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OK, this is interesting. I'm running mine in outdoor mode, with low motion blur selected, and the longest exposure set for 17 ms (about the same as 1/60 sec). When I switch to either 50hz or 60hz, the image flares white, then settles in to a decent exposure over 5-10 seconds - this appears to be the basic Dahua slow response to exposure changes. In either mode, the exposure selections are auto or manual, with manual being limited to a single shutter speed from the list - no range of speeds. Switch to Outdoor mode, and it now has auto and manual, as above, but also has Low Noise and Low Motion Blur. Both of these, when enabled, bring up a new field for "shutter scope", or the exposure range, and both default to the same numbers, so I can't see any difference between them. When the numbers are changed in one mode, they change in the other too, which is goofy. Also, this screen doesn't have a Save button - changes apparently auto-save. So, on mine, the only way to have a minimum exposure and variable exposure setting is to select Outdoor, either Low Noise or Low Motion Blur, and set the range from 0 to 17 ms (or whatever max and min are wanted). Auto-iris is on for all of these. If it's off, and the exposure range or fixed setting is too high, it will white out and stay whited out. More of that Dahua quirky software that is their biggest problem, IMO. Each rev is a little more ready for prime time, but they still have a ways to go to be up to my Vivoteks, and as always, it's hard-to-impossible to find out if there's a new rev out.

I've abandoned all my analog gear, so I'm a bit prejudiced, but I'd definitely recommend going IP, and starting with fewer cams. The improvements over consumer analog gear are dramatic, and a year or two from now, you'll be much happier with a few Dahua 1.3MP cams than with twice as many analog cams. I have a few Y-cams from back when they were a good value, and they work fine for me, but I wouldn't even consider them now. The Dahua 1.3MP outdoor bullet is the value leader in the lower-middle home security market right now, IMO. You can start with an inexpensive PC running Blue Iris, or go with the Dahua NVR.

There are 2 ways you can do it. The goal is to have black negatives. - Slide film, which is positive film, unexposed and developed. Leave it in the can, and have it developed. Since it's positive film, unexposed areas are dark, and block visible light. 120 film is bigger than 35mm and has no sprocket holes, if that matters. - Negative film, exposed and developed. Pull it out of the can, leave it in normal indoor lighting for 5-10 seconds, wind it back in, and have it developed. Since it's negative film, exposed areas are dark, and show up as white when printed. If you've ever done film photography and have negative strips around, the first inch or so (the leader) are almost always black due to exposure.

That cam's got a CS mount lens? Pretty unusual, but there you go. You should be able to pop the dome off and adjust the lens zoom and focus rings. There will typically be either little lock screws sticking out, or knurled rings that you can turn. The manual should have details on this.

You can make your own pretty easily, if you're handy with such things - one pair of pins jumpered to enable the extra 4 channels, and the other 4 pairs are the input and ground for the new channels. Note that the extra 4 channels are analog only; IP cams only work on the first 4 channels. They're pretty hard to find these days, so if tomcctv has them in stock, you'd save a good bit of time that way.

Here's a thread with actual spectral images of various solutions, like negative film and floppy disks: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/6458/ Now, the real issue is that most monochromatic LEDs have a fairly narrow bandwidth around the primary wavelength, as seen in the pic below, so an IR LED doesn't have a big color spread. With an 850nm LED source, by the time you've cut out the visible part, you've also cut out much of the output of the LED. Toss in the fact that not everybody's visual spectral response is the same (just like not everyone hears 20Hz-20kHz the same, or is at 98.6 degrees body temp), and it muddies the water even more. Likewise, every cam sensor has a different spectral response curve, so what works well with one sensor may not work well with another (and the lens coatings can affect this as well). Since sensitivity is dropping steadily as you go to higher wavelengths, the 940nm LEDs need more radiated power to give the same illumination for a given sensor. I won't even go into the difficulty of measuring actual IR output (it's not by LED power or number of LEDs), as it's been discussed here before. Here's a small pic illustrating the basic issue here, from this site: http://www.ccs-grp.com/s2_ps/s1/s_02/ir/index.html

Mine's at the same software version. I'll double-check it next time I fire it up, as I didn't pay that much attention to that setting.

The Dahua 1.3MP cams won't turn off the IR, even when left in color mode at night; presumably the QSee are the same. Another of their quirky software things. Dunno what they're thinking. When I was doing comparisons, I had to unplug the Dahua to turn the IR off so it wouldn't add extra illumination for the other cams.

IP Cam Viewer Lite: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rcreations.ipcamviewer&hl=en Pro: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rcreations.WebCamViewerPaid&hl=en There are also iPhone versions of the same. It's my favorite, by far.

Interesting! My HFW3300C was also at outdoor after the software update, and is still there now, but seems to be working ok. I wonder if you turned it back, if the problem would return? I'd bet not. More of Dahua's flaky software. What's the version you're running?

If you want inexpensive, it's hard to beat Blue Iris for $50. It's quite powerful and flexible, supports a ton of cameras (including Dahua), and is definitely the value leader under $200. You can download a 15 day demo that works just like the full version except for the 15 day limit (resettable) and a watermark on the videos.

If you google that version number (put it in quotes) and add dvr, it looks like it might be an Everpro. Follow the links and see if it matches... I put this into google: "V2.62.R07" dvr

If the problem is IR reflecting back from local objects onto the hood, then reflecting back onto the glass, this thread might help: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=33215 You can tell if it's internal reflections by pointing the camera straight up into a dark sky. If there's no halo, you're getting reflections from other stuff in the area. If there is halo, it's an internal reflection. Sounds like your donut is good, so internal's unlikely, but this will tell you. Also, if any of the LEDs are bent over and pointing at the hood, that will reflect back. The final solution is often to get an external illuminator and disable the internal IR. That allows you to position it so that you don't get reflections back onto the camera. They run anywhere from $30-40 to thousands of dollars.

Here's an edited repost of mine from a different delay thread: I just tested my Dahua HFW2100 and HFW3300C, and both had a lag of about 1.5 seconds. This was on the IE web interface, VLC, and Blue Iris. My Vivotek FD8134 is about 0.5 seconds faster than the Dahuas. My BI is on a dedicated PC, and I ran the VLC and the web interface on a utility PC; both are modest i3-540 boxes, one with 2G, one with 4G RAM, and Win7Embedded 32 bit.

Many cams, including some Areconts, have alarm output connections that close a relay under certain conditions, and some NVRs will start recording based on this. This may be what they mean about alarm recording.

If the brightness setting doesn't affect it, I'd check to see if you've got a fixed exposure set on the camera web interface. A good fixed exposure at night will be way too bright in the daytime. When I updated my HFW3300C firmware, it messed up several settings, including the exposure - I thought I had bricked the camera because I only got white screens. Apparently, it changes some parameter locations such that some settings are incorrect after the update.

Foscam sells BI software, but it's not a Foscam product (and the Foscam website is known for including malware in software packages). BI is a far higher quality product than Foscam. What do you need that BI doesn't do? That would help reduce the selection. As for licenses, I use 2 solutions that don't include per-cam licenses. I'm sure there are others, and people will chime in, but both of these work for me. Blue Iris - Able to use up to 32 cams, limited by the PC capabilities. MP cams cause a lot of CPU usage, and you need a pretty powerful modern PC if you want to run, say, 20MP or more. I doubt you could hit the 32 cam limit unless they were all VGA/D1 cams. Aver NVR software (used with an NV6240-16 card) - Limited by the card design. Mine will take 16 cams, and is much more CPU stingy that Blue Iris. The software is free, but the cards are expensive if bought new. Essentially, the card acts as a dongle for the software if you don't use the analog inputs.

I'd agree. For all their shortcomings, it's impossible to beat Dahua IP cams for budget performance. They're pretty much re-defined the lower-mid-level 1-3MP market that Vivotek used to be the leader of. I can't see why anyone would buy an analog system now unless absolute rock-bottom price was critical. The $150-180 Dahua 2100 series IR bullet is a huge improvement over any consumer grade analog camera, IMO.

This is usually due to the camera firmware. My Vivoteks react quickly to light changes, while my Dahuas take 7-10 seconds to get their exposure back under control when a bright light turns on. On the Dahuas, when the only light is turned off in a dark room, the IR LEDs light up immediately, but the camera has to think for a few seconds before it switches out the IR filter, then for some seconds more while it adjusts the exposure settings.

Typical cause of this is... your shutter speed isn't fast enough. Are these pics taken in the dark, or bright light? If there's plenty of light, there may be some other issue, but if it's low light, it's likely too long an exposure. Even with IR, the maximum exposure time is often too long to give better picture quality (unless there's movement). Many cams allow you to set the minimum exposure speed, which will prevent motion blur, but will make the picture darker and/or noisier. I set all my cams at 1/30 second max exposure, since blurred pics are useless to me. I'm a fan of the Dahua cams. They're more expensive than the Wansview, and while they have their own issues with software and support, they're far above Wansview, Foscam, and the like.

Areconts will record to any NVR that supports them. I've got an AV5105DN and an AV5100 (5MP Areconts), and can record them on both Blue Iris and an Aver NVR6240. The lower MP Areconts may be better, but the 5MP models struggle to get their rated FPS. Mine are rated at 9 FPS at full resolution, and I can only get 5 on either of my systems. The only time I've seen 9 FPS was using VLC as the only client. Also, the web interface and firmware is a bit primitive, and the IP address assignments kept shifting around until I made them fixed and locked them. Not my favorite cameras, I'm afraid, but the 21XX and 13XX series may be better than the 5MP versions.

It will depend on how the surveillance recorder has implemented it, but of the 3 I've tried (Blue Iris, Aver NV6240, and Milestone XProtect Go), they all recorded as long as they detected motion, plus any additional record time and any pre-detect time specified. Blue Iris, for example, lets you specify how many frames for the pre-detect recording, how many seconds the motion has to take place before the recording is triggered, and how long after the motion detect stops that the recording will continue. These are in addition to the motion sensitivity settings that trigger the motion detect in the first place. I'm using 4 Vivoteks (3 x IP8332 and 1 x FD8134), and they work the same as my other cameras. I've never used the onboard motion detect on these.

Lorex and Swann both tend to be bottom end companies, and most people are disappointed with the cameras that come with these starter systems, even if the DVR is decent. A common thread here is people asking what cams they should get to replace them with. You can also assume that the effective night vision range is 1/4 of what they spec. Assuming the specs aren't completely bogus, the Swann 600 tvl cams will have better resolution, but night time performance tends to be mediocre on this type of cam. Wireless is not very reliable, especially with 4 cameras. You're asking for lots of troubleshooting and dropouts going with a 4 cam wireless system. A quick search of the forum on wireless will pull up many horror stories. I'd recommend spending more on the QSee/Dahua system discussed here. The cameras are far better in every way, and the network capability is much more flexible. If it's too much, you'd be better with an NVR and 2 cams, then upgrading to more later. It's a good bit more money, but this system will still be performing well in 2 years when you've grown to hate the quality and limitations of your analog cams. I finally disconnected the last of my analog cams, and good riddance! viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32694 http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-HD-Digital-NVR-with-1TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-HD-720p-IP-Cameras.product.100003211.html

Typically, you use the camera's web interface to configure the camera settings for things like resolution, IR and day/night settings, contrast/compression, etc, and set the NVR to record and do motion detection, though some cams do the motion detection onboard. There'll usually be some overlap of things like email alerts and FTP that can be done on either the cam or the NVR, but that depends on the individual gear. Some NVRs send configuration strings to some cams and can configure them directly (Blue Iris does this with some Arecont cams, for instance), but that's generally the exception rather than the rule. You'll want to make sure the NVR you choose supports any cameras you're interested in.

A single 8 channel system will be much easier to manage, but dual 4 channels gives a bit of redundancy, so if one system fails, you don't lose all your camera capability. For the TV, you might need a powered HDMI extender, depending on the length you're talking about. Another option would be to use a mini-PC with IP Cam Viewer to get the signal right off the network, like the one reviewed here: http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1049 This would be independent of your NVRs, so you could choose whatever selection of cams to view that you wanted. IP Cam Viewer Pro is very flexible that way.