U.S. and is just on loan for the review. I believe the price is the same or close to the ipc-hfw3200s in the U.S..

These Dahua 1.3MP mini bullets are a good deal from Costco for under $150 each and know that Costco has your back and Q-See is a U.S. company for warranty and support. http://www.costco.com/Q-See-High-Definition-720p-2-Pack-IP-Cameras.product.100003461.html Also, this looked good too, 4 mini-bullets, 1TB drive and 4 channel NVR for $699 http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-HD-Digital-NVR-with-1TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-HD-720p-IP-Cameras.product.100003211.html

Look at it this way, they sell the NVR with and without the internal 4 PoE ports, so clearly you can access cameras outside the internal PoE switch, but it won't be as plug and play where the NVR assigns the IP addresses. The NVR is now on your home network, the 192.168..., correct? When you get a PoE switch, preferably an 8 PoE port switch, you plug all the cameras into it, you setup them up with fixed IP's in your home network and configure the cameras in your NVR. Don't plug anything into the NVR's PoE ports. You've solved two problems, you can now access all the cameras directly via your home network and your NVR sees them. Be careful with 8 1080P cameras on your network, that's a lot of bandwidth. I use a PoE switch with a GigE uplink port and the NVR PC is on the GigE network. If you need one cheap, let me know, got a few refurbs for under $100.

It's there new B and I series but the D and E series are not obsolete, a new one E dome came out a few days ago. On their site, click Project Planner of the top nav bar, then click on Start Online Selector, you'll see all the new cameras. Their product list only shows models available today, but the Project Planner shows all. Found this out at the ASIS show from Ando that's on the forum. When you click on the SPEC button for a camera, near the bottom it tells you when it will be available, for example, says February/March for the B41. Ando mentioned these have good illuminators that adjust light output based on zoom amount.

Yes, I use mine with Safari on my Mac, you don't need IE, don't even need Windows. That's awesome that they support CIFS, I'll have to test that soon. You don't even need FreeNas, just create a Windows share on your PC.

No, would not recommend the current line of ACTi varifocals because of the narrow IR beam pattern when used in wide angle mode. I'm hoping that's resolved in their new line coming out soon. The Dahua ipc-hfw4300s has a wider view, don't remember the lens spec but appears wider than the E32. It's an odd camera in that with WDR off, it's similar to other cameras with WDR on, but put WDR on and the picture becomes very washed out, no real different between 1% and 100%.

That's odd that it's not on the Hikvision Euro site. The two features people were hoping would be in 5.1 are; 1. the ability to turn the IR LEDS off but still use day/night mode 2. the ability to work with more generic NAS devices, but hopefully also enable the use of SMB or CIFS (Windows mount) which is popular on low cost NAS devices. Don't know if there's a way to tell that without trying it, but maybe there's changes to the storage screen and an option on the image screen to turn off IR LEDs.

I get clear images up to about 40mph, after that you get motion blur. The camera is not terribly expensive, I think it's about $800, the lens is about $100, the case can be expensive if you buy Axis like we did but you can buy a case for $50, so under a grand for the camera. The illuminator was expensive, but you may be able to find less expensive illuminators. It actually did pretty well even without the illuminator, maybe because rear plates are typically lit. There's 2 tricks that I've learned - 1. fill the frame with just the bumper, nothing else, meaning get a nice telephoto lens. Resolution does not matter, you can have 10MP, but then you'll be tempted to cover a larger area and that throws off light metering. You can do good LPR with just VGA resolution, so get the camera with best low light performance instead of resolution. 2. have a powerful enough illuminator to compensate for bright headlights/taillights. You can see in my picture, it looks dark, but the illuminator is so bright, it makes the bright brake lights seem like a glow. The exposure is set fast to compensate for the bright illuminator giving us even lighting. Also lets us capture a plate of a car going up to 40mph without motion blur.

The new Dahua 3MP, the ipc-hfw4300s is better at shadows and detail like in grass. It becomes a question of pretty picture but lack of detail and poor color accuracy of the Sony Exmor chip on the hfw3300C vs. better detail, better color accuracy, but muted, less exciting picture quality of the Aptina chip on the hfw4300S. I would say the ACTi E32 for me gives me the best of both, close to the prettier picture of the Sony Exmor with the details and color accuracy of the Aptina. D32 is nice, but I like the WDR capabilities of the E32 where I have it mounted. I hope to have a review in a week or so. I started testing the hfw4300s 2 weeks ago but for some reason it died and just got the replacement a few days ago. Never tested a Grandstream, so can't comment on it's capabilities.

Here's a picture of my plate as it's driving by at 20-25mph at 7:53PM last night.

Image quality both day and night.

I had an IPC-HFW3300C at the front of my home and replaced it with an ACTi E32, so those are my thoughts.

I get great license plate capture in pure darkness at about 40' using the Axis Q1604 with VGA resolution with a 5-50mm Fujinon set about 30mm. We use a RayTech RM100-30 illuminator. Very clear crisp plate numbers.

Yes, in that price range, the Dahua 3X optical zoom is you best bet at the moment, 1080P, uses standard PoE (most PTZ do not ) and you can find it for $600. Or wait until February, ACTi should have a small 10X zoom PTZ for cheap, under a grand.

I have one in my Smart car because bigger cars just cut me off so I want to get it on record if they cause the accident. Then you got people on cell phones that don't pay attention. It just hides behind my mirror, records without me even thinking about it.