mike_va

nice! that's really a nice pic for not even D1...

That's about what they go for (usually) on ebay. I bought one for 75 no lens, works perfectly.

However I've seen narrow angle available in dark blue from LED manufacturers. The ebay cynic in me says they use to pretend they have better quality (e.g. looks like osram etc) as opposed to ultracheap LED's of questionable longevity and manufacture.

for example

Note that highly zoomed in lenses only uses the very middle part sometimes. You can sometimes peek them over the sill of the window. You could also use a pinhole lens, but tend to lose a lot of the light sensitivity at night Or buy a longpass filter (looks like black plastic) passes IR but blocks visible light (costs maybe 10-20 look at Edmunds). Since you are using B&W cams you will still get a picture during the day. Good luck

Nice post thanks!

One other option is Axis cameras that can record to NAS now on some models.

Depends what you are trying to do and how cheap. Google around for Ubiquiti Aircam Bullet. Around $100, I have not tried them. Look for reviews. Real cheap you could get Panasonic 101's on sale for $60. Blue Iris software is not expensive. Did not have a good experience with Acti.

stuck that in to google and "With 18 high efficiency surface-mounted LEDs, the AEGIS Illuminator offers a wavelength of 940 nm and proves effective up to 260' (80m)."

The Holy Grail is plate capture at night. Is the RM100 up to the task? Just ordered some new filters with a steeper cutoff. Here is a cheapo longpass with megapixels at 1-100 sec shutter and lowered agc. Plan to show some pics once I get this all perfected. This is way out there, maybe around 250 ft according to google maps arial.

ooch

I saw this mentioned on another website today (which I would link to but it's not allowed on this forum). It referenced the Illuminar IR312-D and said "Iluminar claims this model is completely invisible due to 1030nm IR LEDs, unlike 850nm or even 940nm LEDs, typically regarded as covert." http://www.iluminarinc.com/ Hope this helps.

Plus the cameras are less sensitive at 950. Raymax told me they were not totally covert, despite various opinions elsewhere. Anyway, I just live with the glow... The other night my neighbor was looking at our house with a WTF look, I think from the glow. On the other hand maybe she was just admiring the Christmas lights. pic9 is a CNB BBM24F (best IR sensitivity I've found thus far) at 1-250sec, pic 8 is an Axis P1344 at 1-100 sec - both at ~ 200 ft out. This is a 10deg Raytec RM100, it rocks. I'm playing around with plate capture and filters, fun stuff.

Unfortunately, nobody told me that when I used a web browser to set up my Axis P3344. same here

Has anyone gotten this to work reliably? It works fine monitoring, until playback and the sound drops out after a few seconds. Using it with a Louroe mic setup, that part works great. The 243 works fine with Axis Camera Station, but was thinking of going over to Milestone if I could get this bug worked out. Also, has someone used Milestone Essential to support more than one audio channel? I've read conflicting statements. Thanks in advance.

Axis latest firmware rev for the P1344 etc let's you save to a network location (also a SD card). Pretty cool, works well.

I did a search for bosch 495 and it comes up with Bosch VDN-495 which was $600 is there a different camera you are speaking of. The LTC0495 and VDN495 are discontinued but show up used. The 498 is killer with WDR, the 620 1/2" is great for low light. Default shutter concept is great, don't know why others don't do it.

I had posted some examples somewhere on this forum of both of those. Night is nowhere close to CNB BBM24F...Bosch 495's used can be had in that price range and are great cameras.

I would guess from a legal standpoint it might be better to leave out the first bit (safety), as it might imply something. I'd just say surveillance, if you thought it might help with property damage or something. There are some interesting studies if you look around as to what cameras help with and don't.

Hi Mike, So you've used it with the Avigilon encoder? Cool. Now I just need to find a dealer. Extremely poor choice of words on my part. I meant "works" as a recording program. I'd send him an email. Edit: I'd bet the ENC-4P-H264 could be made to work since it does mjpeg

Blue Iris works, and the guy actually responds almost instantly to questions. I've played with it a few times.

I wanted a camera in another location around the house where there is not much space available for mounting or complete protection from the elements, nor do I want a large camera in an enclosure sticking out. I needed it to be somewhat weatherproof. These were available (in monitoring systems) from Costco. The Qsee QSM5265C was seen to be a decent camera, at an effective cost of around $25-40 each. All 3 cameras feature split glass to minimize IR reflections. This is an especially important feature since without this as the camera cover gets dirty over time the internal LED's will reflect off this being picked up by the camera. Some of these have been previously discussed in viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23471 Part numbers and descriptions: Cam 1 - Qsee QSDS3612D (part of Costco 543871): "Outdoor or indoor use Horizontal resolution: 420 TV Lines Image sensor: 1/4” Sony color CCD 3.6mm lens providing 50°-55º field of view Up to 40 feet night vision (24 IR LEDs)" (I doubt if this has ICR as it is not mentioned and the color is not entirely correct during the day, i.e. they left out the IR filter needed during the day to filter the IR from the sun to get correct colors) Cam 2 - Qsee QSM5265C w/ sunshade (part of Costco 569071, this includes a DT428 DVR): "These premium sensor cameras capture 520 TV lines of resolution and boast 1/3” enhanced infrared cut sensors, allowing for a higher quality picture, accurate colors, and better image quality in the day or night than most standard surveillance cameras. The four cameras are each equipped with 36 infrared LED lights that can record at a distance of up to 100 feet in the dark. Field of Vision: The cameras are equipped with a 5.0mm lens, which provides a 50°-55º radius of vision" (note: this has the same angle of view as Cam1 but a different lens, this is because the sensor on Cam2 is larger. All things being equal larger pixel sizes will have better low light sensitivity, my favorite camera has a 1/2" sensor) Cam 3- Lorex MC6950 (part of Costco system 554029) "High resolution AIS (Advanced Image Sensor) produces sharp and clear video at 480 TV lines of resolution True day/night operation using integrated automatic Infra Red Cut Filter (ICR) ensures accurate color representation in all lighting conditions Lorex Pure Flat™ 5.0mm lens eliminates image curving for an undistorted view providing a close up image with a 50 degree diagonal field of view Night vision range up to 50ft (15m). Infrared illumination range under ideal conditions." (From above note, this field of view implies a 1/3 inch sensor. As we will see, this does not translate in to good low light performance for this camera)

For that kind of money you could buy an I7 and run milestone...I think ZT systems has an I7 around $700 draws about 100W. The ZT quad core I bought had a MSI motherboard. I bought a Dell XPS I7 for my main recording unit, it is amazing (on sale at Costco for $1000 with a widescreen monitor). Milestone has a free version called Xprotect go, you can upgrade to Essential pretty inexpensively. If you're trying to keep it real low cost check out Blue Iris. I run Xprotect for recording, 4 channels of Axis Camera Station (which won't work for you) and VitaminD which I still think is the best program for a house where you just want to know what is going on. Vitamin D can be somewhat processor intensive, but I can run 16 cameras (4 of them 1.3M) and use around 25% processor. Truly a glorious machine. I just VNC into it or tunnel for remote access, there is no client. Xprotect you also have to go to the paid version to get a remote client. I will also say this: VitaminD and Blue Iris also have great email support! I can run 8 channels of Milestone on the quad core and not take up that much. Some day I'm going to get all three programs going on the I7, I think it can do it (not on one hard disk though). Just get a real computer you'll be a lot happier with the responsiveness of the system. Depends how much you will use it also, because you'll pay an added ~$100/yr electricity. Kind of a rambling response but still working on that first cup of coffee.

Good suggestions from Rory, also are you running fluorescent or white LED? I have one camera that does that with a certain LED light. 5 of those on a 12V 5A supply sounds a little ambitious. Here's why. They have DC-DC converters in them. As the voltage drops (i.e. line drop getting to the camera), they will pull even more current from the PS. Just the way they work. Put it on an adjustable supply and you will readily see this effect. So they may be pulling more than the spec'd ~0.7A ea (rounding here out of laziness). If you had a cheapo 12V only usually they linear reg the 12V down to what is needed - and you will not see this effect. The other thing is derating. It sounds like you have 5 cameras on a 5A supply? That's 0.66A, which technically is fine but if there is a surge when the IR kicks on you may be putting the supply into current limit. Or that in combination with low line. The other possibility is that you have an interaction with the switchers. There are conditions where they can become marginally stable, thus your idea of trying a dedicated 24VAC is a good one. The last thing are those 12V supplies themselves, some of those ebay specials are not designed to reject noise etc (probably not even UL, let alone CE etc). You may have garbage coming in on your line not rejected, or it may be creating noise. I would really use 24VAC, and keep that on a UPS with line reg. I do not like those supplies - you don't want that to be the weakest link. A good transformer is much more reliable than a switcher designed and manufactured who knows where. Unless you are buying a brand name with a good qualification program gooood luck Might be a ground loop too. You'll just need to start with the simplest thing and add to it to see where you get a problem.

CCTV by Vlado Damjanovski