buellwinkle

In return for green concrete, LOL.

And they sell them at Costco.com, at least in the U.S.

I don't drive a BMW and I like ACTi cameras and find them to be good bang for the buck. For example you can get the D32, a 3MP IR Bullet for under $300. Their free NVR software is quite good. The Costco.com deal, which sold out a few days ago but may come back for a Swann 1080P IR Bullet 2-pack for $349 is a nice low priced camera. You can use them with BlueIris software for about $50. Now If you find yourself driving a BMW, the Axis P3367-VE, 5MP vandal dome is one of my favorites and only about $1,300. Then add an Axis IR illuminator for another $1,000 and you are set. You can use their Axis Camera Companion software for free.

You can surface mount on a wall or mount a under an eave and they have 3 axis adjustments.

This camera has awful white balance, worst I've seen in a modern day camera. It changes depending on the time of day, which way it's pointed and even from camera to camera. You can tweak the image settings to try and get something better.

The P3384-VE review is up.

I hear ya, that's what why I'm looking at a Axis Q1604 with a good 5-50mm lens so we can that tight shot and light up the area with a strong illuminator to reduce the contrast of the lights and plate. The plate doesn't have to be readable at all locations, the car will have to pass a point where the software will recognize the plate. Did look at Avigilon but they don't have an in-camera LPR solution that I can found.

Lunkhead, Have not had a chance to look into QNAP up close. They were at the ISC West show and they said they would lend me a unit for a review. Another one to look at is Synology, a NAS company that has NVR software, priced pretty well at a couple of hundred for the NAS and then $50/cam after the first free one. I did have a chance to play with the ACTi NVR, don't remember model numbers but it runs on Linux and was very responsive with all the cameras they had plugged into it. Here's what I look for in an NVR or NVR software, it has to be responsive, I have to be able to see multiple cameras at a time during playback. I like to be able to scrub a timeline and see all the cameras play back at the same time. I like the layouts to be flexible meaning I don't want to buy 6 cameras and see 2-3 empty slots because of poor layout choices. I like one that can handle 16:9 and 4:3 ratios effectively and not look goofy, I like it if they had smartphone apps where I can live view cameras as well as playback recordings, I like there to be very complete remote browser access. I like it to be easy to click on the start/stop spots a timeline and quickly export video. And of course, I like it support all my cameras (the hardest part).

If you are doing this to see plates between headlights at night, actually the P3367 was way better at that than the P3384 with WDR or Lightfinder on. You'll see the video tomorrow, I tried rear tail lights, headlights, and I was disappointed because we are looking at a Q1604 for LPR and was hoping the P3384, because its buzzword compliant with the Q1604 would work but no. I'm hoping the LPR company gets the certification they need to run their app inside the P3367 in time for our project.

Hikvision makes the same camera in 1.3MP and 3MP, so it could be the 1.3MP version. Has anyone sourced the Hikvision camera. Maybe I can call my contact there and see if we can do a group buy, get the real deal, 3MP and support from Hikvision.

Yes, I have it configured now with Axxon next, not sure I have it setup right because it looks like it's recording 1 fps even though configured it to record 30 fps and don't know how to export the video but right now it looks like time lapse photography more so than video. I finally got the camera and BlueIris working right. I'm uploading the video to Youtube now and I have to trim it because BI now make one huge video out multiple events, you'll see what I mean in the video.

Don't know about ONVIF but it works with Axxon, just select a Hikvision camera that's close.

Possibly because you can probably setup a scheduled event that sends an URL command to the camera to switch. So you would have WDR during the day and Lightfinder at night then.

Just trying to find a suitable way to record video from these cameras other than the NVR. Have not found it yet.

I installed iVMS 2000 and it wants me to install disk drive that it wants to format, hmm, so it can't be the main drive because that has windows.

For testing, one is a Dahua HFW3200C (1080P) and the other is a Swann/Hikvision bullet (1080P). Both are configured and I can see them in Live View. Both are recording but again, it's like 1 fps but it shows 30 fps for the Dahua, but for some reason 12 fps on the Hikvision, maybe I picked the wrong model for this as the real model did not exist in the drop down.

Could be because the 1MP sensor does not have nearly the noise of the 5MP sensor.

I have iVMS 4200 installed, looks nice but can't figure out how to record.

I installed Axxon because some say it's better, lower CPU usage. Put it on an i5 sandy bridge processor PC, nothing else running, 2 1080P cameras and it's eating up most of the machine, not when it's idle but when it records. Maybe adding more cameras will not add more load. I tried to run it on my i3 but it doesn't have an opengl video card so it just wouldn't start. Then the recordings, it plays back very choppy, maybe like 1-2 fps but I told it to record 30fps. Can't figure out how to export the video or I would show you. It's really a tough program to figure out and constantly referring to the manual. It really messed up my Dahua because when you setup the camera, it sends out default password logins until the camera locks you out, then it lets you put the real password in, but you have to disable the camera for about 15-20 minutes so it can log in again, frustrating as heck. The Swann went better because I'm using the default password. Any ideas on getting a nice smooth play back and export the video?

I'll post my review on the P3384-VE on Saturday morning but here's the deal, yes, the difference is the P3384 has WDR, what they don't tell you is that it's a toggle between WDR and Lightfinder, so you can't have both on at the same time, duh. So if you want this because of Lightfinder, avoid the P3384 because you won't be able to do WDR and without Lightfinder, this camera does not do well at night at all. So here's my recommendation because I've already reviewed 3 different P33's and the best deal is the P3367-VE, 5MP, WDR and pretty darn close to the same low light sensitivity as the P3384-VE and the WDR works better, don't ask me why, it's not "dynamic capture" but I get a better view of plate numbers in between headlights. All I can say is wait for the review and make up your own mind.

What are people that didn't get the NVR using to record. I tried BlueIris, it works but jittery like with Dahua. Is iVMS NVR software that can recording?

The camera I borrowed does not have the blurry/soft side issue.

Good to see you are getting your issues resolved. You are one of the bravest so far with 8 cameras + NVR. I should get one today, hopefully with none of the issues you experienced but sounds like a 50/50 chance. If it makes you feel better, I'm having some serious firmware issues with a newly released $1,000 camera from another company.

There's several resellers out there, not as cheap as buying from China though but not bad. Someone put a list together not that long ago but they are out there. Here's one that I've seen but have no experience with them - http://hdsecuritystore.com/index.php?cPath=3_54

Most of them are available for download so you can try them for free. Everyone has their favorites and maybe never tried a competing product so the best judge is you. Why don't you list the features you are most interested in and see if the products do you what you want, for example, is smartphone access important to you, is supporting 1,000 cameras important, is low CPU use per camera important, is price important, is camera support important, is product stability important, is vendor support important?