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That noise looks typical of many cams, but it should improve with more light or IR.

An internal fan may not help if the camera is enclosed and air tight, as it will just move the hot air around inside. However, if the board is running hot and there's room inside the housing, a heat sink and/or fan on the board may help move heat away from the board.

If the camera housing feels hot at night, you could blow air across the camera housing to cool it off, or add heat sinks to help move the heat away. Active cooling would be even better, but that would be getting pretty complex, and it would be likely be cheaper and easier to buy a cooler running camera.

Does the camera run on POE? On some cams I've tested, the chip that converts the 48Vdc POE voltage to the 12Vdc that the camera runs on can get very hot. You might generate less heat if you switched from POE to 12Vdc, but you'd have to try to see, as it depends on the circuit design. A 12Vdc adapter is not expensive.

Did you install the Active-X control when you connected? Older Vivoteks may only work with Internet Explorer. I have an old 6112, but haven't run it for a while, and don't remember if it worked with any other browsers.

Typically, if you see the controls and text but no video, it means the active-x isn't working.

You may need to enable Active-X in IE:

There's a pinned thread on Dahua firmware at the top of the forum, but it's pretty huge, and many of the links are dead.

For the 4/5 series, you can get NTSC firmware here:

http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/forum/thread-89.html

and PAL firmware here:

ftp://ftp.wintel.fi/drivers/dahua/cam-fw/IPC-HX5(4)XXX/

I haven't used either of these, so be careful, as always. Dahuas can brick with the wrong firmware.

You can also find sources by googling this, including the quotes, as well as other variations on the file name, like this:

"General_IPC-HX5(4)XXX" or "IPC-HX5(4)XXX"

For 24x7 fixed bit rate recording, the only thing that matters is the bit rate for each cam.

For 4Mb/sec on all cams:

4Mbps (bits) = 0.5MBps (bytes)

0.5 x 60 = 30MB per minute

30 x 60 = 1.8GB per hr

1.8 x 24 = 43GB per day

43 x 14 cams = 600 GB per day

With 6TB, you should be getting 10 days.

If they're all set for 8Mbps, you'd get 5 days.

This will all vary based on the individual bit rates, and if you use VBR, it will depend on other factors, like amount of motion and detail.

Also is this camera good enough to pick out a license plate out front of my house, say if they park in my driveway? I don't want some piece of junk where you can't make anything out. My research so far has told me 3mp 1080 should be sufficient?

That cam won't be much good for plates unless they're pretty close, because of the 2.8mm lens.

Plate recognition is all about pixels per foot and lighting. In the US, a car plate is 1 foot wide, and you'll want 80 ppf to get reliable recognition. If the plates are at an angle to the camera, you'll need even more, as the plates will be less than 1 foot side visually. If they'll be facing straight on at the camera, that's best case.

Daytime is best case, but as the light drops, Hik resolution suffers, and you'll either need good lighting or a faster lens/camera combination. In addition, you need shorter exposures in low light to avoid motion blur; the typical 1/30 sec Hik night setting won't work on moving cars due to blur, and moving to 1/250 or whatever requires that much better lighting.

I have a hik 2032 at 1080p doing plate capture at about 70 feet, and it works fine in the daytime with a 25mm lens. At night, it's no good unless the plates are lit up by another car's lights. The on-camera IR is way too weak at that distance to help.

You can tell how many ppf you're getting by taking a still capture with a plate in the frame, opening it in Paint or similar, and drawing a box around it. Paint will show you how many pixels it is.

Generally, if you want both a wide view and plate recognition, you'll need 2 cameras - one like you linked to for the area view, and another with a much longer lens dedicated to plate capture.

Here's a thread with some discussion and examples.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=44416

Field of view is dependent on the sensor's physical size, the lens size, and the image circle size of the lens. 2 different 3.6mm lenses can have different size image circles, resulting in different FOVs with the same sensor. If the sensors are different sizes from each other, this adds to the confusion.

Vendors were not very good at giving true FOV measurements on the older cams. They're getting better, and some have even started giving the FOV at different resolutions, but it's not easy to trust them without measuring for yourself.

The domes can have a tendency towards IR reflection, though it depends on how well the lens isolation foam is seated and how close to the edge of the dome the lens is adjusted.

Many people prefer the DS-2CD2332-I turret for this reason, but the regular domes work well for a lot of people, and are a bit sleeker than the turrets. I'm not sure the turret is available in 4MP.

The 2032 and other similar Hiks will all work fine, but you'll want the appropriate lens size to cover your area. If you take your existing cam and use it to try out the coverage, you'll get a good idea of what you need.

With the cam 10' above the porch, you'll need to cover the approach to see faces, as you'll only get the top of their heads when people are at the door.

If it were me, I'd look at mounting the cam above the window or beyond it at the corner, covering both the approach and the front door. This is how my front door cam is set up, and it gives pretty good coverage.

For cams you have, check the serial number. If it contains CCCH, it's Chinese; western region cams contain CCWR. There are region hacks to convert the cam, but I don't have any direct experience with them.

You probably have a Chinese region camera that came with hacked firmware for English. Installing western region firmware can cause problems like constant reboot loops. If your serial number contains CCCH, this is your problem.

There are a few ways around it, like installing older firmware with the TFTP method or hacking the newer firmware. It can be fixed if you're a bit technical, but is a pain.

There are a few pinned posts at the top of the forum that discuss this. If you search on bricked 2cd2032 (same issues), you'll find other posts on this.

Grandstream makes a 4 channel encoder for $100:

http://www.amazon.com/Grandstream-GXV3504-IP-Video-Encoder/dp/B0027GL8P6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442433823&sr=8-2&keywords=grandstream+encoder

I don't have any experience with them, but you can search for reviews. Another option would be buying a hybrid NVR, but that will be pricey for 16 channels.

For a single camera, best bet is to buy a new IP cam.

Yes, BI requires a Windows PC, and it can require a good bit of CPU power, depending on the number of cams, resolution, and frame rate. For 2 cams, you could get by with a mid range computer.

I don't think there's any way to do this on the camera; at least not on any that I'm familiar with.

The older Dahuas, like the 3300 and 2100, had no direct IR control. IR was turned on and off by the sensor on the IR board; it didn't matter if the software was even running.

I believe the 4300 series is controlled by firmware, but it's been a while since I tested it.

There are issues with Chinese region cam and NVR firmware upgrades that can prevent an NVR from connecting to the cams or prevent the cams from booting up.

Here are a few checks:

- Verify the SNs of each cam. Any with CCCH in the SN is a Chinese region cam, and can't be upgraded to western region firmware without jumping through hoops. These usually come with hacked firmware initially, and often the version on the cam doesn't match the version on the label or box.

- Any cams with CCWR in the SN are western region, and can be updated with Hik firmware from the web sites.

- Check to see if you can still connect to all the cams by browser. Some failed upgrades cause a constant reboot loop, and those cams won't be accessible if this has happened.

- Chinese region NVRs with newer firmware will only connect to Chinese region cams, I believe, but I don't have much experience with these. I'm sure this can be hacked as well.

There are some pinned posts at the top of the forum that address some of these issues, but it's a complicated area that's not always easy to fix.

Don't think so - that would be handy, though. This would be a good thing to add to future firmware releases, if any manufacturers are paying attention.

You can do this in Blue Iris by cloning the camera and using different settings for each version, and it's quite handy. Lots of people use this for a wide variety of things, like what you want to do, making time-lapse and motion detect video from one camera, having different masked areas, and so on.

As SunnyKim says, the only thing that matters is the bit rate and whether it's fixed or variable.

If it's fixed bit rate, you calculate it just as he showed. If it's variable, it will depend on how much motion and complexity there is in the scene. On most cameras, the bit rate sets the maximum for VBR, and scenes with little motion or complexity will have lower bit rates.

Your image shows motion blur. This is typically not a version problem, but an exposure time problem, which is why Boogieman asked about that.

Anything slower than 1/30 second will give you motion blur on normal walking speed objects but gives much better image quality in low light. 1/30 second is good for walking speed, but runners and other fast moving objects will still blur, and low light images start to get noisy on the Hiks. 1/60 second gives little motion blur and a good bit more noise.

Here's an example of running speed motion blur on a Hik 2032 set at 1/30 sec in decent lighting:

These mini NVRs are not easy to support; there are many different brands/versions with different hardware and software.

No-name Chinese gear is famous for poor implementation of features and mediocre or no support. Many people here found out the hard way that it's better to spend more on well known brand name gear unless you have a lot of time to mess around with it.

There's a pinned thread at the top of the forum that discusses language changes, which are not the same as region changes. This can be tricky business, and there's a risk of bricking your cam.

The Wrightwood lens is different from mine, but may be a better choice, since they say it fits the 2032, and my lens needed some different screws. Their lens is also a 1/3" lens, and mine is 1/2", so mine will give more zoom at 25mm than the 1/3" with the 1/3" sensor.

I'm tempted to order one just to see how it works...

Here's where I bought mine:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/25mm-1-2-inch-Cmos-MegaPixel-Board-CCTV-PC-camera-Lens-M12x0-5-for-MT9P031-/121375945476?hash=item1c4291f304

ETA: Just read the wrightwood text more closely, and that lens doesn't fit perfectly either. They say either use longer screws or let the cable push it against the glass. That may be stable over time, but I like screws!

For best video quality, change your quality setting to highest, and turn up your max bit rate. 1024 is a little low for 3MP at 10 fps; I'd go for 2048 minimum.

Fixed bit rate may give better quality than variable, but it's usually hard to tell the difference, and variable should save space on your memory card. Variable uses a lower bit rate when there's little motion or complexity, and increases when there's motion. Both settings will look good with static scenes; it's when there's a lot of motion that the differences show up. I run all my cams at 2 or 3MP, 10 fps, and 4096 Kbps fixed.

You'll also want to play with the image settings. WDR can make a big difference if you have bright and dark areas, but increases noise at night. Likewise, increasing sharpness can give more detail in the day, but more noise at night, and also gives higher bit rates.

That's a good camera and one of the best values, but the grey market versions are tricky to deal with firmware on. So, you can pay more for an official western region version, or get the inexpensive grey market version and either live with whatever firmware it ships with or research how to upgrade the firmware without bricking the cam.

Finding a vendor for the western region cams can be challenging, and one that I know of can't be posted on this forum. Many people don't bother with upgrades; I do them pretty rarely, and never upgrade my grey market Hiks because of the hassle.

I don't know about complete systems or NVRs, since I run a PC, but many people buy the Costco systems because of the good return policies. The Hik NVRs tend to be good, and it's best to use the same brand NVR and cams, but I don't have experience with any of them.

Two of the best cams to start with these days are the DS-2CD2032-I bullet cam, or the DS-2CD2332-I turret cam, which has somewhat stronger IR and a dome-like appearance, without the IR reflection problems that dome cams tend to have. Both have similar images, so it comes down to which style you like and the IR strength. The last 4 cams I've bought have been these models.

For the POE, some people prefer built-in POE on the NVR, some prefer separate switches. Commercial switches tend to be better designed and more reliable than the built-in POE, but there's not a lot of hard data on that, and separate switches add more clutter.

For up to 8 cams, 100Mb is generally ok if your bit rate is below 8 Mbps per cam. More than that, and you might want Gb.

Switch bit rate capacity depends on your number of cams and what bit rate they're set for, which then depends on resolution and frame rate. For 3MP at 10 fps, 4 Mbps is usually enough, and 8 is more than enough. Hik had a reference doc for this, but it appears to have gone missing.

8 cams at 8 Mbps is 64 Mbps total, so any Gb switch will handle that load fine, and most 100Mb switches will be good. I like switches with a Gb uplink, but that's not really required.

If you go to Amazon and search on POE switches, you'll see the reviews and recommendations. The TP-LINK TL-SF1008P is a popular 8 port/4 POE port switch, and for a bit more money, you can get 8 POE ports and a Gb uplink.

The cams all hook to the POE switch, which puts them on the local network, and the PC connects to the network from any available switch/router connection. The cams or switch don't have to connect directly to the PC; they're just network resources, like a net drive or whatever.

For an NVR, you'll want to stick with a Hik to simplify things; mixing brands sometimes works, but it's easier not to.

Be sure to check that the NVR has the bandwidth you need for all your cams. Also, many only have POE on some of the ports, so make sure you either have enough on the NVR or plan on getting another switch.

Some people will run a POE switch at one end of the building, which lets you run a single network cable back to the NVR, instead of 4 or whatever. It depends on how far your recorder is from the cams, and how spread out they are.

The CCCH indicates it's a Chinese cam, which means it has hacked firmware to give it western languages. Attempting to upgrade will likely brick your cam unless you do some research on how to jump through the hoops, which is a lot more complex than it used to be.

There are some pinned threads at the top of the forum on dealing with some of these issues, but it's not for the faint hearted.

Also, some people are not happy with the 5.3 firmware, and recommend staying on older versions like 5.2.5. I don't have any experience on these, though.