Need recommendations

[Rightone47]

BI is snappy in switching camera views. It has a 15 day trial, so give it a try with the reolink.

Ok, thanks. I will check it out.

Yep, fixed means a camera that you cannot move around except physically, although a varifocal falls under fixed even though you can change the zoom from a phone or computer. But keep in mind, varifocal are meant to be a set it and forget it and not constant zooming in and out.

Ok, with a varifocal, can you move it left and right? If they are "ladder" fixed, I will need to have all PTZ if for nothing else than we have Dorothy wind around here whenever 24/7.

Yes the X3 is a beast. Most here wishes it were 4MP instead of 2MP but it holds its own. The IR is a blaster. Can work well in certain situations. The "downside" to it is all three lens point same way and are not independent moving of each other and the motion rules are set up on the wide angle.

If you have the distance, it can work well as a LPR camera for the tight zoom and overview for the wide angle.

Ok. If it can show the 50 feet of my Driveway E-W, then it's wide enough. I'll have to look into that.

If I can settle on One Fixed for the Front Door and One Fixed for the Back Door, both probably shielded from Wind, that will be fine. The rest will be PTZ.

 

[wittaj]

Sadly the varifocal only moves left, right, up, and down manually.

Bigredfish has fixed cams that withstand hurricanes so your wind should be OK lol

 

[Rightone47]

Ok, I'm trying to think how much the Reolinks have moved since I don't need the ladder, but I will take a few Hurricane cams for sure!

This might have been asked a Million times, but WHY isn't there a Manufacturer that makes A CAMERA with all the bells and whistles within the GREEN Zone while ADVERTISING why people want THAT camera and make 18 TRILLION of them, thus keeping the price low while ELIMINATING all their competition?

SIGH.

 

[Rightone47]

Looked up "Security Camera brands"... Didn't know Bosch and Honeywell made them. Other than that and Reolink, the list only had Dahua and Hikvision that I had heard of... Both Chinese companies... Not made in China, but Owned... But Why not? What could go wrong, right? This list is shrinking rapidly...

 

[wittaj]

Dahua and Hikvision make a lot of brands too, so the list gets even smaller....

 

[Rightone47]

Great. So they all Phone Home ET?

 

[Techie007L]

@Rightone47 Block them from Internet access on your router, or put them on their own isolated network to your NVR/PC.

 

[wittaj]

Looked up "Security Camera brands"... Didn't know Bosch and Honeywell made them. Other than that and Reolink, the list only had Dahua and Hikvision that I had heard of... Both Chinese companies... Not made in China, but Owned... But Why not? What could go wrong, right? This list is shrinking rapidly...

Many years ago IPVM made a little graphic showing some of the companies that sell Dahua or Hikvision OEM under their own label. This is just a partial sampling as the number of companies for each is in the hundreds, if not thousands.

 

[wittaj]

Great. So they all Phone Home ET?

As Techie mentioned, isolate the cameras so they can't phone home, which allows you to then buy the best bang for the buck cameras.

Most of us here do not have our cameras going thru the router. I can unplug my router and my BI computer will still have every camera streaming to it.

This is accomplished via a Dual NIC system - install another ethernet card in the computer and have all the cameras going to one ethernet port on one IP subnet and the Internet/LAN connected to the other ethernet port. This keeps the cameras isolated off of your home LAN so that these never buffering cameras are not clogging up the home LAN, keeps the cameras off the internet to eliminate being hacked/used as DDoS attacks or phoning home, and removes a known problematic device out of the network topology.

 

[Rightone47]

Well, that's as simple as Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun. I'll never ever know what you just said, so Night Owl it is! With a name like that, how could it not be perfect? AND they are extremely inexpensive, AND I can't get stats about them from anywhere, including their OWN SITE! That must mean they are Ultra Top Secret CIA... Shhhhh.... I should probably burn my computer after this...

BUT... I might be able to return them to Costco for a solid Year at least....

Yes... 25%?

20%?

 

[wittaj]

Night Owl was the 2nd brand I bought that failed me when holiday decorations were stolen and all I got was blob images of the perps in motion. Got a whole box of them sitting in the garage.

Buy once, cry once LOL. I can just imagine the quality cameras had I not wasted money on the cheap stuff with now boxes of cams collecting dust LOL.

 

[Rightone47]

Huh. Well maybe they are great now, since the China Off Shore Trading Company only sells 1000% Incredible quality products. I would be surprised if you said you haven't tried to Frankenstein a bunch of Cams from your boxes of parts.

 

[bigredfish]

Ok, I'm trying to think how much the Reolinks have moved since I don't need the ladder, but I will take a few Hurricane cams for sure!

This might have been asked a Million times, but WHY isn't there a Manufacturer that makes A CAMERA with all the bells and whistles within the GREEN Zone while ADVERTISING why people want THAT camera and make 18 TRILLION of them, thus keeping the price low while ELIMINATING all their competition?

SIGH.

1- HiK and Dahua are the #1 and #2 biggest manufacturers of surveillance cameras in the world .

2- volume, and giving the peasants what they want. Cheap and Easy. That’s the demand, not “quality image and technical excellence”. Axis and maybe Bosch do make those but at a price.

 

[wittaj]

Huh. Well maybe they are great now, since the China Off Shore Trading Company only sells 1000% Incredible quality products. I would be surprised if you said you haven't tried to Frankenstein a bunch of Cams from your boxes of parts.

Oh yeah I have been taking old ones apart and trying my own thing with them but not to much success.

The biggest revelation is how small a 1/2.8" sensor really is and explains why digital zoom doesn't work and why so much light is needed.

There is a reason why photographers have cameras this large to capture the action 25 yards away in ideal light conditions



And then people wonder why a camera a fraction the size of above can't ID someone at 25 yards in horrible light conditions LOL

 

[Rightone47]

Well, I can see WHY a Sports photographer would use a camera like that, in case they get that epic shot where sweat is dripping and the grimace is on the face etc. I don't understand using it in San Francisco though, I guess to capture them laying around playing Pokemon or something?