I've had to do some budget camera shopping myself, and have a little insight on
IP cameras.
Axis is the #1 brand for cameras. They are crisp, responsive, and robust. An
indoor "cheap" axis (the 207 model) looking through a window looks better than
some of the outdoor models available from other vendors. Prices can skyrocket
quickly with these cameras, shooting over $1000 per camera is easy to do.
At the other end of the spectrum we have the D-Link. I've dealt with a few of
these cameras, and the only one that worked for me was the DCS-900... their
cheapest model. For less than $100, this camera has been running in my shop for
over a year now non stop... but it's frame rate is horrid (6fps using MJPEG).
Others I've tried (like the PoE DCS-1110) won't work with my software (more on
that later).
There is a company named gadspot that makes very inexpensive cameras. After
putting one of their cameras through the paces, I'd recommend avoiding them.
Cisco has come out with a new IP Camera. It's got most of the right features
like PoE, a DC Iris, MJPEG and MPEG4... And since it's a clone of one of their
Linksys products, it's fairly inexpensive. I wouldn't mind trying one of those.
As for the Trendnet, the only camera of theirs that caught my eye was the
TV-201p, which appears to be one of the least expensive PoE cameras on the
market (except for the before-mentioned D-Link DCS-1110). If it can do MJPEG
support, It would be a killer indoor camera for cheap. Many of the others
simply will not work with my server software.
Panasonic makes some good looking cameras on paper, but I have yet to get one
in my hands to try out. If you check out Panasonic's website, they have cameras
in the Consumer and in the Corperate sections of their site, each with their
own line of cameras.
Vivotek is an interesting camea vendor. Many other vendors use re-branded
versions of their camreas. (For example, 4XEM uses rebranded Vivotek gear.) If
you're in the States, it's a little hard to get these Taiwan cameras, but they
have a very good price/feature ratio.
But when we decided to get a camera for outdoor use at our school, we decided
on the Toshiba IK-WB02A. Actually, we decided on the camera kits that came with
the zoom and wide angle lens. My review of these cameras are that they are
quite functional, robust (I have 1 out of 5 that is having problems, but I
think it has more to do with my wiring than the camera itself) and has the
features we needed for a price we could afford. We house them within Videolarm
outdoor heated and ventilated housings and have been quite happy with the
camera's performance. My one complaint would be the difficulty it is to focus
the cameras, especially since it is best to focus these cameras during night.
Since the iris opens completely duing dark hours, the focus must be spot on...
otherwise the picture gets fuzzy very quickly.
If I could make suggestion: No matter what camera you get, make sure it doesn't
"requires Internet Explorer" and doesn't support other browsers. This basicaly
means that the camera can only be viewed with an ActiveX plugin... which means
it is only supported by Windows and IE. Never limit yourself to a single
platform if you can avoid it. this is why I cannot recommend most D-Link or
Trendnet cameras.
As for server software, I only have dealt with 2: ZoneMinder and Lux Riot.
Lux Riot looks to be an excellent windows based camera recording software. but,
since license for the camera was going to cost as much as the hardware I was
going to run the hardware one, I decided to look at the open source alternative.
ZoneMinder is quickly maturing into an excellent piece of software. It can do
motion detection, camera control, Follow the moving item, and many other
advanced features... but it also has its' limitations: Works only with JPEG and
MJPEG cameras, no MPEG4. Scheduling needs work. Reviewing video could use
improvement. Oh, and you'll have to build it for yourself. But, there is one
great advantage to going withe the Free software first... If ZoneMinder ever
stops meeting our needs, We aren't heavily invested in it.
I hope this info is useful to some of you.
--Matt Ross
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