Intellicam G4-400HPT and ISC-P540X Review

[shoreviewsecurity 0]

Rory is right ( of course ). The switch is not noticable unless you put your ear next to the cam case and cover the lens to force the IR's to come or on the flip side, at night, use a flashlight and force the IR's to turn off. Don't shine the light directly into the lens though. Only provide enough ambient light to fool the cam into thinking it's getting light out. Pretty easy to do as I have found that most cameras are pretty stupid

[cocacola 0]

I just brought it inside to adjust the iris. It's actually easy and there is not much of a turn to it. I went through the whole adjustment both with indoor lighting and pointed out the window and can see no improvement. So I adjusted back where it was to begin with as that looks like the best setting. I do get a much better picture on the TV set, if that matters.

 

 

Here are screenshots from last night.

 

 

 

Total darkness:

 

 

 

With motion activated floodlights on:

 

Hmmm, even a 25 USD camera like the "infrared Camera BC804" gifs a better picture than that!

Personal i think its out of focus to....

[dopalgangr 1]

Well I finally mounted those cameras on the house today, I seem to be having an issue like the others and can not seem to get a crisp, in-focus picture during the daytime????

 

 

Whats wrong??

[Forestarius 0]

I've been wondering if the front glass in the housing is acting like one of those special effects blur filters they used to sell for 35mm cameras. I haven't had the time to take housing apart to check on that.

[dopalgangr 1]

I dont know, they all look good on my tv output though???

[Forestarius 0]

I dont know, they all look good on my tv output though???

 

I think every camera I've ever hooked up to the TV looked much much better if not spectacular. This time though it was less good than any other camera I've tried and I could not get it precisely focused on anything past a few feet. In the house at 3-4 feet it looked great, but starts going bad fast as the distance increases. Outdoors it is just awful. I have cheap 1/4" cameras that look much better as well as being in focus. I hope this is user fixable.

[dopalgangr 1]

I have to agree, I have not been impressed so far after I mounted these, even at night the pictures are alot more grainy than in the review I did earlier on these. Another thing that puzzles me is why would the focus go blurry when you zoom in and out?? Zooming should not affect the focus, it doesn't affect it on my camera, or a rifle scope.

 

PS. What DVR are you using and at what settings?

[benf 0]

I have to agree, I have not been impressed so far after I mounted these, even at night the pictures are alot more grainy than in the review I did earlier on these. Another thing that puzzles me is why would the focus go blurry when you zoom in and out?? Zooming should not affect the focus, it doesn't affect it on my camera, or a rifle scope.

 

What kind of connectivity do you have between the cam and DVR? Coax, cat5 w/baluns, AV cable, etc? I have some artifacts with my images but it's because of a very long cat5 run that's exposed to electrical wiring and I also have a ground loop issue. Going to replace w/coax at some point but for now the picture is pretty sharp.

 

I found also the cams are quite sensitive to motion when it comes to focus. My initial mounting, which would take awhile to explain, would have them "jiggling" in strong winds which eventually threw the cam out of focus. I've secured the mounting and refocused, since then it's been fine. I'm guessing you do but make sure you've got a good solid mount.

[Forestarius 0]

The pictures were from a Geovision 800-4 card set to Geo Mpeg4.

 

I think you have to refocus all surveillance camera lenses when you zoom. I've had to do it on every brand including top of the line Bosch and Panasonic's. They are more like old 35mm cameras than modern digitals.

 

Right now I'm using pro type AV surveillance cable with copper shielding and that has the power cord built in and comes in 500 foot rolls. For testing I've also used short runs of other types cables and saw no difference. It really is a camera problem.

[dopalgangr 1]

What kind of connectivity do you have between the cam and DVR? Coax, cat5 w/baluns, AV cable, etc? I have some artifacts with my images but it's because of a very long cat5 run that's exposed to electrical wiring and I also have a ground loop issue. Going to replace w/coax at some point but for now the picture is pretty sharp.

 

I found also the cams are quite sensitive to motion when it comes to focus. My initial mounting, which would take awhile to explain, would have them "jiggling" in strong winds which eventually threw the cam out of focus. I've secured the mounting and refocused, since then it's been fine. I'm guessing you do but make sure you've got a good solid mount

 

I'm using RG59U with runs less than 100'. They are mounted directly into wood and are very sturdy. I have also tryed fixed power and adapters, still the same. It seems that anything over 5-10 feet out becomes fuzzy and out of focus.

 

 

[dopalgangr 1]

Heres some from tonight, the one with the two cars is only 10 feet up. I am unsure why the night vision isnt doing better?

 

[eric9547 0]

I almost bought these camera's based on your review. I'm glad a vendor took his sweet time to get back to me as i would have quite a few of these. Whew

[dopalgangr 1]

I almost bought these camera's based on your review. I'm glad a vendor took his sweet time to get back to me as i would have quite a few of these. Whew

 

Well I still think this is a good camera with potential for the price, I think I may have just got some bad ones. I trust Mike at Shoreviewsecurity and I am waiting for him to send me an email with his findings. I wouldn't give up on them just yet, I will post what he said when he gets back to me.

[ak357 0]

I almost bought these camera's based on your review. I'm glad a vendor took his sweet time to get back to me as i would have quite a few of these. Whew

 

Well I still think this is a good camera with potential for the price, I think I may have just got some bad ones. I trust Mike at Shoreviewsecurity and I am waiting for him to send me an email with his findings. I wouldn't give up on them just yet, I will post what he said when he gets back to me.

 

Can u please try to post original size pix?

What i mean u sad that u capture at 720x480 but your screen shots are 800x600

Thanks

[dopalgangr 1]

Well, when I use the snap shot feature on the Avermedia it only gives jpegs at 800x600 or bmp at 640x480. Here is the best I could figure out at 720x540. I am still new on the Avermedia and must say that Im not impressed that much with it either

 

[ak357 0]

Well, when I use the snap shot feature on the Avermedia it only gives jpegs at 800x600 or bmp at 640x480. Here is the best I could figure out at 720x540. I am still new on the Avermedia and must say that Im not impressed that much with it either

 

 

Thanks

 

1. do u have camcorder ?

2. can u connect to your DVR ?

3.can u post video clips "avi"

 

capture at "cif" and "D1" resolution few sec each

but dont post on photobucket.com

they will convert them to flash format

[rory 0]

doesnt look like the IR Cut filter is working, and or the Iris is closed too much.

 

make sure its getting enough power too.

[dopalgangr 1]

doesnt look like the IR Cut filter is working, and or the Iris is closed too much.

 

make sure its getting enough power too.

 

Thanks Rory, I was hoping you would give me your thoughts!! I will check it out.

[dopalgangr 1]

Well, I finally got around to dealing with the cameras tonight, here is what I found out:

 

I changed the dip switches to ALC-off, BLC-off, F/L-on, AFC-off (all to the left and the bottom to the right)

 

I then opened the iris all the way, then 1/4 back and refocused. I had the cam attached to a 13" color tv and the picture was perfect. Very crisp and lighting was great. I have to recheck the pictures tomorrow during the day light hours and repost my findings.

 

I'm starting to believe that the crappy images and video is due to the Avermedia EB1304NET that I have it hooked up to. I have it set at D1/15fps and at the best setting. This being the best that the DVR could record at didn't reproduce the perfect images I was getting with the cam hooked straight to the TV. IMO I don't think that camera is at fault here and it is more the DVR. There "D1" doesn't appear to be as good as the D1 settings I have seen on other dvr's. I also hooked at DVD player straight to channel 1 and recorded video, the video was pixelated and not very crisp.

 

My next venture is to purchase one of the Intellicam G4-XLA's and see if I get a better picture. I will also hook the ISC-P540X up to my camcorder and record some video on that and post it for you to view. Thanks

Edited June 7, 2008 by Guest

[rory 0]

Never judge a camera by the picture you get over the network.

[dopalgangr 1]

Never judge a camera by the picture you get over the network.

 

Yea I found that out tonight

 

Well I recorded some video but the file straight from my camcorder is 168mb zipped, so I converted it to h.264 and lost a little quality but the file is now 28mb. Here is the link if anyones interested:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?nt0y5trofzi

 

Here's a link for a few seconds at full quality (keep in mind its 62mb)

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?zztbhzzbsno

 

Thanks

[ak357 0]

Never judge a camera by the picture you get over the network.

 

Yea I found that out tonight

 

Well I recorded some video but the file straight from my camcorder is 168mb zipped, so I converted it to h.264 and lost a little quality but the file is now 28mb. Here is the link if anyones interested:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?nt0y5trofzi

 

Here's a link for a few seconds at full quality (keep in mind its 62mb)

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?zztbhzzbsno

 

Thanks

 

wooow 4 sec of video about 60 meg with bitrate of 129k

meaning 1 sec about 15 meg so much better then blueray

u use SnagIt Screen Capture Software right ?

what tools do u use to convert ?

thx for samples

[dopalgangr 1]

ak357- I used Windows Movie Maker to take the video off of my camcorder, then Camtasia Studio 4 to trim it to a shorter length for the shorter version. I used Amerisoft Video Converter (very slow) to convert it to H.264. I got this free from giveawayoftheday.com, every day you have a chance to get a fully licensed piece of software, its mostly junk but they have alot of video converters there.

[dopalgangr 1]

Ok heres the daytime footage:

 

H.264 at 13mb http://www.mediafire.com/?civ405jln0d

 

Full res, 90mb http://www.mediafire.com/?7dfzmvyoyhx

 

Let me know what you guys think

[dopalgangr 1]

And heres some pics after I re-adjusted the cams