mike_va

FYI, I was wondering what current it draws, since it says 12V/3A/16W...12V at 3A is 36W. The answer is around 1A (given that I probably have some voltage drop out to it so not quite 12V) on a HP regulated supply. 16W (i.e. a little over 1A) and was probably meant to be the stated worst case consumption, and then the supply is rated higher i.e. 3A to give some margin.

Thanks!

Yep. And provides enough IR that it allows the shutter to stay above 1/60s which is nice for minimizing blur. I just wish they made the same thing in a 60deg unit.

Thanks, you might want to increase coverage on the cars if possible. That's what we get around here is kids taking a GPS/etc. There are reasonably priced cameras out there that can do the job for a homeowner without costing a ton. Nor do we want most of these monsters mounted on the front of the house - I put an Axis P3344 under the eave and have a Arecont 3135 sitting in the front bay window (rarely noticed). I was also impressed with the Qsee (cam2 in my tests) we used in terms of not washing out facial details. The trick somewhat is balancing the field of view of the camera with what the IR is doing. Good luck with the hobby, we now have WAY too many cameras (path was from Lorex since returned to Costco to Panasonic/CNB/Bosch/Axis/etc). It is fun trying the different cameras, and the store I bought from has a GREAT return policy. This is the first cheapo that I felt was worthy of potential long term consideration so thought I would share with others. Check out Vitamin D software, we've had a lot of fun with that (they have a free one channel demo).

Is this mounted outside or inside through a glass window?

Two examples of the CNB BBM-24F (which has a similar if not the same sensor) in a box camera viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26653 viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24535 The CNB BBM-24F have decent low light compared to other cameras, but very good IR response. For example the Bosch LTC0495 has a better low light picture but the CNB BBM-24F and VCM-24VF have better IR sensitivity.

Just for kicks I've added this small video, comparing the DVR associated with cam2 (DT-428) vs. video captured with an Axis 241S and Vitamin D. Camera in this case is a Sanyo illuminated by a little spillover from a 23W fluorescent flood. They've also apparently now made a viewer for the mac which works on Safari. Since I don't use Safari for "anything" I've just set the homepage to be the viewer. In the screenshot you can see cam2 QSM5265C in the lower left on the tomato plants.

For the second test I wanted to get an idea of how much IR the cameras put out. The distance to the birch by the fence is about 45ft. The IR is being picked up by a CNB BBM24F (which is a little out of focus). The IR from the Cam2 is a wider beam (Cam1 and 3 are more like a spotlight). Notice how the foreground is not lit with Cam 1 and 3. The CNB when compared to the other pics earlier can be seen to have a little more sensitivity to IR (e.g. note the brightness of the far trees when comparing to other pics that follow), note that it also has an adjustable lens which was set to a much wider angle view than the other cameras to see the IR coverage. I'm actually pretty impressed by the Qsee QSM5265C, given that one can purchase 4 of them plus cables and a DVR for $300 from Costco (if we say the DVR is 100, wiring 100 and cameras 100 this works out to $25 a camera). They can also be found without the DVR and cables on the internet around $40 ea in quantities of 8. One final note about the Lorex - it is completely plastic and interferes with my garage door opener. Also has an entirely annoying mounting bracket.

The last picture is Cam2 plus a CNB MIR1000 IR illuminator rated for 60 meters. Note the shadow cast by the bird feeder pole, which is not present in the other pics. If this camera were being used in this location long term I would probably reposition the CNB to hit the birch tree a little further out.

For the first test I wanted to see how the picture from the 3 cameras compared. The picture from the Qsee (Cam2) is superior to the other Cam1 and also the Lorex (Cam3), the Lorex was so poor that I thought it might not be working so we tried another one. Same thing, really poor picture at night.

Yep, they take power. If I remember right my quad core Athlon I put on a variac and saw it bounce around 1-1.5A just to get a rough idea. I think I ROM'd it around $20 a month but for me it is worth it. I'm using Vitamin D it so easy to play back the events at 3x speed only takes a minute to see what's happened during the day using just the up down arrow keys on the keyboard. My time is worth more than that, for what it takes to poke around most other software. As soon as the other software gets that ease of use I'll consider it. Recently upgraded to a Core i7 which runs even lower in terms of percent processor (around 20% for 16 cameras) but have not remeasured the power. I have an old mac mini which can only handle a few cameras with this software.

Possibly ND, but wondering why they did that as they also had the sense up set at 8x on a 1/2" B&W...works fine at night without it at 1x... I'll try this weekend to see if it affects the viewing angle. Not a cheap lens though but a little older C mount Tamron IR corrected 1/2" varifocal autoiris.

Found inside a camera C-CS adaptor on a Tamron IR lens. Seems to block a lot of the light at night.

Thanks!

I've looked around but cannot seem to find the answer to this. If a lens says 6mm 2/3 does that mean it will be have a higher effective focal length (like 8mm) on a 1/2 sensor camera? Or are all CS mount lens ratings referenced to a 1/3" sensor? Thanks in advance

or use dyndns if you can, it's free

I've been using that and two others (for mjpeg) I originally found at http://www.vitamindinc.com/support/ref_guide_tips_40.html http://skjm.com/icam/mjpeg.php http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/User_Reported_Compatible_IP_Cameras

Thought others might be able to use these: NV-W502: cgi-bin/mjpeg?resolution=640x480 The Panasonic I had to get from their tech support as I could not find it in any documentation. AV3135 mjpeg?res=half&x0=0&y0=0&x1=1920&y1=1536&qualitylevel=12 They can then be applied to a html page per: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23345

CCTV by Vlado Damjanovski has been very helpful to me, and is well written.

Is this night or early evening? It looks like color and there is a shadow under the truck.

Vitamin D software is great at this sort of thing, while minimizing false triggers. Demo for 1 camera limited resolution is free.

If it's under construction have them run ethernet, much more reliable. Even if you use analog cams you can use baluns to send the signal.

The one subtlety is due to the variation in resistance of the PTC's you may not end up with good current sharing between them (the resistance of the PTC's will likely dominate current sharing since you'd be tying together at the PS). I just took a quick look at some PTC's on digikey. Looking at a very worst case scenario you may have two carrying 1.5A, one at 1A. You might want to consider using 4 outputs (to end up potentially with 3x 1.25 and one at 0.75A potentially for example). No telling what you'll get until you try it. Like the other post said, SHOULD work. Note: in space applications we used "matched" fuses if they are not available in a large enough rating. I can't remember all the details as to why right now, I need my morning coffee. If I were doing this I'd also consider just adding the right size fuse.

Yep, although it needs enough light to work correctly. Right now I have it shooting through some tinted and at night it does not focus so I've disabled it. I've been wondering if I could get my Axis to do that also, as I've got it set up now to switch day/night at a given time. One could use this with IR and not have to buy the IR lenses perhaps.

I wish I could remember...and I've since moved the camera to another location. Right now I'm just capturing motion at 3MP using a Synology and at a lower res (VGA) using VitaminD. Higher than that for two streams resulted in a low frame rate indication on VitaminD (less than 10 frames per sec I think). Still playing with the setup...