buellwinkle

It's a hybrid so you can connect analog or network cameras. You connect via your network. For example if your three cameras are 192.168.1.100, 101, 102 and the NVR is 192.168.1.200, when you connect to your NVR, you will setup the 3 cameras with their IP address, same as the ENR-1100 but the advantage, besides price is you can have various brands of cameras and it's cheaper. The commonality is typically a network switch, preferably one with PoE ports. For 4 cameras, consider the ZyXel ES1100-8P, has 4 PoE ports for 4 cameras, 4 extra ports for connecting to your PC and router if you want remote access.

There are many good brands of network cameras, so it depends on your budget. Some cameras you can record to internal SD cards, you can record to a NAS device but most people here either use an NVR appliance or NVR software running on a PC. You can hookup thousands of cameras, so not sure what you mean by that. Clearly if you buy an 8 channel NVR you can connect only 8 cameras but many enterprise level NVR solution like what maybe used in casinos easily handle hundred if not thousands of cameras. Once you get past about 6-8 HD cameras, you are going to have some knowledge of networking to make it work properly and move up to gigabit switches. PTZ network cameras are controlled through a buttons on the NVR software or from the camera's web browser. Typically you set "presets" of locations you want to go to and it quickly moves to that preset as the arrow button on not always easy to use on network cameras because of latency. Most let you set a patrol of your presets, so say you have 6 presets, you can have it spend say 10 seconds each and each area would be visited once a minute.

SSD drives are not really good for this as their write life is limited especially low cost multi-level cell technology used in cheaper consumer grade drives. If you want to do this and have it last more than a year or two, consider single-level cell (SLC) SSD drives. If your NVR software has a database, for example I believe XProtect as example uses MS SQL Server, you can probably put the database on SSD for better performance as well as the software and OS.

One of the lowest priced popular generic NVR's is the AverMedia NEH1004HN, $299. As with almost all NVRs, does not include hard drive.

Do the branded ones actually say Dahua or do they say Lions?

Analog is easier, just connect and it works, no camera programing, no worrying about network issues and you can mix/match cameras without worrying if it's compatible or not. Also, when you don't know better, a camera is a camera. Heck, there are people out there that would buy analog TV's if they still could and buy flip phones if they still could. There are plenty of people that shop on eBay, get the least expensive network camera they can find and are happy with the image quality since they have nothing to compare it to. It's like a hobby you don't know anything about, say remote control helicopters. I don't know anything about them, so I was tempted by a $19.99 helicopter I can easily get flying (and crashing). But there are RC hobbyist that spend thousands on their helicopters and radios and laugh at those with $20 helicopters. But to me, not knowing better, the $20 helicopter is as good as it gets as I don't have a frame of reference to what better is.

This CSI method should help. Click on it to make it larger so you can follow how it's done.

Sure, that's what President Obama has been saying since 2009.

You can playback the video recorded on SD in the Playback tab if you have current enough firmware (mine is from May). All these cameras have a learning curve, just requires patience. With 4 cameras, I would not use recording to SD card because you shouldn't have to login to 4 camera web interfaces to find what you want and likely slow and I'll be surprised if you get more than 2 days in a busy location. You may want to get a Dahua NVR since setting up NVR software may be harder than setting up cameras. Make sure you get a model that can record 3MP as the cheaper models only do 2MP. FTP sounds easy, why not, just FTP to a NAS but you'll have tens of thousands of files for each camera and there's no management of the files, meaning if the disk is full, it just stops recording.

Yes, they have a long list of unauthorized resellers. But that authorized list is just wholesale distributors. But warranty and support doesn't matter to some people.

Don't now if it's inherently an Android problem as I have used 3 different camera apps without a problem including Milestone XProtect Mobile Client, IP Cam Viewer and EagleEyes. Never had password/sign-in issues. I would call Avigilon and get them to fix it. The Galaxy S4 is one of the top Android phones out there so it's not like asking it to work on a unique phone.

To capture a plate at night, you need enough illumination to counter the backlight effects of the headlights. You also need to fill the frame with just the front (or rear) of the car. Resolution doesn't really matter because if you capture a large scene, even though the plate is readable during the day, it's impossible for the camera to get the correct exposure for plate when it has to adjust exposure for the entire scene. To do it with the Hivision 12mm bullet in my video above, the camera would have to be about 10' away from the car's bumper and you have chance maybe with BLC on and the car is stopped or moving slowly.

It's that not many want to deal with customs paperwork for foreign shipping. Many items are dropped shipped from the distributor and many times they are not allowed to sell outside their territory by the manufacturer.

What I want is a collar with a spring coming out the top with a laser pointer attached to it. That would keep a cat occupied all day long and make for great YouTube videos. Can you really have enough cat videos?

What's also an interesting approach is Axis sells a Pan/Tilt mechanism for about $500 mount where you can put any of their box cameras on top of it and they make one model with a zoom. So all together it may cost say $1,500ish, not 100% sure of the price but it's not about cost, it's about having a flat lens (curved domes are prone to reflection issues) and the ability to tilt above the horizon which is an issue for typical speed domes.

Since our county derives a lot of revenue from Mickey Mouse, i'll take that as a good thing. You can use the included pigtail or you can remove it and feed a regular Cat5/6 with an RJ45 connector and can use conduit. Many people prefer the old school mounts that use a threaded tripod mount vs. the newer cameras with integrated mounts. For example, I can't easily use integrated mounts under my eave because they are too typically too short.

The E37 which is the 10MP version of the E33 should be out in January which means you can probably get it in February/March. Their first 10MP, the E97 should be available in 2 weeks, indoor cam, really wide angle lens.

Imagine buying a digital point & shoot camera, there's probably hundreds of current models from dozen of companies. They all basically do the same thing which is take pictures and video, resolution varies but not really that much, not really an indicator of image quality. So what would you enter to narrow it down. For me it may be 12-16MP, flash and $100-200, that would give me 90% of the cameras made. So such a tool would not tell you which camera is best for your needs. Camera companies are great at checking boxes, so they love people like you that decide based on check boxes, but that does not mean the feature works well.

There is one PTZ camera that fits the bill of being under $200 if image quality, reliability, how much zoom and resolution are not important, the Agasio (of Foscam fame) http://agasio.com/agasio-a621-poe-outdoor-pan-tilt-poe-ip-camera.html But I'm sure he meant $2,000-2,500 per camera, there's some good choices out there, HD, 18-20x zoom from Dahua SD6982A, ACTi KCM-8211, Axis P55 series, Panasonic WV-SW395.

The best buy for a 5MP is the new ACTi E96 fisheye for $260ish. If you want a bullet or dome with IR, then $300 may not be enough, maybe the ACTi E33 or E73.

He must mean $2,000-2,500 each.

I used to buy from K&D in Shenzhen until Dahua blocked them form selling in the U.S. but they still sell to Europe and their prices are good. Their website is kingdisplay.net and Cherry Wae is on this forum occasionally and is the sale rep.

All they sent me from China is 5.0.2 saying that 5.0.5 is not a stable release and they've been having problems with it.

We use Altronix power supplies. A little more expensive than generic stuff but never had one go bad. Not for cameras as those are PoE, but for access control and entry dialers.

I saw this camera on Woot today and finally, someone is making a camera based on Powerline. Always thought why isn't this more popular, plug and play vs. WiFi which is a pain for non-geeks to setup. BTW, not recommending this camera, just commenting on the Powerline connectivity. http://www.amazon.com/Brite-View-BVC-500C-Plugcam-Powerline-Network/dp/B0098NW68Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382809520&sr=8-1&keywords=brite-view+plugcam