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This isn't an NVR but I use Sighthound to watch my cameras. I use it on a Windows computer but it is also available for Mac according to the web. https://www.sighthound.com/download

Hey all, Looking to add some dome cameras to my house to watch the back deck stairs, front door, and basement doors. I currently have some ACTi cameras but I'm open to other brands. The bullet cameras I have are ACTi E42 and I have to manually focus once I set the zoom. That's a pain with the location of the cameras so I am also looking to replace them with something that can autofocus. I would also like the dome cameras to autofocus. What brands/models should I look at? Also, how do I know if they autofocus? Thanks

wrong forum. please delete

I was using Blue Iris but it was a drain on my PC which made the vides be choppy. I tried the ACTi software since I have ACTi cameras but I was getting too many false positives and when I asked ACTi about it, they looked at my setup, tweaked it a little, and said that is the best it gets because of using them outdoors. I tested Sighthound at the end of last year when they had a free trial for multiple cameras and liked it. I just switched last week and have been very happy with it. I have not noticed a drain on my PC and the videos it captures are very smooth. They also now have an Andriod app where you can view your cameras and the clips it captures. Their software also pushes an alert to the app when motion is detected. Here is video of some motion it capture this morning that I just uploaded to YouTube. Greg

You might also want to check out http://www.sighthound.com/. I'm currently using Blue Iris but it uses a lot of CPU. I demo'd Sighthound and really liked it. It's motion detection was very good. I haven't had a lot of luck with the ACTi motion detection.

You might try resetting the cameras.

Thanks. That is what I tried but no luck. I asked ACTi too and they said the same thing just listing the user name and password as part of it. I've gotten with Ryan at Sighthound and he had me check the URL to see if it works in VLC and it did so then he had me send him a bug report. Hopefully he can figure out my problem so I can check it out.

I don't see where it supports ONVIF. It does do RTSP and there is a stream path field. Do you know what it would be for an ACTi E series camera?

I would like to try the beta version with my ACTi E42 but can't get it to connect. Does anybody kniow how to connect an E42 to it? I think I need the direct URL to video feed but don't know what it is. Thanks

They told me the beta version includes a Pro license until 10/31 so give that one a try for us Buellwinkle.

I have this one. It does a good job of throwing the light out pretty far. If I remember I will take a screenshot of it tonight for you. Here is a shot of my backyard using this illuminator. The house is a walkout in the back. The camera is mounted under the eve above the first floor and the illuminator is mounted below it on the deck framing. I am using an ACTi E42 camera and it is at the widest angle which is 3.3mm. You can see that the angle of coverage is not as wide as the camera but it is much brighter back there than what the built in camera illuminator was doing. Hope this helps.

I have this one. It does a good job of throwing the light out pretty far. If I remember I will take a screenshot of it tonight for you.

I was having issues with my E42 cameras sending mail. Been working with ACTi and they got in last night and updated my firmware. Then this morning during breakfast I probably received over 200 emails in a short period of time. Sometimes I will get multiple emails from the same motion detection zone at the same time period. I wish there was a setting to stop that. I went in and turned off the notification for now. Maybe you should open a support ticket with them. I oprobably will once I get another problem with 1 E42 I haev resolved.

Definitely less CPU usage. I've been using it with some Foscam cameras but now that I have ACTi I can't use it because of the load it puts on my CPU. Had to start using the ACTi NVR but I liked how BI would send me a video in the email from motion detection. How about making the video that gets emailed a little longer with more pre-frames? When I was geting them I would always get video with a car already parked and not pulling into the frame.

Yeah I saw that in the latest ACTi newsletter. The Zyxel passes. I'm going to check it out this weekend. Weird thing is I can ping the camera and see the IR lights from another camera at night.