buellwinkle

I put one in a meeting room, looks like smoke detector, works well to capture people entering from entrance on both sides of the room. It's mounted about 9' high. Where it falls short is it's day only, so if you need day/night performance, the newer S14/S15 would give two discrete camera, one for day, one for night and they have hemispheric lenses. There's equivalents from Axis, Geovision and ACTi that I know of. The Axis is indoor only, day only and 5MP, priced well, about $600ish.

The problem with most NVR software is that the software handles everything and with h.264, it can use a lot of CPU cycles to decode the cameras, analyze for motion detection and recode to write video out. Running something like that on a P9700 core 2 duo, well that's not going to happen. Start thinking of getting a new PC with the new Haswell i5 or i7 processors or maybe pick up an old Ivy Bridge processor PC with an i5 or i7, seriously. Alternatively you can go with more efficient software like Exacq which should support your cameras. As for it not recording the event from the start you have to understand a little about how the buggers work. First what happens is video motion detection is done over time, say motion that occurs for over a few frames or what they call make time, so instantly you lose the first few frames. Next it's H.264, so it has to start on an I-frame or key frame, so on most cameras this is set to 1-2 seconds, so 30fps camera may have the I-frame set to 30 or 60. So depends on how you catch it, you could lose as much as second or two. So you see how you can easily lose the most critical portion of your video as the subject walks through your field of vision. But most NVRs or NVR software allows you to setup a pre-event recording and I usually set it to the max it allows, like 2 to 5 seconds. There also settings for how long to record when motion stops before it's re-triggered. I can't imagine that Pelco would leave this out of their software, just have to RTFM. As for bandwidth, seems high, but with h.264, 2MP cameras, you should set them for 4-6Mbps at most, so 3 should be 12-18Mbps. The 1.3MP indoor dome, maybe set that for 3-4Mbps.

The problem I have is that it's blindingly bright and unlike the similar looking Axis M10 series with the white light, it's on all the time at night and have no idea how to turn it off. Even if I turn it off manually, it turns itself back on. With the Axis, the white light does not come on until motion is detected.

Nothing cooler than showing your buddies that you can see what's going on at your house from your smartphone.

The Lorex/Swann cameras are way better than Q-See Dahua cameras besides them being twice the resolution.

For indoors, like AVTech and Axis cubes do it, the white LED is OK for a home or business that's no occupied at night but for home use, it would be very distracting and annoying. But they do it to save costs, I get that but the industry has moved on and for $200-250 their cameras cost, it's no longer the bargain it once was now that Dahua and Hikvision have a wider audience and even Foscam has stepped up their game. If they want to keep up, for the same price, they need to have IR cut filters and IR LED and move up to 1080P. Also, on their push video series outdoor cameras, they need to seriously think about PoE because by not having it, they are competing more with Foscam than the commercial brands making them seem more overpriced.

You want us to make buying decision for you, like what car should I buy, what pants should I buy, what should I have for lunch today, like your helpless. Several people offered their recommendations, you have to run with it.

Pretty close but then there's warranty and service and I haven't worked with Hikvision long enough to comment as they are fairly new in the U.S. market with their own brand. ACTi has very good customer service, to me at least as good as high end brands like Axis and Mobotix if not better.

First Go Pro HD is an expensive camera costs more than what the dash cams costs and it doesn't have GPS for direction and speed geo tracking. Also is not auto on for 12V, so you have to manually turn on/off each time.

Hikvision provides CMS software like PSS, you can download and see but I haven't tried it.

No, these cameras do not have alarm inputs for motion sensors but BlueIris pretty good video motion detection, better than most cameras I've used. With BlueIris, you can view the recordings from it's PC interface, from a web browser or via their IOS and Android app. I heard some people like Synology, some hate it, I have not reviewed it yet so don't know but it's on my list.

Thanks. I used to host the pictures on another site that got infected with a virus several times so I took it down. That review is now fixed. I found the perfect dash cam and it's free, my smart phone. Get a car dock for it, put it on your dashboard and get a free dashcam app like AutoGuard for Android. It actually may be better because it integrates GPS for speed and direction of travel and integrates with navigation.

The biggest plus on ACTi is their free NVR software which is pretty good.

Yes, I reviewed the cameras when they first came out and they work find without their NVR. I used with BlueIris with no problem. You just need to specify Hikvision when choosing the camera brand.

We don't get rain here, a tiny bit, 5" for the entire year, so not a big problem, but a small camera with good low light capability mounted behind the mirror would do the trick. Also, the make tiny cameras that mount on license plate frames for rear view cameras, maybe those can be used front and back and run to a small DVR with SD card to record.

Definitely, from a security standpoint, vandal domes are better, but they are harder to setup for beginners, 2-axis domes make it even harder and in this price range, there are compromises. In a perfect world, we can get Axis P33 or Mobotix D15 domes for under $250. Also, pro-burglars are not going to be deterred by cameras. They will wear lose clothing, caps, glasses, even masks, spray your cameras with paint and then do what they want to do. You'll never stop the pro's. but at least slow them down, hope they make a mistake but most home or small business burglaries are not done by people that are that smart, mostly smash and grab. Also, cameras are deterrent, why go through the trouble of robbing a home with high end surveillance cameras and/or alarms when most home have zero security.

Hikvision is the manufacturer of Swann and Lorex cameras.

The NVR solutions proposed can be expensive costing well over $1,000 for 4-8 camera system just for the software, not including hardware. If you stick to one brand on installs, some offer pretty decent NVR software for free. For example, i use ACTi NVR3 and it's very good, for sure better for me than Milestone and Exacq but never tried Avigilon so no clue there. We also use Mobotix at 2 sites which does not need an NVR. I rather spend the money on better cameras, just saying.

That's a nice theory, but won't work because you are rotating the camera which is no different than panning. When you pan, you are just rotating where the lens points, what you want to do is rotate the actual sensor, the 3rd axis and you can't do that by rotating the camera. I did take it apart and you may be able to remove the circuit board that holds the lens and rotate to a fixed position and then find a way to mount it back in place. Do go about 10-15 degrees, it looked possible, beyond that it would be very difficult. But you may break the camera so do so at your own risk. Trust me, I own two 2-axis ACTi domes, I've been there, done that. I have one wall mounted, but looks straight out, the other is ceiling mounted and I can point it exactly where I need it to be.

Hikvision does not make a PTZ network camera. Also, you do realize that a 720P or 1080P PTZ is not cheap, may cost more than your entire system you are looking at. The least expensive I've used are Panasonic, they have them down to the $1,000 price range for indoors and a few hundred more for an outdoor housing. ACTi has an indoor one that runs about $1,500 and again, a few hundred more for outdoor. Dahua has some but harder to get and run about $800-1,200 depending on features. Don't know if any of these will work with that NVR. For a kids room, I've use the Panasonic BL-C230A, a cheapie tiny white cube, VGA resolution but pan/tilt for remote viewing (no zoom) and believe they run about $200ish. They also came out with a 720P version, don't have the model number but identical in looks and functionality, just higher resolution, not sure that's needed in a small room where you are not trying to ID your kid, you already know what he looks like. Again, not likely to work with that NVR, so if this is your goal, maybe forgo the NVR and get NVR software like BlueIris for example that supports many brands of cameras and cost under $50 or go with an NVR that supports multiple brands of camera.

The reason is that the camera lens can only pan/tilt, it can't rotate, so if you mount it flat on a vertical wall, you can aim the lens straight out and tilt without a problem. If you try to pan the lens left/right, it will rotate the lens. For example, if you pan the lens say 20 degrees, it may tilt the image 20 degrees. With a 3-axis camera you can rotate the lens a to compensate.

The only problem I ran into with Exacq is that they are very specific about which cameras are supported and I had mixed luck. When it works, it works well.

Maybe overkill to have a 1080P camera on a website for weather. Were you planning on having live streaming video or still images updated on a regular basis. Were you going to integrate weather data into the camera display or keep it separate. For example, if the weather data is separate, having more than even VGA resolution may take up too much screen real estate, maybe 800x600 at most with weather data integrated in the display. The reason I ask is why put money into a 1080P camera when the money may better go towards a more reliable camera. Also, how important is low light capability because the Dahua with the illuminators works well if your subject is say 30-40' away, but a panoramic mountain view would not benefit from this at all. Also, what's weather like? Because maybe a box camera in a housing with a heater/fan/wiper may make more sense. BTW, here's a Stardot webcam near me. I really don't like the image quality but it could be how the camera was setup. Here's another on the same lake, a very old Mobotix camera - http://www.golakearrowhead.com/webcams/view

No, the $3.99 eliminates commercials and I believe you can record to your phone. To get something that can view recordings, you'll need a solution that's integrated into NVR software. For example, BlueIris smart phone apps together with BlueIris NVR software.

They have an issue with the newer varifocal lens IR cameras. I tested a few and all of them are the same, doesn't matter dome or bullet. When you have the camera at it's widest angle, the IR only lights up maybe 25% of the image and what I heard back is that it is what it is, they don't see it as a bug. If you zoom out more, at least half way, you'll see it gets better. I don't believe the fixed focal lens camera have this problem, not the ones I tested, so that may be a way to go. The problem with the E31/E32 is that the web browser interface shows more noise at night than you actually get in still shots or recordings, don't know why. Try clicking on the snapshot button, you'll see the image is much clearer.