wfernley

You could try going with the AXIS 212 PTZ dome camera. This has a wide viewing angle which would be able to see your driveway if you place it near the center window.

Videogenix also has their iPulse Watchdog which does the same thing. If it sees that the camera is locked up it will cut the power to the camera causing a reset. I believe they also include software which allows you to manually do it. Their website is http://www.videogenix.com/

I agree with WirelessEye. With only 4 IP cameras, you should be able to integrate them into your existing network without a problem. Right now I'm doing testing on 8 cameras within a 10/100 network with 8 other PC's running as well. Everything is running fine here. As long as the cameras are not mega pixel and taking up a lot of bandwidth, running 4 cameras within your network should be fine. Do you know which cameras your going to purchase?

Yeah ACTi cameras are great once you get them working. They do have a lot of bugs which they are slowly working out. Their software isn't the greatest though. Vivotek and Pixord are good as well. Vivotek software is decent and their cameras are easy to install and configure. It all depends on what you are looking for in a camera. If you are looking for high quality, ACTi cameras offer high resolution video of 704x480 at 30fps, whereas, Vivotek offers only 10-15fps at 704x480 and the image looks very stretched and pixelated.

Hello kake, Just like cod30 said, the Panasonic BLC-30 is a good camera. If you are on a tight budget you can get decent D-Link cameras that include free recording software. The software only works for up to 16 cameras. Their DCS-3220G is a good camera. If you are looking to jump up to some better quality, I would look into Axis cameras. Check out their 207W. They do not include software so you will need to get that on the side. I usually like to suggest Milestone software to my customers considering it is very reliable. It can get costly though so check out the price and if you need other software solutions, check out this page http://www.networkcamerareviews.com/softwarecompanies.html Hope that helps!

Doesn't POE distance also effect PTZ's. I have heard you can power PTZ cameras. however, if the distance from the POE power source is far from the camera, you can loose some functionality.

I have actually been looking for a camera that has built-in analytics as well. Not just motion detection that works on pixel changes. Does anyone know of a camera or video server that has built-in video analytics?

I haven't but it is something I want to do. I actually have a linux box ready for testing, I just haven't got the chance yet Which NVR solution were you looking at?

Doesn't the Canon VB-C50iR also have autotracking as well? I believe its an older camera so I bet it would not be as good as video analytic software, of even that panasonic camera.

I haven't fooled around with VI software yet although I have been meaning to get a demo or test license. You should be getting better frames than 5 for that many cameras. Some software packages only allow X amount of frames per second for all their cameras instead of X amount for each camera. I wouldn't mind getting some clarity from Video Insight if their software is like this. I recently installed a 32 camera installation of Milestone software that works pretty good. The cameras are running 5 to 30fps without issue. Does Thomas work for Video Insight?

D-Link cameras are very low priced. If you are looking for something basic then they are great cameras. When you want high resolution images though like 640x480 with 30fps, you might want to go with another company because most D-Link cameras only do 10-15fps at 640x480 and the image looks very low quality as its being stretched. 4XEM also offers cheap cameras like D-Links.

That is some interested information Thomas. I haven't heard of laws like that in the US and Canada. There just has to be signs posted stating you are being monitored by security cameras and that video and audio are recorded. I don't see automatic tracking as different than someone controlling manually controlling a PTZ. Thats just my opinion though

That would decrease the amount of system resources required for PTZ tracking. I think we are going to see more products being released that have built-in video analytics. The more you can get working within the camera or video server the better your PC/Server performance would be.

I found their software very interesting actually. I didn't put it under any stress sessions but instead I just used one PTZ camera. The motion tracking did work but it does get a little confused now and then. Last time I spoke with AIMETIS they mentioned they are bringing out a new algorithm that should improve the PTZ tracking. One downside I thought of was I believe you can only have up to 4 cameras running PTZ tracking. Considering all the algorithms running in the background this does make sense. I'm sure as Video Analytics progress and the software progresses, you will be able to add more cameras to that.

I have fooled around with AIMETIS software which also offers video analytics.