blakem

I have an easy solution to change the language to English in my camera firmware V5.2.3 build 141024 with Internet Explorer(tested on IE8 and IE10). It is not permanent, but will allow you to change it each time you login and there is no changes to the camera that need to be made.

It works on the principle that the language is stored as a cookie "language=zh". All you have to do is clear the cookies once logged in and it defaults to english.

1. Login to camera in chinese.

2. Enter a different site in the address bar(eg. google.com)

3. Open the Developer Tools(F12)

4. Select from the menu, Cache > Clear Session Cookies.

5. Hit the back button on the browser and that session is now in english until you login again

Seems like a lot of steps but it is easy enough to do without any serious hacking like loading firmware with a different region code. Hope it helps someone out there.

This should be good. Most lenses have image circles a fair bit larger than the sensor they're rated for, and 1/2.8 sensor cams tend to use 1/3" lenses in general.

 

I tried to test some 1/3" M12 lenses on a 1/2" sensor cam to measure the image circle, but it was just too big, and I only had vignetting on one side of the sensor.

 

You won't know for sure until you try, but I'd guess you won't see a problem.

Thank you maxicon. I thought there would be a little extra designed into it. Probably the quality outside of the designed image circle loses quality but I don't think i will notice for my purposes. I think i will give that lens a shot once i can get a hold of the camera.

Hi I had a similar question. I am trying to get one of the new Hikvision box cameras DS-2CD2820F, but the sensor size is 1/2.8"(0.357"). Being just over 1/3" I am not sure if a 1/3" CS lens will fit without vignetting. It is only about a 7% difference in size so it doesn't seem like much. I personally think I will be ok, but I was wondering what others with some experience think.

I was looking to get a Fujinon 3 MP Varifocal Lens (15-50mm, 3.3x Zoom) YV3.3X15SA-2 which is a 1/3" CS lens. Hoping to use this setup to capture a mid to tight shot of a public speaker indoors at a podium with quality good enough to post to youtube.

So will the slightly larger than 1/3" image sensor give me trouble with a 1/3" lens?

You'll always see the LED light up due to the brightness of the LED at the emitter, I've found, but it'll be much brighter without the IR filter. All my cams leak some IR with the filter in.

 

A better check is to use the remote like a flashlight. Without an IR filter, you'll see the beam spot on whatever you point it at, and you'll see little or no beam with a filter in.

Ahh, thanks, that is a good trick to know in the future.

I haven't tried it, but to test if you have an IR filter installed you could point a TV remote at the camera and press a button. You should see the IR LED light up if there is no filter.

Glad it was an easy fix.

I don't have any experience with this model camera but in general "line-in" inputs are line level inputs for signals that have already been amplified. If you are going to hook up an external mic I believe you would need to connect it to a pre-amp first. The pre-amp will provide the line level output to your camera's line input.

When mounting outside how do you cleanly hold the Cable in place? Also, what should i do to keep the connectors safe from the elemants?

 

Thanks again.

Pages 12 and 14 of the installation manual cover waterproofing.

http://www.acti.com/download_file/Product/hardware_manual/E32_Hardware_Manual.pdf

I believe I read in another post that ACTi had a production issue at one time with the lens alignment on one model camera. I don't know if that is the problem with this camera or not, but that could explain why the left side of the camera is out of focus while the right side is in focus.

As far as the low contrast night picture, it has got to be an internal reflection or something near by reflecting IR back into the camera.

The height of the ceiling and resolution of the camera will also be factors in coverage. A fisheye in retail should be good for an unobstructed birds eye view of shoppers, but you will probably want other cameras in your system to get other angles. You can never have too many cameras.

I don't know what alarm panel you have but the Envisalink EVL-3 works with DSC and Honeywell panels and does just what you ask.

http://www.eyezon.com/?page_id=176

Door jamb armor or ezarmor are good too since they reinforce the door, door jamb and hinges.

In a few locations I might hook an alarm output to a phone dialer to call and alert when something is detected, but of course I want minimal false alarms on that! I have to find a dialer yet too, but that is the thinking for now anyway.

If you have IP cameras why not setup the camera to email your cell phone with the picture when a motion event is detected. Then you can review the picture in a text message on the spot.

Those PIRs look nice and expensive but I would bet you will get false alarms since the outdoors are so unpredictable. If your fence line is fairly straight maybe an infrared beam would work just as good for less money. Still I could see birds breaking the beam and triggering it. Regardless of how you do it I think it is worth doing if you want to track movement in that area. You just might find there is a lot more wildlife movement than you would like to be notified about. I live in a city and cats set off my motion light every couple weeks, but i can live with that false alarm rate. I get the picture of the cat on my phone and just delete it.

The night pic looks like internal reflections or possibly from a near by object(maybe even the ceiling). Take off the dome and see if it goes away. If not then reaim the camera down more and see if it goes away. I would also check that it has the latest firmware installed. For the daytime it is wierd that the left side is out of focus but the right side is somewhat in focus.

I had a suggestion for camera 1. If you angle it down toward the ground more so the street light is out of frame it will eliminate the lens flare and increase the contrast at night. It would also give more coverage of the ground and not sky.

This brings up another question.

 

For someone like me wanting to own my own CCTV install bussiness one day,

is the market going to do what camras did to Photographers?

I use to have a Photography business, But with Cheaper better cameras flooding the market anyone and everyone is a photographer.

I stopped shooting weddings last year and it blew my mind when on multiple occasions I knew of people

doing wedding photography with cell phones, Much less a new person buying one from the store and suddenly their a "professional"

 

The proccess in TN is 5yrs to start a cctv/alarm business. No less than 5yrs will I be alowed to start my own bussiness.

Will the cctv market be like the "still camera" market? Will there be a market for someone like me who wants to sell/Install cctv?

 

I'm interested because I really enjoy cctv and all of its aspects. I'm kind of a techy nerd so its "fun" too...

I just makes me wonder.... Will I be able to provide my family....

I know what you mean about everyone is a photographer with inexpensive DLSRs these days, but I always thought that for weddings especially a professional photographer is there to provide you with the skills and experience needed to capture those one time "in the moment" shots. A camera is only a tool, but the photographer uses it with his or her skills to capture moments in time to tell a story.

If you're relying on motion detection based systems to alert you - get ready for hundreds of false alarms to be emailed to you daily...that is why I suggest the VideoIQ solution.

I agree that there would be false alarms but I have motion detection setup on an outdoor camera and only get false detections at night time when there is a lightning storm outside. The lightning causes one frame of the video to be overexposed and sets off the motion detection.

I believe you can achieve accurate motion alerts with a little work. As you get false alarms, review the video and tweak your detection region and sensitivity settings. If clouds are setting off the video motion detection then get a PIR motion detector or even a dual tech motion detector.

I am assuming the LAN/INTERNET option is a quality selection on your DVR model. LAN option probably uses less compression giving you better image quality at the cost of higher bandwidth.

Yes foscams work on wired ethernet as well as wireless.

Keep in consideration that foscams are entry level cameras and do not provide the best image quality. In general you pay for image quality, but some cameras can provide more bang for the buck than others and that is what gets discussed most often on the forum.

Another route might be pick a camera brand and use their free NVR software. You get two benefits using that approach. The software is usually free and the NVR software uses the camera's onboard computer for the motion detection so you can use and older PC without performance issues. Blue iris motion detection is going to eat up your CPU usage. I use ACTi cameras with NVR 3.0 and have been happy with it. The camera gives 3 motion regions with settings for sensitivity, threshold, and duration.

"Related to masks, if there were an undesirable light source in view - even including the IR from an opposing facing IP cam, could I essentially remove the "glare" by simply masking an area around the source - which I have no need to look at anyways??"

Privacy masks are done in post image processing after the image sensor capture so the exposure would not be affected. I believe what you are seeing is possibly lens flare.

1lux@F1.2 with 1/25 shutter is not very light sensitive right? But then I guess they never told you 30 IRE so who knows what level they were exposing for really anyways.

Well I cannot look at those links at work but from the descriptions those all look like cheap cameras. They generally have poor image quality and some of those no name brands probably also come with zero support. I think cameras like that can be good for certain purposes like using as a baby monitor or webcam, but i would not trust them for using as a security camera. I bet if you just doubled your budget you can at least get a Dahua that would collect better quality evidence. That is just my opinion and if you budget only allows for those cameras then maybe it is better than nothing. By the way with most all ip cameras you can ftp images or video, but generally you can only email images not video.

new egg has some good models. I got a ZyXEL GS108B 8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch from there for cheap on black friday. It is a green switch and I have not had any problems yet. I would stay away from netgear.

Took a quick look at those videos and it looks like the Dahua is more low light sensitive at picking up ambient light better while the ESC relies more heavily on its IR emitters than ambient light. The real test is when you setup both cameras side by side in the dark and walk in front of them. A good camera should adjust the IR intesity to properly expose your face. Some cameras that don't compensate the IR intesity can overexpose the face and cause you to lose all the detail.

On the system info page there is a button at the bottom for a full parameter list. In that url commands guide you found I believe it says somewhere in there that it only covers the mostly used parameters and is just a guide to show how to build the url command. I am not sure what PT_ENABLE controls but maybe it is a parameter of the encoder cgi and not system cgi. Have you tried http://192.168.0.2/cgi-bin/encoder?USER=*****&PWD=******&PT_ENABLE=1

What message does it return once you submit the url command?