dinosaur Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 I want to place 3 IP cameras on the outside of my house. Cat5 wiring is already in place for POE and network.1. I'm looking for some recommendations on Brand and models. Are C4 drivers available for your recommended camera? Or, are the drivers easy for my dealer to build?2. I would like to know if a pan-able camera can be programmed in C4 by my dealer and how the panning is accomplished by me, the end user. Is a pan-able camera worth having on a C4 system?If you recommend a specific camera please tell me why you like it and what it does.Thanks.
ILoveC4 Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 Pan-able cameras work great. The navigation is different depending on whether you are on a touch panel or a TV GUI, but it is intuitive and easy on both. I like pan-able cameras.
dinosaur Posted April 13, 2009 Author Posted April 13, 2009 Pan-able cameras work great. The navigation is different depending on whether you are on a touch panel or a TV GUI, but it is intuitive and easy on both. I like pan-able cameras.What Brand/model do you like?THanks
ILoveC4 Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 Panasonic works well. It integrates wonderfully with C4, the drivers are already there, and they have cool software for viewign online and recording onto your PC that is included free.
CFUG Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 I use Axis. The outdoor requirement is going to be tricky depending on where in the country you are installing. Even so, a dome for a PTZ is large. I would think about doing a few fixed analog cameras before doing a PTZ. This is what I do. I also use a Axis 214PTZ but you didn't mention budget so I will stop here. "Drivers" are no prob for either Pany or Axis.
dinosaur Posted April 13, 2009 Author Posted April 13, 2009 I use Axis. The outdoor requirement is going to be tricky depending on where in the country you are installing. Even so, a dome for a PTZ is large. I would think about doing a few fixed analog cameras before doing a PTZ. This is what I do. I also use a Axis 214PTZ but you didn't mention budget so I will stop here. "Drivers" are no prob for either Pany or Axis.Excuse my ignorance but what is 'PTZ'?Budget is always a consideration although I am just starting my due diligence and have just started looking at the costs to do this so right now I'm only going to say that I'd like to do it well but not spend more than I have to.Axis vs. Panasonic? Anyone have some insight?Thanks again.
CFUG Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 I like Axis because I started with them in construction. Night performance is scary good. Axis offers DNS for their customers too.
ILoveC4 Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 I like Axis because I started with them in construction. Night performance is scary good. Axis offers DNS for their customers too.What cameras do you use?
CFUG Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 I know a guy who is doing Mobotix. Very nice equipment.... Don't know about integration since he is on Crestron.
dinosaur Posted April 13, 2009 Author Posted April 13, 2009 I like Axis because I started with them in construction. Night performance is scary good. Axis offers DNS for their customers too.Night performance in low light or infrared? This sounds great. Which model? Does it PTZ? Thanks.
CFUG Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 ^^Using two Speco 870s on a custom mount to look around a corner (1/2 the price of a 214). Axis 214 in a one-off semi-recessed enclosure. That one runs through a decoder. All go to a Speco 4TL/160.
ILoveC4 Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 No IR needed with the 214. Next to zero lux.Those look great, but $1,200 a whack knocks me out of the market for now.I have bigger fish to fry with those dollars.
CFUG Posted April 13, 2009 Posted April 13, 2009 Yep, but I saw a few go on eFlay for around $650~750.
dinosaur Posted April 13, 2009 Author Posted April 13, 2009 I called Axis today (based in Mexico, BTW).They don't have a PTZ-POE camera out of the box. They have several work-arounds but it's starting to look like Panasonic may be the simpler approach.
CFUG Posted April 14, 2009 Posted April 14, 2009 What?! Somebody can get you one from the States. That's whack. Take a look at Speco's new focus-free stuff, that looks attractive.
jesh Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 Where are you located? Does it get cold? If it gets cold you will need a heater. Stardot camera's you will not need a heater, we had them running at around -30 below this winter in chicago w/o problems. Stardot is good. Axis is good too, but depending on the model the resolution is not that great. IQInvision makes some really nice ones and I am currently running around 10 of them, with around 60 more to be installed now that the weather is finally nice.We also have about 20-25 Axis installed, and around 30 StarDot. I use 3 different types since they each brand has it's pro's and con's.It all depends ona) do you want to run extra cabling, or do you want poe how discreet you want the cameras (e.g. for a gate camera you don't need a dome)c) what kind of detail are you looking at getting? Do you want a general 'who's at the door', or do you want 'what was the license plate on that van that pulled up to my driveway'?d) how much do you want to spend per camera?
jesh Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 I use Axis. The outdoor requirement is going to be tricky depending on where in the country you are installing. Even so, a dome for a PTZ is large. I would think about doing a few fixed analog cameras before doing a PTZ. This is what I do. I also use a Axis 214PTZ but you didn't mention budget so I will stop here. "Drivers" are no prob for either Pany or Axis.Yeah no lies here! Axis PTZ isn't a smal little 'spy dome'.Most of the time the right camera with the right lens is all you need.
akg4y Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 Just a note on the Panasonic IP cameras to save someone the hassle I had... in order to get the microphone audio to play over your whole house audio you need to run a single audio cable in addition to the ethernet cable to the camera. The driver for the Panasonic cameras does not support the audio over ethernet.
RyanE Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 None of the IP Camera drivers support audio over the ethernet connection.That's because the Navigator devices connect directly to the camera to get their image streams, and there is no mechanism to route the audio data embedded in the image streams to Control4's audio server.The format is wrong, there is no director switching functionality in place, etc.RyanE
CFUG Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 Ok, so no way to extract the audio but is this a show-stopper? I don't currently do this w/C4 but but I have used audio two way to talk with construction members. Isn't there a device that will convert to analog audio and be fed-in as a source? I know Axis discountinued the audio ad-on module (audio standard with 214) but simply passing the audio out of a old computer and into C4 as a analog source may work huh?
dinosaur Posted April 16, 2009 Author Posted April 16, 2009 Where are you located? Does it get cold? If it gets cold you will need a heater. Stardot camera's you will not need a heater, we had them running at around -30 below this winter in chicago w/o problems. Stardot is good. Axis is good too, but depending on the model the resolution is not that great. IQInvision makes some really nice ones and I am currently running around 10 of them, with around 60 more to be installed now that the weather is finally nice.We also have about 20-25 Axis installed, and around 30 StarDot. I use 3 different types since they each brand has it's pro's and con's.It all depends ona) do you want to run extra cabling, or do you want poe how discreet you want the cameras (e.g. for a gate camera you don't need a dome)c) what kind of detail are you looking at getting? Do you want a general 'who's at the door', or do you want 'what was the license plate on that van that pulled up to my driveway'?d) how much do you want to spend per camera?I want POE, PTZ, discretion is not important, general "who's at the door" type of resolution, I would like to spend less than $500/camera and I want 3 cameras. I live in the northeast. It gets very cold and very hot.Thanks.
thecodeman Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 Less than $500 a camera for PoE and a heater might be tough. The cheapest outdoor rated panasonic PoE camera can be had for close to $600 on some discounter sites, but where you are a heater would almost be mandatory for the icy cold winters. This one goes down to about 0*.
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