StanLee2066

I had an Axis m1114 and Logitech webcam running side-by-side in my living room for a few months (waiting for the spring to install the Axis outdoors). The Axis was about 4-5x more expensive (Logitech was $100 and Axis $450). Right off the bat the Axis was far superior in daytime picture quality. In low light? THAT is what separates the boys from the men. The Logitech is a piece of garbage. Useless. Even in my large open-concept family room/kitchen, a 40w light bulb provided a very nice natural looking low noise picture. The Logitech picture was in complete darkness. Even is respectable low light it had horrible motion blur. Then there is the point others have made of an IP camera being a powerful self contained PC. I can run multiple cameras without even requiring a PC. If I was to run multiple Logitech webcams I'd need a very $powerful$ PC - and even then ... so where are the savings? My Axis also has many powerful features not available on my webcam. My $0.2

No. There are many free Windows tools available to do this. A friend of mine successfully did this a year ago without a problem.

I'm doing exactly this. All my cameras record directly to NAS on a particular folder, and all my other personal files are on separate folders (using NAS to backup PC files). Has been working perfectly with no glitches for over two years now! I'm using Axis cameras and a Dlink NAS.

You can use any type of wire between a camera and PIR. There are no special requirements.

Yes, also called "DHCP device reservation". I use this for some of my equipment - mostly PCs. The idea is to maintain the same address for the device at all times. If there is a major advantage to using DHCP device reservation to accomplish this for very large networks is beyond the scope of my knowledge. However I recently installed a few hundred network capable SSR radios in the network of a mayor city. The IT system specialist simply provided me with an IP address to set for each radio. That being said, I was just the installer with no familiarity of their network setup so can't comment on why this was the best way to go for this particular setup.

static. you need to be able to assign a permanent, known address to the camera. otherwise how will you be able to guarantee contact? e.g. would you rather your girlfriend always keep the same phone number or that she change it whenever she likes without telling you what it is?

It's the same problem with Axis cameras. Even with EI in compatibility mode it only works 98%. Microsoft is trying to get rid of ActiveX and it's creating multiple problems for hardware that depends on it. I can just assume Axis is currently re-writing their firmware/software to work without ActiveX - what else can they do? At least I understand what's going on. Can you imagine all the poor fools out there who are pulling their hair out and ready to return the equipment? Overall I really love Microsoft products, but c'mon already. Fire the idiots doing this!

How is that even possible? The frame of view will be exactly the same as if the picture was at 640x480. It's just captured with more detail.

PIR does not work properly through glass. Does this camera have a trigger i/o input? You might have luck sticking a separate sensor outside the vehicle. Otherwise, your best bet is to use a regular IP camera that uses changes in video frames to detect motion. I believe many cheap dashcams have this ability too.

So you're at McDonalds using their free Wifi and you can see the camera, but turn off the Wifi and use your data plan and it suddenly stops working? It's your phone that's got the problems....

You can use any IP camera you wish, and even may types of dashcams. The only trick is power. However if you use your vehicle every day you can probably hook-up directly to battery with no drain issues. If you have any concerns, just purchase a separate car/motorcycle battery. Good luck!

I've been using it for over a year now and really like it. Interestingly, after a couple of months use my SD card seemed to fail. I had no idea the ACC may have been at fault until I saw some of the replies in this thread. Nevertheless, the SD recording was just an experiment and have been recording to NAS ever since with no issues.

I agree. The Axis Camera Companion software is really great.

If you don't mind letting your PC run 24/7, uploading images/video to the SkyDrive is a no brainer - as easy as recording to a folder on your PC. EDIT: I also can easily record video to local NAS, and make these files available for anyone outside my network to FTP, but I'm not sure if this is the solution you're looking for.

Fantastic post. Thank you very much for sharing this information!

The Axis are not just better on paper, their low-light performance really is outstanding. Why do you feel the picture quality might be lacking? I have one and can vouch for their excellent picture quality and performance. They are also extremely flexible in how you can use them - haven't come across any limitations for my needs. They are well built and rugged. It's been -25C for a few day here and still working fine EDIT: I have the p3364-VE

Have you considered other reasons why you might be getting a bad picture from your cameras? A 150f cable run of rg59 is not bad, and since you're already running the cable via conduit, it should protect it from UV and moisture/freeze-thaw long term damage. It's not a bad idea to use burial grade cable anyways, but I do not believe using them will suddenly give you a better picture - have any outdoor connections been compromised?

Looks like a possible MP4 codec decompression issue. Have you tried viewing the files on a different computer?

I love my Axis cameras. Excellent quality, service and support....but you pay good $ for them. Range from ~$300 to $1000 each. I save by recording straight to my NAS (on-board SSD also possibly) and so do not even have an NVR. However there are MANY other great cameras available at lower cost. Everyone here would give you different opinions! Have you checked buellwinkle's site at http://www.NetworkCameraCritic.com? It's a great place to start reading.

From what I can see, there is a reason Dahua is often a topic of conversation ... LOTS of issues/problems. Do you want to spend your time minding the store or babysitting your cameras?

Bottom line.... 5Mbps is more than enough to stream high quality HD video to your home. Feel you need more for some reason? Just to let you know Rogers ISP offers up to 250Mbps upload speeds. Problem solved. But you have to ask yourself: "Am I going to sit at home 9:00am to 9:00pm continuously watching my staff on all cameras?" Of course not! What you want to do is continuously record your video on all your multiple cameras to a locked-up NVR on your local network in the store. This can be done on all cameras at max HD resolution/fps and low compression ... and at no ISP cost. You can always look back through your recording to check things out - especially if there was an event. Just setup a stream of your most important camera with audio (cash register) to watch at home whenever you like. You can always select between camera views.

The 300-400 kbps is upload from single camera. If I'm viewing 3 cameras on my monitor with same settings, the total download will be 3x 300-400 kbps ... and yes, a well designed IP camera would allow you to stream/record at mutiple different resolutions and other settings you choose.

Just because you have 1080p camera doesn't mean you're stuck with this resolution for all your needs. For example with my cameras (Axis), I record all my video in 720p @ 30fps, but have multiple viewing streams I use at various (lower) resolutions/fps and compresion values depending on my location and situation. Bottom line is, a good quality and well designed camera can provide you with plenty of flexibility to meet you needs.

I stream my cameras from outside my home at 800x600@15fps and use ~300-400kbps (h264 compression). Looks great. I can also go 720p at just over 1Mbps. I've even got some 320x240 streams that go as low as 20-40kbps at 5fps! I use this for my phone/laptop when at WiFi hotspots. Also keep in mind that the slowest connection speed will be the UPLOAD from the store. For most people this can range from 256k to 4M.

Your issue is 'firmware' related. I assume like most (if not all) IP cameras, it has a web-based user interface? This is where the programmable options for the camera are configured. If you cannot see the option to change LUX level at which the mechanical filter will turn on/off, I'm afraid you have no choice but to accept the camera pre-programmed setting.