buellwinkle

I have both a IPC-HFW3200C (2MP) and IPC-HFW3300C (3MP) and basically you get 50% more vertical pixels. You need someone's face to be about 80 pixels tall, so having 50% more vertical pixels gives you that edge. The horizontal pixels are about the same. These cameras are varifocal, so 3-4X at best. As for PTZ with higher resolution, sure, with 4K TV's and monitors coming out, many camera companies are starting to work on their 8MP+ cameras. Have not seen more than 30x optical zoom with anyone yet but some cameras like the Axis Q60 are 1080P but have 20x optical zoom with 20x digital zoom making for a theoretical 400x zoom.

Most PTZ cameras require a 12-24V power supply or a high power mid-span to power it. ACTi will be coming out with a small 10X PTZ that runs of a standard PoE switch in January/February time frame but 600-700 away is pretty far and not sure 10x is enough. In that same time frame, if you need longer distance reach, they will have a 1080P 30x zoom (not pan/tilt) with a staged IR illuminator that may work for you. I did run into one booth at the ASIS show last week that was interesting. They sell a PoE switch that can reach 200m (just about your limit) that does not require anything special at the remote end, treat it like a regular PoE switch and the price was reasonable. They had a demo with 200m of wire coiled up at the show with a camera running. If you are interested in it, let me know. I thought about importing them as a specialty item, not sure what the interest would be.

12V is trickier to use because if you are not using a thick enough wire you will get big voltage drops. Get a PoE injector, that should work better.

I have the similar NVR but from another OEM and there's audio in/out rca jacks on the back of the NVR and I assumed it would be audio at the NVR level, meaning you have one mic input and one speaker out to work with. The specs say - Two-way Audio: 1-ch RCA(2.0Vp-p, 1kΩ). Couldn't find anything in the manual that specifies how to record or play back audio for the NVR vs. a specific camera with that functionality.

I started dirty, it was an NVR that someone bought and returned because they tried to upgrade the firmware and lost the admin userid. Hikvision provided the recovery code and it reset the password and I installed the latest from the Hikvision Europe site and works fine, at least with Dahua and Hikvision cameras.

They are asking $250 for the full version, so 6x the price of BlueIris. I don't think I have a fast enough PC to even do 1 camera. I thought about getting a Cray for this, but it doesn't run Windows. I'm thinking for my 8 cameras, I'll need a dual socket server with 8 cores per CPU, 16 cores total, 2 cores per camera = 8 cameras. BTW, ACTi is rolling out their 10MP cameras this month at great prices, oops, now I need a quad socket server. What I don't understand is why can't software like this use the substream at D1 resolution to do it's magic but record from the main stream, just saying. Then it wouldn't matter what resolution you have.

Always liked the concept of VitaminD, my only reservation is CPU needs. They claim a fast dedicated quad core PC can handle 4-6 1.3MP cameras, which scares me because I have mostly 3MP cameras. So does that mean I can run 1-2 cameras on say a modern day i7? What would I need for 8 cameras or maybe that's not even possible with consumer grade PCs. I would download the demo and try it but it's limited in resolution, so it doesn't help me prove out if it's feasible or not.

Yes they are out of stock. Can you send me a link to the Hikvision. Thanks PM Sent

This camera does not support audio, you would have to upgrade to it's big brother, the IPC-HFW3200C or if you want 3MP, the IPC-HFW3300C. Then you have to buy a microphone and there's a connector on the pigtail for it.

Could be the newer ones have adjustable focus, didn't try it when I reviewed the M1014, but mine are first generation, M1031-W and M1011-W and it's not adjustable.

I got Dahua cameras to work that were on my network together with Hikvison cameras plugged into the NVR. Works quite well but didn't put a hard drive on it as it's only with me a few days to get repaired (had to reset the admin account after a bad firmware update). It accepts my ACTi E32 with ACTi selected, gives me the play button showing it's connected, but shows a blank screen. Maybe I could have turned ONVIF on the ACTi camera and have used it that way. Is there a manual that coincides with the 2.3.4 release. I was only able to find the 2.3.3 manual and as you know, the menus are different.

They are expensive and out of stock. Why not order the Hikvision bullet or dome that are 3MP?

ACTi NVR uses the camera to detect motion or trigger on alarm inputs. A good outdoor PIR motion detector can go out about 40-60' but there are longer range PIR motion detectors. Problem with BlueIris is that it can not take alarm I-O or camera motion events. Yes, BlueIris is more intelligent at detecting motion but is CPU intensive. Be it as it may, when I had the shadow of my neighbors palm trees swaying in the wind, BlueIris still detected that as motion.

I installed 2.3.4 and I can plug in Hikvision cameras into it that I reset to the initial port and IP settings. Its plug and play in that I plug the camera into the NVR, wait a few minutes and it connects. When I try and use a camera that's on the same subnet as the NVR (not the internal PoE ports), like 192.168.0... it lets me manually configure, even finds in on search but doesn't let me connect to it, says "unable to reach network". Is this because of 2.3.4 or am I doing it wrong. I was trying to get an ACTi camera on there.

Like just about all cameras with video motion detection, shadows change pixels, causes a motion detection event to trigger. You can attached a PIR motion detector to the camera, then it will be more accurate and won't be triggered by shadows or lights. I believe the camera has 12V out so it can even power the detector.

Sorry, didn't scroll down far enough, yes, it has alarm input. Nice that it takes CS/C lenses instead of M12. Wonder how much extra is PoE? They show a bunch of day shots, but no night shot, so you may want to ask for that.

Don't know about those, never seen them before. If it doesn't say alarm i-o then it likely does not have it. Try Foscam, they tend to have alarm i-o on the lower end of the price scale. BTW, China is closed today from the 1st to the 7th, so don't expect a quick response.

By default, ACTi NVR3 starts recording 24/7, not event recording. I'm not home so pardon the terminology differences but you need to go to the schedule and clear the full time recording and replace that with event recording and it will work as you expect. Why that's the default I don't know, maybe better to err on the side of caution and record everything than to miss something.

It never will allow it through a browser firmware update because it looks at the country code that's burned into the camera ROM.

The cameras appears to be the Dahua IPC-HFW2100. Not a fan of that camera as the color accuracy is mediocre. The price seems in line with what Dahua equipment sells for, maybe on the high side. Are you in Europe, seems odd that it's 25 fps like it's meant for PAL. Also, seems like the bullet and dome have the same model number, so can't help you there. I would avoid cheap domes, they tend to have IR bleed issues. For about the same money, you can get a Hikvision setup where the cameras have over double the resolution at 3MP and better color accuracy and crisper sharper image. If you want something even better with better support and service and free NVR software, I would recommend ACTi as a good bang for the buck.

The standard fixed Hikvision bullets/domes discussed here do not have Alarm I-O for a PIR motion detector. You'll need to step it up to the varifocal version to get that.

Remember with that solution you'll need to get 12V to PIR detector and then conduit from the PIR to the camera and to where you get 12V from. You wanted a camera, PIR + NVR, Mobotix is the answer, all three products in one camera.

What's a decent NVR that supports Hikvision and Dahua as well as many other cameras is a Synology NAS with Surveillance Station. Since my review they have added support for 3MP cameras.

Mobotix D14 (and soon D15). Works OK but the PIR is only good for about 30', perfect for close up cams, but not sufficient for overview cameras.

But that's not a vandal dome, can be poked at with a stick and shifted or damaged. I would imagine the OP selected those two camera based on being varifocal and being vandal domes. As for Hikvision vs. Dahua, Hikvision to me tends to have clearer sharper images, Dahua tends to have better IR illumination and better noise control, but poor color accuracy and a softer image. It may come down to your personal preference and price.