45921cam

I guess I got unlucky mine died after six months (I think power supply ). RMAing this week, that process so far as been pretty painless. For cheap network gear I prefer TPlink to Zyxel. Also on the same switch I had an issue were a particular Intel NIC would periodically drop/renegotiate (not sure if NIC or switch but the NIC worked fine on three other switches I had). Only caught that because I saw my cameras dropping.

Yeah you California folks are lucky (wife is from Bay Area and I go out to Northern Cal quite a bit, less so SoCal) here in the mid-Atlantic region in the forested exurbs we have *tons* of bugs and spiders. I have lived many places in my life and not seen it like here. We also get a lot more rain than you (particularly this year which is the first year I have had cameras) and so whatever I put on or around the cams tends to get washed off (except the few that are sheltered in some way) fairly quickly. At least I do get to use the in cam IR a bit in winter (the recent snow makes it particularly effective).

I disagree a bit with this statement. I find night mode without IR helps if you have other non-IR lighting but don't want to run internal IR because of bugs/spiders. If the other lighting is bright enough then sure daylight mode is good but I find night mode better on a couple of my cams with less than perfect lighting. Again since I'm still learning - what is the relation between IR and bugs/spiders? Bugs are attracted to IR and the spiders then move in and makes a web on the front of your cam. The IR lights up the web (and the spider if he is in frame) and it obscures the image at night (the webs are mostly invisible during the day) and if you are using motion detection you get false alerts all night long. Some folks have no problems with this and other like me it essentially makes in camera IR completely useless. I even sprayed my cameras with enough insecticide that they were one step removed from industrial hazard and that kept the camera clear maybe three days. I gave up. I now use the outside lighting around the house and will deploy a couple of external IR emitters when I get time. I would say my problem is probably at the extreme.

I flashed four of the Swann bullets (fixed lens) purchased this summer from Costco to 5.1 no problem. This month I got a Costco Lorex DVR/six cam setup from Costco. Lorex is also re-branded Hikvision and those would NOT upgrade via the web browser to 5.1 (or any other Hikvison firmware) but upgraded fine via TFTP to 5.1 no problem. The TFTP method seems to be pretty darn reliable and once you have figured it out it is trivial to do. First cam probably took me 45 mins the rest were about 5 mins each. I love the ability to turn-off IR, great feature.

I disagree a bit with this statement. I find night mode without IR helps if you have other non-IR lighting but don't want to run internal IR because of bugs/spiders. If the other lighting is bright enough then sure daylight mode is good but I find night mode better on a couple of my cams with less than perfect lighting.

The method I am talking about is documented in the pdf here: http://www.hikvisioneurope.com/portal/index.php?dir=Z%20OLD/Technical%20Materials/Special%20Tools/TFTP-Auto-Update/ The tools you need are there too. I'd suggest you run the TFTP server as admin and make sure you allow it access through the Windows firewall. You should be prompted for that.

I have upgraded over wireless no problem though I have had trouble doing so through my firewall (from trusted to DMZ). Have you tried the TFTP update method that worked for me when the web interface failed. Google TFTP Hikvision and you should find what you need if you haven't tried that already.

I recently got the Lorex 6 cam 8 channel NVR setup on sale from Costco. Only wanted the cams to use with a computer based NVR. Anyway maybe this is old news, but the cams would NOT take the Hikvision raptor firmware via the web interface (it failed--tried 5.02, 5.1 and an older 4.x something). TFTP using the Hikivsion client did work (though it was a bit flaky). Also of note the camera first tried to hit UDP 9978 before trying UDP 69 (standard TFTP port) so you have to use the Hikivsion TFTP client or you cannot upgrade (i.e., third party TFTP servers won't work because they won't respond correctly on UDP 9978 first). Anyway I apologize if this is old news but my old SWANNs upgraded fine via web interface so I was surprised when that failed with the Lorex cams.

Right now the only decent deal on IP cams at Costco appears to be the Lorex eight channel DVR + six cam deal for $999.999. Depending on your sale tax situation that works out to about $175+ per cam with a "free" DVR and 2TB drive that if you don't need (I don't) you can probably flip for something and lower your per cam cost.

Some other things to consider. The Costco stuff comes with Costco's warranty and I can confirm that even though they are, in this case in part, cameras they are covered by the standard Costco warranty and not the shorter one for certain electronics (I just had to return two SWAN HD 820s) and it was past the shorter 90-day window and they confirmed to me surveillance stuff was covered by the longer warranty. On that deal you are basically getting the DVR for free and your are buying stuff with a warranty that is at least as good as the US branded Hikivison cameras (these Lorexs are rebranded Hikivsion). The US Hikivision stuff is more expensive than the gray market Chinese Hikivsion which appear to come with no or a short (90-day warranty). So if the warranty matters then the Costco cams/dvr are actually quite a bit cheaper. The only problem with returning to Costco directly is you have to return everything you bought. So if a camera dies in say a year you will have to return the DVR and all six cameras if returning to Costco (I understand why the do this but it is a pain to have to remove everything). Or of course you could just RMA the failed camera to Lorex (I think the Swann's at Costco came with a three year warranty from Swann directly). As for the 3MP resolution buellwinkle is right but you can flash these cameras to the Hikvision firmware (or at least you could on the Swanns) but that might impact your ability to return to Lorex (Costco won't care). Also in addition to making sure you like the camera models you are getting with bundle you also have to like the lens choices. If you purchase separately you can choose you lens as well. Note if using the DVR you probably don't want to do this or at least make sure you have a way to go back to the Lorex firmware if you do. Bottom line if you had asked me a month ago which way to go I'd would have said if you don't need/want the DVR then buy the Chinese Hiks and call it a day. But in the last two weeks I have had two failures of the four Swann/Hiks I bought back in July. The Hik I installed first which was outside for maybe six months or just under, failed a week ago. Just died in the middle of the day (it would not power up via POE or the 12v jack). Returned it to Costco with one of its working brothers (since I bought a two pack they would not take just one). Replaced the dead cam with the fourth cam I had never installed and within a week it had developed internal condensation. I saw some posts back from June where folks reported the same issue with their Swann's and my cams were the same batch (5/2013 manufacturing date). So it looks like I will be taking the other two Swann's back to Costco to get a refund on my second two pack. While I don't think my experience with the Swann/Hiks is typical, I am now a little hesitant to buy the Chinese Hiks with their shorter warranty.