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Blue Iris supports a pretty huge range of cameras. They have a 15 day demo download that has full functionality except for direct to disk recording, and it puts a watermark on the video. It's really quite powerful and flexible if you don't need stuff like missing object detect, POS monitoring, and such.

Yeah, that does complicate things! Some people tape over the LEDs to either reduce the IR or block it completely. That makes for an easily reversible test setup to see how you like it. I've found covering the LEDs on the glass side causes a huge amount of reflection, but it probably depends on the IR isolation design for the glass.

That's with each camera set at 4096kb/s, right? MP and fps don't matter if your bitrate is fixed. For variable bit rates, it depends on how they designed the software - some cap the bit rate and reduce it when possible, while others increase it as there's more activity, fps, whatever. 4096 kb/s is 1.8GB/hour.

Yeah, Hik's doing something weird with the 3MP; it's scaled compared to the 1080p, and if you assume the 1080p is true resolution, the 3MP is actually around 2.5MP. Someone pointed out it may be true 3MP and the 1080p may be scaled down from a larger image, which is possible, if not very logical. I had a long post on it, but here's the rollup post, and comparison to a typical 3MP/1080p cam: viewtopic.php?p=224748#p224748 I'm really interested in the performance of that square lensed IR design. It's a good idea, and could give better illumination with the same IR power, if they did it right. Looking forward to some outdoor clips!

If your cameras have a bit rate setting, your recording time will depend on how long you record and the bit rate, not fps or resolution. Lower fps will give better quality at a given bit rate. So, 4096 kb/s is 512 kBytes/sec, or 31 MB/minute. Call your 5 weeks+ 38 days, which gives about 53 GB/day on a 2TB drive, or 9GB/camera/day average for 6 cams. At 4096 kb/s, this would be 290 minutes per cam, or nearly 5 hours. The numbers will be different if your bit rate is different. Some cams will see a lot more motion than others, of course, but this can help predict what your HD usage will be.

I finally got around to doing a similar comparison on the Dahua, after some discussion on another forum, and rolled up the differences into a simple comparison. Here are the Hik 3MP and 1080p images overlaid so that the pixels match: And here's the Dahua, with the same overlay: Here's the simple, real-world rollup on what the specs say versus what the cameras give. Hik 3MP going from 1080p (1920 x 1080) to 3MP (2048 x 1536): 7% increase in horizontal pixels, 20% decrease in field of view 42% increase in vertical pixels, 18% increase in vertical field of view. Dahua 3MP going from 1080p (1920 x 1080) to 3MP (2048 x 1536): 7% increase in horizontal pixels, 7% increase in field of view 42% increase in vertical pixels, 42% increase in vertical field of view. It's not at all clear what Hik's doing at the sensor level, but the actual output says they're doing something unusual somewhere. I'd be interested in seeing similar comparisons between 3MP and 1080p on other 3MP cams, since these are the only 2 I've tested. More data is always good.

You should be able to unplug the IR board to see how it does. Some cameras work OK with the board unplugged, others use the light sensor on it for mode changes and need to have it connected. You never know until you try.

I'm asking K&D questions about firmware upgrades on another forum, and so far, the best I've got is "normally we will make latest firmware as factory default, if have new one in the future, we will send you to upgrade" (but at least it's an answer!). I've never been able to get support for my re-labeled Dahua, which is less than a year old, so that doesn't bode well for their long-term support if they decide to change horses again. I'm hoping they'll surprise me soon and I can come back and eat these words. All I want is to be able to get firmware upgrades and tech docs when I need them. I just bought a couple of Hik mini-bullets today, partly because Hik has actual technical support. I'm tired of scrounging firmware from companies that don't care about end users.

I tried X-Protect Go briefly, and had a fair bit of trouble with it. Of 3 identical Vivotek cameras, it would add one automatically with no problem and struggle with the other 2; sometimes I got all 3 working, sometimes not. Other cams also had mixed results in ease of setup. Due to the limitations, I didn't spend a lot of time on troubleshooting it, since I was pretty sure I wouldn't be using it long term. I ended up going with Blue Iris, which is quite a competent and flexible package for a reasonable price.

I have a K&D KDW-HW47RC83 that is a Dahua HFW3300C. The only difference is a label on the camera case with the K&D PN, SN, etc. They didn't change anything in the firmware. The firmware SN report is a Dahua SN and doesn't match the K&D SN, and it's taken several Dahua firmware upgrades with no problems. Their support seems little different from Dahua so far; I've been unable find a source of K&D firmware, and haven't had any answers to repeated firmware requests to K&D. I'm still asking, though!

Yeah, that looks quite good for 1/30 and WDR on. Is the IR the main lighting source? It looks like it. Also, what version of firmware? This is what I got on the Hik bullet at 1080p, WDR on and set to 0, and 1/30 sec. The light to the left is IR from a Vivotek; there's little white light in this shot. It was very similar with WDR off:

That router doesn't have POE.

The Swann has an input for 12Vdc, so you can run from a power supply or POE. I don't think they come with a power supply, though. They run 6W or so, so you'd need 0.6A for each cam. I always use power supplies with lots of overhead in power, as inexpensive Chinese supplies tend to die early when run too close to their spec.

The main benefit to managed is that you can usually read the power draw of each device, which is nice to have but not critical. They are harder to set up, and have lots more options if you need such, but most camera-specific switches don't.

What's your max exposure time on the night shot? That looks much better than the Hik mini-bullet at 1/30 second at night. If this is at 1/30, this will be just what I need for my 2 new cams.

Here's another recent thread on eyeonet: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36214

There's some discussion on this here: viewtopic.php?p=220808#p220808

WDR is valuable where there's bright light and deep shadow, as many cams will either wash out the bright area or lose detail in the shadow. Without WDR, you usually have to reduce the contrast and tweak other settings like gain, which usually gives a less attractive image overall. A good WDR implementation will fix those problems while keeping the image vibrant and colorful. Not all WDR implementations are good, though. Cheap cams like the Dahua and Hikvision have mediocre WDR. The Dahua's WDR looks a lot like reduced contrast in the day, but can improve the night image, while the Hik improves the daytime shadow performance but dramatically increases noise at night. If they let you load different profiles at different times, that would be a help, but they don't. More expensive cams often have better WDR implementations, but if you can't find a good demo, you have to try it yourself.

You might ask Aver support. I've found them to be pretty helpful about such things. Also, once the software's installed and working, there's a screen where it'll report what the hardware is, based on whatever signature is on the card. I don't recall where it is, but I saw it while wandering around the software a while back.

Apologies for the off-topic thread derail; skip this post if you don't care... Apparently a relevant expression was ignored. A professional who does this stuff defines what is relevant: We all also learned an important concept in elementary school science. Conclusions from observation are classic junk science. (Other examples are spontaneous reproduction or moldy bread breeds maggots.) Colin Bayliss explains that damage in his book. Your conclusion is speculation based only in observation. In other research, Alan Taylor demonstrated that most all lightning struck trees (>90%) have no appreciable indication. Another example of less energy in a lightning strike. But some see the rare exception. Then, using speculation only from observation, assume that major tree damage is due to massive energy in lightning. Using same reasoning, a car's spark plug also created so much energy as to move the car. Reality. Spark plug simply ignited something with higher energy inside the engine - gasoline. Lightning simply ignited something with higher energy inside the tree - sugars. Sugar (not lightning) was the high energy source that did damage. But that means learning basic science rather than creating a junk science conclusion only from observation. Most damage from lightning does not even create a visual indication. However a higher energy source (follow-through current) can create significantly greater damage. Many just *assume* energy was from lightning rather than learn the underlying science. Knowledge also means numbers. Such as those summarized by Colin Bayliss in his book. Learn science (ie read the books) before jumping to conclusions based only from observation. OPs observation suggests a high energy source that could only exist with a failure elsewhere. To say more would require not provided information such as wire gauge, wire insulation, household wiring mistakes or faults, etc. Information that would explain a higher energy source to cause a potential fire condition. I would be concerned. Because other 'required functions' should have made that 'threat' irrelevant. So, you're saying the melted sidewalk in the picture above, and the fused sand in fulgerites, are caused by "power follow-through current"? If not, where do you believe the energy to create these effects came from? Are you also saying that some lightning strikes, do, in fact, have sufficient energy to cause damage, even where there's no source of "power follow-through current"? Either it's possible or it's not; if there are exceptions, then this is not "speculation based only in observation". All it takes is a single exception to disprove the rule, as I'm sure you know. Lol! Yeah, I've read a few books. I'm an electrical engineer, and have spent over 30 years working with equipment using power sources of hundreds of kV. I've personally seen a saguaro cactus blown to pieces by lightning, and I know someone who was struck by lightning in a boat in a lake, melting the bottom of their cooler (and blowing open all their cans of beer), causing much more damage than this connector had. However, just to cap off the pedantry, note that I didn't actually say lightning caused this and indicated it was unlikely, though possible: I like to do other people's research for them, so here are a few more exceptions, showing sufficient energy to cause major damage:

Criminals are often, but not always, stupid, drugged, unobservant, whatever. If they think you have an alarm and cameras, yes, they'll go somewhere else. If they don't notice, well, it won't make a difference, but there's nothing to be done about that. Signs and stickers are an inexpensive way of warning the ones who are paying attention to go elsewhere. It won't hurt, will it? A real alarm system is better, since the racket when they open a door or break a window is generally effective. Likewise, loud dogs, or a recording of barking dogs tied to your motion sensor or alarm system.

Lightning is absolutely capable of melting something like that. It's very unpredictable in its patterns, but regularly fuses and burns all kinds of items, like this melted sidewalk from a lightning strike: Here's a whole collection of photos of stuff melted by lightning: http://www.notjustrocks.com/wst_page6.html That said, it's rare for lightning damage to be constrained in that small an area - it frequently jumps from point to point due to the high energy. You'd have to do a failure analysis on the monitor and NVR to see what caused the damage.

There are a few basic differences between box cams and bullet/dome cams. Whether it's worth it depends on your needs. - Most box cams (like this one) use CS mount lenses, or C mount with an adapter. These are often more expensive than M12 lenses, but are much more flexible, and you can get nice lenses cheap if you don't mind used and watch ebay. Also, the field of view is much more predictable, since CS lenses have standards, unlike M12 lenses. Like always, you'd want to make sure they're MP and IR rated, if you're using IR. If you search MPIR on ebay, you'll see some affordable Computar CS mount auto-iris lenses. - The lens can have true auto-iris, which is better in many situations than the electronic exposure control of M12 lens cameras, or you can use fixed iris if you want. - The lens generally isn't included, so that's an extra cost. - If you want to mount it outdoors, you'll need an enclosure, which will be much bigger and bulkier than a bullet or dome, but you have the flexibility of heaters, fans, wipers, whatever. - If you want IR, you'll need an external illuminator, which has its own pluses and minuses. - Box cams take a standard camera mount, which gives a lot more flexibility than the built-in mounts on bullets or domes, but isn't as compact. I'd like to see all bullets with a standard mount connection and a removable built-in mount. In general, I like box cams a lot for the lens flexibility, but have moved towards preferring compact outdoor cams with built-in IR, so it's a trade-off, like always. As for the specific model, I haven't seen any tests on it. If it uses the basic Dahua 1.3MP sensor and processor, it'll have the same problems as the 1.3MP bullet cam, with soft video in the shadows.

You might try sending a PM to user petecress, and check the threads he's posted in: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=22678 He's been running a variety of cams as surfcams for a while, and has a lot of experience with what works well and what doesn't.

I'd agree with shockwave199. At some point, you have to just pick a camera and go with it. In this price range, it's all about trade-offs, and those are all well documented in the vast number of posts about these cams. If tech support and easy firmware access is important, choose Hikvision over Dahua. If softness in the shade is a showstopper, don't buy Dahua. If more noise at 1/30 sec in total darkness is a problem, avoid the Hik mini-bullet. It's still not clear if the Hik mini-dome has the same issues. If you want awesome performance in all situations, you need to pay more, but still avoid the big Dahua 3300C, as it's got the same issues as the small Dahuas even though it costs more.