IP Camera recommendations?

[Bob Eager]

I need to get another camera to monitor the other side of the front of the house. The camera probably has to be on the first floor, and looking out of a window (it's hard to attach one in the right place, and it's vulnerable at ground level).

Currently I have a Panasonic BL-C1 covering one side. It's OK, although not marvellous at night. But when I went to get another one, it's been superseded by one that *requires* IE - which I don't use since my main desktop isn't Windows.

I tried a cheap Foscam camera, and it works fine in daylight but not at night - it has IR but (a) that just reflects off the inside of the window and (b) probably doesn't do a lot anyway.

Any ideas/recommendations that won't totally break the bank? Wired is fine - there is plenty of network access.

Thanks.

[Andrew Mawson]

I have a pan and tilt Tenvis indoor one in the lambing shed with IR lighting that works very well. Although its wifi capable I've hard wired it. I also have three other Tenvis outdoor cameras 391W I think. They have ir illumination but the area is lit anyway. One currently is lying on the garage windowsill waiting permanent fitting, and as you mentioned the glass reflects the ir. The only issue I've had has been one of them badly fogging up after very heavy rain (It's in an exposed position at the top of a lamp post) Tenvis refused to exchange it as over a year old, so I took it apart, dried it thoroughly (having actually poured water out first!), greased the O ring seals with Vaseline, and put a small bag of silica gel desiccant in. No trouble since and the others didn't fail in the same exposed position, also we've had worse rain and wind since it failed.

Andrew

[Mathew Newton]

You can access the video feed directly (i.e. with the GUI that requires ActiveX and IE) via the following URL:

http:///nphmotionJpeg?Resolution=320x240&Quality=Clarity

...where Resolution can be 640x480 or 320x240, and Quality one of Clarity, Standard or Motion. snapshotJpeg can be substituted for a single snapshot.

Mathew

[Mathew Newton]

Oops, to clarify, I meant *without* ...

[Bob Eager]

Thanks - that's useful. Although presumably there are no controls available...!

[Brian Gaff]

Rather puzzled why it might need IE. Surely if its an IP camera, it should just work.

Brian

[Andy Burns]

Quite a few IP cameras and DVRs use ActiveX controls from the "works with IE6" dark ages.

[PeterC]

IR won't go through glass (greenhouse effect, oops, Harry...DOWN); it will go through quartz 'glass'.

[tony sayer]

Yes don't they just, bloody nuisance..

Like Java s**te;(...

[fred]

I think you're mixing up long wave thermal radiation used in passive infra red imaging with short wave IR that is emitted by IR leds and high temperature IR emitters. The former will not pass through glass but the latter will. They don't use special glass in the front covers of IR led cameras.

[Murmansk]

There's a review of such a camera in the current edition of Web User magazine and it speaks very highly of the Y-Cam Home Monitor HD

[Capitol]

I believe the problem is that the new cameras are using H264 encoding which is not supported in linux. However, most Android tablets and phones do support this and there are numerous apps available. There are also apps for iphone, so I guess these will work on Macs. It is claimed that H264 will be made open source sometime in the near future.

[Bob Eager]

encoding

No, it's because of the fact that it uses ActiveX controls. Otherwise, if what you say about H264 is true, it ought to work with Firefox etc. on Windows.

P.S. I don't use Linux either. Jumped up UNIX wannabe that it is...

[PeterC]

Ah, OK. Memories from the time of reflowing solder on PCBs with IR - obviously near-IR as it had a visible component.

[Capitol]

It doesn't work with Firefox on Windows because Firefox doesn't access the encoder, I have the same problem with Seamonkey (precursor to Firefox). However it does work with my Android phone and various idevices. My Windows computer, kept for historic reasons doesn't have internet explorer so can't access the CCTV. I did try the link suggested earlier but for me it was a no go.

[fred]

I wonder if that might have been more for temperature resistance than transmission reasons, a bit like quartz envelopes on halogen bulbs.

Also, I suppose if regular glass was to absorb even a little of the short wave IR then it would become significant if you were pumping kWs through it.

When experimenting with IR leds I found that my supposedly opaque (white) plastic ruler was pretty much transparent to short wave IR, much confusion.

For Bob, it's usually quite easy to open the case on IR cams and disconnect the leds to avoid reflections, they're usually in a chain. Not so good for the warranty though.

[Bob Eager]

I can turn the LEDs off in any case. The problem is that the Foscam just doesn't work well enough in the low light level (unlike the Panasonic, which does!)

[dennis]

I put a pir lamp near the camera so I get colour images when its triggered at night.

[Adrian]

In message , Bob Eager writes

Strangely I found the opposite. I had a couple of Foscams (got one, sent it back, tried another sent it back). In the dark they were OK, but during daylight next to useless.

Adrian

[Mathew Newton]

Sorry, that's right, just the raw image. I poll mine using an external monitoring solution (Zoneminder) and so don't use any of the built-in functionality/controls of the cameras themselves.