Acti E77

[YellowYoYo 0]

Anyone care to share their opinions on the Acti E77 or other 10MP cameras with similar specs? I see it's less than $300 in some places, I guess as a promo price. Is it something I should jump on if I'm looking to buy a new camera for my front yard in the next week?

 

http://www.acti.com/product/detail/Dome_Camera/E77

[buellwinkle 0]

From what I can tell, most distributors ran dry within a week of the promotion so you may have to wait a few weeks.

 

I have 2. The picture quality is OK, has audio and alarm-i/o so not too bad a price even if you use it in 1080P mode. If you tried their 5MP cameras, I would say overall, the quality is similar but twice the pixels. I was looking at the cameras today via my Milestone app on my phone, an E32 and E77 mounted side by side and the E77 looked better, which is surprising that the e32 was a little blinded by the afternoon sun, but the E77 which is a dome was not, go figure. Was going to do a review, but figured I wait a little until people can actually buy them, LOL.

 

Also, the max FPS is 6 unless in 1080P mode, so if that bothers you, don't do it. In recordings using Milestone, it felt like 6, so cars stuttered slightly but not terrible.

 

Also has a microSD card slot and ACTi has their new Edge recording software, so that may be a good option if you don't have an NVR solution.

[YellowYoYo 0]

Thanks for the info. I was just about to buy the 5MP E73 when I saw the E77. I'd love to save money if possible, so would would the low fps be an issue for daytime surveillance? At 6 fps, is that good enough to capture someone's face walking briskly up my driveway? My Blue Iris zones are set from sidewalk inward so I don't think I'll be needing to worry about moving cars.

[drocer 0]

10MP 6fps 6Mbps

 

http://www.stardot.com/bandwidth-and-storage-calculator

Medium:5.6Mbps

High:10.1Mbps

 

10MP camera's seem like a marketing scam and I didn't even look at the optics.

[buellwinkle 0]

Try it, set one of your cameras to 6 FPS and see. We have 2 Mobotix M12 for 4 years that are like 6FPS max and we never had an issue on frame rate related to an incident and it's in a park, so no cars. Where we did have issues on cameras that were getting 2-3 FPS on moving cars and we lost frames needed to prove they hit a gate. Luckily another camera got it, but if I had 6 FPS, it would have gotten it. But walking should not be a problem.

[Sawbones 0]

6FPS should work, unless you're trying to catch a very fast-moving object

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

Try it, set one of your cameras to 6 FPS and see. We have 2 Mobotix M12 for 4 years that are like 6FPS max and we never had an issue on frame rate related to an incident and it's in a park, so no cars. Where we did have issues on cameras that were getting 2-3 FPS on moving cars and we lost frames needed to prove they hit a gate. Luckily another camera got it, but if I had 6 FPS, it would have gotten it. But walking should not be a problem.

 

Does the E77 allow you to shut off the built in IR in case you are using the camera through a window with standalone IR units outside? (I know Hikvision originally didn't have this feature until 5.1 firmware was released so I'm curious if the E77 has this feature built into the current firmware or not).

 

Also, is the E77 still one of the better priced 10mp cams out right now, or has something else surpassed it in the past month or two?

 

Also, what is the deal with the 6fps limitation on all the higher rezzes? I can see the 36XX x 26XX rez capping at 6 fps, but the 36xx x 20xx rez, that should have at least a couple more frames per second as the resolution is less. Same with the other resolutions. Any chance this camera can be hacked to have higher fps on the other high resolutions under 36xx x 26xx?