Kawboy12R

Well, your best luck for plates is with a more expensive cam. You can try other cams and some have decent luck by adjusting the settings but you'll miss more plates under different conditions with a cheap cam over an expensive one, sometimes a LOT more. Like most of them. As far as non-plate cameras go, well, that depends on budget and the features you need. Folks on here are liking the bang for the buck quality of Hikvision megapixel network cameras (rebranded by Swann and Lorex and sold at Costco in the US dirt cheap compared to alternatives). They've got wide angle lenses though so aren't much good at a distance beyond 15-20 feet, maybe 30 or 40 feet depending on lighting, luck, and how fussy you are. Easy to tell what is going on with a wide angle lens, but unless the subject is close you won't get a mugshot, just good enough to recognise them if you already know them. Everybody used to love Dahuas at their price point, but better cams like the Swann/Lorex ones came out at about the same price as the bottom-end Dahua bullets (under $175/cam). Once you get into varifocal cams (adjustable "zoom" lenses), the larger Dahua bullets (3mp 3300C reviewed here) still aren't a bad bang for the buck as far as features (like lens adjustable to 12mm if you need it and alarm inputs) and night ability go. They're getting harder to find for a decent price because Dahua is putting the screws to the grey market on them. ACTi's E44 is looking like an interesting cam for night-time but it's new enough I haven't seen any video from it yet. ACTi's other offerings, while inexpensive, still require decent additional lighting at night before the picture quality is up to snuff IMHO. It's just over $500 but not widely available yet. I'm considering adding some of these to my house and maybe at work if the night video is good. I like my Axis domes (P3364VE) with Lightfinder but they aren't for tight budgets. They run about $800-$1100 each fairly commonly on Amazon depending if you want 6mm or 12mm. The 12s go for more than the 6mm and the LVE version a bit more than the VE. L is for IR, V is for Vandal dome, and E is for Enviromental protection (outdoor version). They do very nicely without IR as long as there is a streetlight or porch light or something nearby though. You'll get a good feel for cams and what you'll see with them if you read buellwinkle's blog over on http://www.networkcameracritic.com/ . Oh, and you don't need a card in your computer to run network cameras. Most are powered by PoE (power over ethernet), so for a cam or two you could get a PoE injector or two (or maybe a PoE switch for a bit more money) and plug the switch or the cameras into your router and you're good to go with either the free software that most network cams come with or something like Blue Iris ($50), NVR+ ($130), Zoneminder for Linux (free), or whatever.

OK, those distances are a lot better from the camera to the road than I was picturing. If it were me and I was on a budget I'd try it first with a 12mm camera. A lot depends on lighting though. If there's little light (and there's really no way to describe what's enough light without actually trying something) then it's tricky. I can grab plates at about 40-45 feet at night with a dim porchlight shining onto a plate against headlights when shooting straight on with my Axis P3364VE zoomed to 6mm with no IR. It's good enough under my low-speed no angle conditions that it also functions nicely to view people. With cars driving by at night in your location I wouldn't think that 6mm is enough for even an amateur solution and you might need IR which changes the game completely. I assume that your plates reflect IR just like North American plates. You might like to check buellwinkle's post in this thread for a dedicated plate camera recommendation. You'll also probably need a second camera for good pictures of people/cars/colours.

Here's a recent thread about tuning some decent but inexpensive 2mp network cameras to capture plates at very short range. As dexterash mentions in the thread, normally it's best to use two cameras- one tuned just for plates and another for everything else (like faces). Here's another thread showing some daytime plate capture capabilities of some megapixel cameras with wide angle lenses. I'm not a pro, but I'm thinking you'd need a box camera in a weatherproof housing with a minimum of 6-60mm zoom lens to get even remotely close enough. I've got a 5-50mm varifocal I've used before but I somehow doubt it'd grab plates even during the day at 100 yards. I'd try and dig it out but I don't have even close to a 100 yard field of view in front of my house to test it out. There's probably a lens calculator out on the net somewhere that'll give you the lens length needed for, say, 50 pixels per foot (more is better) at the exact distance you want. You'll have to specify camera resolution (D1 for analog, 1.3mp, or whatever) and sensor size as well. Preliminary fiddling with the Pelco camera tool (unless I'm doing it wrong) is telling me that 60mm isn't going to be near enough. Serious gear ($2000 plus) may be required, even if there's decent lighting. You'd be better off to have the person closest to the choke point you want to monitor mount a camera on their house (if there is a close place with hopefully a fairly straight (not angled) shot at the plates) and maybe use a directional wifi bridge to get the signal back to your place for monitoring.

You want to be able to identify faces and read license plates at night from (I'm guessing) about a hundred yards away?

Post pics of the front and back of the dvr plus screenshots of the menus when it is running. Googling the firmware revision number is also sometimes helpful if Googling the number you posted doesn't help.

Higher available amps won't damage anything. Cost for the bigger power supply and fusing are the only real concerns as long as the 5a supply is supplying the right voltage. A regulated switching power supply should probably be used

If they refuse to send it in for repair then sell them another one. Either that or remove their original drive, install another, and send it back with the defective unit. You never know, it might even be the HD that's defective and swapping drives fixes the problem.

I was thinking it was pretty cut and dried as well but was wondering EXACTLY and PRECISELY what milkisbad was talking about. Referencing a port-forwarded internal IP address using an external IP address (accessible directly from only the cell modem) while connected to an internal IP address via wifi and verifying the routing beyond the shadow of a doubt to avoid a cell data usage bill is something that I'll admit to not having done. It'd either take 1, some pretty smart NAT loopback from within the router, 2, having the external address going in through wifi then out to probably a DNS and then back in, or 3, having something throw up its figurative hands, give up, and use the cell modem anyway even though wifi is available. Knowing the mechanics and route precisely is different from just having it work and assuming that I know why.

I'm not familiar with that milkisbad. What's the name of the feature and how do you tell for sure if your phone isn't using wifi for local and cell for the external IPs?

Have you tried some of the standard default ones, like 000000, 1111, 12345, etc?

After seeing Larry's "bump", I got to thinking of more mundane varieties of endoscopic-type cams with much smaller pricetags- inspection cameras for mechanics, electricians, HVAC, etc. I haven't researched the high end of these things but I've got a gooseneck one that does wireless video transmission. Mine's definitely low-def but some of the higher end ones do 720P as well as wireless video transmission. Some of them might even record. Might be worth a look, anyway.

What brand is your NVR software Lorena? It is common for six year old software to need an update before working on a new version of Windows. Sometimes there are no updates and you must use an old version of windows.

Pick one of your options for DDNS, sign up, and you'll get your personalized domain name to use with the DDNS service during signup. Then use that instead of an IP address in the DVR so when your IP address changes the DDNS service handles the number change.

You guys consider that it might be a network problem corrupting or losing the packets after they leave the camera?

Hello back from eastern Canada.

I'm not a fan of Big Brother but I don't mind security cams in public places. They probably won't do much to deter suicide bombers the way they are used now. Although it gives me the willies in a lot of ways, picture a street full of people wearing Google Glass linked to Google servers running facial recognition software. Now picture drones with 29mp Avigilon cams doing flybys of terrorist camps and linking the images to Google. Or maybe a public database of registered sex offenders linked to your daughter's (if you have one) Google Glass with her DiddlerDetection (TM Kawboy12R 2013) app running while she's at the mall, walking to school, at the park, or wherever. Don't laugh, it will be coming in one form or another.

The safety is provided to those who DIDN'T die from future attacks because the brothers got caught and the deterrent of those who might not do such things in the future because these particular scumbags didn't get away with it. There's not a lot of glory to be found when your brother drives OVER you trying to save his terrified @$$ after finding out that there are real consequences to being a total piece of garbage. Life isn't a video game and the cops WILL get you. Thanks CCTV!

Take the camera apart and look for cracks, loose connections, etc. Reset (push back in) any chips, connectors, etc.

Use a different app at home with your local camera IP addresses added.

Don't think there is a forum for Maplins sentient cameras. Just pick something that's close based on analog vs network. Many folks on here just read via "active posts" or "unread posts" anyway, so all forums get read. Too hard to filter through all of the forums individually. I'd think either IP cams, DVR cards and software, or maybe General Discussion depending on what the cam is based on.

They're probably made of unobtainium for the moment, but Google Glass prescription edition might fit the bill. Other options might be unobtrusive if you've got an Afro, wear a turban, or whatever. You ever think of getting contacts just for the ceremony? That'd make Glass-cams (or other brands) seem like you just switched glasses for the wedding. If you're worried about cost, the cost of contacts is probably cheaper than some of your other options for keeping your original glasses when relatively cheap glasses-oriented spycams are available..

Looks like you need help from the place that sold it to you. The DVR is probably defective. If your supplier can`t get it working for you then try replacing it with a reliable name brand that can give you support. If you want to save money by supplying cheap Chinese no-name garbage that you aren`t expert with to your clients, you should at least have a large pile of spare cams, DVRs, etc to replace them with. People will end up hating you if you supply them with crap, can`t figure out the problems, have no spares to swap in to keep them happy, and pass the buck on warranty issues. Welcome to the world of business. Caveat emptor.

Move to Canada. A hot attic crawl isn't always a bad thing...

The E44 is their 2MP low-light champ with SLLS. The E46 has better WDR and is 3MP but no SLLS.

Consider domes, especially low-light domes without IR. They aren't petite but blend in and don't have the STARING AT YOUR FACE quality that bullets do. Works wonders on the WAF, at least outside. Indoor domes in my house? Not really my thing. Cube cameras indoors are cutesy and easily ignored, especially if they're sitting on a computer desk and everybody thinks they're a webcam.