aliexpress 5mp cameras

[guy999 0]

has anyone used the 5mp cameras on aliexpress, they are all pretty cheap, and I'd take a gamble on them, but I wonder if they are any good, i use blue iris, so i really don't care about their interface, because i'll just put the stream into blue iris and go from there.

 

any ideas? thoughts?

 

100 bucks for a 5mp camera seems pretty good to me.

[MaxIcon 0]

You need to make sure they either supply the string for pulling the stream, or are ONVIF (not a guarantee, but may help), so that BI can talk to them. Lots of people have searched for strings for no-name Chinese cams without much luck.

 

You'll also want to see if they have any kind of software support site. The camera may work fine out of the box, but getting upgrades for small-vendor cams can be difficult to impossible.

 

There's a lot to be said for paying a few dollars more for popular name brands, but many of us need to learn that lesson the hard way. Still, it may work out fine.

 

BI's CPU load goes up quickly with resolution, and you'll use a lot more CPU with a 5MP cam than with a 2 or 3 MP cam. If you've got plenty of CPU to spare, that shouldn't be an issue, or you can reduce the frame rate. Many cams drop the frame rate above 2 or 3MP, so that may not be an issue.

 

As for the benefit of 5MP over, say, 1080p, you get 2.4x the area resolution, but only 1.6x the linear resolution (depending on the specs), which is what counts. Even then, if the lens quality or compression aren't good enough, you'll only get more pixels, not more real resolution. The ACTi E77 10MP camera is a great example of this; its 10MP image is not as good as a Hik 2MP image, and just loads down the CPU and hard drive for no real benefit.

 

There's a discussion on this here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=43946

[guy999 0]

ahh i see the thread, pretty much on point. interesting discussion re paying more for support.