Dahua IPC-HDB3200CN 2MP Camera Unboxing and Web Interface

[dmoore 0]

I made some videos on youtube of the Dahua IPC-HDB3200CN cameras that I used on my house (12 of them). Thought these might help someone else...Please note...I'm not an expert.

 

Unboxing:

 

Web interface:

 

Thanks,

David

[vector18 1]

Great videos and great reviews of that little beast. How is that camera at night time? Can you take either

a video or a screen shot? And in the web interface, it looks like you need to download active x, lol.

[bigzee110 0]

Great videos David. I installed one of these at my house for testing and the quality is very good considering the price. I'm recording directly on the micro sd slot (32gb) but during playback I noticed there are a lot of dropped frames (its not recording all the motion even though its set to record on the sd card so it can't be a bandwith issue). Do you have any issues with dropped frames? Also, what kind of NVR are you using for 2 cameras. Thanks.

[buellwinkle 0]

How are you handling the pigtails connectors? It's sort of odd to me as normally I have my cat5 and rj45 plug sticking out the wall and then I feed that through the dome housing to the camera. Having it inside the wall seems like it would be PITA because if later I want to swap out the camera, I have to crawl into the attic to unplug it and hope the next camera has a similar pigtail. Sure, you can make the whole large so you can feed it through, but then it's more difficult to caulk for a weather tight seal. I ask because your Dahua looks fairly simple but the higher end Dahua cameras have about 6 connectors at the end of the pigtail so the hole I would have to make in the wall or eave would be rather large.

[what-da 0]

Hi David

 

It would be good if you uploaded a video of day and night of this camera.

 

Also would you have access to IPC-HFW3300 I would like to see day and night videos for this camera.

or do you know anyone that has completed an review on IPC-HFW3300.

 

Thank for the great review

[MaxIcon 0]

Nice overview of the screens - looking forward to some night time video!

 

Is there a setting for maximum exposure to avoid motion blur? I saw the mode setting for low noise vs low motion blur, but is there a place where you can specify, say, 1/30 sec max exposure, or do they explain what settings the modes use?

[buellwinkle 0]

That would be good to know as I didn't see anywhere in the interface where you set max exposure.

[goldserve 0]

I got the camera but I have a fundamental problem. How do I view the video that is recorded onto the SD card via built in web server? I have even installed iDMSS Plus for iPhone and i can't seem to figure out how to use the push feature or video view function to view recordings???

 

So far, this camera doesn't work great on its own but its video quality is great.

[buellwinkle 0]

You need PSS to view the stuff recorded on the SD card.

[goldserve 0]

I have a new problem. I used PSS to search for files stored on SD card but it couldn't find any so I tried formatting my 32GB Samsung Micro SD card and now, it will not even mount the card. Only an error status. I tried formatting the card through the web interface several times and even in a laptop, Fat32, exFAT, NTFS but nothing is being recognized by the camera anymore.

 

SUCKS!

[unsportsmanlike 0]

I am interested in the Dahua IP cameras...

Can you please PM me and leave me your email addy?

 

Thx

[yugo23 0]

Night recording sample would be highly appreciated.

[buellwinkle 0]

This is a day camera, not meant for night performance without adequate white light. So it depends on how much white light you have at night and every situation is different. I would say their low light performance is good, but not a substitute for having a proper day/night camera. The review on my blog of the HFW-3200CN does show a night shot in color day mode with a street light and 2 front porch lights in comparison to the same shot in night mode.

 

For about the same money, I would get the Dahua IPC-HDW2100 1.3MP day/night camera with the built in illuminators of you intend to use it at night in a poorly lit area.

[unsportsmanlike 0]

This is a day camera, not meant for night performance without adequate white light. So it depends on how much white light you have at night and every situation is different. I would say their low light performance is good, but not a substitute for having a proper day/night camera. The review on my blog of the HFW-3200CN does show a night shot in color day mode with a street light and 2 front porch lights in comparison to the same shot in night mode.

 

For about the same money, I would get the Dahua IPC-HDW2100 1.3MP day/night camera with the built in illuminators of you intend to use it at night in a poorly lit area.

what about you IPC-HFW3200CN?

http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3200c--6.html

 

i know u test the 1.3mp but 2mp should be better no?

[buellwinkle 0]

what about you IPC-HFW3200CN?

http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3200c--6.html

 

i know u test the 1.3mp but 2mp should be better no?

 

I reviewed the IPC-HFW3200CN and there's day and night videos in my review on my blog. I want to review the 1.3mp cameras, waiting to hear back.

[Douglaster 0]

I have the 3200CN and at night its almost pitch black.

 

You can set some settings to actually see something, but the noise destroys the image quality.

 

I solved this by attaching a LED IR illuminator to it !

 

Now its perfect !

[buellwinkle 0]

Which model do you have because the one mentioned by the OP is a day only camera with a night mode that basically makes it B&W in what they call "electronic day/night". There's a permanent IR filter coating on the lens, it's invisible to IR unless you replaced the lens in the camera and if so, do you have day and night images to see the potential of that setup?

[goldserve 0]

I have the 3200CN and at night its almost pitch black.

 

You can set some settings to actually see something, but the noise destroys the image quality.

 

I solved this by attaching a LED IR illuminator to it !

 

Now its perfect !

 

What IR illuminator did you get and can you confirm model number + pictures?

[Digiscan 0]

Has anybody noticed this? I can confirm it now with almost total certainty that it's not anything I'm doing on my computer:

 

From time to time this camera is clearing out the FTP folder of earlier days. I have it set to not delete old files. Still, I noticed first several days ago that absolutely everything was cleared out around 5:00 one day other than three random folders from that day, and within them no files except an idx file kicking around. All dated folders are under the basic root that the camera creates via FTP.

 

I've been keeping a closer eye on these folders and backing up to another location at the end of each day. This morning I wake to find that 8/22 is fine, 8/22 is completely cleared out, 8/24 is fine. I had changed permissions of the account to disallow deleting folders. So, now I still have the folders under 8/22, but the files are gone. Limiting the account's ability to delete files means it won't rename the dav_ to dav. That's no great problem, but it also means that a great many jpgs get corrupted while saving; they'll end up incomplete with gray areas.

 

It seems the way around this is to automate the manual copying I've done, so that the camera can't get back at these old files.

 

I'm not being hacked, as the backup folder is still within the basic FTP root and nobody is going through messing it up.

 

I'm 99% sure (not 100% sure) that nobody in the house is doing this, too. Nothing in the recycle bin indicating a manual purge.

[goldserve 0]

Digiscan,

 

Nope, haven't experienced this issue. I too am uploading to a FTP on my nas and so far, i've collected 16 days worth of video (over 200GB).

[Digiscan 0]

Digiscan,

 

Nope, haven't experienced this issue. I too am uploading to a FTP on my nas and so far, i've collected 16 days worth of video (over 200GB).

It seems so ludicrous that I've assumed it was some fault on my end, but so far haven't tracked it down. I'll continue to monitor, but if my life depended on it at this point I'd say the camera is doing it!

 

EDIT: I've turned record mode from overwrite to stop when it hits a full HD. It's never even come close to that, but perhaps setting it to stop will ensure it never tries to delete anything.

 

Anybody know what "Automatic/manual" mean in record mode? The manual just references them as if they're so obvious, but to me they aren't. They are mysterious radio buttons

 

EDIT: 8/28 yeah it's doing it again. At some point today it cleared out the first half of yesterday. No rhyme nor reason. I will put up a script or service on the PC to manually move all files older than a couple minutes to another folder to mitigate this. It has to be the camera doing it.