voip-ninja

Weird. Mine specifically asked for a license and rejected the old one.

Confusion about the upgrade vs. dot release situation is keeping me from buying XProtect. Please, what version did you have and what version is considered to be the "new" version? All I see is a 2.5a to 2.5b revision for the Essential/Go packages, and similar revisions in the other packages. My understanding is that pretty much all releases other than fixes (patch type loads) require an upgrade key. The easiest move to make, especially if you are getting Essential or Express version is to buy 2-3 years of upgrade protection. It is very inexpensive and then all of your upgrades are handled.

OK, I figured out the weird Mac browser behavior. I can actually reproduce it on a PC too. What Milestone now does is they look at the browser width and height and use that to determine what size they need to use when they re-size the camera feeds dynamically. In older versions the camera feeds were always thumbnails and were not resized. If the browser is narrow but tall (as it is for me most of the time) Milestone figures that it has more real estate than it does and it over-sizes the camera feeds. Grabbing the bottom of the browser window and sliding it up causes Milestone to re-calculate the browser size, it resizes the windows and it fits them in to the browser properly. Still playing around to see if the "slow loading" problem I have seen at times with the cameras is also related to a particular browser behavior.

Wow, I hadn't even noticed that... I am running a 64 bit Windows OS for my CCTV server so was not a problem.

Unfortunately it's not quite that easy. This is considered an "upgrade" and not a dot release so you will have to get new licenses for it. Assuming you have license upgrade protection then what you will need to do is log into the license manager, request an upgrade for your license, and then request that the license manager email you a new .lic for the software. From there you can do the upgrade, point the software at the new .lic file you received from Milestone and then upgrade. Once you are upgraded you will need to re-license your cameras (you will see that they are back in 30 day license mode). You can activate them online, and each camera (as before) will consume one camera license when it is activated). The good news is that when you upgrade the Milestone software it should include the component for upgrading the Mobile Server also, so one less step to worry about. Be aware that if you are using any port other than 80 for the Milestone server that you will need to re-direct the mobile server to the correct port (in my case I was using a totally different custom port) and you will need to potentially re-enter any credential information too. It's also worth mentioning that Milestone have rolled out a new portal/license manager called "my milestone" and at some point you will have to agree to migrate your stuff over to that. For me, after submitting it nothing ever seemed to happen so I finally emailed them and they put me into the queue manually and I was migrated over to the new system pretty quickly.

Anyone else upgrade to the new versions of Milestone? I completed the upgrade and overall pretty happy. They've introduced a new more accurate motion detection algorithm to use with cameras that seems to work pretty well and there have been some performance improvements to the mobile server 2.6a. With four cameras and a couple of mobile clients connected I am seeing CPU usage down to around 10-15%. I do have one problem though and curious if anyone else upgrades if they see it. With my Mac, using either Safari or Firefox I am not getting great behavior with the web viewer. It doesn't seem to be able to execute whatever scripting it does to resize the camera windows and fit them into the browser frame. I'm suspecting there is some permission, etc, for the script to be able to do it's thing, so probably a setting change is needed, but I'm not sure where that setting might be at. I've also noticed with both Mac and PC that sometimes the camera and events views in the web viewer are really slow to refresh compared to the previous release. Hopefully they get that fixed. Potentially I will need to open a case with my partner for some support on this. Other than that pretty smooth sailing with the latest version.

They charge that much because there's a lot of R&D that goes into building one of these cameras. Not only does it have to "work" but they have to support it, warranty it, etc. It used to be that PTZ VGA cameras cost $1000... now you can get a 1080P camera for about that price. Your $300 is simply unrealistic. If you think that these are so cheap and easy to build go start a company that makes us a $250 1080P outdoor PTZ camera. Everyone here will be thrilled.

I don't think there's anything wrong. You need external illumination (IR or white light) for the 1st camera. To prove it, swap the camera locations.

To get help you're probably going to have to find out who actually builds "sunluxy" cameras. I know I've never heard of them.

You might look at the "ultimate IP camera guide - Start Here!" thread that is stickied to the top of this forum as a starting point. You know, the thread that says "start here". " title="Applause" />

Milestone Mobile has always started for me automatically. Perhaps you have some other issue preventing the service from automatically starting up.

I love Macs too but I run my NVR software on a small micro-server in the basement that is running Windows. Sometimes you just have to pick the right tool for the job.

I also agree with Buell's comment regarding difficulty of setting Milestone up. It is more difficult than it needs to be and things they do differently like motion detection left me flustered for a while. Now that it's set up and working though I almost never touch it... which is more than I can say for other security packages I've put through their paces.

I actually did install and play with Avigilon and I ended up choosing Milestone over it for a couple of key reasons; 1. The mobile apps for Milestone are in an entire other league than other vendors. I can review video while watching live video for any of my cameras. I can leave the application up on an Android tablet and it will stay up for days and days with my camera views up to date without me having to restart the app or "wake" the tablet. 2. Avigilon does not support Mac or a basic browser interface for non MS browsers. At the end of the day this was the deal breaker. I can understand a small software company not having the resources to develop interfaces for several OSs, but it is inexcusable in my opinion to build a web client that ONLY supports IE, which is the crappiest browser in existence (or, as we joke about in the technical community, a browser you use to install a real browser on a Windows PC). It was pointed out to me that I should/could run a virtual machine with VMWare or Parallels and use that to run the Avigilon software. That's a non starter for me. While I have several VMs on my Mac(s) I don't find it acceptable that I have to launch or access a VM just to quickly check my cameras when the doorbell rings. I live in a very low crime neighborhood. The only things I've gotten on camera were minor acts of vandalism such as normal teenage prank nonsense (toilet paper, etc). I don't want the security system waking me up all hours of the night when people are on our street because people are ALWAYS driving up and down our street even late at night (we are on the corner of a sub-division with dozens of homes and many teenagers). The reason I have a system is to keep an eye on things when I'm away from home and to keep an eye on the many people in and out of our house during the week (dog sitters, house keepers, contractors, etc)... I also work from home a fair amount and I am constantly annoyed when I'm working on a project, the doorbell rings and it's the local bible thumping club trying to indoctrinate me. For me the security system is as much a hobby as it is a burglar deterrent or evidence collection system.

It's all relative. Some of the stuff from Harbor Freight is okay, and some of it is just junk. There are also plenty of "affordable" options for CCTV compared to what was available even a few years ago. For what I spent on 640X480 box cameras three years ago I can now get a really nice weatherized dome with integrated IR. I was going to get pictures from my IR last night but it's been raining here and the neighbor left all of his lights on all night so the pics would have been a terrible way to judge things. I will try again tonight.

I have posted pics before, but I might be able to do some tonight with it on and off if I remember when it's dark later. LEDs themselves are cheap, but it's the housing, light diffusion, weather sealing, power regulator (buffer the DC of PoE voltage) etc, that drives the price up for the better units in my opinion. Anyone can slap some LEDs in a cheap housing, build them in China and sell them for $35 but they might be garbage. If the price seems high I'd be interested if we could start a side business making these for less! The US Military uses the Axtons (and some of the other decent ones) and sure as hell don't want it shorting out after a rain storm when they are out in the middle of nowhere at a forward fire base.

It's urgent but you wait for over a week to respond? That's a good one. " title="Applause" /> You keep describing a transceiver but you aren't explaining what it is you are trying to accomplish. Until you do that, no one here can help you.

My Axton is going on a year and is working fine. They warranty it for I believe either 5 or 10 years so not too much worry there. One of those "you get what you pay for" things. Maybe not such a hit with the Dahua crowd.

It looks more like a 25 degree or 30 degree spot. I have a 60 degree one and it's really 60 degrees. Covers my entire front drive and the sidewalk and street in front of the house, out to about 75 feet or more.

I haven't seen the change in quality affect anything really (maybe it results in less bandwidth)? Buell, what's your performance on client like with the 8 cams? With 4 1080P cams my performance is pretty good.

I am using an Axton illuminator that is in your budget. Look at their website, you can order them through quite a few resellers. I am using one to illuminate my front driveway. It has a 90 FOV and throws IR out to about 75' quite well. It runs off of 48V (I use a cheap AC/DC power brick to run it) and was around $200 or so shipped. What I like about the Axton is that they are very compact and fairly discrete as far as the external casing goes. They are also fairly rugged and weatherized.

I don't see anything in your sample video that anyone would be able to monetize.

I do a lot of network management, chances are they have out of band ports blocked, or unknown websites blocked or the likes. Well, he's using the same port on both remote networks. It could be that they've made some association with that port with the far end IP and the other network isn't working as a result. However, since it's working over wired ethernet at his work location the problem is more likely in some odd configuration issue with the wi-fi at his offices.

Do you really think his employer will expend IT resources trying to get their corporate wifi working with his home security system? If anything they would be peeved at how much bandwidth he would use monitoring his cams.

The problem that i have with dropcam and similar services (comcast) are the monthly fees. You pay $20-40 a month and after a while you could have bought a better solution for the expense.