buellwinkle

No, it's more due to lack of auto-iris. The sensor is exposed to full sun baking the sensor and lens. The sensor or lens may warp until it cools off later in the day. With auto-iris, the aperture is reduced during very bright situations providing a sharper image and protecting the sensor.

Take a look at Geovision software, it has analytic capabilities built in. My experience with analytics with megapixel cameras is that you'll need a ton of processing power, maybe one core per camera. Maybe an HP DL580 series or equivalent, with 32-40 cores. Storage is certainly important and I think the DL580 can have 8 internal drives although you said you are building your own raid storage array.

I have and enjoy our E32 and it's not that much different than the E34 other than better WDR, but clearly your camera is busted, either a bad sensor or a stuck IR cut filter. Just open a support ticket or call them and send them the image and if you can, give them access to the camera and tell them it's new and you want a replacement. Sorry it happened, but feces happens. For what it's worth, my E32 was bad out of the box, kept turning off and on, they replaced it with a new one and it's good. I think it's because it's such a new model, there's some manufacturing glitches that happen. I had issues with more expensive brands on new models also and doing what I do, I have to be the first kid on the block to have a new camera

$5,000, wow, that is cheap for 4 cameras installed by a professional security company. Figure there's about $1,200 in stuff you are getting and maybe $500 for an licensed electrician to install it. So for only $3,300 profit is actually good. We get bids on project and sometimes a vendor thinks they are clever and bid cheap cameras for $10k for 4 analog cameras and a DVR. But reality check, our low bids may be $15K for 4 Mobotix cameras installed, no NVR. Sure, these are $1,500 cameras, but even then, with extras and labor that's $8K profit and we run all the conduit for them because they don't want to get their fingernails dirty. Maybe we can get them to come and install 4 cameras for us for $5K and they can keep the lousy cameras and we'll supply them with the good ones. I would avoid no-name or unpopular cameras and stick to proven products. You can get a nice Axis system, commercial grade P series, use Axis Cameras Companion to record to a NAS. Hire an electrician (if you are in So Cal I can recommend someone) that will run all the wiring for you and all you do is aim them and configure some minor stuff and you'll have a system worth $5k. Or if you want to save a few bucks, put in 4 ACTi cameras, ACTi NVR and have an electrician install everything and be way under $5K.

The best camera that I use for what you want is AVTech's push video series. If you get one with an SD card slot, from just about any smart phone, blackberry, android, ios, etc, you can view live video, you can view video recorded on the SD card and if there's motion detection from it's built in PIR motion detector, you will get a chirp on your phone within seconds and it will play back the last recorded event. It's worked really well for me for a few years at our weekend place with never one false alarm and detect activity every time there's activity. They are good 1.3MP cameras with decent low light sensitivity. I did reviews on a few of them, but haven't kept in touch with the manufacturer because they are a little hard to get.

Yes, they once were "simple". They have moving object detection that can distinguish a real object that is in motion like a car or person. It's a firmware upgrade on their newer cameras like the D14, S14 and such. It's called MxActivitySensor and here's more details on it. http://www.mobotix.com/eng_US/Company/News/News-2013/MOBOTIX-Re-invents-Motion-Detection-And-Reduces-False-Alarms-Through-The-New-MxActivitySensor

Did you get a signal drop with that A/C duct in the way? Can't you just relocate it past that? The issue is you may get a connection, but the price may be much slower link.

The only brands that do this right are Mobotix and Axis. Mobotix does it natively with everything included in the camera, meaning you can use just about any browser to view it, so if you have a Mac for example, it is a better choice. Axis uses an app that runs in the camera, like an app running on your smart phone. The app, Axis Camera Companion (ACC) takes care of all the recording to SD or NAS but it's not really natively accessible. You'll need to install the ACC software on Windows to view the cameras or recordings and make changes to settings, there's no web client, no real smart phone client and I found it a pain because say you have it installed at home, then you install it on your travel laptop and you have to export the configuration from the desktop to the laptop, but they are different because the desktop is on the LAN, the laptop uses WAN addresses and each camera has to be port forwarded for it to work remotely. So beside Axis and Mobotix, there's several companies that offer SD card storage for recorded events including ACTi but it's not going to be as easy. Basically, you'll be presented with a list of recordings, download a few and play them on a PC. So depends how often you plan on doing this but if you check regularly, it could be a PITA to deal with. With ACTi, you can use their free NVR3 software which is quite good and responsive from a remote location using a browser. It' slow to connect, sometimes taking 2-3 minutes, but once connected, even when we travel Europe, we have full access to the camera, the recordings, change settings and such. It's so efficient, you can run it on an a slower PC. We had it running on an Atom processor nettop for a while and then switched to an older user i3 based PC. So maybe a cheap or even re-purposed older PC and you are up and running with a commercial solution. Also, for a mixed camera brand solution, BlueIris provides the ability to view the cameras and recordings remotely. From Europe the access was very quick to the live view in contrast to waiting a few minutes above, but you had a very crude web interface. The cameras displayed fine, but viewing recordings were based off a list of files with camera names. So click on the file name brings up the recording. It's $50 per server and requires a better PC, a least a modern day i5 for a few cameras you mention.

The Swann has better specs, don't know why, but can go to -4F where the Lorex bullet can only go down to 14F which eliminates half the country. The Hikvision branded version can natively do 3MP resolution and is the only one of the trio that is supported as a standalone camera (Swann and Lorex are only supported with their specific NVRs).

Don't think there would be much of a contest, the Axis is just an awesome 5MP dome for low light sensitivity and the ACTi 5MP sensor is not going to perform as well in low light, but has an IR illuminator built in, but even with the IR illumination, Axis is much better. Of course having built in IR illuminators in a complete dark situation will trump no illumination at all and Axis illuminators can easily cost as much as the camera itself. But like you said, twice the price. I would compromise and get the E82 with the 3MP sensor, decent low light sensitivity, IR illuminator and priced well. I'm getting a few domes to review, the E83 is not one of them but the E84 is.

The higher end Avigilon cameras have 35mm sensors, but off course not the same price range as ACTi, but if you need to take 8,16 or 29mp video, that may be the one to get.

When you say you want to see 40' away, do you mean literally see what is 40' away, like there's a blue car passing by or be able to recognize or ID someone. With a 3MP camera, 4mm lens, you can probably recognize someone at 40', not ID them, maybe ID at 25'. You can get the D32 which is similar to the E32 but no WDR for under $300 or get the D31 which is 1MP and recognize someone at maybe at 20' and ID them at about 12' and that you can probably find closer to $240. The 1080P Swann or Lorex for $349 for a two pack at Costco and find someone to split with, that would put you half way in between a 1MP and 3MP camera. Costco sells the Q-See two pack for $299, with 1.3MP probably has similar ability to ID someone as the 1080P cameras because of the longer lens and 4:3 aspect ratio. I bought the two pack but only used one camera if you want it for $150, never used, brand new, no tax, free shipping. You can use free recording software like from Axxonsoft.

I'm assuming he meant the ES2108PWR that is PoE.

I haven't tried it with Axis with 3.3v, but ACTi has 12v out for a PIR motion detector.

I was not able to open the page, but I'll assume from the URL it's that 8 port 60W injector that a few people have mentioned. I'm guess you should be able to put 6 cameras on it as you'll reach the 60W limit before using all 8 ports with this camera. You do realize you'll need patch cables and a switch or were you planning to plug cameras directly into your router? It's better to just get a PoE switch, less entanglement of wires and one less outlet needed. I paid $107 for 16 port PoE switch with full power on each PoE port.

Sounds like a very nice home system.

I run 6 ACTi on NVR3 ranging from older 1.3MP to newer 2, 3 and 5MP cams on an old, old, i3-540 and it sits about 2% CPU busy, you can make up your own mind. I used to run it happily on an Atom processor nettop, but Maxicon found these deals from a defunct NVR company on i3-540 PCs for $200 I couldn't pass it up All the motion detection is handled by the cameras and the stream is written to disk direct from the camera, so the CPU doesn't need to do much. Even displaying doesn't take much because you use the second stream which is much lower resolution and frame rate.

Maybe the Hikvision version has a heater inside and the Lorex spec'ed out cheaper components in theirs. Just get the Swann at Costco, it's rated a more reasonable -4F to 140F.

The 5MP sensor does require a lot more light at night than the 3MP. Get one of each to start and compare side by side for which works best where. I'll have 3 ACTi domes next week to review but the 2 and 3MP, not 5MP. Don't worry about a PC, a simple i3 or i5 PC would be more than enough to handle 9 5MP cameras using ACTi's NVR software. Just setup the viewing to be on the second stream so you can view without eating up a lot of bandwidth, after all, what good is viewing 5MP on a TV or monitor that is only 2MP. The recording will still take place on the 1st stream at the full 5MP resolution.

For one camera, I've use a wall wort type PoE adapter sold on eBay. It's easy because you plug it into the wall like a cell phone charger and then plug the camera and the router into it and you are done. I think I paid $15. As for cameras, don't get a dome because they require some degree of mechanical skills to mount and aim. As for bullets, the one I like at this time is the ACTi E32, it's an IR bullet with 3MP, priced well and ACTi has good customer service and support if she runs into a problem. They also provide free NVR software that's very good, easy to install and use and a free IOS app. What I also like is the mount is separate from the camera and I think that makes it easier to install. Just attach the mount with 3 screws. Then thread the mount onto the camera bottom or top.

I find with these cameras, there's a direct relationship between WDR setting and noise. Are both of these cameras set the same WDR strength or off?

Sure, for the $100 you pay at Costco above and beyond the cameras, you get 8 PoE ports, 8 channel NVR, 2TB hard drive, it's a no brainer.

I have older 2-axis domes inside my house, and yes, you can wall mount as long as you have the lens pointed straight out and use the tilt to move it up/down. If you rotate the camera to point to to the side, then the image will tilt. They should really be clear about this as I didn't see that in the specs for either camera. Now in theory, there's two screws with posts that hold the lens assembly. It may be possible to unscrew that, and rotate the lens a little in either direction and drill new holes and do it that way. To wall mount 2-axis domes, you need to buy a wall mount and not sure Lorex or Hikvision make a wall mount specific for this camera. This would be like an L shaped bracket mounted to the wall and the camera hangs down from that. There are generic wall mounts, just go on ebay and search for dome wall mount.

When the 16 port version is out, it will have 16 PoE ports.

That aspect works, there is isolation between the IR LEDs and lens, not perfect by any means, but certainly better than Dahua. It's a weird setup where it's a loose hood that floats, so with the camera facing down, gravity brings it towards the lens. I thought it had an SD card but I was wrong. It supports NAS but for the life of me can't figure out how to make it work, so I pinged their guys to see if they can help. That would be cool if it can write directly to NAS and then provide recording timeline to view events. The biggest gripe and the reason I have not mounted the camera yet is that this is a 2-axis dome, so a no go on my normal slanted roof eave, so I have to fabricate a mount to make the camera level. For those that don't understand, this camera should only mounted on a horizontal surface, not wall mounted, not mounted on an angle. If you need 3-axis, get the bullet. For those that worried that the LEDs are partially blocked, not a problem, there are no LEDs on the extreme top, so none are blocked regardless of where you position the lens. As for 30fps, it shows the setting at 30fps at 3MP, but have no idea if it really is or isn't. I'll connect it to BI during my testing as it displays the actual fps rate.