Well, I made my choice. I researched PTZ IP dome cameras for 6 months, and this is the one I've chosen. It meets my expectations, and then some.
I looked at quality, price, functionality, bells and whistles. This is a well built camera folks. It's all metal construction, with a belt drive transmission. It can pan endlessly, and pans 360 degrees in one second. It tilts 180 degrees, at 160 degrees a second. The tilt has auto flip.
The dome has a temperature controlled blower, and heater.
I didn't want to fish walls, I wanted wireless for its ease of installation. I can move it to wherever there is AC. It works perfectly with my Linksys WRT54GX router. It's about 80-90 ft away, and I've always gotten a perfect picture. No having to have things turned just right. I bought a 5 ft mast, and put it on top of my house. All I needed was AC, so I ran a extension cord through a roof wind turbine. From there it plugs into a AC plug in my attic, with an appliance module in between. BTW, when initially connected to the appliance module, when I turned it off, the load sensor would turn my camera right back on! After researching on this forum, I was led to the site that explained how I can mod this from happening, and it works great now.
The hi speed camera has an auto IR cut filter. For those who don't know what this is, when it starts to get dark, it automatically goes to black and white mode. The Sony EX VIEW had CCD is rated at 001 lux. It gets a great night time image up to about 10 or 15 minutes before it's completely dark. In fact, the image I get reminds me of the thermal images the military gets at night. After its completely dark, all you get are car or house lights. If there is a moon out, or some lighting, you get a good image. I tested the IR capibilities with an IR illuminator I have. It is very IR sensitive, as the image was all lit up on my monitor, yet pitch black outside.
The camera has a built in web server. You don't have to have your PC on for this camera to work over the internet. I have never configured my system for an IP camera before. It was a learning experience. But I am happy to say I now know how to do it. Port forwarding, putting my DSL modem to bridge mode, my Linksys router to PPPoE, and many other little things. At a later date, I may add the cameras address to this post for anyone that wants to look around the New Mexico country here. Req. IE with active x enabled.
This camera has a 26x optical and 12x digital zoom. Personally, I don't have a lot use for digital zoom. I can easily read the neighbors license plate at 500 ft. The New Mexico History of Space Museum is a mid sized building with a big rocket beside it. It's about 8 miles from here, and I can clearly see it. The control tower at Holloman AFB stands out like a monument on the horizon, about 12 miles away.
It has the motion detection, patroling features in the software you would expect. You can put in up to 255 pre set locations for the camera to patrol to. I have 7 put in, and that works for me. It has an audio in and out capability. It has 1 alarm circuit, and can send e-mail snapshot, video, or text. You can install a 4 gb card in the camera, that gives 26 hours of continuous recording, then overwrites itself. Or you can record to your PC harddrive. You can control all the functions of the camera's PTZ over the internet. And even retrieve the recording, if desired. (with the admin password. Of course guests can't do this)
H264 compression. D1 resolution. There are a lot of video settings you can adjust, a lot of things I haven't gotten to yet.
I like to think the camera on my roof is a deterrent. We moved from Michigan to Alamogordo last December. Low crime here was one of the reasons. But things can happen no matter where you are. I'm just hoping to make someone think, "Do I really want to take the chance?" I still have and use my Lukwerks video over powerline cameras. But having a real nice, PTZ wireless camera is the icing on the cake.
I have attached a pic of the camera on the roof, and one of nighttime (10 minutes before completely dark) The nightime shot is what I get with a full moon also.
The Microseven people are very friendly. Jim spent some time with me on the phone, helping me configure for the internet. Would I buy this camera all over again? Yes, in a heartbeat.
With shipping, about 1200 USD. 1 yr warranty. Lifetime free firmware updates and tech support.
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Topic: Microseven wireless PTZ IP hi speed dome camera review (Read 45787 times)