Mstar $30 vs Hikvision $150 - reason for price spread

C

Cage22

n3wb
Jul 21, 2018
8
2
Florida, USA
I'm new to this. Just slow building a system. Just curious what you pros think, for a residential home, what would be the benefit or reason to spend roughly $120 - $150 on a Hikvision, camera when I see Mstar for around $30 and they work on USA systems (English language) and seem ok. I bought an Mstar 2MP 3.6mm PoE just to play with and learn.

Comments greatly appreciated.
 
Have you read the cliff notes in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

You get what you pay for.
 
For $30.00 you will get J.U.N.K. You may not realize it's junk, but compared to a $100.00 Dahua Starlight fixed focal it will be complete junk.

$100.00 - $30.00 = $70.00

$70.00 brother...$70.00.
 
If you go cheap, go big... Bunch of 4MP cameras that are cheap and suck. I love eating up storage with crappy night video.

Depends on what you need it for. Daylight with the sun lighting the object from behind the camera, no shadows, no need for motion detection from camera to recording device and so on, it could be fine. Really depends on your needs and the environment. I could buy a recommended Dahua or Hikvision and have total crap results and pretty much no camera would work in some environments.

If it is $30 bucks you want to spend, do it knowing that the camera is most likely going to be trashed. Worst case, you get to see how bad a camera can be. Tear it apart and see the guts.

Shit, I have a couple of boxes filled with crap cameras that are better than $100+ dollar box store cameras.

Good luck and feel free to post your results as most people are ok with expressing their opinions about cheap cameras.

If you want to buy a cheap camera, go to aliexpress and look for the IMX290 with true WDR for around $50. If you want to save even more, go with AHD and the new IMX327. None will compare to Dahua Starlight, but will be ok, just ok, for the money.


Forgive me, I have rambled on,
Chris
 
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I forgot to mention, if you're going to buy cheap, you need to know what image sensor, features, usable IR distance and IR coverage. Those things make up a camera not mega pixels and price.

If the cameras you see says sony starlight, that doesn't mean shet.

If you want example of cheap, for work I bought a complete 8 camera kit (no hard drive) for under $300 shipped DHL. Eight imx291 indoor cameras that the four of the IR's failed the second week. The seller is slow boating replacement IR board. Eight sets of 20 meter cables that I didn't need due to existing coax from an older GE system. Two 5A power supplies with splitters for the cameras that are being used as the old system was 24V. One power supply for the DVR that had the EU plug that doesn't work in the US, but the vendor is shipping a replacement. DVR was the XMeye flavor and works as expected. It cann be configured as eight coax cameras or 4 coax & 4 IP cameras or all 8 IP cameras. All cameras are configured similar to IP cameras via UTC (up the coax). For under $300 it was a cheap solution to upgrade a fail system. The actual requirements were the ability to login remotely and verify if someone is in the building that doesn't belong in said building. None of the cameras have a good angle as they are mounted on the ceiling and the lens is very wide angle, 2.8mm and 3.6mm. Just enough for recognition or observation. Now it will be a waiting game to see how long things last.
 
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framednlv said:
If you go cheap, go big... Bunch of 4MP cameras that are cheap and suck. I love eating up storage with crappy night video.

Depends on what you need it for. Daylight with ... ok, just ok, for the money.


Forgive me, I have rambled on,
Chris
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Thank you VERY much for the insight. I appreciate the ramble - ramble on. I'm using the cameras for my house located in south east Florida. Just want to know if someone approaches the house or breaks in. I'll have to do more testing between the one good camera and the cheapo I got. Inside, I didn't notice too much difference. I have to do more testing outside at night.
 
The Uniden version of the Hikvision doorbell camera is about $90 at HomeDepot right now. Quality outdoor Dahua or Hikvision cameras (I prefer Dahua outdoors) are about $100 each, up to $150 for a vari-focal (zoom). One of the biggest things not mentioned yet is the feature-set of the firmware. Both Dahua and Hikvision have been refining their camera firmware at a steady rate. Lower-end cameras have significantly fewer useful features and less reliable firmware. The $70-to-$120 difference gets you a LOT better quality control in the manufacturing process, as well.
 
VorlonFrog said:
The Uniden version of the Hikvision doorbell camera is about $90 at HomeDepot right now. Quality outdoor Dahua or Hikvision cameras (I prefer Dahua outdoors) are about $100 each, up to $150 for a vari-focal (zoom). One of the biggest things not mentioned yet is the feature-set of the firmware. Both Dahua and Hikvision have been refining their camera firmware at a steady rate. Lower-end cameras have significantly fewer useful features and less reliable firmware. The $70-to-$120 difference gets you a LOT better quality control in the manufacturing process, as well.
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Thank you to all. VorlonFrog - Interesting about the firmware/feature-set and the quality control.
 
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looney2ns said:
Do yourself a favor and study the Cliff Notes in the Wiki.
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Yeah - some Southern Yankee told me that too. :winktongue:. I'm reading it. Takes time. But, i'm also not going to be as serious a user as a lot of people on this board. I don't want junk, but I also wouldn't notice a lot of the specific benefits that they talk about in some of the detailed reviews. Trying to find a happy medium. A friend of mine said, when I told him about the question I posted here, "you want good pictures - but current model iPhone would be good enough. Don't need a Nikon or Canon." Interesting (and accurate) way to put it. I'm enjoying learning all about this stuff, but I know when to stop - what my limits are.
 
Cage22 said:
Yeah - some Southern Yankee told me that too. :winktongue:. I'm reading it. Takes time. But, i'm also not going to be as serious a user as a lot of people on this board. I don't want junk, but I also wouldn't notice a lot of the specific benefits that they talk about in some of the detailed reviews. Trying to find a happy medium. A friend of mine said, when I told him about the question I posted here, "you want good pictures - but current model iPhone would be good enough. Don't need a Nikon or Canon." Interesting (and accurate) way to put it. I'm enjoying learning all about this stuff, but I know when to stop - what my limits are.
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yes your limits are at 30 dollar shit....enjoy...too much to read a few pages and a few threads..PLEASE buy the 30 dollar cams...please...for that matter you can buy a 150 hikvision or dahua and it can still provide a terrible image, there are serious variations between models...as long as it says "camera" on though you should be good because you dont need nikon or canon quality.
 
fenderman said:
yes your limits are at 30 dollar shit....enjoy...too much to read a few pages and a few threads..PLEASE buy the 30 dollar cams...please...for that matter you can buy a 150 hikvision or dahua and it can still provide a terrible image, there are serious variations between models...as long as it says "camera" on though you should be good because you dont need nikon or canon quality.
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No, my limit isn't $30. I was just wondering what the technical difference was between the two price ranges. I've now learned, thanks to this forum, it's quality control, lens and sensor quality, firmware features and stability and more.
 
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Cage22 said:
No, my limit isn't $30. I was just wondering what the technical difference was between the two price ranges. I've now learned, thanks to this forum, it's quality control, lens and sensor quality, firmware features and stability and more.
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I think you've learned a lot, then. :welcome:
 
Cage22 said:
No, my limit isn't $30. I was just wondering what the technical difference was between the two price ranges. I've now learned, thanks to this forum, it's quality control, lens and sensor quality, firmware features and stability and more.
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Hikvision and Dahua cameras are recommended for those reasons.
 
If you have a limited budget, go hikvision turbo, or Hiwatch by hikvision but don't waste money on no brand $30 cameras
 
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