bike_rider

Thanks. I hope AcTi gets this feature enabled in the KCM line soon. Their cameras seem like a good value and I'm very interested in trying one out. Maybe I'll splurge for a TCM.

Buellwinkle, any chance that the KCM-5611 really has local storage as advertised?

You are going to need to give more information about your expectations. 1080p isn't high resolution enough? OK, what are you looking for? How close does it have to focus?

What you need is a camera with an HDMI output that you can connect directly to the TV. I don't think any traditional surveillance camera has that. This was talked about breifly in this thread. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=29772 That answer then was:

It depends on how many tomatoes you have in your dome.

Correction, the data sheet says exactly that. "MicroSD / MicroSDHC memory card slot (card not included)" and "Save video or snapshot to local storage" The web page also has the logo for Local Storage. So, does anyone have a list where this feature actually works?

Wait a second. You mean that even though the 5311 clearly says "local storage" on the Web site, it doesn't actually work?! Does anyone have a list of Acti cameras that actually have this features working today? Vaporware is one thing. Lying about a feature is something else.

Return the camera. It is defective. License plates at that range are trivially easy to capture with IR. Those plates should be practically glowing at night.

I hear what you are saying, but for my use case it would be a targeted time window review, access would be remote, so bandwidth is an issue. As far as I can tell, based on the manual, you can only d/l one file at a time. Is that right? If you could batch D/L a set that would mitigate the issue. I don't know for sure, but not being able to review via the browser might be a deal breaker. It's a silly little thing to be missing, so maybe they will add it in a future firmware.

Actually, with the Vivotek you can view in the browser a low res vesrion to see if the video is intersting, before you D/L the ful res version. Like I said, ths is a special case of essentially single camera installs - no NVR software, no long term storage. Just a camera recording to SD until you need to go look for something specifc. I will always have a mix of brands, and my understanding of manufacturer specific software is that it is tied-in to the brand, so that's not useful for me.

Thanks for posting this. I was eyeing ACTi for some single camera "stand alone" installs, but the prospect of having to D/L videos just to do a quick review puts a damper on that idea. I guess I'm back to looking at Vivotek.

There a handful of cameras on the Acti site labeled "local storage". Are you saying that some of those don't actually allow local storage because the firmware did not allow it, or is this "now it really works" feature is just for the 7811? Just to clarify, you cannot view locally stored (aka on the SD card) video directly, you have to d/l it first? Do all ACTi cameras (with local storage) work like this?

At that price, I'm not surprised that the feature set is limited. What's your overall impression of the 1111 vs 8332? How would you compare the image quality? Both are on my short list for "good enough" cameras for my next upgrade.

I don't know anything about that camera but frankly it is way too inexpensive for me to consider. OTOH, maybe it is the deal of the century. I don't think Blue Iris will support that at full resolution. 2MP is the most I've heard BI working with.

You've got a couple of tiers of products listed. Forget Everfocus. That sony is in indoor camera. No. Of those companies (not those cameras), I'd put Sony and Panasonic above the others, everfocus at the bottom and the others somewhere in the middle. Of that list, I'd try the ACTi. In fact I might buy one this summer.

camera. IP cameras are computers (often running linux). Many of them have an astounding array of functions built it. I can image a number of scenarios where a computer would not be needed at all for small residential installations.

Well, I hope I will never need to check the recordings )) Btw the clips are good, I can always merge them and create 1 big clip. I have checked the Vivotek NVR, but in the specifications I do not see that they support wifi and I do not see the information about the data being sent via ftp in 30s. clips. Built-in Wifi is over rated in many cases. You still have to run a power cable, so you you might was well run cat5 back to a switch. Use a dedicated AP if you really need to. Nothing I've described uses the Vivotek NVR software. The function is built into the camera. Clip length is usually "while motion is detected", up to a limit. In the case of Vivotek, it is up to 9 seconds pre-event, and up to 20 seconds post event.

Does it mean that, if there is motion for 30 minutes, 60 thirty seconds videos will be recorded? Sorry didn't get it yes - if you have 30 minutes of video you would end up with 60 x 30 second clips. That's not nessisarily a bad thing. If you tried to move a 30 minute video over the internet, you would have to wait 30 minutes to be able to view it. Watching a series of clips is easy - most video players will automaticaly start the next clip in the play list when the current one finishes. OTOH, if you think you going to have 30 minutes of video foten, you are going to blow through lot of bandwidth.

I'm not sure what you are looking for that the vivotek does not offer. local storage - check remote access - check (subject to your router config of course) motion detection - check off site storage - check, via ftp when there is motion (or other alarm conditions like tamper or I/O). limited to not more than 30 seconds per clip, but that's probalby a good thing to keep files sizes reasonable.

(some?) Vivotek's will send a video clip to an off site location on trigger, but it is for a max of 30 seconds. The Sony SNC series (at least some of them) will send still images off site periodically. The minimum interval is 1 second, the max is 24 hours. Otherwise, it meets all your other needs. I'm not sure how exactly its motion detection works, but that's a pretty routine feature today.

When would using a manual iris lens be better than an auto-iris model? The only thing I can think of is control over the depth of field. Is there another reason?

thanks. That's not an issue for me, so I guess I'm not missing anything.

So, your question is really, "How do I display VGA output on my Mac Laptop?" Does your Mac laptop have a video-in port? I doubt it, so the answer is that you cannot do it without some (expensive) video capture device.

On the 8332, can you disable the on board IR? I have off-camera IR, so I could do without the bug attracting LEDs.

You might also consider Ethernet over Power (aka Powerline). I run a 720p camera and a 2MP camera at 15 fps each (H264) through a powerline connection. The connection says it is 99Mbps up and 156 Mbps down.