PeteCress

Indoor is ok, basically a babycam situation monitoring sonebody who is bed-bound. BI not such a problem, but IP Cam Viewer seems more particular. Has anybody used something that delivers sound through both apps?

Indoor use, basically a baby-cam situation (bed-ridden adult), but remote/WAN access is needed. Has anybody found a POE cam with built-in microphone that works with both IP Cam Viewer and Blue Iris?

Hardware-wise, the Blink and Netgear Arlo systems are appealing: no cable to pull, no AC to connect But those two and the few others I have looked into all rely on somebody's cloud storage, which I do not care for. Has anybody found a wireless battery-powered cam that works with local storsge? .. Not USB sticks, but a NAS box or 24-7 PC. Blue Iris compatability would be the brass ring.

I am caving in to close family members' urging that we have cams monitoring stairwells and other places in the house where The Old People may fall. At first I was leaning towards stealth, since the wife is not going to be in love with the idea of Being On Candid Camera, but have moved away from that for various reasons. My favorite existing outdoor cams are 2.8 mm Hikvision turrets and, in spite of the size, am leaning towards using them indoors too. The Questions: - Is there any reason to consider dome cams? - Would I be wasting time trying to find a turret or dome cam without IR instead of simply turning IR off? - Is there any reason to explore brands other than Hikvision? Blue Iris.

Is that to say that Hiks are somehow exposed to the WAN despite one's efforts at security? I set the ports on my cams to something different and set up a custom ID/PW on each cam.

Am replacing a few outdoor bullet cams (POE HikVisions) with turret cams for the increased durability and decreased spider web exposure. Have been told in no uncertain terms that I have a need to monitor a couple of stairwells indoors - so my kids can check up on The Old People to make sure nobody's laying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. .... The stench from decomposing bodies and the resale value of the house, I guess..... -) But a bullet cam indoors is kind of obtrusive - especially when a certain other family member is not going to be all that thrilled about being on Candid Camera. My thought was that maybe I could pull the guts out of a bullet cam and repackage them into something that would fit, for instance, in a dummy wall receptacle. .... I am thinking that the IR emitters would not be needed because of ambient light from night lights and the minimal need for detail. What's the gut reaction of Those Who Know? Has anybody actually done anything like this?

... public surveillance/facial-recognition? Seems like the Chinese government's efforts in this area would be state-of-the-art.

Not like this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAEH96EP2652&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Home+Electronics+Accessories-_-9SIAEH96EP2652&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_JTUBRD4ARIsAL7_VeWsYGIHvd25BcbBB_3ypN6C9j6KzNv-AZ-eqfijJsK7slFqzAqzqRQaAgN_EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds More like this: https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/safety/security/surveillance-systems/cvc675-960h-inwall-camera-36mm-lens-stainless-steel-housing?infoParam.campaignId=T9F&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_JTUBRD4ARIsAL7_VeVJwn4fJYAgGOa8KFCOxpBhLM-pD2lZgzgt8bkVJo8U55buhpJQvKgaAmHUEALw_wcB I want to cover two staircases - at the request of relatives who want to be able to check to see if one of The Old People has fallen.... I guess so they can get there before the body decomposes so badly that the smell reduces the resale value of the house...-) I am not married to the idea of POE, but it seems like running AC vs running Ethernet is a wash....and all my other cams are POE. Anybody got something that they know and love? For offerings like NetGear's Arlo, the ability to integrate with Blue Iris would be a very strong nice-to-have, if not a "Must". Wireless/battery-powered is, however, attractive in that running Cat5 to the two locations is going to be quite difficult - and I wonder if wireless bandwidth constraints could be mitigated by having a separate WAP for each cam.

Been fooling around with a Honeywell SkyBell today and tonite. One thing that I notice right away is that the night vision is pretty good - better, I think, than my HikVision DS-2CD2335-I's (http://tinyurl.com/yc3shc3s). Or is it my imagination? If not, can anybody cite some user-grade cams with comparable native (i.e. no IR) night vision? Tangentially, I also notice that Hik has started playing games with retail pricing - trying to restrict sales by outfits that sell for less.

Took delivery on 3 of those Bad Boyz a couple days ago : 2 2.8's and a 4mm. The native night vision is head-and-shoulders above my older Hik turret cams... maybe it's the recent full moon, but the one I tested was actually picking up colors in the dead of night while the old one next to it essentially put up a black screen with a few street-light highlights for the same view. The detail/clarity on the new cam is also noticeably better - at the same rez.

Which one do you have? This one calls out to me because of the price and being turret: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6JS5HM2884&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-IP%2FNetwork+Cameras-_-9SIA6JS5HM2884&gclid=CjwKCAiA15vTBRAHEiwA7Snfc9yGQCh8vOygZlazvBcwxnu2fG9Is3WFYu1u8NCdUoyO6ZC7wfwNYRoC6O8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds I bought a couple Dahuas a few years back, but was turned off by the proprietary software needed to do camera setup (i.e. no built-in web pages). Every so often, when the money just starts spilling over, I think about doing an all-ACTi system because of the low resource needs of their camera hosting application - which seems to offload a lot of processing to the individual cams.... but I have no clue about ACTi's low light performance.

By 'General Purpose' I mean something that gets moved around for special situations. e.g. If I suspect we have a mouse in the kitchen, I would put it there and check Blue Iris' motion-trigger alerts in the morning. If somebody is stealing from neighborhood mailboxes, I would hang it on a tree near the mailbox. My current favorite cam overall is Hik's turret cam as in https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIABXX4NM3595&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Surveillance+-+Home+Safety+%26+Security-_-9SIABXX4NM3595&gclid=CjwKEAjw85DIBRCy2aT0hPmS1jkSJAC1m9Uv7zH7xqEwvJfBU2G5HoNZOrYVTvSuBY1H30uQUejVrxoChKjw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds -either in 2.8 or 6mm flavor. Pretty good.... but it's a bit bulky, it's white, and the IR advertises it's presence.. Anybody got something that might be more amenable to multi-use/moving around/stealth mode? The IR aspect is not a religious issue....

viz: http://tinyurl.com/mzbh36l Has anybody figured out what this and how it is supposed to work? The Hik has a female Cat5 connector, a "Y", and a dongle containing power receptacle - all of which would benefit from being protected from the weather.... and I'm guessing Hik's thingie has a role... But I can't figure out what it is. ?? Edit 2014 04-24 15:53: OK... Dumb post. It's intended to be used with a Cat5 wire whose connector is attached after being fed through the thingie... and then the thingie screws on to the cam's female Cat5 receptacle.... Leaving the power receptacle (not needed with POE) to be dealt with by the user.

I have some bullet cams as in https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-New-DS-2CD2035-I-replace-DS-2CD2032-I-and-DS-2CD2032F-I-3MP-H265-camera/32763442879.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.10.4QMWc0&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_4_10065_10068_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10060_10061_10062_10056_10055_10054_10059_10099_10078_10079_427_10073_10103_10102_10096_10052_10050_10051,searchweb201603_3&btsid=fa701aa8-6bfd-4202-b5da-a52886dccaf4 and some turret/"eyeball" cams as in https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hikvision-DS-2CD3325-I-2MP-POE-IR-H-265-EXIR-Turret-Outdoor-Dome-Network-Camera/32761208363.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.2.CKzENd&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_4_10065_10068_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10060_10061_10062_10056_10055_10054_10059_10099_10078_10079_427_10073_10103_10102_10096_10052_10050_10051,searchweb201603_3&btsid=6b89f115-7fff-4e9d-8384-1a008499ed85 Given similar prices/resolutions, it seems to me like choosing the turret cams over bullet cams is a no-brainer. To Wit: The turret cams' form factor is more durable: nothing to grab, no leverage to twist them loose. . The turret cams' adjustment is more durable: no ball/socket joint to wear out and get sloppy over time, no chance of something knocking the cam out of aim by bumping up against it. . Virtually no issues with spider webs on the turret cams vs the need to frequently brush spider webs away from the bullet cams. Am I missing something in this comparison, or is choosing the turret form factor over the bullet form factor really such a no-brainer? My agenda here is that people are starting to ask me for advice on camera choice and I don't want to be misleading anybody.

Got it. Two other parms have to be set: Configuration | Advanced Configuration | Storage | Event-Triggered | Enable Event-Triggered Snapshot =True, Interval = 1000

I'm striking out with offloading motion detection from BI to my HikVision cams, so I am trying to use their native FTP to get the alert images. But Hik does not seem to accept domain names in it's FTP setup (e.g. "PeteCress.DynDNS.org")... only numeric IP addrs - which is a deal breaker for me. But even testing with a numeric IP - where Hik says the test FTP was "Succssful", I'm not getting any motion-triggered images. Configuration | Advanced Configuration | Events | Linkage Method | Normal Linkage = "Upload to FTP"

I would like to have one of my IP cams easily available on my TV without a lot of hocus-pocus and/or keystrokes by the viewer. Unencumbered by any real knowledge, the first thing that occurs to me is some device that can read the IP cam's TCP/IP packet/stream, wrap it in whatever it takes to make it look like a digital OTA broadcast station, and inject it into my coax where the TVs in the house can happily tune it as, say, Channel 99. Is there any hope for this? Some other approach ? FWIW, I am also running SageTV, fed by three SiliconDust HD HomeRun dual tuners: 100% OTA. But a coax option calls out to me the strongest because some of the technophobes in our house are not comfortable with Sage and injecting the cam's stream into the coax would allow viewing both ways.

ACTi KCM-5311E: https://picasaweb.google.com/108149798664924808733/IPCams#6186210248813585522 The screen snap is on a bright, sunny day. No changes to setup, it just started doing this. Tried reboot, then factory reset, then cold start; fooled around with various image settings; got some changes, but no real improvement. Does this look familiar to anybody? I am thinking that this thing is on the way out. Edit 2015 08-23 10:36: For the benefit of anybody else on this little journey.... I re-applied the last firmware update (_V.5.12.12_20140318) and the picture changed from that stormy, dark look to a rosey-colored look. Reset Image props to default, no change. Then I clicked Setup | Video & Audio | Exposure/White Balance | "Hold" and the White Balance option changed from Auto to Manual. Then I set R Gain, B Gain, and AE Reference target all to 128 and the picture now seems more-or-less normal (viz ExtremeSurfCam.DynDNS.org, choose "Toledo Ave") It's still a bit on the dark side, but I think I'll quit while I am ahead....

Viz: (http://tinyurl.com/p8zl7b7) I see the standard Brown, Green, Blue, and Orange. But that leaves White, Yellow, Purple, and Grey. Does anybody know what the second four equate to in terms of the standard Cat5 colors? Next step is a Dremel tool and careful grinding away of the toasted receptacle - but I'm not all that confident... Edit 2015 07-19 10:20: For the benefit of anybody else on this little quest, the answer: http://www.cam-it.org/index.php?topic=7692.msg45784#msg45784

I am guessing that FPS is a rough analog of shutter speed. i.e. If a camera will do 60 frames per second, then it has a 1/60th second shutter speed. But how about ISO? Is there a number or something? Bottom Line, how to glance at camera specs and get an idea of how well a given camera will capture clear pix in how much light?

I have been buying HikVision DS-2CD2032-I bullet cams: http://tinyurl.com/kg3xzrq They are plenty good for my use, but now I have occasion to buy a few more and it has dawned on me that the same specs are available in a dome-type cam as HikVision DS-2CD3132-I (http://tinyurl.com/pgpcqgm) First thing that comes to mind is that a bullet cam is more difficult for the mentally-challenged to grab and rip off the side of a building (been there, had it done...). Second thing is that once they are aimed, they seem more likely to stay aimed. OTOH, I wonder if the dome becomes an issue under certain weather conditions - as in high wind/salt water environment. Can anybody elucidate on the tradeoffs?

It seems to. To review, I am comparing a regular bullet cam HikVision DS-2CD2032-I as per http://tinyurl.com/pw4x5wv with what I call an "eyeball cam" HikVision DS-2CD3332-I as per http://tinyurl.com/nmxxwos. I replaced the bullet with the eyeball in one place that was particularly subject to spider-web problems and the problems seem to have abated by at least 90 percent. I'm about to order a few more of the eyeball cams. FWIW, I do not notice any diff in the IR effectiveness - qualified by the observations that I also use motion-triggered floods, so the IR is only in use for a few seconds until the light from the flood kicks in.

The detail on this clip ( ) is basically useless. OTOH the cam that took it is about the lowest-end useful cam available (around a hundred bucks). The cam in question is one of six cams at a windsurfing shop located on a hotel's property. (http://ExtremeSurfCam.DynDNS.org) Mostly the cams are to allow customers to see for themselves how conditions are without calling the shop owner every five minutes on a windy day. I run them all at 1280x720, which seems to be a nice compromise between detail, bandwidth, and CPU usage. Historically, however, this particular cam has served the interests of the hotel owner. Once to disprove a bogus injury claim, a couple of times to resolve fender-bender disputes, and (recently but not very well) to add to what was known about an attempted robbery in the hotel lobby. Having suggested to the hotel's owner that it might be in his interest to help fund a better camera, I am seeking recommendations for a cam that would have had a decent chance of capturing the vehicle's license plate number. Since I blurted out the numbers $400-$500, it would be nice of something workable could be had in that price range.... but I am not above going back and begging for more....

I use BlueIris at home and at another installation - and see no reason to change. That being said, I have been fooling around with the built-in Alert, Clip, Motion Detection, and FTP functionality on one of my HikVision DS-2CD3332-I's. Can't say it's ready for prime time by any means... but it seems like it may have possibilities. The Question: Has anybody set up a minimalist installation using only the cameras' built-in functionality, no camera server or NVR, and just writing to a local hard drive on the same LAN and/or FTP-ing to a remote site? ....and had it actually real-world work.... -)

Is the camera and/or server software automagically acquiring those vehicles and tracking/zooming on them? Or were the PTZ changes done manually?