On the hunt for a simple indoor IP camera to utilize as...

[Owain 0]

As an aside... u really think it's healthy to have video feeds of your newborn showing in PIP and in multiple rooms of ur house? Kinda Orwellian if u ask me

 

Okay postnatal.

 

Prenatal video of the ickle bairn might be a bit OTT

[jasauders 0]

In regards to your previous post, tenvis seem to be y-cam/foscam clones. http://goo.gl/NKuuq

 

Also an amazon review put the Polaroid as very bad night image compared to astak. That would be a deal beaker for me, but I saw u already responded to that review. Personally the Polaroid just feels sketchy to me, especially since they don't list it on their site.

 

I'd have to agree there. I think the reviewer sounded relatively inexperienced, because I have yet to find a night vision camera that looks downright amazing at night without adding a ton of IR LED lights to the field of view. I tried to be informative without coming across as a prick. That being said, the Polaroid turned me off once I couldn't find it on their site as well...

 

I'm super curious to hear what you have to say about the Y-Cam... crossing fingers here.

[meyerovb 0]

I disagree about the reviewer's experience, he had previous experience with the astak mole cam, which is on my list but is more expensive and isn't supported Baby Monitor HD. If LiveCams Pro app can add away mode support I'd consider testing it out.

[meyerovb 0]

Decided to give the astak mole cam a whirl as well, amazon prime so if it has any issues it's an easy free return. Arrives friday, but the youtube clips seem to have clear audio. It's $20 off ($170) new on amazon right now, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002V92X9Y coupon code THANKSU2

[jasauders 0]

The Astak looks very good judging by the reviews. There's only one little tiny thing that would make this camera a monumental fail to me...

 

- 2 Way Audio only works with Internet Explorer on PC.

 

Any time I see a company only support IE like this, I normally walk away immediately. I use Linux systems at home for many reasons, so naturally this would be a dead end. I would however consider this camera still if the audio/video works fine in VLC, which is the primary way I'd be utilizing the camera to begin with. If it is literally IE only no matter what, no questions asked, no way to work around it, period, then I'd keep looking around for a more suitable cam.

 

That being said, the H264 is also a nice touch, especially considering the price... It'd be a real shame if this didn't fly in VLC.

 

I'm anxious to hear what you find (literally) with these cameras. If you can give VLC a test drive too that would be awesome!

[jasauders 0]

Have you by chance considered a Wansview camera? I just found the Wansview NCZ540w and 550w. I'm unable to find any direct reviews of them though, but their specs vs price look decent.

[meyerovb 0]

Have you by chance considered a Wansview camera? I just found the Wansview NCZ540w and 550w. I'm unable to find any direct reviews of them though, but their specs vs price look decent.

 

I discounted it after reading the reply to this post: http://www.openipcam.com/forum/index.php?topic=116.0

 

Apparently wansview is a foscam clone, both made in the same factory, so I'm assuming have the same audio decoding glitches.

[jasauders 0]

Good call. Did you get those gizmos in the mail today? I saw some people saying the Astak had blurry motion images, kind of made me a little about it... curious to hear what you think though.

[meyerovb 0]

The y-cam won't function at all, think this particular one is a lemon, and really have a remote PT requirement so won't trying again.

 

The astak mole has no way to access the h264 feed outside of their web client or their hosted yoics solution as far as I can tell. The few iOS apps I found that support it show that it has significantly more lag and lower framerate than the foscam, with no configurability of these options in their admin screen. In my opinion the mole is just another 'user friendly' camera, not very useful unless you have no idea what port forwarding means.

 

On the bright side, after testing the Foscam in iOS app IP Cam Viewer Pro I've had very good results with the audio, no ticking and quite clear...

 

In regards to foscam on vlc, I tried this as a stream url and get better results with the audio: http://user:pass@ip:port/videostream.asf

 

At the end of the day I really think this is a case where I have to fall on my sword and get a Motorola MBP36, since I'm fairly certain it's completely live feed and static free.

[meyerovb 0]

http://goo.gl/1fTJu

 

Coupon code Christmas on the foscam.us site is getting me a FI9821W delivered for $136. Will let you know how the stream performs.

 

Here's hoping it's no lemon: http://goo.gl/5CYjO

[jasauders 0]

Hm, that's disappointing. I really had higher hopes for the Y-Cam and the Mole. I wonder why they would restrict the H264 stream to only utilize within their app? Is this some sort of actual restriction or just some crap that they're pulling off? My Vivotek's can pull the H264 stream... anywhere. It doesn't matter I can pull it through Totem, VLC, etc.

 

I'm exceptionally hesitant about getting another Foscam. After seeing the reports of the awful audio from the one I have (8918) and seeing Foscam devs say "yes we're working on it" since back in January 2012 and NO fix yet, I just don't trust them anymore. That being said, if there is a decent Foscam with exceptionally amazingly awesome epic reviews and the audio is spectacular and the price is right and I can pull H264 through VLC with audio and it's perfect... I might consider it.

 

EDIT - Man... the price of the 9821 is super attractive when you consider the features. 160 bucks for all of that? Plus they specify in the release notes: Improved audio and reduced static on microphone.

 

If that's true and the audio is actually not terrible... we might have a winner.

[MaxIcon 0]

I've got a couple of Y-cam clones (LTS flashed with Y-cam firmware, virtually identical to the Y-cam), and they work well for me. One's in a Y-cam Shell outdoor enclosure and has been online for several years now, and one's an indoor cam that's used intermittently. They've both been very reliable and easy to use, and work fine with IE (and other browsers with some loss of functionality), Blue Iris, and the Aver NV6240 recording software.

 

The main downsides are the 640x480 resolution (all my other cams are 1MP and better), the reliance on ActiveX for audio, and lack of an IR filter, which causes colors to be off in the daytime if there's a lot of IR present (like in outdoor shots). If you need PT, of course, they're no good, but the software's robust and support is good.

 

I generally disable the audio, but sometimes forget when viewing through a browser window. The sounds of cars passing by reminds me.

 

I've heard way too many horror stories about Foscam and its clones to ever want to go that way.

[meyerovb 0]

The fi9821w doesn't currently have a rtsp or html URL to access it's video stream, but they have just released the documentation for their fcgi protocol that allows you to retrieve snapshots, and their ios and android sdks. They have promised updated firmware but have not yet said if that includes adding url stream support.

 

http://foscam.us/forum/new-annoucement-of-fi9821w-t4011.html

 

http://foscam.us/forum/cgi-sdk-for-fi9821w-fi9801w-fi9802w-t4010.html

 

By the time ur baby arrives I think you can confidently expect a vlc compatible stream. I feel foscam is standing behind this tech firmly as their future trajectory (3 of their new cams use it), and they seem to want to avoid another 9820 debacle.