130° 720p or more IP camera

[Shinobi 0]

Hi everyone!

 

I hope you can give me some good advise on cameras. Here is what I want to do. I want to record sports games with a good 720p or even 1080p IP camera. I will set up one camera on each side of the field and start the recording, depending on which team is playing. The recording is done on my pc with VLC. I bought a pretty cheap 130 degree 960p camera on aliexpress to test the FOV. The results are ok, but I'm not perfectly happy with the image quality and the camera sometimes is not reacting and makes problems... Also there is no mic in the camera, but I need audio too.

 

I was searching for good cameras and wanted to get some opinions of you cctv pros. Here is what i need from the camera

 

- 115-130° horizontal viewing angle

- 720p or 1080p at 25-30fps

- PoE

- included mic or some option to connect a microphone for audio

- vandalproof

- waterproof (if possible)

- constant frame rate of at least 25fps

- good and sharp image quality (I record running people)

 

I found these two cameras which look pretty solid.

- AXIS M-3005V

- ACTi E93

any other cameras you can suggest?

 

how reliable and shock resistant are these cameras? I saw some demo videos and it they sometimes seem to drop the frame rate, but I don't know which settings they used for recording.

 

Thank you for some feedback!

[buellwinkle 0]

What not use a camcorder or a GoPro?

[Shinobi 0]

because i don't get a live picture from a gopro into my pc that easily. an IP camera is perfect, because I only need one cable. the cameras are about 50m away from me.

 

i read a lot of good things about hikvision. do they have such a wide angle camera?

[buellwinkle 0]

Widest I know of with audio is their ds-2cd2732f-is with 105 degree view.

[Securame 0]

Isn't there a GoPro with wifi? Guess you should be able to get live video with that one?

[Shinobi 0]

Sorry, but gopro is not an option.

 

What about the axis and acti camera? Which one would you recommend? Any other camera with such a wide angle that you know of?

 

Another question: do i only reach the 130 degrees with the highest resolution or also with lower res?

[Shinobi 0]

what about the Sony SNC-CX600? Would this camera be ok for my needs? I cannot find any demo video of it...

[buellwinkle 0]

It's 120 degrees and 720P, but Sony makes decent products.

 

The widest I've seen on Axis is 105 degrees and ACTi 110 degrees, sorry, no 130 degree cameras unless you go hemispheric, then you get 180 degrees like the ACTi KCM3911 or Axis M3007.

 

Here's a YouTube for the ACTi for what you intended it to be for, a sporting event -

 

Here's a YouTube for the Axis -

 

The problem with Hemispheric is the barrel distortion, can't help that, it's a fisheye but provides a cool effect.

[Shinobi 0]

it can be a bit less than 130 degrees, but not under 115.

 

With the E93, ACTi has a product with ultra wide angle, but there is no mic installed. The same goes for the AXIS camera. 118 degree, but no mic. I don't know if it is possible to upgrade the cameras, so I can record audio as well.

 

Can anyone tell me a similar SONY cam, that uses the same technology, so I can get a feeling for the video quality? There are no videos available for the CX600.

[buellwinkle 0]

The E93 does not have audio and can't be retrofit. Not sure of the Axis model you speak of. Most of the cameras with mic's built are cube cameras like the Sony you mention with fixed lenses with at most 90-100 degree viewing angle.

 

Here's a video from the Sony -

 

My opinion is it has moderate to severe barrel distortion as one would expect from a lens this wide on a camera designed for security, not video production. The image is soft, or focused on a close area, not distance, so hopefully the lens is focusable for your purposes (many cube style cameras have glue in lenses). In comparison, a GoPro Hero has less barrel distortion. Of course all lenses this wide, even high end lenses I use in photography can have perspective distortion of the camera is not held level like in tilting it down or up.

[Shinobi 0]

hi. thank you for the reply. the picture quality of the sony camera looks fine and the barrel distortion is fine for me. as you said, every camera with this sort of lense will have some distortion.

 

for testing purposes i get a HIKVISION camera and will try, if it can capture the whole scene with only around 100°.

 

maybe i'm lucky

[Shinobi 0]

i did the testing yesterday and the smaller angle is sufficient, but it's pretty close. i tested it with a HIKVISION DS-2CD2532-I(S)(W) with a 2.8mm lens. i could not find detailed information about the horizontal, since every camera from HIKVISION seems to have a different viewing angle with 2.8mm lens.

 

any idea what angle i get wit the DS-2CD2532-I(S)(W) and the 2.8mm lens?

 

my final solution will probably be a DS-2CD2732F-I(S), wich features a varifocal lens and also external audio input. I also came across one error on the HIKVISION homepage. in the specification they say, that the camera reaches up to 105° angle, but in the datasheet it says 98°. thats a little weird.

[MaxIcon 0]

Many cams have terrible information on field of view. It's either inaccurate, or it only shows one resolution, and not the others. FOV calculators are not useful for M12 lens systems, though it looks like this is what the manufacturers use.

 

There's a fairly simple way to measure actual FOV with a ruler, a few parts, and a little math:

http://www.cam-it.org/index.php?topic=5424.0

 

All you need is to have the ruler a known distance from the cam, and be able to read what the ruler says at the edges of the image.

[Shinobi 0]

Thanks for the link. I will test it out. A seller on aliexpress told me, that the DS-2CD2532-ISW with 2.8mm reaches a angle of 90°. Thats less than I expected, but good news for me, since the angle is also sufficient, although I still would prefer a wider one.

 

They also say that the DS-2CD2732F reaches 98° and not 105°. I tried contacting HIKVISION support to get the infos straight from them. Let's see what they say...