jmolli

MaxIcon, Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I did find the lens cover to be dirty on the inside of the glass and dismounted the camera yesterday to unscrew the front lens cover and clean the glass. Wish I had that focusing procedure while I had it apart. The cleaning did improve the image quality a little, but the softness on the right side remains. I will give the focusing procedure a try next weekend. Is it really necessary to remove the IR board to turn the lens for focus adjustment? John

I've had an IP8332 for a couple of years that monitors my cars in the parking lot of our complex. Its always had a slightly soft focus on the right side of the frame, but it seem to have gotten a little worse lately. The center and left side of the image is nice and sharp but the right side is soft, its particularly noticeable at night when it flips to night mode (B&W). Can anyone advise if it would be worth the trouble of replacing the board lens (3.6mm fixed, IR, MP). I'm thinking its either the lens or the orientation of the lens relative to the image sensor. If its the orientation, I think I'm out of luck since the lens screws into a small plastic rectangular box shaped module. If anyone has any experience with this type of thing on a board lens camera, I would appreciate your advice. Thanks, John

The latest Vivotek firmware for the IP8332 (v0110a) provides a much improved image while in night/IR mode. I would recommend you give it a try. Also as Razor said, setting the light sensor sensitivity to High, will make the camera switch to night mode more quickly when it starts to get dark. Note that you can also set up a "night" profile in the camera software that changes sensor settings at a specified start and end time that you enter. I have night profiles set up on all of my Vivotek cameras to optimize the image while they are in night/IR mode. The night profile can be triggered at specified times or it can become active when the camera switches into night mode. Note that you can also set "night profile" motion detection box sensitivities which are different than those used for motion detection in daylight. This is usually necessary if you have your daytime motion detection boxes set up to be highly sensitive. Because the highly sensitive settings will cause false triggers when the camera switches to night mode, where the image gets more noisey because of the reduced light. John

More bug related weirdness. It hit 91 in NJ the other day and the bees were quite active. The weird thing was a bee or bees repeatedly flying into the lens of my IP8332 bullet cam. I must have had 30 false events that resulted in close up recordings of bees flying into my lens! What could be attracting them in the daylight hours

I installed a Vivotek IP8332 to keep an eye on my cars back in February. It's just getting warm enough here in NJ for the insects to come out of their winter hibernation and I had at least 20 false motion events last night due to bugs buzzing around my camera! Are insects attracted to the IR Illuminators on our IP cams the same way they are attracted to incandescent light bulbs?? Night mode used to be when I got the least amount of false events, now it's almost as bad as the swaying tree shadows and passing clouds I get in the day time. What has your experience been? John

Yes, I got past my original problem. Unfortunately, I never isolated a cause. See post above. John

Mr Moo, I'm not having that problem. I set up v1.6.1.11 on 4/1/12 and today is my 8th folder of recordings. I'm set to save 14 days of recordings so I will keep an eye on it. But so far 8 of 14 days recorded without problems. John

Thanks for the reply, I have since upgraded to v1.6.1.11 and put the server software on a win7 pc (I was on xp pro). I now have the ST7501 clients working from other PCs on my home network with no problems.

I am monitoring two Vivotek cams (IP8332 and FD8134) using the supplied Vivotek ST7501 software (I should note that I'm using the older version 1.5.2.11 that was on the CD that came with my cameras. Not the latest v1.6.1.11 which is available for download). I have no problems on my primary PC (PC 1) where I have the Vivotek Server, Playback Client and Live Client all installed. My frustration started when I installed the Playback and Live Clients on another PC (PC2) in my home network. Note that I have ports 3454 and 554 forwarded on my router. Listed below is what happens when I try to use the Playback client on PC2 to view recorded video that resides on PC1: 1) I have no problem logging into the server using either it's local IP address (192.168.x.xxx) or it's remote IP address. 2) I see my cameras in the left hand pane. I can search for video either by time or by event and get a results listing below the viewing window. 3) Here is the problem. When I attempt to view one of the video clips shown in the listing by either dropping it in the viewing window or double clicking it. I get a brief "Connecting....." in the viewing window and then the app just closes. 4) I get a similar response from the Liveclient. When it opens, it attempts to connect to my two cameras and then just shuts down. Very frustrating. I thought it might be a network folder access/rights problem, but I am able to navigate to the "C:\ST7501\Recording\..." folder on PC1 while on PC2 and play recorded video clips from either camera using QuickTime. So I know it's not an access/rights problem. Can anyone with experience using this software offer some advice on what my issue might be? Does v1.5.2.11 simply not work when using the clients remotely??? I am trying to avoid uninstalling v1.5.2.11 since I have some fairly involved Applications set up in it and don't want to have to re-do them in v1.6.1.11. John

I have an FD8134 that records using ST7501, I have the clients and server on the same PC. My question is: When I record on motion for say 10 hours, I want to export just the motion clips that were recorded, to an AVI video. Unfortunately, when I do the export, I end up with 13 secs of motion (from the first motion clip, my motion settings are 3 secs pre motion and 10 after) and then a paused video for the number of minutes until the next motion event occurred (say 10 mins), then another 13 secs of motion, and so on. Unlike when the Playback client is playing back the video and it just jumps to the next motion clip. Is there any way to make the exported video essentially record in the same manner that the Playback client plays back the recorded clips?? It seems like the export functionality is designed to only work with a continuously recorded clip. Any advice would be appreciated.

It turns out that there is no problem with the camera. I added the EMF choke to the input cable bundle, rotated the camera so the light sensor was on top, unclicked the flip and mirror image settings and snapped the cover back on and presto, beautiful HD video! Not sure which of the changes made the difference (maybe the choke), but I'm pretty happy with the 8134 now. John

I just got a Vivotek FD8134 megapixal camera and I am quite disappointed in the quality of the video. It is heavily pixilated and "shimmering" even in strong lighting and is not much better than my cheap D-link 942L that I picked up at Staples for $127. I am at max 1280x800 resolution with quality set to Excellent and the video quality is faaaaaaaar from HD. I've tried other resolutions and streams but all show pixilation and "shimmering" in the images. I am using an old Dell 2.8ghz P4 with 4GB of Ram and a discrete video card with 256MB of ram. But the PC shouldn't matter as I am not recording. I am just viewing the live image in a browser window after I log into the camera. Two other odd things: 1) I had to select "Mirror Image" in the camera setup menus to get the correct orientation on the image. 2) The light sensor is at the bottom of the lens when I angled it down from vertical (the lens was vertical out of the box). Which is 180 degrees opposite of what is shown in the diagrams in the manual (light sensor is shown on top of the lens when cam is on its base on a table top). It sure seems like a manufacturing issue. Anyone have any experience with this camera? John