MaxIcon

When I switched from an NV5000 to an NV6240-16, I re-installed the software, but I'm not sure I needed to. Later, I swapped in an NV6480, which is a nearly identical card, and it installed new drivers for the card, but everything else stayed the same. The NV7000 is different enough that I'd re-install, just to keep things smooth. Even though it's hard to find the NVD4VIEXT expansion adapter, you can add extra cams to the NV5000 by installing a jumper on the header for the expansion card, then connecting an analog cam to one of the extra 4 channels. You can wire up your own pretty easily. The header for the card is 10 pins; 2 pins at one end enable the extra 4 channels with a jumper, and the other 4 pairs are signal and ground for the 4 channels. I forget which end is the enable, but it's easy enough to tell by looking at the card - 4 pairs have resistors and such for the cameras, the last one is just an open pin and a ground pin. Once you put a jumper on the right pins, restarting the Aver software should enable the next 4 channels (which are analog only, not IP). You can then connect via standard 2 pin with BNC connectors at the other end. The main thing missing is the slot bracket that anchors the BNCs, but you could always make a bracket interface using, say, a DB9 connector.

Thanks, that's a useful tip!

So what's the reason for connecting the Lorex to the switch via both the built-in POE switch and the LAN port? I'm pretty technical, but am not a network expert, so any useful tricks are appreciated!

I agree with this, but I feel the $300+ Dahua 3300C should be in that spot, and am disappointed it's not - I was expecting more from it. Even the $170 Hik 3MP and Dahua 3200S are pretty good performers, overall, for the money, since below that you get the Foscam/Wansview stuff that everybody hates. My old Vivotek IP8332s were $300 cameras, and were the sweet spot in the value/performance spectrum for home users. Now we get higher resolution for less money, but the software isn't as good in general. All I'm asking is a nice daytime image, a decent nighttime image with no blur, and reasonable firmware/technical support for under $250. The Hik does well on 2 of 3, while the Dahuas only hit 1 of 3. I guess that's asking too much for too little money still.

I don't know if this is part of the too-sensitive problem, but I had a cam that set off motion recording constantly on an Aver system because of the OSD clock. When I excluded it, everything was good. Your Dahua motion detect select box should exclude the clock, but you can count on Dahua software to be a little glitchy, so it might be worth testing that.

The Amazon reviews are always an interesting read: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=dash+cam There are a few well rated ones in the $100 and up range, and a bunch of crappy inexpensive ones. Looks like the dashcam forum is a good place to spend some time! I'd like to see an integrated multi-cam solution - choice of 2 or 4 cams, with the recording gear in the trunk so it doesn't attract smash-and-grab types so much, and the optional display Buellwinkle mentioned.

Yeah, this is it in a nutshell. The inexpensive IP cams are great starting points, but you quickly find the weak spots, and then have the dilemma of how much money to throw at the problem.

All the Dahua bullets seem to share this. The 2MP and 3MP are essentially the same camera, and the 1.3MP shot posted above shows the same softness. Hard to tell about the dome; the good looking shots a few posts above don't have near shade with texture that would show the issue. The Dahuas do give nice images in well lit situations. I didn't see this problem in the Swann/Hik 3MP bullet that I tested. It had better resolution with less softness in the shadow areas. They get noisier in very low light, compared to the Dahua, so there's a trade-off for either.

Makes sense - seems like all varifocal IR cams would have the same problem. There are a few ways to have IR cover the entire zoom range, but some are complicated, and I don't know if any manufacturers cover this well yet. - Have the IR spread designed to cover the widest angle. This will waste a bunch of illumination when zoomed in, and reduce the throw on the IR, but you wouldn't have the hot spot when zoomed out. - Have a movable IR lens that changes the IR to match the lens setting. More moving parts, possible alignment/calibration issues, but certainly do-able. - Have additional IR LEDs that are turned on as the lens zooms in, providing wider coverage. Not really any different than having the IR spread in the first place, except for low power use and heat when zoomed out. Avigilon has adaptive IR, but I'm not sure how they control it.

Someone recently posted that they tried to flash their Chinese day-of-the-week camera with firmware from the European site and got a "language mismatch" error. Don't know any details, though. I'm interested in their EXIR rectangular lensed IR technology. It seems like a good idea - focus the IR output into a rectangular shape that presumably matches the sensor, so you don't get either the spotlight effect so many cameras have, or wasted IR outside the image area. Lenses always cut the available light compared to the naked LED, but often not by much. In theory, you'd need a different LED lens to match the camera lens, as the whole idea is to match the IR output with the field of view, but I don't know if they take it that far. I'm looking forward to hearing more about these EXIR cams.

You can get decent quality M12 lenses here, based on other people's reports: http://www.m12lenses.com/M12-Mount-Mega-Pixel-Lenses-s/21.htm You want to make sure you get one that is the right size for your sensor, and these may or may not do, as the Hik specs have changed from 1/3" to 1/2.5" sensor, or 0.4", and now back to 1/3" again, on their website. These are for 1/3", or 0.33", sensors. You also want an IR compensated lens, or it will only be in focus in white light or IR light, not both. There are issues with getting a reliable fit and function with M12 lenses, due to the lack of standards, as discussed in this recent thread: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36235 What we need, and should be asking of the vendors, is that all vendors should offer replacement lenses for their lines of cameras, with FOV specs for each camera/lens combo, since this is unpredictable with M12 lenses. Some vendors offer this, but not many.

I'm only familiar with the cams, not the NVRs, so this may not all be 100% applicable. On the cams, the only file it wants for an online update is the general....bin file. Frequently, that's all that gets sent out by tech support. On the NVR, the update.img and u-boot.bin.img files are used when restoring a bricked unit by tftp, though the instructions call for armboot-x.bin.img for the second file. Dunno about the rest. Sounds like you need to change the general....bin file to update.bin, making sure the full file name is displayed, as mentioned in posts above. You might wait for someone with NVR experience to verify this, as Dahua's update procedure will brick your unit if you look at it cross-eyed, and their tech support is weak.

Yes, it's definitely the end result that matters. I ran analog cams for years, and that's why I've replaced them all with IP cams. Here's an example that's not just leaves on trees, but shows the basic issue with Dahua's softness in shadows. It's a bright afternoon; plenty of light - this shouldn't be a challenging situation. Each of these is around 25' away from the camera, which is set for 3MP and 8192 kb/s, with the lens pulled back to 3.3mm. I've used Blue Iris to zoom in on the appropriate portion of the image; zoom didn't change on either capture. In the well lit part of the yard: And in the shade, just a few feet to the side: This is why I consider Dahua's softness to be a problem.

Yeah, that looks like it might be the case. The 4.0.9 release notes included a reference to Smart IR, but there was nothing on the camera's menus for it in that version. On 5.0.0, the setup menus included Smart IR, and the release notes said "Support SMART IR (only for IR featured models)". Likewise, their 2013 marketing presentation gives examples of Smart IR on the DS-2CD2012-I 1.3MP mini bullet. However, the only cameras that actually show smart IR in their specs are some of their analog cams, so it could be it's really not ready on the IP cams yet.

I hadn't looked closely at those comparisons, but the Dahua 2100 shows the same softness that the 2 and 3 MP cams have. Looking at the trees just right of center, the branches are just blobs of green, while stuff that's further away has much better sharpness. I hadn't noticed this on my 2100, because it's looking at a driveway, and doesn't have the textures to show that softness, but it's a big problem on my 3300C. This is one of the main Dahua image drawbacks, in my opinion. I keep hoping they'll fix it with a firmware update, but since they never list what's in their firmware updates, there's no telling. Maybe it's time to bump up to a better class of camera. I was hoping not to have to pay $700 for a matched pair of cams, though.

Lol! Hoping for a bit more compact, and something that won't break off at the drive-through! I wonder how much those street view rigs cost? It would be interesting to see their specs!

Here's the way this works: You connect a network cable from your switch or router (that doesn't have POE) to the TL-POE150S, and plug the power supply into the TL-POE150S. These can be right at the main switch or router, or somewhere else. The TL-POE150S combines the POE power with the network signal and sends both out the network cable to the camera. This cable can be as long as necessary, up to 100M. When you plug the camera in, it talks to the TL-POE150S, and the TL-POE150S turns on the POE power. Not sure if this answers your question, but it's very simple to use.

Heh! This is true. So, we need a trank dart mounted on the video drone with autonomous bad-guy recognition software. Just don't forget your "I'm a local" RFID transponder when you go for a walk.

Here are a couple of quick WDR pics on the Swann. The day shots are using the older software, v4.something, and the night shots are after the upgrade to v5.0.0. All shots are reduced by 50%. WDR off, bright afternoon with dark shadows - lots of detail lost in the shadow. WDR on, set at 1, starting to brighten up the shadows a bit. WDR on, set at 46, definitely bringing out the details in the shadows. There's a bug in the WDR settings (or maybe this is by design), where it moves in jumps. Set it at 50, it updates and saves, but if you refresh the page, it changes to 46. As you change it, the actual WDR setting moves in jumps of 6 to 7 units. And WDR on at 100 - now it's pretty washed out in the bright area, and looking good in the shadows. After this, I updated the firmware, which may or may not have affected the WDR settings, but here are night shots. WDR off, no lights on, just the IR, and it's pretty bright on the foreground. Normally, the camera would be mounted higher and wouldn't light up the grass as much, depending on the angle. There's a fair bit of the horizontal line noise the Hik displays in low light. The light on the building to the left is IR from a Vivotek IP8332. WDR on, set at 1 - not a lot of difference between this and WDR off. WDR on, set at 47 (was 46 on the older firmware), getting a lot of noise now. WDR on at 100 - totally washed out and noisy. So, the conclusion for this environment is that WDR is helpful in the day, but not so much at night. You can't set timed profiles on the Hik, so this may take compromising to get good daylight shadows without too much washout at night. I'll try the bright light tests soon, and get some shots from out front, where the lighting's a little more real-world.

Blue Iris does this, and it's a huge help for setting up motion detect. Their motion detect settings are a lot more complex, though.

Yes, that TP-Link injector should work fine with the Vivotek. Both are 802.3af compatible.

If your cameras allow you to set the bit rate, that simplifies the calculations considerably. If you have 6 cameras set for 4096 kb/s, that's 25 Mb/s. If your upload speed supports that, you're good to go. If not, you have to reduce either the bit rate or the number of cams. A fixed bit rate is unaffected by frame rate, resolution, whatever; but the video quality drops as you increase those things at a fixed bit rate. Variable bit rate is another matter and can vary depending on the scene and motion, though some cams (like Dahua and Hik) still set the overall variable bit rate and presumably just vary the inter-frame encoding. A good way to measure actual bit rate is to install Blue Iris (the 15 day demo mode works fine for this), connect to your cams, and call up the Stats screen. It shows both real-time bit rate and FPS for all connected cams. Note that BI displays in bytes (kB/s), not bits (kb/s), so you'd have to multiply BI's bit rate times 8 to get the equivalent bandwidth your internet supplier would spec.

After someone dinged one of my cars in a parking lot, I started thinking about that. Dashcams are very popular in eastern Europe, as you can see in a youtube search, and they can be very useful. Many of the ones you can buy in the US have lifetime problems due to heat, according to reports. What you'd really need is a set of 4 180 degree cams, watching all 4 sides of your car, with motion sensors (physical motion, not visual), and pre-frame buffers. They'd have to have low enough power draw to prevent running down your battery. My prediction is that we'll have little 360 degree dome cams available to be mounted on or built into the roofs of cars in 5-10 years.

For outdoor use?? Might be an option inside using software that'll monitor what would essentially be a webcam. Not a bad option to have inside that'll blend in if you can just sit it on a shelf with a bunch of other stuff. Something like a GoPro for outside maybe? Their picture quality trumps all but the most expensive security cameras GoPro doesn't have an IR cut filter, do they? I saw a lens post with pink video because they used a lens without an integral IR filter. So, there are a lot of reasons people don't use standard videocams for surveillance, but the main ones are that they're not network enabled and they don't have all the software features people want in surveillance cams. It's an easy test. Get an inexpensive GoPro or whatever, and set it up to monitor your back yard for a week. Be sure to post your experiences!

Never mind!