New forum member, need some advice

[tcg 0]

Hello. I'm brand new here. I'm hoping to get some advice and maybe clear up a few questions I have.

 

First, I'm a hobbyist and am trying to set up a surveillance system for home use. I've purchased a couple of cameras that I've been less than thrilled about. Both were from Monoprice. I'm using a Bluecherry PV-149 capture board and Zoneminder. ( I'm a Linux guy so I'm right at home there! )

 

The first camera (Monoprice #7876) was in the $90 range and has a decent day picture, although not very crisp and clear, and a very acceptable nighttime IR picture. Although advertised as a 600TVL camera, the picture seems to have lots of visible tiny horizontal lines.

 

The second one (Monoprice #6646), which was twice the price, was a TDN varifocal and had a really great daytime picture but the nighttime IR was not good at all. It had extremely high IR saturation and a lot of noise. I could tweak out some of the noise but could do nothing about the high IR saturation. I returned it.

 

After a bit of reading on this forum, I decided that I probably overpaid for what I actually got. It looks like better cameras can be had for less (or about the same) money.

 

Both of the cameras I've bought were based on the Sony 1/3" Super HAD. So my first question is, how does that compare to the newer Super HAD II EFFIO sensors? Are the EFFIO sensors "the way to go"?

 

Can someone tell me what monolisa is all about?

 

Finally, I also keep seeing references to Smart IR. Are there different implementations of Smart IR and, if so, are some better than others? Does Smart IR have anything to do with EFFIO?

 

Thanks. Stay tuned, more confusion to follow ...

 

--

Chris

[dahomes555 0]

Never bought cameras from monoprice, though I buy a lot of other stuff from them.

 

Effio is the way to go, in my experience. Monalisa is a technology largely found on CNB cameras and according to reps for CNB, it maxes at 600 TVL. Effio gets you 650 TVL, although NTSC format on DVRs doesn't let you really take advantages of higher than about 480 TVL anyway.

 

My experience is that the DVR makes a bigger difference. You will get better results on a cheap camera on a good DVR than you will with a great camera on a cheap DVR.