Axis? Or something just as good but cheaper?

[vandam 0]

G’day all

 

I come in here in deep desperation: shopping is horrible these days, with this new thing, the ‘internet’ ( ;D). That problem happens when some things happen simultaneously:

- Normal, physical shops with ‘mum and dad’ who actually know what they sell have been abandoned. The choice these days is either the large retail chains that only sell the plastic crap for insane prices, or the ‘attic web shop’ that doesn’t even keep its own stock and hopes to make 2%, or the larger web shop that does the same (with or without stock). By any means it is virtually impossible these days to simply walk into a store that sells quality stuff, talk to a sales person > 25 years old who actually has the deep knowledge, get the products demonstrated to you in front of you, and then make an informed decision and buy – thus rewarding the retailer for his work. No, these days you are required to waste *your own time* and then still reward the web shop – who did practically nothing to earn your money – by buying from them (yes, this really makes me depressive. And I am an economist, so I look at this with economist’ glasses on – the whole traditional retail model, the very basis for its existence in the first place, is gone).

- You don’t know anything about the subject (me ) and acquiring the knowledge, especially if you are non-technical (me ) easily takes you just as much time as you could devote to getting a PhD. Because then:

- You have to go visit uncle Google, open up 1600 tabs ‘because somewhere in those tabs hopefully you will find accessible, understandable, information’. That seldom is the case:

o Badly structured and written documents;

o Documents that leave vital background information out so you still feel like you’re dropping into a subject in the middle (or even at the end) instead of at the beginning;

o You quickly learn many of these ‘review sites’ are sponsored one way or the other, when you cross check them with customer comments on the Amazon’s of this world.

- So you think: ok, I email some of the ‘specialized web shops, send them my detailed *functional* requirement (not the *technical* one since I don’t know what tech specs I am looking for. But I do know *what I want to use it for*, so you hope the other side will translate that into tech requirements – that’s their work in return for getting the sales – so you think. Well, it *is* business economics 101 ;D).

- Of course, coincidentally, each shop only recommends their own brands, and of course, conveniently also the more expensive models. You then have to go to the manufacturers website who apparently fired his marketing staff ages ago ( ) since all they present is some fancy words and next a technical sheet with – of course – technical stuff which I don’t understand, and of which I have no clue of what is relevant for me (and, actually, as an end user, shouldn’t need to know. An anology to explain: I don’t need to know which fuel injection system is in a BMW: I need to know the BMW can drive 200 km/h, be reliable, not consume too much gasoline, etc).

- Even more coincidentally, of course all shops recommend different brands and models, and when you cross-‘interogate’ them (= forward comments from shop A to shop B and ask to comment on it), you end up with shop A saying shop B is lying, shop B saying its better ‘because my IR is better – google for the proof’ (here we go again…), shop C saying not to bother with shop A altogether since they are ‘crooks, and so is their brand’ (this was an Axis shop), and so on.

 

So, why the deep desperation: here I am, after two months: Vivotek is better/no, Sony is better, look at the ‘lux’/no, Axis has superior IR/no, Hikvision is better price-quality. Can you imagine me wanting to drown myself in a bath full of beer? ( ).

 

So, finally I discovered this forum, and I decided to ask for help here. Would any of you knowledgeable people be willing to help me out? I’d be very grateful for it (and am more than willing to return the favor, for example buy you a nice cup of coffee/beer ).

 

This is my functional requirement:

- I live in small town in a small country in western-europe. Crime goes up minute after minute.

- I have a garden behind my house, approx. 60 meters deep and 20 meters wide. It connects to the woods on the left and behind it.

- I collect Rottweilers (joke ) who often get restless in the middle of the night. I want to have outdoor IP-cams that monitor my garden: I connect them to my Synology NAS, and in that way, at least when somebody was walking in my garden in the middle of the night my Synology will activate the camera, record it, and send me an email which I will see in the morning. Then I know the next night my Rottweilers should be able to go outside in order to guard their – and my ( ;D) garden.

- The above is especially important since my most important assets, my Wife, my young Daughters and my Rottweilers live in this house too and I want them protected :-*

So, from the above comes:

- I’d like to have quality devices. I typically buy lasting material, not the throw away junk. Of course quality is more expensive than the throw away junk, but it appears to me some vendors might be overdoing it. So you see, outside the brands mentioned above, for example Ubiquity which is a market challenger in every way. I have their wireless access points, they are really great and fair priced. There’s not much to be found about their cams, and, as I wrote before: no way to see them live first in a store, so I’m not sure if they – or similar market challengers – could be a good alternative for the expensive A-brands.

- Motion detection (don’t record all day, only record when there is something to record; dominantly during the night (so easy schedule way to disable it, but it might be the Synology software (“Video Station 7”) takes care of this. I do have the Synology, but not yet a cam so I can not test the package to see this for myself).

- Sharp pictures: we sometimes see crime reports on TV where we then see the cam videos of the crime. Most of the times I think: ‘if you can’t see anything at all on the cam, then why bother having a cam?’ ( :-\).

- CLEAR night vision (here’s another dilemma: the better this vision, the more the price of the cam will skyrocket. Now I’ve read somewhere you can also use a ‘separate IR’ light for that, but if you, for example, look at the accessories for Axis, you will see such an IR light also easily costs 300 EUR, which, conveniently, is in line with the more expensive cam that also has the same better IR. So this setup doesn’t mitigate the costs it seems to me).

- Range? It seems 60 meters is not doable at all in a decent price range, but of course: as far and wide as possible.

- Fixed. That is: I’ve been told full automatic PTZ-cams are very expensive, and break down earlier than simply fixed cams. Now, my impression of a full PTZ cam would be that it is able to automatically notice movement somewhere in the back, and then automatically turn to that corner, and zoom in. If I am to take fixed cams I’d probably need two cams (on the left of the house, and one on the right, to fully cover the whole garden). But then again, what do I know ???

- Wired: by now I already know you better not take wireless.

- PoE: the less holes I have to drill in the wall the better (I rent this house, landlord ‘ll probably whine). Then again: a power cable AND a CAT6-cable or only a CAT6-cable: that doesn’t make that much difference for the size of the hole.

 

 

So, this is what I functionally think I need (of course, unless I left things out you experts will say ‘you want to want this too’. Blessed are the ignorant they see, although I fail to see why ;D). So, from that functional need, I am having a different time relating this to all the technical words in the spec sheets (like said: I am an economist, I’ve studied since I am non-technical, otherwise I’d have become an engineer ), like ‘diafragma’, ‘lux’, ‘volt’, ‘video compression’, ‘frame rate’, ‘shutter time’, ‘IR-illumination’, etcetera.

 

What has been recommended to me by the very web shops that sell them is this:

- AXIS: P1425-LE (700 EUR), P1427-LE (800 EUR) and P3364-VE (1000 EUR…): http://www.axis.com/products/video/selector/comparison.php?q=90aeec1fea5f3c5c6e613726b90426a1

- SONY (according to that web shop ‘way, way, way better IR than Axis’): EB632R (850 EUR): http://www.pro.sony.eu/pro/lang/en/eu/product/video-security-ip-cameras-fixed/snc-eb632r/overview/

- And no specific models, but I was ‘free to browse their website for their current offerings – and don’t forget to order of course’ for the brands Vivotek and Hikvision.

 

 

Would anybody perhaps be so kind to help me out of my misery, as in: put me in the right direction for what I really need to look out for? Brand, tech specs for my requirements, and of course, if you would know, specific brand/model (as in: ‘look at this, it seems perfectly adequate for you and not insanely priced)?

 

I’d be in debt for help, and like said: I’m *more* than willing to return the favor by offering you a nice coffee/beer on my behalf 

 

Thank you in advance very much for any help,

 

Bye

[abdelm01 0]

I feel your frustration.

 

First thing i would do is tell us about the garden environment.

 

Is it outdoors or in a green house?

 

If outdoors, you might not want to rely on a cameras motion detectors, since you will get movement from trees and plants, that will take up your space and drive your email crazy, they are not accurate with extra sensitive areas.

 

You might want to take in mind to add a PIR or similar and have it connected to a camera alarm input.( make sure it has one.)

 

How's the weather? Summer? Winter?

 

Do you have animals that you cross your garden at night that could trigger your motion detectors.

[vandam 0]

I feel your frustration.

 

First thing i would do is tell us about the garden environment.

 

Is it outdoors or in a green house?

 

If outdoors, you might not want to rely on a cameras motion detectors, since you will get movement from trees and plants, that will take up your space and drive your email crazy, they are not accurate with extra sensitive areas.

 

You might want to take in mind to add a PIR or similar and have it connected to a camera alarm input.( make sure it has one.)

 

How's the weather? Summer? Winter?

 

Do you have animals that you cross your garden at night that could trigger your motion detectors.

 

Thank you very much for your reply

 

- It is completely outdoors. The garden is 60 meters deep, the back half of it is large, Africa alike, trees. On the left of my garden, and on the back, the forrest starts (to the right is my neighbor).

- What is a PIR if I could ask?

- Weather is Northern Europe. That means rain, wind, cloudy for about 9 months a year, and if Mother Nature is in a good mood perhaps from time to time she'll give us some sun the remainder of the world gets so much of (Mother Nature must hate us ).

- My animals are my Rottweilers, who normally are in at night (no use to put your dogs out when your treasures, Wife and Daugthers, are inside the house - I want my dogs there where they can protect my girls: inside. Not outside, behind the garden door, eager to get in ). We also have 4 chicken (3 of them apparently on permanent welfare as they refuse to lay eggs yet demand free food every day ), but they are at 60 meter, so really completely in the back of the garden, in their own space with gates around it: they stay at the 58-60 meter, they can't come into the garden any further than that.

 

Thank you again for your reply

[dcam 0]

Wow , what a post , We have all been there ! but let me remind you, I'm sure it took you a long time to accumulate the knowledge and experience that you have in your field, so too in the video surveillance business It takes a long time also to learn and understand this field of work, so don't expect to understand straight off what people try to explain to you.

I'm sure the people on this forum will help you and share their hard earned knowledge.

First off , a 60 meter garden would require 2 cameras, you wouldn't see anything at the back with one .

You would need pir activated infra red lighting , some cameras would be good enough to do this on their own but the best solution would be to have a separate pir activated light connected to the alarm input on your camera , the reason being that a pir detector will only react to a difference in temperature that moves which means it wont react to tree branches moving thus creating less false alarm , The best type of sensor would be something like this [ http://www.instar.de/accessories/motion/in-motion-500.html ]

With regard to cameras , a i.3MP or 3MP outdoor camera would be sufficient , fixed in one position to cover the areas you need , if it had a 2.8 mm lens it should have a field of view of approximately 80' to 90', with 2 cameras , one at the corner of the house and on half way down the garden, with that you should cover the whole area. The camera choice then should only require outdoor weatherproof , poe (video signal and power combined in one cable ) , 80'-90' field of view ,1.3 or 3 MP . There is no point in paying for a camera that can do everything when you only need a few of its features so there are plenty of good reasonably priced cameras to suit you . I would personally point you towards Hikvision but there are lots of other opinions on this forum so best of luck , by the way this is a very brief un detailed description , if you want to learn more then you have to spend the time , it doesn't come easy.

[tomcctv 190]

Hi.

 

I do hope the prices you have been given for the axis cameras is the price for two.

 

But the axis you have listed are a good choice for your needs

 

Look around for prices because they are way out

[Don Stephens 0]

You need to decide on a reasonable budget for this. You can spend as much money as you want. You're looking at Axis cameras that cost $500-$1000/pc and then talking about adding IR illuminators for another $300/pc. Now there's suggestions being made for PIR sensors, which the cheapest working outdoor model that I've found are another $300/pc.

 

I'm inclined to tell you to spend the money on Axis if you're willing, but I also happen to think that putting an Axis system on a private home is a tragic waste of money when something cheaper could do the job to your satisfaction. I'm honestly surprised that hasn't been a thousand people in here suggesting Hikvision by now.

 

One of the biggest benefits of going with Axis is knowing you won't have to worry about it working.

[buellwinkle 0]

There's something to be said for the service and support he will get with Axis that will never happen with a Chinese camera. A happy medium may be ACTi with the same level of service and support as Axis but for about half the price.

[dvarapala 0]

There's something to be said for the service and support he will get with Axis that will never happen with a Chinese camera.

 

That's been my experience as well. If something goes wrong with my Dahua or Hikvision cameras, their pricing is such that I can simply throw them away and not feel too bad about it.

 

A happy medium may be ACTi with the same level of service and support as Axis but for about half the price.

 

In my experience Axis is still head and shoulders above ACTi. The Axis cameras I own simply work - no surprises, no hassles. My very first IP camera was an Axis vandal dome, and that camera is still in service today almost 5 years later without a single problem.

 

I can't say the same for the ACTi cameras I own. The overall quality of the ACTi image is noticeably lower, and there are strange quirks and bugs which range from annoyances to outright showstoppers. When I went to ACTI's web site to report these bugs, they wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops and send them copies of invoices and such. I can understand requiring that for a warranty repair, but to report a firmware bug? When you report a bug to Microsoft do you have to FAX them copies of your sales receipt to prove that your copy of Windows is legitimate?

 

As a hobbyist, I can afford to put with with a certain level of BS in order to save some money. However, if I needed reliable cameras to protect my business, I would spend the extra money for Axis every time.

[vandam 0]

Thank you all very much for your replies. Still working on it, just thought I'd let you know that

 

Quality and no bull**** comes first for me. It needs to work, and it needs to work long time. I typically buy gear to last me 10 years without any hassle, I'm not one that likes the throwaway economy our world has turned into. I know manufacturers like that, I know the 1001 'review sites' happy recommend the same, but I'm old fashioned. if an Axis gives me 10 years for 800 EUR that's 80 a year. If the same hikvision (as an example) gives me 3 years at the same 80 *but* bothers me with stuff not working I'd still go for the Axis.

 

Am I correct, from looking at all the youtube vids, you really shouldn't want 720p? It appears to me 1080p is much much much more clearer, at least on these youtube vids (and on some vids on the axis site too) (?)

[myiicu 0]

For low light, 720P sensors are better than 1080P.

 

If you use Axis "Lightfinder" cameras, IR illumination is not usually required with some minimal lighting.

 

 

Also, not sure any technology can last for 10 years.

 

The product itself might still work, but the technology will be outdated in 5 years.

 

I have a pile of Microsoft XP desktop pc's in the closet graveyard...