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If easy is your prime goal, Dropcam or Arlo are your best bets. Dropcam's more mature and needs a power supply, but Arlo is completely wireless, as it runs on batteries. Both record to the cloud over wifi. Both have disadvantages that serious surveillance cam users won't put up with, but they're like the iPhone of the surveillance world - easy to set up, easy to use, decent quality, expensive, and not very flexible. After that, a dedicated NVR is a good bet, but will definitely be more complicated than the two above, and will require more wiring and setup. Costco is reported to have some decent systems, along with a generous return policy.

Yeah, the best approach to grey market Hiks these days is to leave them on whatever firmware they come with. Every new version throws in more problems with upgrades.

Most bullet/dome/turret cams can't use a very long lens due to the tight spacing. I've put a 25mm lens on a Hik 2032, but just barely, and needed longer screws for the imager board. My 2332 doesn't look like it will take a longer lens - there's no space. Best bet is to use a box cam, since you can put all manner of lenses on, but you'll also need an enclosure and external IR illuminator. The cost for the whole setup will be a good bit higher. As SyconsciousAu says, you'll have to play with the exposure settings to see what setting gives a readable plate. Once you get so you can see the numbers on the plate, you'll be able to tell if you have enough pixels to actually read them.

There's a pinned post at the top of this forum about changing back to English, but it's for an earlier version. You'll have to read through it to see if it might work on your version.

Sorry, I misspoke on that; it's a CCCH that indicates Chinese, and CCWR for western region. This is embedded in the middle of the SN, and what you posted doesn't look like the complete Hik SN. Examples with the last 4 digits removed: DS-2CD2332-I20150124CCWR50126xxxx - western region DS-2CD2032-I20140515CCCH46480xxxx - Chinese The pattern is model number, build date, region, serial number Many rebranded Hiks have their own model numbers in place of the camera models in the above strings, but the rest will be similar.

Low light plate capture is tricky, and you usually will get the best results with a dedicated camera using a longer lens and special settings. In this case, your exposure optimized for the entire scene, but is too long for the plate, causing it to wash out. I've found the 2cd2xxx series Hiks are not very good at resolving low light details, but you'll have to check for yourself for your setup. Setting your maximum exposure to a faster speed will get rid of the washed-out plates, and will make the rest of the scene darker. Try 1/250 sec or 1/500 sec to see if you get the plate details. If you do, you still might not have enough pixels to resolve the plate numbers in low light, since it appears you're zoomed in a good bit on the image. If this is the case, you'll need a longer lens as well. Best bet is to try different settings to see what works.

The key is whether you have a western region tagged camera or not. Usually, the serial number will tell you; if there's a CC in it, it's probably Chinese. Many Chinese Hiks are loaded with hacked firmware by the vendor to have English displays. The firmware upgrade checks to see what region the cam is marked for, and western firmware won't load if it's a Chinese cam. Generally, the label will show the firmware revision it was originally loaded with, while the system report will show what it's actually loaded with. If these are different, you may have a hacked version. Dealing with this has gotten complicated in recent times, depending on what version is loaded and what you're updating to. Take a look at the pinned Hik firmware topics at the top of the page.

That sounds about right, then. My CM3, with 3 LEDs draws about 0.4W, I think. That should be a pretty bright illuminator for the price - looking forward to hearing how it works out. I'd like to see these vendors publishing the actual IR power output, along with the coverage angle.

Typically, the serial port will be on the main CPU board. The one you have listed as main board looks like the power board to me, between the big power components, and "power" in the board name. Generally, it's a 4 pin port. I'd find the board with the RAM and CPU on it (that's the RAM chip on the pic below; the CPU is on the other side, and is the other big chip in the camera), and see if it's got a 4 pin port that nothing is plugged in to. My guess would be your middle pic, but it's hard to say for sure. One quick check is to measure the pin voltages; one should be 5V or 3V, one should be ground, and the other two will be data. Here's what the serial port on my HFW3300C looks like:

18W at 12V is 1.5A. You'd want more than that, so start with 2A minimum. Typically, you'll want a supply with a 2.1x5.5mm connector, which is the de facto standard. 18W is quite a bit of power for an IR illuminator - are you looking at expensive ones? Generally, a few high power LEDs will be better than a lot of low power LEDs. I've been running one of these CMVision IR3 illuminators for quite a while now with no problems. It's much brighter than the 48 LED illuminator I used before. http://www.amazon.com/CMVision-IR3-WideAngle-Degree-Illuminator/dp/B008GTAPSO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1436921057&sr=8-2

It's hard to go wrong with Hiks and their NVRs, though you have to check the NVR specs carefully to make sure they'll work with as many cams and Mbps as you need. The Hik 2CD2032 and 2332 are great starting cams for outdoor, and the 2432 is a good bet for an indoor cam if you need the extra features it has.

If you need high FPS, that's a key decision, but most people get by fine with 10-15 fps for surveillance. Unless you have a special need for it, I'd knock that off your decision tree.

What you need to do for starters is set different profiles for day and night. For instance, WDR is invaluable in the daytime, but causes noise and washout at night. On the Image page, select Scheduled-Switch, and set the approximate day and night switch times. My 2032s actuall ignore the switch times and switch profiles when the day/night sensor switches. From there, you'll see which ones you can change in each profile, and figure out which are optimal for each setting.

Alternately, you could have the Windows task scheduler ping the camera every so often and send an email if it fails to respond.

I have a bag of tiny screws from disassembling dead hard drives. I started doing this when I had to repair some Macs, which use lots of tiny screws in a variety of lengths, and I couldn't get them at the local hardware stores. These are M1.0 screws, but I don't remember the length. I'm hoping to install another 25mm lens this weekend to get traffic from the other direction, and will check the length when I do this. They were only a mm or two longer than the original screws.

I got my best results with color mode due to a bit more contrast, but it's too dependent on the ambient lighting. If there's another car lighting up the plates, I can get a read, but even the license plate light on cars that have them isn't enough at the exposure times needed to cut the motion blur. I suppose a high power IR blaster would do the trick, but I'm not ready to mount these on the front of my house!

That looks a lot like what I get with mine in the daytime, including the purple fringing. I've got a bit more angle and more distance, but the plates are very readable. Your plate image is 100 pixels wide, which is a great size. The quality on mine goes away after dark, due to not having enough illumination. Your angle might give better IR reflection. How does it look at night?

61.2mm in a bullet cam! That's pretty impressive. I'm tempted to try one, despite having sworn off of Dahuas. Axis has a 4.7-84.6 mm bullet with built in IR. That looks even better, but is $1300 compared to $300 for the Dahua. That's outside my discretionary test-drive budget!

61.2mm in a bullet cam! That's pretty impressive. I'm tempted to try one, despite having sworn off of Dahuas.

Best bet is to get the firmware from your vendor, if possible. If not, you can search the web for it. I use google with various parts of the software's name in quotes. For this, I put this into google; different parts of the name can give different results: "HX5(4)XXX" "20150409" which turned up some Excel spreadsheets with lots of firmware info. These can be risky to open off the internet, so I went to the parent link for the spreadsheet, which has a bunch of links to various Dahua firmware, including what appears to be the 2015-04-09 version for this line of cams. ftp://ftp.asm.cz/Dahua/kamerove_systemy/_Firmware/IPC/ They only have the PAL version of the HX5(4)XXX in this version. I don't know anything about this firmware or the source, so download and use at your own risk!

This will depend on the VMS software you're running. If the software supports POS and Hiks, you should be good. I run Hik cams on an Aver NV-6240 system, and it supports POS integration. I don't use it, so can't say how well it works, but the software overall is robust and stable. The card's a bit pricey new, though, and since I don't use analog any more, it's just acting as a dongle for the IP cams. The cheaper NV-5000 card runs the same software, but only supports 4 IP cams.

There are a few methods to do this. You can search on "converting ip cam to wireless". Here's one solution people have recommended; needs USB power, but looks like a wired connection to the device, according to users: http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Dreambox-Network-Printer-Microsoft/dp/B005OIB6XI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435959451&sr=8-1 I've never used these, so you'll have to search a bit unless someone else has a suggestion.

The easiest would be to get a Hikvision, and use their free iVMS software on the PC. I've never used their software (I use Blue Iris, which costs $60), but there are youtube videos on setting it up. Good cams to start with are these, which are not wireless. Wired is more reliable, and I have no experience with outdoor wireless cams, but others here can chime in. Hik DS-2CD2032-I - basic mini bullet, very popular, decent but not great IR range. Hik DS-2CD2332-I - same cam in a turret form factor, with stronger IR. Better than the 2032 in general, but a little more expensive. The 4mm lens is a popular size, with good trade-off between detail and coverage. You won't know for sure what will work best for you until you have it. These are powered with either POE or 12Vdc, and don't come with a power supply. You'll need a power supply with a 5.5mmx 2.1mm plug, like this: http://www.amazon.com/iMBAPrice%C2%AE-12V-Wall-Power-Adapter/dp/B00GUT7FQ2/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1435866977&sr=8-15

Here's how I do it. This may or may not work with these cams, and there are probably easier ways as well. Run Wireshark on a PC that's only connected to the camera, not the network, to reduce messages. Connect the camera to the PC. Power it up or reset it. You'll see messages like "Who has ip address xxx? Tell yyy". One of these IP addresses will be your PC, and one will be the camera.

A few thoughts on this: - You can't use IR through a window, so if you want the cam inside the window, you'll either need an external IR illuminator, or regular lighting, for night use. - Most night recording with IR is black and white. To get color at night, you'll need white lights, with the cam staying in day mode. - Many cams can record to a dedicated NVR, a PC, or a network drive, and some can record to an internal SD card. Internal cam recordings can be a pain to manage, but require the least extra gear. PCs have the most flexibility, but need to be on to record all the time. - Most cams will record with motion detection; how well it works depends on the cam's firmware. - A 90 degree view will not have a lot of detailed resolution at 30' out. This is a basic trade-off with cams - wide field of view vs detailed resolution. - For power, you can either use a 12V, 1A to 2A supply, or use POE, which requires a network switch with POE capability. Hikvision and Dahua are the two most popular brands for mid-range cams, and both make cams that can use SD cards to record to. If it's going to be behind the window, the Hik DS-2CD2432F-IW (W is for wifi) with the 2.8mm lens (86 to 98 degrees per spec) will meet most of your needs, including micro-SD storage and wifi. To get better detail and less field of view, the 4mm lens would be an option. For an outside cam, you'd be looking at something bigger, as the compact ones mostly don't have SD cards.