buellwinkle

Tried it, found all my cameras, amazing, no other app finds all my cameras. It does have major flaws, maybe because it's not fully baked. For example, it won't connect to my cameras that use a non-standard http port (80) and no place to enter in a port number. Even when it is port 80, my Dahua's just flash UNAUTHORIZED. It did that to all my cameras but when I set the password it worked fine but not on Dahua but worked with ACTi and Hikvision, both 3MP. Would also not connect to older ACTi cameras, like an acm-1231, says it did, but nothing. It has the cleanest interface I've ever seen though but a little tough to figure out. It's claim to fame on it's website seems to be exceptionally low CPU, but yet took my quad core PC to a place it didn't like. It was using 50% CPU with only two cameras setup for motion detect recording (was actually at 63%, ended the program and went 13% cpu, so 1 full core per camera, ouch).

Actually Synology worked best with h.264 for me. I switched my ACTi e32 to mjpeg because that was the default and I didn't catch it but when I switched to h.264 it the recordings were mo better. I'm sure it works better with some cameras than others. Had someone ask me about Hikvision so I tried it and it works well as ONVIF but the specific models people are getting from Costco are not supported but if enough people put the request in, I'm sure they will support as they already support many Hikvision cameras. Absolutely, I can't imagine because of the nature of how it works that Avigilon wouldn't be many times faster. For one, Synology NAS devices use Atom processor, I'm sure not many are running Avigilon on Atom processors. Next it has to communicate from web browser to NAS, so there's an inherent delay. I just thought it was interesting that it had a comprehensive search feature which I thought was cool and unique. Never worked with any NVR software with search before so new to me.

With Foscam after a period of time you just hope they fail. I had about 4 between Foscam and brand x clones and one survived. I watch it once every few months just to see if it's still working, have no use for it but it lives on. Hate to put in productive use as that's when it will fail.

Both are 12mm but the changes were made for all lenses. I just happened to have a need for 12mm.

Cool, that makes sense then for surveillance to be able to read part of the stream for lower resolution. From what I read the biggest barrier to adoptance has been that it uses a lot of memory and cpu resource, meaning cameras have to have more powerful processors to make it work which may make them less competitive in the market. As for picking up the live stream say for live viewing remotely, hasn't the industry already adopted dual streaming. Clearly not as dynamic solution as jpeg2000 but there has to be a substantial reason that many other surveillance camera companies aren't doing it. In this whitepaper from Axis on compression - http://www.axis.com/documentation/whitepaper/video/video_compression.htm sort of calls jpeg2000 fuzzy vs. jpeg blocky calling it a preference rather than the next new thing.

I just completed my review on the Synology Surveillance Station. It has similar if not more comprehensive search capabilities than what I've seen from Avigilon ACC for example missing object, foreign object, focus lost, tally counter, virtual fence and others. Not saying I love Synology, works well but has quirks. The deal breaker for me was that it didn't resolutions beyond 1080P. Their smartphone apps work, but too simplistic in design. It holds so much promise to have a good high quality NAS combined with an NVR solution. I'm going to load up Milestone Essential next as the price seems right and looks decent.

Didn't know that. All I read on JPEG2000 is that it's supposed to provide greater compression with less compression artifacts. Is this a general thing or just Avigilon's use of it? It's like Mobotix, they had their own compression for years and H.264 came along and they said they were not going to follow the herd. Then I heard a "mooo" when I saw that their D14 was going to have H.264. Can't fight public opinion.

Here's the happy couple, the new bullet and dome together. Notice the bullet now has a ring on the outside of the glass, before it was just plain glass. Again, to control IR light bleed. So to those that want the latest and greatest, wait a little longer for the proverbial slow boat from China to arrive. These I got directly from Hikvision HQ. What's also cool but not readily apparent is the new domes & bullets have a round waterproof rj45 jack on the pigtail that is much smaller than the original square one. So smaller hole needs to be made and it's waterproof where the square ones were not. BTW, this is the reason I haven't done a review yet, I was waiting for them to resolve this issue.

What's interesting is that jpeg2000 didn't appear to make it to digital cameras. I would think that someone buying say a Nikon D4 for six grand for body only would want the absolute best quality image possible, but no JPEG2000 in that camera (or any DSLR I just checked). From what I googled, I found that setting JPEG to minimal compression, the equivalent of 10 in Photoshop produced pretty close to artifact free images and setting JPEG2000 to it's lowest compression product marginally better results. So it could be that setting the Avigilon from JPEG2000 to MJPEG may have different compression settings. I'll have to try it on my Nikon DSLR, take a picture in raw and save it to JPEG2000 in Photoshop and save to JPEG and see if there's a big difference in artifacts. I would expect that there may be a difference, not sure it's to the same extent as show in viginetip's images. My thoughts are the cameras have different image quality and JPEG2000 is one reason, but not the complete reason and probably not even the major reason but I'll reserve judgment until I can run the test.

I see that now, was confused by Avigilon's website where they show domes and box cameras with h.264 and no mention of jpeg2000 but I now see that they once made a jpeg2000 dome (5.0MP-HD-DOME-DN). Also, with h.264 and mjpeg there's tuning options where you can decide on quality choices. So are we comparing to the highest possible h.264 or mjpeg quality to lossless jpeg2000? So why did they switch back from jpeg2000 to h.264 if it was better?

Good luck with those domes, I had serious IR LED light bleed issues until Hikvision changed their manufacturing on these. The new ones work great but may have caused manufacturing delays. Here's the differences between new vs. old. See how the old one covered half the LEDs and the large shape made it hard to conform to the dome's curves. Hikvision was very responsive in getting this resolved once I reported this. One reason my distributor can't get the new ones for about another week or two. They also made changes to the bullet. Also, the old design was a floating ring and the new one is fixed in place.

I can see why their Pro cameras would totally outperform the bullets, it has a much larger sensor and a real photographic Canon lens not to mention higher resolution. Also, on the same camera I feel h.264 at a high enough bit rate can surpass mjpeg. Also depends on mjpeg compression levels. In the products they show on their website, it appears to be their own creation, not sure they are use Avigilon Pro although in the pictures at Iguazu, it shows one in a box.

Maybe I can translate as I speak Spanglish as I'm a citizen of both countries. By the way, good pictures of your install at Iguazú National Park. We went during a violent thunderstorm that left the Sheraton in the park without air conditioning, my wife was not happy but turned around when we walked the beautiful park and falls. We then fled to Ushuaia to cool off. What viginetip is trying to show is the clearer sharper results he gets with his camera and has nothing to do with LPR but is using license plates to show the clarity differences between it an the Avigilon H3.

Can get pricy as first you need a camera with alarm i/o, that alone raises the bar on costs. Then you need an outdoor PIR which seem to run in the $80-120 range. Then you need to get 12vdc power to the PIR. I'll throw out Mobotix as having this built in but in reality, the range is so limited I haven't found use for it on any of the installed cameras. For now, the least expensive camera with alarm i/o is the higher end Dahua like the ipc-hfw-3200C and by the time you add an outdoor PIR and power supply, may be a little over $400. I'm working on a camera I want to import that will be under $200 and has alarm i/o but that's about a month out. The problem is many of the new cameras are using pigtails for Ethernet connectivity and forgo alarm i/o and 2 way audio in return for a pretty install.

In the U.S. the least expensive deal I know of is 4 Q-See cameras and NVR for $699 at Costco, or their 2-pack of Swann 1080P cameras for $299 and use NVR software but there airfare maybe pricy to get it. It's just the duties/tariffs are quite high in Oz, the price of living in paradise.

Absolutely. I try and re-use holes but not always possible.

Outside of the Costco comfort zone, I would imagine if you want to run Hikvision firmware and warranty is important to you, then get Hikvision, but that's just me. Not sure how Swann or Lorex would feel if you send the camera back for a warranty issue and they see someone else's firmware on it, just saying.

Sorry, yes Lorex. Costco carries both which are the same product, different brands so it gets confusing.

People comment on my cams all the time, maybe because I'm up on a ladder at least one a week changing them, LOL. Which reminds me, two on my desk aren't going to install themselves.

No, I was referring to Dahua, the version that was posted by Maxicon I installed on my ipc-hfw3300c - General_IPC-HX3(2)XXX_Eng_N_V2.210.0001.0.R.20130517 Here's what the screen looks like. I have not inserted an SD card yet, so it's blank. This is Easy Focus, the icon at the top and the numbers on the upper left of the image. The closer you get the numbers, the more in focus it is. Pardon the display, it's just on my desk.

The different editions are here so I would think Core would meet your needs as it supports up to 24 cameras. http://avigilon.com/products/avigilon-control-center/editions/

I was looking at the Avigilon videos, a must for those that are considering it, it looks similar to ACTi NVR3 but NVR3 has a cleaner look, but most features and the way it works appears similar. The advantage that Avigilon has is their pixel and thumbnail search. I'm trying to figure out how I would personally use those searches and not sure. The pixel search makes sense if you are covering a large area and want to find motion detect within a part of your image, I get it, just don't know how I would use it. The thumbnail search seems more useful, not sure it's more useful than just scrubbing the timeline. Synology has search features to, but have not tried them yet. http://avigilon.com/support-and-downloads/for-software/training-and-how-to-videos/ What features are in Avigilon that are not in Milestone? I haven't used it in a while so not sure. Also, how do the smartphone app compare, how do the web clients compare. Avigilon says web client only works with IE, does the Milestone work with other browsers, Macs?

1. 8 cameras is more than enough for most home users. I've had many cameras and I use 6 for my home. 2. MicasaVerde is OK for viewing stills from the cameras but no video, no recording, more of a convenience feature to see cameras in the Vera app but not really usefull for me. 3. Price is good but these cameras have some issues. They have terrible white balance which creates a purple cast during parts of the day. Also, the IR illuminator is very bright and if someone walks near it, it washes out their face. Lastly, these are 6mm lens, not wide angle which many prefer. I have this camera but use it in a specific situation where 6mm makes sense but most of my cameras are set at about 4mm. Costco has this system in and out and it's $699 from them. Still, I would step up a little and get their Swann System with 6 1080P cameras and NVR. It's on sale I believe for two weeks for $999. May seem like more but for about $140 more than what you mention, you get 2 more cameras, each one is double the resolution, you'll get decent color white balance and better image quality overall. Also, this NVR has 8 PoE ports vs. the Dahua has 4 PoE ports.

What country are you in and is the $500 per camera or for 4 cameras + NVR?

What's nice that I noticed is that if you record to the SD card, they now have a Playback tab to play back the recorded video. Before you had to play it back using PSS on your PC. I may throw an SD card in there because I wanted to have it at a remote site. Has anyone tested this? Also, they added this focus assist which is interesting. I guess you focus it until the numbers are close, then it thinks its' in focus. What bugs me is they still don't honor the aspect the ratio in their live view. I have it set to 3MP which is 4:3 but it distorts the image to show me 16:9. Sure, I can click some buttons but this should be automatic.