metafizx

they both have night integration modes, which are not that useful to me for capturing anything moving. They do work awesome for viewing in total darkness however, but because of the integrated frames, anything moving will be a blur. I will try to make comparisons with both night integration on and off.

Can u tell us plz part number for Tamron ? Thx These are the ones I ordered: 1/2" Aspherical IR 12VM412ASIR MANUAL IRIS 4-12MM 1/2" Aspherical IR 12VM1040ASIR MANUAL IRIS 10-40MM

I have both Arecont 3100DN and IQinvision IP7152 (D/N) I will try to make a comparison of the night time performance, right now I have the Arecont out in the test area. I'll put up the IQinvision next. Initially I put a Computar 1/2 IR lens on the 3100DN but could not get a sharp focus in bright light with the iris wide open. So I had to close it down, but that killed the night vision. So now I have a Tamron Aspherical IR and that seems to work a lot better. The IQinvision camera has a lot of firmware controls for the user to tweak the image, where Arecont doesn't. Also the IQinvision lenses are pretty decent.

I REALLY don't like that... Every camera I have seen has horrible motion detection compared to DVRs I have used. Compressed or uncompressed the cameras right now aren't too smart and unless they get smarter you are limited. This also makes it tough to get unsupported cams to work, MJEPG we have now although not really standardized is at least reasonably easy to connect. I can possibly swing that with exaqc but tring to get the motion data is a whole different story. I totally understand having an option to rely on motion from the cam, it works and does fine for the basics. I do think a leader in software should have some advanced tools to reduce false positives or provide greater accuracy to the IO controls. Which exacq should have covered better then most as well as I believe you have a whole line of IO controls even offering analog capture. With our Analog board, we do the motion detection in the hardware. And you are right, some of the cameras have crap motion detection. We are looking in to doing our own motion detection on the server, but we are worried about the CPU cycles that would be needed for that. Right now you need a minimal cpu to do 24 cameras recording. That CPU will have to become a high end dual core or quad core for the same number of cameras. We are also investigating other means of doing the detection through hardware other than the CPU. I personally can't believe we (the industry) are letting these camera manufacturers off the hook. They need to improve their motion detection in the camera instead of having the user shoulder the burden by buying a more expensive CPU. Motion detection and analytics in general need to be done at the edge BEFORE the image gets altered by using compression. If you take a look at AXIS, they are starting to do this. But others are not. I will keep you updated on when we make the changes in our software. Thanks for the feedback! IQeye cameras have excellent motion detection, & cropping. I am very impressed with the IQ75x series cameras. ExacQ supports IQeye as well. Maybe Rob can comment on their IQeye integration. also IQeye has image Authentication as well.

I am learning...albeit painfully. I have used the canned weatherproof cameras with IR builtin, because they are attractive to customers to contain cost, size and ease of installation. But they definitely have their problems. It's very hard to convince customers that the cctv that you buy as a "package" are just junk. Q-SEE and others. But getting them something that is much better quality is expensive. So most customers are looking at the bottom line $, and have a hard time digesting the technical reasons. another comment about the canned weatherproof cameras with builtin IR. I recently realized that the cause of severe haze at night was due to dried residue from rain splashes, causing bounceback of IR into the camera. use of separate IR illuminator and camera w/o IR would not have this problem. Or a IR camera that is designed to reduce IR reflections from the glass plate.

I am learning...albeit painfully. I have used the canned weatherproof cameras with IR builtin, because they are attractive to customers to contain cost, size and ease of installation. But they definitely have their problems. It's very hard to convince customers that the cctv that you buy as a "package" are just junk. Q-SEE and others. But getting them something that is much better quality is expensive. So most customers are looking at the bottom line $, and have a hard time digesting the technical reasons.

Thanks for your qualifying remarks.. I guess I needed to add "IR Corrected" along with "Aspherical" to make the best setup for Day or Night picture quality. If the camera is a sealed unit, then this also adds to the cost of the camera. You dont get this on a cheap camera. And I also meant a Mechanical IR Cut Filter. To provide accurate color during the day without IR distortion, and then brighter Night pictures with the Cut Filter removed. Cameras with a mechnical IR Cut filter are definitely more costly than those without. As for the cost of the camera, you pay more for the better chips (Super HAD, Ex-View, etc) get better quality compensation, higher res TVL. If quality wasn't proportional to cost, then why even bother with more expensive cameras ? As for the white out, the IR might be reflected back into the camera. The AWB/BLC/AE may not respond well with the IR reflection, depending on how good the camera compensates, may cause this image problem.

cheap IR cameras will just give you blurry images at night. Fact. You have to spend some $ to get clean images with IR. The first thing is an IR cut filter. Second is a aspherical lens that will compensate for the change in focal length with the IR is on. 550 TVL is recommended as well. Anything less is just not clear enough. Cameras with this sort of quality start at about $300-400.

maybe the camera has a defective light sensor for the IR ? that switches the camera to the B&W mode when the IR lamps come on. just a thought.

it can vary state to state. Generally, if the camera is visible, not recording audio, and is not invading the privacy of an individual (no private areas), then is usually considered legal without consent. For example, video survelliance of a parking lot would be legal, but survelliance of a bedroom would not be legal. general surveillance laws: http://videosurveillancelaws.tumblr.com/ Here is a document on pubilc video surveillance from California law. http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/05/crb97-005.html#publichousing In general it allows video only surveillance of public areas. The CCTV system cannot record Audio, that is generally illegal without a warrant. I believe the same applies to home use. If you do capture audio, then it cannot be used in court. I don't know if audio recording considered illegal in your own home, but without warning the occupants, it might be. Obviously you cannot record private areas, such as bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, or changing areas. It can also be a legal problem for hidden cameras. so check your local laws. This means coming onsite for covert survelliance as well. Some states specifically prohibit covert survelliance in a "private" place, like a motel room. "nanny cams" are also a subject of legal debate. generally it is accepted for "video only" survelliance, but no audio unless you have written consent by the persons being recorded. Still a sticky legal issue is the camera is hidden without consent. Best to get written consent to being monitored up front when the employee is hired.

wondering if there are any users out there with VISEC ? I am having a problem and wondering if you might have had the same issue. AVI Export is skipping frames with a lot of motion. Unlucky for me I am trying to get a export out for the police, and oddly the frames that I need are skipped over when the AVI is exported.

update on this issue. The problem with the Visec program is that the AVI export doesn't work in my case. It skips over the important sections of a suspect's vehicle. I counted about 40 frames in the first vehicle pass and 60 frames in the second vehicle pass. The entire section was skipped for some unknown reason. The Visec people have been responsive, but so far have not provided a solution. So I hope they will continue working with me to fix this problem. Otherwise I will have to seek another program that does this correctly. I like Visec because it is a simple and efficient program, but unfortunately exporting the crucial video is a key feature that must work reliably. If I can't rely on video export, then it's not usable in my opinion.

you might try IR Iluminators that operate in the 850nm region, which is the type that you can see a glow from. Most of the "IR" cams that you get have this LED, not 940nm. In the visible spectrum, and most cams can see this, unless they have a block filter in the lens.

cyeweb is inexpensive, but works really great, not just ok. Uh, didn't I say "demo'd, seemed to work" ? (the "ok" was generally speaking, and wasn't saying anything negative, just that it seemed to work under the demo version) I'd like to play with cyeweb more, and see how well it does work in a more loaded test. I guess everything works great when you sell the product !

maybe you have a bad cable ? or a ground loop ?

would a polarizing filter help ? just thinking..

is the lens for IR ? seems like it's not an IR pass lens.

hi, well there aren't a lot of options available, but this is what I have it set to currently: Illumination : Auto Misc : Auto Exposure (just a checkbox) Day/Night : Auto Gains: not set (default) Low Light Mode : either Balanced or Moonlight Moonlight gives me way more exposure time, hence a better picture in low light, but the exposure time is very long. Anything moving is blurry.

exactly the question I have. I feel pretty dumb now to have bought this camera without AI. it is pretty useless IMHO.

you first have to determine the requirements for your system. what do you want the resulting capture to be ? facial recognition ? fields of view (can you do it with 4 cameras?) Even though $2K sounds like a a lot to spend, it isn't..but it depends highly on the quality you want. Low cost systems suffer from poor images. In my experience, if you don't get a decent quality DVR and cameras, you will get blurry images that you can't discern squat from. If you don't really care so much about quality, costco (groans from the audience) has a bunch of cheap systems available. but I warn you that when it comes to getting clear images to the police, those cheapie setups will usually fail you. For your $2K budget, I would suggest spending atleast $300 per camera, and the remaining on DVR. For $800, the DVR won't be awesome, but will work ok. you will have to kick in extra for the cables, power supplies, etc. Also don't forget to add a battery backup unit. The better IR cameras will have atleast 550 TVL, IR cut filter, and a decent lens. And also just because they advertise these specs, it doesn't mean the camera is all that great. there are hundreds of products out there, some are good, much of it is fair to poor. I'd post names of products, but that might just mislead you. and make others unhappy.

there isn't any free open ip software that I know of, except for ZoneMinder, which runs on Linux. for low cost s/w, there is a bunch of them that work "ok": blueiris < demo'd seemed to work cyeweb < demo'd, seemed to work active webcam < works, but buggy slightly more$ luxriot < have used this one and it works pretty good visec < I use this one and works pretty good more $ but better quality nuuo milestone

I just bought the 3100DN and although the pic is nice during the day, it isn't very useful at night. This is because there is no AI, and to get a clear image during the day, I have to close down the iris some. Which creates a problem for night time. So without AI feature, I think the 3100DN isn't useful for viewing both day and night with optimum settings. I was happy with the Axis 223, because it had IR cutfilter, and AI. The only problem was the resolution. Now they have 223M but I got the Arecont because of the price difference. The problem now is there isn't a Arecont 3100xx camera that has both IR Cut filter and AI, sorely needed. I too, have been wondering about the 3130 camera, but am afraid to gamble another $700 bucks to try it out. My first goal is high quality images in both day and night. The second goal was to read license plates. To do this, I need as much light as possible coming in the camera at night (with aid of IR Illuminators), but still I might be dreaming because of the exposure time will blur out the plates when the vehicle is moving. The plates show up clear during the day when it is bright. Cars are moving about 10-20mph and I can make out the plates pretty consistently.

Good stuff, thanks. So will this camera save to a network share? most ip cameras will ftp images, but you have to have ftp server running. I don't think you can just save to a network file storage.