buellwinkle

Actually, the P3384 is either WDR or Lightfinder, not both at the same time, the P3367 is WDR and has good low light sensitivity, actually better than the P3384 in WDR mode. I'm not pushing 5MP as much as telling you which is the better camera overall and the 5MP is a bonus. Did you see my review? Here's snapshots from it. P3367-VE at night, color mode, no IR at all. You can see with WDR it's managing the headlight and you can even read the plate. this is B&W mode with IR This is the P3384-VE at night, color mode, WDR (no lightfinder) on This is the P3384-VE at night, color Lightfinder (no WDR) on This is the P3384-VE in BW mode

I thought you said it was not PoE? Is that not the case? 80m LED's would be nice. Was DSD that much more when you factor in shipping? From what I saw they were dramatically less.

Nobody wants to use ActiveX controls as that's how windows computers are typically compromised and I wish security companies would be sensitive to that, especially those that push unsigned ActiveX controls. Also, thanks in good part to Windows 8, many people are buying Mac's, even in the corporate world. Many tech companies I've worked for either provide MacBook's now or at least give you the option of a Mac and my work laptop is a MacBook. Even people with Windows are using Firefox, sure it's a mediocre browser, but it's a very secure browser.

No, both switch to BW at night if there's not enough light. Check the images I have in my review so you can get a better idea as I reviewed the P3367 and P3384 back to back. Every situation is different, but in my neighborhood, most home burglaries are during the day and from behind the home, so an area that large, I would position 3 P3367's across the back. The front of the home, at least in my area, is where quick smash and grab car break-ins occur, also kids causing mayhem, so one camera covering the entrance which can be 1MP and one covering the driveway, which should be higher resolution. If you covered the rear and front well, the sides are certainly entry points but typically they would have passed the front and back by now so you need to capture what they are doing and you can get away with a 1MP, but when something happens, nobody here ever wished they had less resolution.

You may want to look software that uses the camera's resources for motion detection. Exacq and Avigilon are two software NVR's that do this, but first check if all your cameras are compatible. Milestone does this with a few cameras. Also, doing PIR alarm motion detection may also decrease the load on the server if the software supports it. How did you end up with such a wide mix of cameras? The Intel X5680 was a good 6 core processor but that's a 2-3 year old processor. There's better ivy bridge 8 & 10 core Xeons now. Also, you can try and overclock the chip you have, I believe you can get 4Mhz out of it. But it's all processing power, RAM is not important. The reason is all the h264 decoding it's doing on every stream and then recoding it to write out events. BlueIris, a lower end product recently went direct to disk on recordings that works with many cameras and CPU use dropped in half for me and the recordings are cleaner. So I think NVR software vendors are realizing that with new 3 & 5MP cameras out there, they need to make their software more efficient. If you want to use what you got but make it work, compromise frame rate, bit rates, resolution and you can gain a lot of performance. For example, no need to record everything at 30fps, cutting it down to 15-20fps will still give you pretty smooth video, reduce the load on the server dramatically and reduce disk space used.

You have such a large area, not sure you will be happy with 1MP cameras like the P3364/P3384. May cost a little more, but the P3367-VE at 5MP has very good low light sensitivity, not that much worse from the 1MP "Lightfinder" cameras and I was very surprised when I did the review on it back to back with the P3384-VE. Also, the P3384-VE is Lightfinder or WDR, not both, but the P3367, you get pretty good low light sensitivity + WDR. You can start with white light outdoor house and landscape lights and figure where to add IR illuminators later. Someone here can recommend lower cost IR illuminators than Axis provides as they are very pricey. I tried these $40 ones on eBay that were awesome, but both only lasted a few months and died. So maybe better than the $40 and less than $800 Axis ones. Also, while micro SD cards sound like a great idea, they are expensive for 64GB, $60-70 each and if the camera is stolen, they just took your recordings with it. With 4 cameras, just get a nice 2-3TB NAS, plug it in the same switch and it will hold way more recordings for less money. On the low end, I use a WD My Book Live or if you want some redundancy, a Netgear ReadyNas.

dsd cctv dot com. They are in Shenzhen so shipping is cheaper. Maybe show Tina the price on Aliexpress and see if she will match it.

I prefer to stay with one brand myself but there's always that one camera you may want and it happens. If you start mixing brands, it may be best to look at NVR software and getting a PC to run it. This gives you the most flexibility.

I see why they are sooo expensive on shipping, it's because they are in Hangzhou so they are shipping from mainland China which is crazy expensive. Most camera resellers are in Shenzhen which borders HK, they send it by courier to HK and the shipping is less expensive. Did they quote you the lower price on shipping, because if you add up the prices, even for slow EMS shipping for 4 cams and an NVR was about $400.

Wow, the ratings look awful for all sorts of reasons.

The problem with them that I see is they give you a false low price but charge ridiculous prices for shipping. $109 for shipping a tiny camera via DHL. Check out DSD, they charge more for the camera, but realistic shipping prices, but the combination of the two will be a lot less expensive. Also, what form of payment do they take? Also, not 100% sure, but the NVR supports only 1080P resolution.

Kogorth, seems like you have the same problem that I ran into with the newer varifocal cameras. Apparently during early production they made a mistake on lens alignment or early versions of the cameras, a curse for us that have to be first kids on the block with the shiny new toy. If you send it in, they can adjust the lens and all will be well. If you haven't noticed, the right side of the image is out of focus. People ordering now shouldn't have that problem.

First, why are you recording the sky? Not a fan of the 4MP ACTi cameras, their low light sensitivity is pretty poor. The camera has been replaced by newer 3 & 5MP cameras that are considerably better, but still will not do what you want. There's a 1080P dome that has a large hard drive built in and does video analytics right in the camera. This will distinguish between clouds, shadows and people to give you accurate motion detection as you expect. Check out their website at http://www.videoiq.com/ Also, Mobotix now has MxAnalytics in their latest firmware to do object detection rather than video motion detection. It's in their newer cameras like the D15 dome.

I recently did some reviews on Q-See cameras, even one indoor model that was never previously reviewed as Dahua so I get asked, what's the difference and sure, there's the obvious, warranty and support from a decent sized company and good prices at Costco.com. But I did find one big difference by accident and I get asked often enough, what cameras work with Safari on Mac, and I can tell you that by accident, because I chose Safari instead of IE on Windows on my Macbook by accident to view the camera, Q-See cameras, even the old one I'm using from 6 months ago works well using the Safari browser on my Macbook Air. Dahua does not. There's some minor differences in the interface, for example, there's no snapshot or record button, but overall it looks the same. This may have changed in newer Dahua firmware version, but the Dahua cameras I have do not work with Safari on a Mac (or Safari on Windows for that matter).

Huh, a quick fix to what?

Maxi, how do you limit Dahua to 1/30th of a second max auto exposure? You probably have newer firmware but this is not an option on any of my Dahua cameras. So it could be lower noise but giving you longer exposure than you think.

The NVR software writes to hard drives on the computer that runs the software. The SD cards come in handy if the NVR computer breaks for whatever reason, you can have the cameras write to SD. I wish it did this automatically but not sure anyone does. I know Mobotix had it in their roadmap to do.

Have you looked at Milestone XProtect, they have products in various price ranges. Actually Exacq is not cheap because their Start edition, if that's what you were thinking of is limited to 16 cameras.

No, just have the camera set to a fixed IP and use that with the Safari browser.

Haha, tough choices out there with everyone upping their game. I'm actually looking at buying the very same Hikvision but with a 12mm lens to replace a Q-See 1.3mp bullet but mostly because I want the 12mm lens and because one feature I can't stand on Dahua is the IR illuminators can not be turned off, even if put the camera in day mode. We have a condo where we want to use the camera and need to have it indoors looking out and I need to turn off the IR or it will bounce back in the window. But that's my one case. I have a Dahua 1080P camera in my backyard, been there about a year and had the Swann 1080P and image quality is comparable and would be nit picking to say once stands out dramatically over the other. The issue I have with Dahua image quality is it relies heavily on strong noise reduction and that's what gives them a nice clean image at night BUT during the day, it takes fine detail like blades of grass and processes it like noise and there's no way to turn that off. At night, because you can tweak the noise reduction settings on the Hikvision, you can lower this so that it's a trade off between a pretty picture or one with slight noise but higher detail. Again, more tuning knobs on Hikvision, for example, I can set a max auto exposure to say 1/30th, the Dahua not. Then there's WDR, this is a clear win for Hikvision, but Dahua's latest firmware provides WDR, not sure if it's as good as Hikvision though. Another quirk, and doesn't exist on the Dahua 1080P camera I have because it's the large bullet and not sure the HFW3200S has it but the similar looking HFW2100 does is the wide hood over the front of the lens reflects IR back into the camera and creates sort of a halo. People here have painted it black with a sharpie but Hikvision saw the problem and coats that hood in black so not an issue. Then you have 3MP + 1080P vs. only 1080P. This depends on your situation but I, like other suburbanites, live on a smaller lot, 100x60. So I prefer my cameras to have a 4:3 aspect ratio that 3MP delivers and not this wide panoramic view of 1080P. It's not even the extra pixels I care about as much as the aspect ratio. With Dahua, it's 1080P or less, with the Hikvision, it's 1080P or 3MP. Since my backyard is shallow and wide the 1080P makes sense, but in my driveway that's that's deeper than wider the 3MP makes sense, so it's a matter of choice. PM me where you are getting the cameras. I want to see if they can get me the Hikvision with the 12mm lens that's in their spec sheet.

I love lit up houses, nothing uglier than driving down a street late at night to have all the lights out and be dark. BUT, just make sure you don't annoy the wife, happy wife, happy life and lights on the outside do have a way of shining inside too, so certainly a consideration. Also, porch lights work for me because I'm in a tiny suburban lot in comparison. But if you need to project out further than say 10-20', then IR illuminators may be the better choice as they can shine 50' away because they are focused in one direction where porch lights are omnidirectional. So this is why I chose a brand like ACTi that has IR illuminators built in across most of their line of cameras. I get the same level of support from ACTi as Axis or Mobotix. Sometimes all 3 get back to you the same day, sometimes it takes a few days, not saying anyone of them is perfect, but they will go out of their way to help and I've had all 3 connect directly to my camera to troubleshoot a problem. Also, while Axis and Mobotix do not make an NVR, ACTi has a pretty decent NVR, priced reasonably. ACTi can write to a NAS or SD but there's no easy way to view the recordings, so not recommended for that use.

Get a Hikvision instead and you don't have to decide, it has a drop down so you can chose at anytime.

Camera image quality and customer service in this price range is probably close these days so I'll focus on the differentiators. Mobotix D14 dnight has no moving parts, we have a bunch, and never had one fail or hang since 2009. They can operate complete without a PC, meaning you can record to SD or NAS and view the camera and recordings without a PC, just a browser, even from an iPad Safari browser. I can expand to as many cameras as you can need, no limit. It's limitations are 3MP for day and 1.3MP for night. While no software or PC is required, it's one camera at a time, if you want more of a CMS look where you can see a few cameras at a time, you can install their MxControlCenter software and it provides an easier to use interface and can see multiple cameras on one display. Axis P33 has moving parts, it has a motor to operate the lens, it has a day/night IR cut filter that rotates twice a day and I've had Axis cameras fail, but overall they are well made. The advantage of the motorized varifocal lens and motorized focus is that it can make install easier, but once installed, you will not likely use this feature again. They come in various resolution which Mobotix does not, so you can get 1MP or 5MP and actually their best is the 5MP, the p3367-ve, works well in low light although not quite as good as the Mobotix night sensor. Axis does make on outdoor camera with IR illuminators, the P3364-LVE, but it's only 1MP. Their ACC software that allows it to do what you want, write to SD or NAS is limited to 16 cameras, it's an actual in-camera app that runs, it's a PITA to setup say on a laptop where you want to use your local IP at home but WAN IP when away, and is not browser based, it's software you install on Windows and installing it on multiple PC's is also a pain as you have to synchronize the configuration between them. But it's much easier to use than Mobotix. Also, doesn't really display all the cameras at once in a grid pattern, it shows one camera in a larger size and all the rest along the bottom as thumbnails. Tough choice. On my commercial projects, it's mostly Mobotix, why, because 16 camera limit won't cut it and the cameras are only viewed when an incident is reported, so some cameras are not touched for a year, and a year later, I want to know it's working. At home, I use ACTi mainly because I like cameras with built in IR illuminators, but otherwise I would use Axis cameras. So what do you since you chosen two brands that for the most part don't have IR illuminators built in. If you can tolerate white light, I've been happy with porch lights in the front of my home that use LED bulbs (CFL is not as effective). But clearly there will be spots where that's not practical. like my side yard lights bother my neighbor and you need IR lighting. Axis OEM's their lights from RayTec from what I can tell, prices are comparable. A good Axis or RayTec IR illuminator should run $800-1,300. You can go to the Axis or Raytec website to see what's available. I always assume that you get half the rated output. Meaning if it says it's good for 100', I would assume that it will work to my satisfaction at 50'. It's not that they are lying, it's that they assume you are OK with very slow shutter speeds which are not practical. Also be careful on the width of light, like it may say 30-60 degrees, but the distance of light is different at different angles but in their advertising they will say 100', but not tell you it's at 30 degrees and maybe only 50' at 60 degrees. Most of these run off 12v or 120VAC, so make sure you consider this in the design. They make PoE lights but they typically require higher power midspan injectors, not what your typical PoE switch can handle and if you go through that much trouble, might as well just run 12v.

Here's the problem with Axis, they make nice cameras but not really one that makes cameras with built in IR LEDs. They do have one outdoor model, the P3364-LVE that does, but it's only 1MP (720P) and I like at least 1080P or 3MP outdoors. So you say, why not just run Axis external IR illuminators, brilliant, until you find out they cost more than the already expensive camera. We are looking at one that's $1,300 for one illuminator, just for the part, not installing it. But you may be able to get away with cheaper Axis illuminators in the $800 range. But lets go with just the one model that has built in IR LEDs. Then they don't make NVR's, you don't want a PC with software, so figure you'll need a third party standalone NVR, hard drives and setup. I can tell you for something like that, figure between 2,500 and 3,000 per camera installed and about the same for the NVR, so $12,500 to 15,000 is normal but I'm sure you'll get bids for a lot more too. Bids much below that may be from low ballers trying to do somethings that's above their heads. The real problem will be finding an NVR that works well via a Mac. Yes, all the cool kids have Macs and I've had a Mac since the early Mac SE's so I know how wonderful Macs can be and that's why I run Windows on my Mac so I can connect to my cameras and NVR software. I have yet to find one that's compatible with my Mac that I like. Sorry, it is what it is. Sure, you can connect to Axis cameras directly from a Mac, but the not the NVR, not the recordings. So let us know how that works out for you, always interested in keeping my Mac happy, although Windows runs really well using VMWare Fusion and I have an IE icon on my task bar and sure, the first time it takes a minute or two to come up, after that it's pretty quick. As for iPads, iPhones, tons of apps out there to watch your cameras from your phone or tablet. That's the least of your worries. The Axis apps are not written or maintained by Axis and are expensive and have very poor ratings and have no access to recording or any advantage over any other app on iTunes, so shop that like any app, view the customer reviews, load the free version and try it if you can. I would not pay more than $5 for an app. I use IP Cam Viewer on my Android tablet and phone and it's awesome. On my iPhone and iPad I don't use any such apps, screen is too small on iPhone and my old 10" iPad's too big to haul around these days for what it does so I take my Macbook Air instead or my Android Nexus tablet. While I always liked Macs, not an iPhone fan, only have it because my company gave it to me. The real way to save money and I can't tell you to do it yourself if you are afraid but find a licensed electrician to run all the Ethernet cables, mount the cameras and do all the heavy lifting. This may set you back a full day of labor, $50-60/hr, $400-500. Worst case, you have a complex house to wire, so double that, $800-1,000. My electrician does stuff like this all the time, even for schools and businesses. He has no clue how to configure or aim anything, just installs. Then figure how to aim the cameras and configure them. It's not rocket science and you have the entire network camera braintrust here for assistance. Doing it yourself teaches you all you need to know about the cameras, so if something goes wrong, you know how to fix it. Also, for what it's worth, even if you have all the cameras installed by an electrician and then call in a surveillance camera tech, how much can he possibly charge to aim and setup the cameras and an NVR, say one day, $100/hr, $800. So you see, with $5,000 worth of cameras and NVR maybe $1,500 worth of labor and you saved half on your project. And trust me, we hired top surveillance camera companies and the quality of work was embarrassing. Finding someone that truly knows what they are doing is going to take you more effort than learning it yourself. We had one guy spend an entire month setting up 7 cameras, every day, 8 hours for one month. After that time, I took a peek and none of the date/time was set, none of the cameras names were specified, none of the cameras had motion detect zones set, the router was not configured correctly, the cameras weren't focused properly, the aiming was terrible and nothing was recording. I had to go in and spend a day and do it myself. In contrast I had one guy install 4 cameras, same brand, Mobotix, in one day and was done, with just some minor tweaks I had to do myself. Too bad I can't find him anymore.

You are buying software that costs as much as the camera and you are worried that a 3MP camera costs more than a 1MP camera? Doesn't the Lorex version at Costco cost $175, so are you saying that you are getting the Dahua for $88? Wow, that's a good price. Best I can do is $90 on that camera.