Digiscan

I'm seeing some softness in parts of the image, but it isn't consistent. The door above the handle (our left, mid screen) looks OK, but the lower part of the hand rail is a bit soft. I don't think it is as bad as some of the comments indicate. The bottom of the porch light looks crisp. I suspect that plant by the railing is just fuzzy, as is the edge of the welcome mat. Viewers - right click to turn off scaling, turn on full screen. The Fedex truck also looks ok. Buster, I think those pics are amazing for a sub $200 camera like that one you're exampling.

IMO if it's: 1) Legal 2) Filming only your property and the road (this falls under 1) 3) A cop has even recommended you put it back you should put it back! I believe that "hiding" this from a neighbor who doesn't want it there is worse for you than having it visible, even if it makes them uncomfortable. The fact your neighbor has no interest in seeing how much of their house is even being seen is ridiculous. You could if you were REALLY feeling neighborly put up a feed and give them access. If they still hate it, well too bad for them I guess. Now, you could also put a shield in front of the camera such that they are ensured there is no way you're filming their house. They'd be able to see that a cover literally blocks them from view. I am about to set up a camera pointing down my driveway onto the street. On the one hand I don't want to advertise its existence to neighbors because I know it can be weird for them. On the other, within the last year we've had some strange activity in the 'hood that is posted about on Facebook and I believe most neighbors would really appreciate a high quality image of the vehicle.

They have lots of 1.3 MP cameras, though http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products_category/13-megapixel-33.html

Thats a great night shot. Which camera is it and what kind of NVR are you using? I have already posted the camera model and a dahua nvr. No you haven't; I went back several pages. Maybe in another thread you did, but clearly people here don't know what camera that is.

Not fantastic, but for the price that does seem pretty solid, assuming the cameras are reliable.

Call pro in your area

To those with the 8332 or experience with it--and I assume its software is the same as the 8134, if not other vivoteks, here is a comment on an amazon review. Is it true? Seems incredible, can anybody vouch for this person being mistaken or not? EDIT: Seems in fact acurate. I went to vivotek's website, got the manual to the 8332 and on page 78: selectable 0-7 pre and post event images. I guess this is ok as long as the camera is able to continually snap images as long as an event is being fired--can it do this? I.e. if somebody is in frame for a long time and the first event is fired, once it finished recording the images since movement is still there it will immediately re-fire the event and record more, for infinite recording as long as the movement is there? According to this guy's post after an event there is a long delay, therefore making it basically impossible to keep recording images...

I was looking at the Vivotek 8332, but the 8134 is cheaper and I prefer its form factor. This will be easily protected from rain, but the main issue I may have is operating temperature. The 8332 is rated to -4 F. I could possibly see temps as low as 0F and the 8134 is rated only down to 0F. I assume the hardware is highly similar between them, though. If I am keeping the 8134 fully protected from rain/snow, is it liable to function down to 0F?

I wonder if the 8134 would have this haloing problem? If it's the result of lens position and shape I imagine that even a relatively subtle change in them would resolve it.

Thanks to both of you, this answers it pretty well No 8134 for me.

I've tried a lot of different setups and noticed when indoors the halo is either not there or bare noticeable. Outside where there's essentially no "background" for the IR light to hit it's quite noticeable. I'm pretty sure it's the rubber "hood" that goes over the lens and touches the front glass/protective lens. If I pressed lightly on that lens with the end barrel removed, the halo would appear/disappear. I'm guessing it's shrunk a bit or has some pits in the rubber that lets light through. I did hear from Vivotek support this afternoon asking me to confirm the model number of the cam, I'll let you know what I find out. I'd be interested in what you find out, too...

I have some Cat6 run to where I want a cam. One end is a PC sitting there ready to do whatever it needs to do, the other end my patio. Intent is to have camera view down on driveway. I tried an entry level IP camera ($100) and it was worse than worthless with image quality similar to a decade old webcam (not kidding), so I was going to get a $300+ unit. I've seen images/video from them and they have acceptable megapixel quality. However, I've also looked at $40-50 webcams and their daytime picture is at least as good as an IP camera costing six times the price. Yes, they're inferior in dark, but I was surprised how good some of them are at night (even if not as good nonetheless) nowadays. Since my patio is covered up (no weather protection needed), it seems the only thing I lose is that I'll have to run USB over ethernet and all of the inexpensive adapters for that are USB 1.1, which means I'll either be at low resolution or (I hope!), I can still keep resolution very high but go down to a low frame rate--I don't need vid anyway; a pic every second would be fine. Just given how a $40 webcam can produce quality HD video and I have a PC ready to manage that, it seems it would work ok... LMK if I'm totally off base!

I can't really find a guide like this online. I've come upon various reviews, but some are outdated and none seem to really say "if you have $100, buy this, if you have $300, buy this, etc.". So, the inevitable question: I am looking for a megapixel IP camera. I will have it outdoors, but under a rain/snow protected porch, so it won't get hit by the elements at all (except cold). Last week I tried the entry Foscam wireless camera and really hated it. Its wireless wasn't strong, but worse its image quality was terrible (so bad), so I'm willing to go with a wired camera. I love how Mobotix don't require a PC for their processing, but the M24 costs $700+ and that's a bit rich at this point. Is there a reliable megapixel wired IP camera that takes sharp daytime images and acceptable night time, with good software without spending $500+?. My main requirement is I just need a way to motion-capture images and then sent them to FTP. As long as it has a good view angle I don't need (nor actually want) anything that can pan/tilt. Don't need zoom, either. Thanks very much! Also as a bonus question: why is it that a cheap webcam can give an HD feed but to get that on an IP camera it costs many magnitudes more? I'm really surprised how bad the images are on some of the $100 cameras, when a $50 webcam captures much better images.

Did you find better software?

Vivotek IP8332 seems like the best one at the ~$### price. Sample vids indicate video quality not reminiscent of USB cams from 1998 like the Foscam. One question about it there is a "removable IR-cut filter". Is this going to be automatic within the device as day turns to night? Or at least automatically changeable by the software on the PC (e.g. it detects a darkness cutoff and switches this mechanical filter)? I certainly don't want it to have to default to day or night only...

Yeah it may have to be the vivotek, $350 is on the high-end of my ideal price but I don't want to be frustrated with the thing being a piece of junk and those do have a nice picture quality! I was going to have this backup immediate to FTP. However, I then thought why not backup to a hidden wireless hard drive in my house? Then even if the thing got robbed I'd have this thing kicking around somewhere with the images, and far quicker and more reliable than FTP. So I went to amazon...and other than a single wireless hard drive the rest were absolutely vilified, they seem to be incredibly badly reviewed! Is saving to a wireless hidden hard drive something some people do?

these cameras are just webcams. but you also have to watch were you buy a foscam from. they are all over amazon and e bay. which are not true foscams. a good budget ip is the avers. http://surveillance.aver.com/product/Bullet-IP-Camera-SF1311H-B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1q79Pchyr8&feature=player_embedded Where is the aver sold? I spent a few min on google and find it all over but nobody actually selling it !

Thanks. Based on my experience with that foscam and reading many reviews of other similarly priced wireless cameras I think they are just gimmicks/toys more than anything else. I've come upon a vivotek megapixel bullet camera 8332 or something like that which seems to do pretty well for about ####. Not sure how its software is, though, but its image quality and video look pretty decent. I don't actually need this to monitor criminals or anything like that, basically just to catch the potential dog going to the bathroom on my yard and the like But image quality needs to be better than those cheapo cameras for sure.