Costco AvertX vs Swann Bullet Cameras?

Has anyone compared the two top end bullet cameras available from Costco? Specifically http://www.costco.com/AvertX-IndoorOutdoor-HD-1080p-2-pack-IR-Bullet-Cameras.product.100033050.html and http://www.costco.com/Swann-1080p-2-Pack-NVR-IP-Bullet-Cameras.product.100039914.html .

 

I bought the Swanns as my first IR IP cameras and am, overall, pretty happy with them. Motion tends to blur at night, but other than that they work pretty well. I'm coming up to the end of Costco's 90 day return policy, but I don't want to replace them unless the AvertX is significantly better.

 

Has anyone used both or done any comparisons?

 

Thanks

Don't know anyone here bought into the AvertX because they have a very limited choice of cameras and the NVR was so expensive and like you, nobody knew anything about them. The Hikvision version of the Swann is 3MP, so 50% more pixels if you want more detail. I'm finishing up a review, but Wrightwood Surveillance just got them back in, and $169 shipped is a good price, slightly cheaper than Costco and the higher resolution and choice of bullet or dome. This is an image from my house using the 3MP Hikvision, so sharp you can read the plate on the moving car. Click on the image, then click on the 4 arrows in the lower right to see the full 3MP resolution.

 

Don't know anyone here bought into the AvertX because they have a very limited choice of cameras and the NVR was so expensive and like you, nobody knew anything about them.

Blast! I figured if anyone here had any experience with them it would be you. Even though it is totally within Costco's policy for me to buy both then return the brand I like least, it just doesn't seem right to me.

The Hikvision version of the Swann is 3MP, so 50% more pixels if you want more detail.

I bought the Swanns based on your review. I feel 2MP is plenty and that 3 would just fill the disks faster. I have one camera that gets good light, similar to your street shot. The other is in the carport so the WDR gets quite the workout trying to get the shadows and the area beyond. It does a pretty good job during the day, but motion during the night can be pretty blurry.

 

I set them to 12 FPS, exposure time to 1/12th, and I Frame Interval to 36 frames. I realize that if I reduce the exposure time to 1/30th the blur will be reduced, but it gets really grainy. I was hoping someone had some AvertX experience to know if they are better, especially at night.

 

I wrote a little script to modify the WDR and Noise Reduction based around sun up/down because the night time setting had to be significantly different than the daytime setting, which helps quite a bit, but a better camera would be a better camera. I don't have a basis for comparison, but for $350 a pair they are pretty impressive.

They do fairly well at night. Dahua has less noise but the loss of detail from their noise reduction makes it worse to me at night, although the picture is prettier, cleaner looking. I personally am not a fan of 16:9, so I like the 3MP purely for the 4:3 aspect ratio, but that's just me. Also, if you go AvertX, you need to make sure it will work with your recording solution as it's a relatively unknown brand name.

 

What did you write your script in? Please share. I set WDR to about 6% which gives me enough WDR during the day and doesn't make too much noise at night.

They do fairly well at night. Dahua has less noise but the loss of detail from their noise reduction makes it worse to me at night, although the picture is prettier, cleaner looking.

Good to know. I'll stick with the Swanns then for at least the current generation.

What did you write your script in? Please share. I set WDR to about 6% which gives me enough WDR during the day and doesn't make too much noise at night.

The script is written in Perl and uses a couple modules to do the sunrise/sunset calculations and the XML submission. Right now you can set NoiseReduceExt and WDR for the Raptor Firmware V5.0.0_130412. Significantly older versions and the original firmware from Costco would require tweaking.

 

You can configure as many cameras as you need and set different values for each camera for day and night. You will need to set your local latitude/longitude, the login/password for you camera(s) and the IP(s) for your camera(s).

 

I set my carport camera (lots of shade and dynamic range) to higher values of both NoiseReduceExt and WDR compared to the street camera (lots of light) for the daytime. At night they get the same values.

 

The script assumes it's running on a UNIX like system and uses the at program to schedule itself for the next run.

 

[ I had to Zip the file before it could be uploaded. ]

hikvision-raptor-schedule-adjustments.zip

buellwinkle--The image looks pretty awesome from a $165 camera (Hikvision). What NVR would you recommend to go with those cameras?

...the script assumes it's running on a UNIX like system and uses the at program to schedule itself for the next run.

 

Would it be possible to port this to run in a Windows environment? This could be a very handy utility!

maybe you could use cygwin?

I figured it out. Had to install ActiveState Perl for Win x64, install DateTime-Event-Sunrise package, edit the file for my location and tweak my $command to "at $t $0". It's running with a job ID = 1. We'll see what happens at 10 minutes after sunset...

 

Many, many thanks to the OP!!!!

I figured it out. Had to install ActiveState Perl for Win x64, install DateTime-Event-Sunrise package, edit the file for my location and tweak my $command to "at $t $0". It's running with a job ID = 1. We'll see what happens at 10 minutes after sunset...

That's great. I'm not a Windows programmer so I was thinking it would be much, much harder than that.

Many, many thanks to the OP!!!!

You are welcome. Glad someone else can get use out of it.

 

I would be curious to know what you end up with for settings to compare against what I came up with.

Well, if by settings you mean camera settings, I have 3 of the Hik bullets and I run the Dynamic Noise Reduction at 100% day and night on all 3. The WDR I run at 21, 34, and 67, based on how much shade is in the area I am viewing. With your program, we have the potential to get the best images possible from this awesome inexpensive camera, both during the day and at night.

 

Can you extend this script to adjust the other settings (brightness, contrast, etc.)? I can see setting up different camera settings based on time of day, relative to sunrise/sunset...amazing stuff! BI allows you to adjust motion triggers for different profiles (schedules) relative to sunrise/sunset...that, coupled with being able to tweak the camera settings on the fly via your program, could potentially be a very interesting project.

It works. I rebooted after Win7 updated, and the task was still queued, so it persists even after a restart.

 

Amazing.

 

Again, I thank you, Ziegeid.

Can you extend this script to adjust the other settings (brightness, contrast, etc.)? I can see setting up different camera settings based on time of day, relative to sunrise/sunset...amazing stuff!

That is certainly do-able. I'll see if I can carve out some time to add at least those, but no guarantees. If you do some packet captures (I've used Chrome's built in tool or Wireshark) you can pull the URL and the XML out and then add them to the script. Just put a %s in where the variable needs to go.

It works. I rebooted after Win7 updated, and the task was still queued, so it persists even after a restart.

 

Amazing.

That's great to know. I really though it would be much harder than that to get it to work on Windows.

 

Again, I thank you, Ziegeid.

You are welcome. I don't often share my scripts so it's really neat to see someone else get use out of it.

If you do some packet captures (I've used Chrome's built in tool or Wireshark) you can pull the URL and the XML out and then add them to the script. Just put a %s in where the variable needs to go.

 

Wooooo boy, you are really pushing my limited understanding on this one. I have the tools but don't know how to use them.

 

This is some good stuff right here. IMO, if there is one thing lacking in the Hiks, it is the ability to tweak both the day time and the night time settings and set up profiles so that you get good images in both. What I ended up with is a decent compromise, probably like everyone else, but with your script the optimum settings can be applied for both, and I am soooo excited by that prospect.

 

What more can you ask of a camera that sells for under $200? If I thank you any more, someone is bound to slap me...but if you ever find yourself in the Inland Empire, I'll buy the beer and pizza.

Ok, got it...hue, saturation, contrast, brightness...I absolutely could not have done this without your help and your hard work, Ziegeid.

Wooooo boy, you are really pushing my limited understanding on this one. I have the tools but don't know how to use them.

Beware, this is the path to the dark side. One little tweak here, add a little there, pretty soon you will be slinging out scripts like this from scratch.

 

This is how I got into coding: had an itch, scratched it. It just builds from there.

buellwinkle--The image looks pretty awesome from a $165 camera (Hikvision). What NVR would you recommend to go with those cameras?

 

I've been use Milestone XProtect, decent web interface and smartphone apps and comes in different price flavors from the free GO version to what I'm using which is Essential at $50/cam. Also used it with BlueIris and Synology, both worked too.

Ok, got it...hue, saturation, contrast, brightness...I absolutely could not have done this without your help and your hard work, Ziegeid.

Awesome, if you post the URL and XML bits I can work them back in and re-release. I'm working on auto-detecting Windows and lat/long (if not provided).

The URL is the same as the others.... I pulled the XML out with WireShark and split it up into sections. If there is a better way to post the XML let me know...WireShark makes it so nice and neat but other than doing a screen grab I don't know what to do.

 

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>%s

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>%s

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>%s

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>%s

 

I didn't mess with sharpness because it doesn't seem to do much at night...to be honest, the brightness level is the only additional thing I set differently between day and night...

The URL is the same as the others.... I pulled the XML out with WireShark and split it up into sections. If there is a better way to post the XML let me know.

I don't know of a better way. This works just fine. Your posting made me realize there is an easier way to do it, so now only the XML is needed and the URL gets auto-detected. This makes adding new controls easier.

 

I've attached version 2 with the following changes:

• Add more controls, thanks FastEddy
  
• Auto-detect Windows and call appropriate at command
  
• Try to auto-detect lat/long
  
• Do a better job with DEBUG: > 0 will not schedule future actions, >= 1 will print URLs, >= 2 will run actions

 

EDIT: Stupid logic error in v2, fixed in v3.

hikvision-raptor-schedule-adjustments-v3.zip

FastEddy, would you mind giving more details of how to make this script work in windows?

Got v3 working too, except for scheduling it to run again in windows...

 

Used the following for activeperl on windows 8 to schedule the next run...

 

$command = 'Schtasks /Create /TN hik /TR "d:\perl64\bin\perl.exe \"X:/Google Drive/Code/Perl/hik.pl\""' . " /sc ONCE /SD $sd /ST $t /RU $windowsusername /RP $windowspass /f";

 

 

I figured it out. Had to install ActiveState Perl for Win x64, install DateTime-Event-Sunrise package, edit the file for my location and tweak my $command to "at $t $0". It's running with a job ID = 1. We'll see what happens at 10 minutes after sunset...

 

Many, many thanks to the OP!!!!

Ziegeid said:

If you do some packet captures (I've used Chrome's built in tool or Wireshark) you can pull the URL and the XML out and then add them to the script. Just put a %s in where the variable needs to go.

 

Hikvision has API documentation, there's no need to do packet captures to find the commands. I posted a link a few months back.

 

https://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36502

 

Oops, looks like they moved it, here's the current location:

 

http://www.hikvisioneurope.com/portal/index.php?dir=Integration%20and%20Development%20Materials/00%20%20%20CGI/&file=HIKVISION%20CGI%20IPMD%20V1.5.9.pdf

Hikvision has API documentation, there's no need to do packet captures to find the commands. I posted a link a few months back.

Hey that's cool, thanks for pointing it out. It never occurred to me to look for an API. I just jumped in with packet captures.