rory

Who is Michael? Maybe you should PM him?

Looks like its a dual day night camera (or dual CCD camera), typically those are meant to be color in the day and switch to the low light / IR camera at night, not be 2 cameras with separate outputs, as then people could just buy 2 separate cameras. Dual CCD day night is the best type of day night camera BTW, a single day night camera is one camera trying to do the job of both. Although i have no experience with this particular camera.

Typically no point at all.

I personally wouldnt say IR is for night or even low light, I would say its primarily for Pitch Dark applications. Although in some cases it can help under low light depending on the camera used, but most low light applications can get away with no IR as long as the cameras are sensitive enough - these days though alot of the single chip day night cameras produce so much noise under low light and even their latest Digital Noise Reduction then leads to other image distortions. Best day night camera is and always will be a dual Color and BW camera (aka Dual CCD though some may use CMOS now like with IP cameras).

IR can be used for indoors also, not just at night - in fact I normally focus my cameras for IR apps inside a garage in the daytime, and do the rest of the optimizing at night. But the point was that not all night vision cameras need Infrared, take BW cameras for example, I use them everywhere with no IR, or fixed lens cameras, dont need IR corrected lenses, there are many situations that they are just not even needed to begin with. And I was doing long range IR apps for years before IR lenses were even thought of, I had better images back then without trying to rely on some minimal effect from a supposed IR corrected lens. IR lenses these days are over marketed, over used, and still overpriced. In fact in my experience IR cameras of today suck compared to how they were before, not everything new is good.

Not really, it helps with the focus shift under IR in some cases, but otherwise not every camera used for night apps warrant the need of an IR corrected lens, or even IR as mentioned. Ive used IR corrected lenses and they dont always work as they claim anyway, in most cases there is still nothing like a hands on approach, and a little off focus in either visible light or near infrared light is generally required. Either way, optimizing a day night camera will require setup during the day and the night, and if it uses Infrared, under pitch dark conditions. One other way to optimize a Day Night camera for IR conditions is in addition to using a sensitive chip among other features, and removing the IR cut filter, is using an IR pass filter when the IR cut filter is removed.

What Soundy said, you need IR with 930nm+ (eg. 940nm, 950nm etc), and a camera sensitive to that Infrared spectrum. One catch is as you go higher you loose IR distance or have to compensate by raising the power to it, or narrowing the beam in some cases.

Dealer price yes easy to find, retail price no. Basically a cheap Color only camera I can easily get for less than that at dealer price that blows away most $100-200 cameras, and its waterproof tried and tested. But no it is not a Day Night camera, it needs light at night, and retail price is alot more.

I would agree, though looks like the image has been over compressed so really an analog camera's quality wouldnt be far off (lots of blurry edges and artifacts), but then I realize its just a sample for the web. Thing is though in a store that size $100 cameras would work great, and save the client a ton of money.

Problem is there are alot of areas that arent covered as its only from one viewpoint.

actually they come in a mini black bullet housing I use the low res BW version of them in the night clubs. (low res sees more in low light)

$30 cameras on duhua

Try to convert it first to H.264 Check out Handbrake or AVIdemux Both give you the option to convert it to an mp4 file, that should let you upload to Youtube, though depends how the encoding turns out. Also sometimes Facebook will work when Youtube wont, so might want to try that if you dont want to mess around with the tools I mentioned. Then download it from Facebook using something like a browser download helper, and reupload to Youtube.

Q-See sell alot of different brands, now their dahua model IS the cheapest Dahua model, so you might not want that, go up a step and even if getting the 4 channel get the one with HDMI as even if you dont use the HDMI thats the better model. Dahua does continuously release firmware updates and new network software, so its upgradeable in that sense. I cant speak for Q-See as Ive never used their models, but I have used the same one under a different name, both the same unit by Dahua, and its still a good unit for the price. But you can probably pick up the HDMI one for just a few more dollars. MACE also sell them, price is higher though, but I think they give you long warranties if that interests you. Intellicam USA (Gen4) were selling them, and a bunch of online stores now also sell them. Otherwise you will also find the CNB and Avermedia models at various stores and distributors online. You will find alot of these sub $400 stand alone DVRs are now coming loaded with features.

I used Geo also, and with CNB cameras, the BBM-24F and those blue-i actually. The recorded video is better but the live is not great, the network video quality sucks compared to for example Dahua's network video quality. I hooked up a Dahua side by side with the Geo's (4 Geo DVRs, 1 brand new, 3 older ones) and with 8.33 Geo Main System (8.4 was worse plus needed a quad core CPU so I went back to 8.33), the difference in live and network video quality was considerable. Those were all Combo cards though, I havent used any of the other cards with 8.3+. But like I said the recorded quality of Geo is better than Dahua. I moved to Dahua from Geo though, not just because of that I mentioned, but I can plug in the Dahua and walk away with it recording all channels in under 3 minutes, no PC build or testing or this or that .. plug and play and walk away

And the PC to power it is the leg Low cost stand alone with alot of features? CNB have some, or Dahua, Ive used both. Another one people recommend is TVT (wouldnt know where to get them though, however they are sold under a model by Q-See). Then there is the more expensive Avermedia units, and it starts to get more $$ from there.

bump.

approx $600 diff though, can get 3 x 4 channel DVRs for that

Ive used both, and the Monalisa Dome, I was not pleased with the BBM-24F. I would suggest if going for a box camera step up a little and buy a Bosch, Sanyo, Samsung, or Panasonic. Otherwise I find the Monalisa Domes to be better quality than the BBM-24F. For example one of my big issues with the BBM-24F is its inability to be properly backfocused, plus even with an expensive lens the picture is just not that great. I found the Blue-i Box WDR feature to be next to useless and that camera to be an even bigger waste of money, although its BLC feature is better than most - I also used a blue-i indoor dome and while the picture was not that bad, again the WDR was not worth using. Both Blue-i's I used were the more expensive double scan WDR. BTW I used the BBM-24F along side 5+ year old Samsungs and although the BBM-24F far outperforms those in low light the old Samsungs were a much better image overall.

The software looks funky. Is that a program or a browser app?

IP has been a standard for about 10 years now with DVRs.

@Brandon you are talking more about the online Hong Kong stores and a few other online stores that sell unbranded stuff that just says sony or sharp or DVR on it , but most online stores these days are full blown distributors and carry lines from all the major brands, and at the same time they tend to have a no name brand for the cheaper market which they will put their name on. Its alot different now than it was a few years ago, there is a much better selection to choose from in that regard. Take a look at some of the forum's partners for example. Many here also use stores like 123, A1, etc. 123 has some of the best pricing on CNB for example, and they have 2 brick and mortar retail stores AND have special pricing for dealers, as many others do. @Sean yes man DSS rocks, I wish I had some use for it other than just testing it to pass the time

So anyone took the plunge and tried DSS yet? its nice it can check the status of DVRs etc from the webpage but it wont send alerts ... hmmmm .. Wonder if I can make a "tweak" to have it do that

on this side of the globe the majority selling Dahua are distributors who rebadge it with their name, and it costs alot more than $40 Not much more for a dealer to buy their cheapest unit though, but the HDMI units all cost alot more. Ive only found a couple online stores on this side selling Dahua but it was rebranded and cost much more than the distributor. But since this software is dating from 2009 looks like they might have as mentioned turned away from the high end approach, also seeing as they continue to bring out new entry level units.

Yeah but online stores are essentially distributors (online or otherwise). Installers can still buy from online stores the same they buy from distributors and get discounted pricing over end users, in fact in many cases they get better service and cheaper prices. I deal with both and they all have their problems, I had ALOT more problems dealing with the brick and mortar only distributors though, most barely even answer email. If you ask me, there is little difference now, except that online stores these days normally sell more brands than the average distributor, and offer a more limited direct warranty. Even with the limited warranty the online store normally gives (compared to a distributor), one still normally gets the warranty by the manufacturer. By online stores im talking about A1, 123, etc. not online hong kong sites or ebay or amazon. Online stores sell all the big brands by the way same as the brick and mortar distributors, plus online stores in some cases are brick and mortar distributors, eg. 123.