shockwave199

LOL- yeah, broke my cherry. I knew the difference. That's why when the client asked for a system I didn't even suggest analog. If I'm gonna go through the trouble and he's got the budget- no brainer. Plus I put in three exterior mini domes too, and I did NOT want IR with bugs all over them eventually. Even though the parking lot pics are a little noisy, there's no IR to muck things up.

You know opinions vary wide enough on the fan noise issue that it makes me wonder if they changed the fans for quieter ones in subsequent runs. But from hardly noticeable to louder than a dishwasher?! That's two extremes for sure. Makes me curious- someone should ask if quieter fans were put in along the way...or if they can be!

Great- thanks for your reports on this. Your efforts do not go unnoticed, by me certainly. I have been happily using gadspot analog cameras and I'm very curious to see their IP offerings. I'll keep an eye on your findings.

Great- thanks for that. I see you combined two different users samples? One clearly shows a soft right edge. The other, doesn't look like it but not totally sure. And in the night shot there's some light adjustment going on. What's being adjusted, the exterior light or the IR through the interface? Whatever it is, the picture looks better to me with no IR. Overall, nice pictures.

Don't get the impression I'm ragging. I'm learning to understand what a high res camera can and can't do under certain situations. If anything is askew it's my expectations, not what a mega pixel is gonna deliver. While the axis can't read the plate either, it's an improvement overall. I can tell there is numbers on the plate, and the detail at full scale is of better quality. The dahua can't compare, in the shot you posted. The reason plates came into it at all is because of the nature of your post- a suspicious car that's been lurking around the neighborhood. Natually I went right to the plate to see if the camera got the shot. It was actually a good teachable moment with picture because often times pictures are posted and assessed for the overall quality, not the nitty gritty. So for me at least, I learned something.

Well two people seem to have a soft right edge with these things and that would be a deal breaker, unless a firmware update can tackle it. But that right edge is too soft to settle for, as it stands.

Yes, please post them on youtube.

Huh- well that's not a good picture or report for that gadspot. Sorry to hear that. Did you contact them about the problem? Send it back? Thanks for the pics.

That cannot be used with external IR. They are not IR sensitive. They do well with additional exterior light though, so if your areas are well lit, you could consider it.

I'm sure the person had some kind of light shining, but that is a web not helping the situation. They can show up a minute after you clean them. And I wouldn't count on ever ID'ing the perp. I'd say that camera view is calf-assed. Make it better or you'll continue to have trouble and he'll have the last calf. So, have some calfeen, get up there calfully, and and maybe even get a field of view calf the distance that you have now. Either that or you'll keep looking back on your footage and having a cow. Good luck.

I see the right side edge is blurry, where the rest of the image is crisp- even the left side edge is crisp. Huh. Please post some night vid too- and thanks for this.

How about a picture of the actual image. But wow, sounds super natural or terrestrial!

I didn't say YOU said dahua is garbage. And the reason there isn't any car detail in the wide shot is because, well, cars aren't really showing much! I guess what it comes down to is, you can't just throw away basic principles just because it's an MP camera. It doesn't automatically equal excellence just because it's MP and more and more, the examples in this thread bare that out. Resolution will be greater, yes. But varifocals are still important for the proper fov, or at least the proper lens. IR or not is still very important to consider as well. You can't just throw away everything that applies to the best picture for ID just because it's an MP camera. That's what I see is gonna happen with the boxed packages if people aren't careful. They'll spend a lot more money filling out an eight channel system and besides the cameras having better resolution, they won't be much better off than a well installed analog system. And the hard drive too- you'll have only a week of storage or maybe even just days if you don't consider how much backup time you really want. If the weather cooperates, this weekend I'll be installing an nvr with 2mp mini domes. I can't mention from who, perish the thought. But for what the person I'm installing it for wants and needs, it should be a great fit. I'll post plenty about it and the images from those cameras here.

Nope. No way I will spend larger bucks on cameras with IR built in. I have a summer ahead, clearing webs away from my analog cameras with IR. No way that will ever be a part of a mega pixel solution when I redo my system. Btw- speaking of dahua, beautiful picture from my ptz on a nice spring day. Analog.... And this is why even for analog, a ptz for plates is killer. Sorry for the dahua analog interruption, but dahua doesn't always spell 'poor product'.

Yep, an ACTi E33, it seems.

But, that's not an image from a dahua camera.

This is actually an excellent thing and something anyone would want- to be able to access the cameras web interface even if it's hooked up to a hardware NVR's POE. But, I wouldn't have a clue how to do what you said. I have heard recently that there is indeed a work around to do this, but I didn't ask for specifics yet, and I'd hope it's not this invloved.

WOW! I'm actually a bit shocked a 5mp can't reproduce those numbers- especially the one parked directly across the street. The full size picture does indeed look smeared, almost like you have camera sway at that very moment. Is this a pic from a substream? Maybe water droplets from the rain. I mean, the plates looked intentionally blocked- not even a hint of an out of focus number. Something does not seem set right for a 5mp camera. I'm not expecting miracles but wow, that suprises me. My analog ptz can grab plates at those distances but I have to zoom in obviously. I always assumed HD, such as 5mp would give enough resolution to not only see plates at that type of distance, but be able to grab them on the move. Guess I was wrong! I wouldn't be surprised if that camera can yield better results than that pic indicates, be it a dome cleaning or adjusting some settings. If not, than I'm offically scaling back my MP expectations and it's now obvious- varifocals are still needed even with MP cameras.

It was blurred intentionally, I'm quite sure. Nice picture too.

The old timers are still here, believe me. Some maybe even post under a different name Don't forget, the guys who are 'fountains of info' are mostly pros and they do this for a living. When you're super busy and kick ass all day, you don't always come home and want to type away on a forum. Sometimes the work load eases up, and then you have more time...and then we see them post more often. Forums are cyclical. What goes around comes around. There's still plenty here to steer you away from problems, and into better solutions. And the more people can speak from experience, the more accurate their advice becomes. I'm a nobody, but I grab a cup of coffee evey day and read and share. I don't always agree with how things go down along the way. But if you ask what happened to this forum, I'd have to say... nothing. It's a forum. ****t happens, and ****t don't. Roll with it. Where's my coffee

It's the same thing with audio recording. Back in the day if you wanted to record a song you booked time in a pro studio- people who knew the process and all that goes into it. Now, anybody can have a computer with some software and call themselves an AE- even hang a shingle on the lawn and ruin other peoples recordings for hire. Technology and those who supply it work to make things easy. And then there's these very forums, too. A number of experienced people here pulled back exactly because DIY'ers would come in and pick their brains and split- likely making money off information they themselves didn't work or pay for. Sharing is cool, but that scenario will grow old in a hurry. Forums and technology are enabling everyone, no matter if they should be or not. Doesn't make it better. It just makes it so.

I get you, but more often than not I question user error ahead of product error.

Well good luck Jim! Keep in mind that for all the talk, there hasn't been many [any?] endorsements for the swann IP system yet. You're heading into uncharted territory. Be prepared to be called on to supply sample photos and backup vids, as well as answer some questions about the nvr itself. There's also q-see to consider, and another unknown avertx. Not sure if Lorex has an nvr package yet. All of these brands were mostly looked down on as inferior in the analog market. Will their nvr offerings step up the game and change some opinions? Will their quality be consistent and reliable, and will customer service be solid? You'll be one of the early adopters, so let us know. I'll be installing a dahua 4 channel POE nvr with their 2mp mini domes for someone shortly. You can bet I'll be posting a lot of samples from that system too. Anyway, good luck!

You could try enabling DMZ in the simple router and put the address of the dvr in it. DMZ is not as secure as specific port forwarding as it bypasses your firewall. But people use it all the time- especially gamers. I've never had to do this, but many times along the way I've read DMZ can be a last resort setting if all else fails. Just make sure your router has a strong password, and also change the dvr default admin password if you haven't already.

This is why many who are considering an IP system shy away, and why hardware NVR's with built in POE are going to remain popular even with some limitations. Going IP can be much more like analog. You choose a manufacturers hardware NVR that has full built in POE, you plug in the cameras from that same manufacturer right into the built in POE, turn on the NVR, and there's your great pictures. Then just like an analog dvr, you plug it into your router for local and remote viewing with one network cable from the NVR to your router. The attractive part of it is that the built in POE powers your cameras too, so there's no additional powering concerns. And also, there's no daunting networking to do- you don't have to concern yourself with readdressing each camera, balancing bandwidth, external POE switches, software, and a computer. A hardware NVR with full POE and packaged cameras that work with it is as plug & play as you're gonna get. There are some limitations with that choice at the moment. Not every NVR has full POE. Dahua has only four at this time. If all you need is a four camera system, you're all set. If you need more cameras, you'll be forced to get a separate POE switch and deal with the above, somewhat complicated scenario to get the extra cameras into your system. Again, this is why full POE built in will become king for the plug & play crowd. Some other manufactures are offering full built in POE. Nice, but there's still a catch- you have to use their cameras. It's become popular for them to offer just two types of cameras- an IR bullet and a non IR mini dome. 2MP in these two offerings seems to becoming more standard that just 1.3MP cameras, which is good. They need to add three more types to the lineup- IR sensitive cameras so you don't have to deal with the problems of built in IR, a less expensive ptz in the 12x range, and a reasonably priced varifocals. I'm sure as time goes on they'll add more camera choices to offset the limitations of using only their cameras. And I think that will be more likely the answer in the short term than relying on ONIF to cure the mix and match problem of hardware NVR solutions. Personally, that would be fine with me. I don't need to consider every camera under the sun. Anything more than the proprietary cameras is gonna be a hell of a lot more expensive anyway. A nice selection of good quality proprietary cameras would be fine for those who choose this solution. The other limitation of a hardware NVR with built in POE is not being able to access the cameras own web interface, where you have all the settings to tweak the camera picture itself, as well as many other settings. But consider that most analog users buy a camera with auto settings, install it, tweak the picture by channel in the dvr and there you have it. This is the same concept- you install the MP camera and rely on it's default settings being fine, and tweak the picture a bit per channel in the NVR. Same concept, only you're sure to have a much better resolution camera as a starting point. Unless you seriously need to integrate your analog cameras because of specific FOV setups, I'd consider just ending them. The chances of you hooking up MP cameras and ever liking your analog cameras compared is slim to none, in terms of resolution. It can be as simple as plug and play, but with some limitations. That, and be prepared to spend more. The cameras alone are more expensive. Good luck.