Tag Archives: cctv

Review: Vivotek IB8168 IP Camera

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Vivotek is a long-standing manufacturer of quality IP surveillance products, and have an extensive lineup of network cameras to suit all requirements. We have supported their cameras in our Mac CCTV software SecuritySpy for over a decade, and we frequently recommend them to our customers.

Features

The IB8168 is a small simple bullet-style camera for indoor use. Like its dome-style counterpart, the FD8168, it is described by Vivotek as “ultra-mini”, which is certainly appropriate for a camera that measures a mere 11cm (4.5″) long and 3cm (1.25″) in diameter. It features a 2 MP sensor that can supply 1080p video at 15fps, and is powered by PoE (Power-over-Ethernet), with no option to directly connect a power adaptor. One notable feature of this camera is the size of its image sensor, which, at 1/2.7″, is larger than the 1/3″ or 1/4″ sizes typically seen in IP cameras. Larger sensors almost always equal higher-quality images, due to lower noise and higher dynamic range.

Build Quality

The casing and mount are all made from plastic, which gives the camera a bit of a cheap feel. In addition, the rear cap (which can be removed to reveal a status light, SD card slot and reset button) is a little too easy to unfasten, so in an install I would be inclined to use glue or tape to ensure it doesn’t fall off accidentally. However the camera and mount are well-designed, allowing secure mounting and flexible positioning.

Vivotek IB8168 Network Camera

Vivotek IB8168 Network Camera

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Review: Foscam FI9800P IP Camera

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Despite a history of producing cheap cameras of questionable quality, Foscam has recently released some very promising models. Their cameras are popular with our customers due to their low prices, so we are very keen to investigate the new models on offer from this long-standing manufacturer.

Features

The Foscam FI9800P is a compact outdoor 1 MP network camera with night-vision, built-in wireless communication, and audio input (microphone not included). Most waterproof outdoor cameras on the market do not have WiFi, so this is an unusual set of features that makes this camera particularly suited for installations where running ethernet cabling would be problematic.

Another nice feature is the mechanical IR-cut filter, which will filter out infrared light during the day while allowing it to pass through to the sensor at night. Having the IR-cut filter in place during the day results in better colour reproduction and image clarity. Many low-cost cameras with night-vision do not have an IR-cut filter, and this results in unfocussed images with bad colour reproduction in daylight.

Foscam FI9800P IP Camera

Foscam FI9800P IP Camera

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Review: Dahua IPC-HDW4300C IP Camera

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Dahua Technology has been a major player in the IP camera market for the last few years, and their current lineup of cameras boasts many impressive models at very reasonable prices. Their outdoor bullet cameras in particular are very popular, and we frequently recommend them to our customers.

Features

The IPC-HDW4300C is a compact outdoor dome camera. While there are a bewildering number of dome cameras on the market, this one stands out from the competition due to it’s comprehensive feature set, which includes 3 MP resolution, PoE (power-over-ethernet), infrared night-vision and built-in microphone. It’s rare to see an outdoor camera with a built-in microphone, so this feature alone makes the IPC-HDW4300C unusual. In addition, this camera has impressive low-light sensitivity, at 0.01 lux for colour and 0.005 lux for black and white. This, combined with the camera’s built-in infrared illumination, makes the camera suitable for outdoor locations where lighting is poor.

Build Quality

Due to the camera’s all-metal construction, it feels very solid and no doubt will be very durable. It’s compact in size, measuring just over 10cm (4″) across the base, and 9cm (3.5″) tall from base to dome.

Dahua Technology IPC-HDW4300C IP Camera

Dahua Technology IPC-HDW4300C IP Camera

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Review: Foscam C1 HD Wireless IP Camera

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There is a wide variety of network cameras on the market, and Foscam is firmly at the lower end, producing inexpensive cameras for home use. Unfortunately, due to reliability issues, we officially support only a handful of their cameras in our Mac video surveillance NVR software SecuritySpy. However, Foscam cameras are very popular with customers due to their low cost, and they have certainly improved in quality recently, so we are continuously reviewing this situation and adding support for new Foscam cameras wherever possible.

Foscam has just released a new camera, the C1, which offers a nice set of features at an amazing price (and hopefully spells the end of their horribly confusing model numbers!). For just USD $80 (GBP £54 or EUR €70) you get 1 MP resolution, WiFi, built-in infra-red LEDs for night vision, and audio. Here’s our take on it:

Size

The camera is very compact, measuring just 7cm (2.7″) wide and 12cm (4.7″) tall when fully extended. It’s powered by a USB cable from a small USB power adaptor. This is a useful feature, making it easy to replace the cable or power adaptor when required – for example, if you need a longer cable than the 2m (6.5′) one provided.

Foscam C1 with Magic Mouse for size comparison

Foscam C1 IP camera with Magic Mouse for size comparison

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Home Video Surveillance Setup

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A frequent request we receive from our users is for a quick and easy overview of what is required to set up a home video security system. Our SecuritySpy Installation Manual is a great place to start, as it provides information on all the topics involved, however for many users the selection of available IP cameras can be bewildering, and the setup can be daunting. Therefore, we have created this guide to provide clear and easy-to-follow advice that can be used by anyone – technical or not – to create a highly effective video surveillance system for their home.

What you will need:

  • A Mac, such as a Mac mini or iMac.
  • An ethernet switch or router
  • Ethernet cables (if using wired setup)
  • SecuritySpy – our Mac software that lies at the heart of your CCTV system, recording video and triggering events upon motion detection.
  • 4 IP cameras.

Cost:

  • If you already have a Mac: approximately $700
  • If you need to buy a Mac mini: approximately $1300

1. The Mac

Most users already have a Mac in use at their home, and if you just need a few cameras you can simply run SecuritySpy on your existing Mac without significantly affecting its performance. For this purpose a Mac mini, iMac or Mac Pro is perfect (you can also use a MacBook, however due to the fact that recording will only take place when the Mac is awake and at home, a laptop is less suitable than a desktop for this purpose).

For more than 4 cameras or so (at 1 MP resolution each), the processing power becomes significant and you will probably want to use a dedicated Mac for your home video security system. For this purpose a Mac mini is perfect: small, inexpensive and powerful, a basic dual-core Mac mini is capable of recording up to 8 cameras (the previous-generation quad-core models are about twice as powerful, so consider obtaining one second hand if you need between 8 and 16 cameras).

2. The Network

Your Mac will be connecting to the cameras over a wired (ethernet) or wireless (WiFi) network. Wired ethernet offers much greater reliability and performance than WiFi, so we recommend using it wherever possible. If this is not possible, then WiFi will provide an adequate solution provided that the devices aren’t too far from the wireless access point.

If connecting the cameras using ethernet, use a high-quality switch (for example a Netgear GS105 or GS108), and connect the Mac, cameras and internet router all to this switch using ethernet cables.

3. The Cameras

Go for trusty manufacturers such as Axis, Canon, Samsung and Vivotek. If you are confident with network setup, also consider Dahua Technology or Hikvision. Beyond our 10 Recommended IP Cameras 2015 blog post, here are a few suggestions for network cameras that are easy to set up and will work well in a home setting:

axis-m1054

 

Axis M1034-W or M1054: these compact low-cost cameras sport good features sets, including night-vision, audio, and a 1 MP resolution. The M1034-W has WiFi capabilities while the M1054 is wired only.

 

 

 

samsung-snhp6410bn

 

Samsung SNH-P6410BN: this is a small low-cost camera with high image quality and a great feature set including WiFi, night-vision, audio, and a maximum resolution of 2.1 MP. [UPDATE MARCH 2016: Samsung’s latest firmware update removes web server access to the camera, making it much more difficult to set up and use the camera with third party software such as SecuritySpy, therefore we don’t recommend our users purchase this camera. Good alternatives are the Hikvision DS-2CD2412F-IW, the Zavio F3115 or the Vivotek FD8168.]

 

 

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10 Recommended IP Cameras 2015

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NOTE: this post has been superseded by our newest post 10 Recommended IP Cameras 2019.

Since our initial 10 Recommended IP Cameras post, network cameras have been improving steadily, with many new models released. Therefore it is time to update the list with our picks for 2015. As before, the cameras listed here are in no particular order (they are quite varied in terms of cost and feature set, which makes them difficult to rank as a “top 10″ list), however they are all cameras that, due to their impressive features, we recommend to our customers for use with our SecuritySpy video surveillance software for the Mac.

Some abbreviations used below for camera features are as follows:

  • MP – Megapixels – the number of millions of pixels in the image sensor. The higher this value, the more detailed the image, but note that optical quality of the lens system also makes a huge difference, so resolution isn’t everything.
  • PoE – Power-over-Ethernet – when using a PoE switch, the camera draws power over the ethernet cable and therefore doesn’t need a separate power supply. This is very useful for easy installation and ongoing reliability.
  • IR – Infra Red – some cameras include Infra Red LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) for night vision.
  • PTZ – Pan Tilt Zoom – mechanical movement of the camera that can be controlled by SecuritySpy.

Dahua Technology IPC-HFW4100S

dahua-ipc-hfw4100s

For a simple high-quality 1.2 MP outdoor bullet camera, this model is ideal. It features PoE and good night vision thanks to its bright IR LEDs, and it is outstanding value at only USD $100. Minor downsides include the lack of audio, and somewhat awkward initial setup (due to pre-set static IP addresses – but we have instructions for the setup in these cases). For a higher-resolution model, have a look at the 2.1 MP IPC-HFW4200S or the 3.1 MP IPC-HFW4300S. Continue reading →

10 Recommended IP Cameras

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NOTE: this post has been superseded by our newest post 10 Recommended IP Cameras 2019.

The IP camera market is changing rapidly, and while we do make some specific camera recommendations in our SecuritySpy Installation Manual, we are always coming across new noteworthy cameras, and there are simply too many to list in the manual. So we have put together our current 10 recommendations for network cameras in this blog post – the cameras described here are in no particular order (they are quite varied in terms of cost and feature set, which makes them difficult to rank in a “top 10” list), however they are all cameras, due to their impressive collections of features, that we recommend to our customers. All the cameras featured here are capable of MPEG-4 and/or H.264 compression, which can be directly recorded by SecuritySpy for optimum quality and efficiency.

1 Dahua Technology IPC-HFW2100

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Setting Up SecuritySpy Over SSL

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UPDATE 4 JUNE 2014: SecuritySpy now has built-in support for HTTPS, so the setup described below is no longer needed for setting up SecuritySpy over SSL (although it may still be useful for generating SSL keys, certificates and certificate signing requests for other purposes). See the Web Server Settings section in the SecuritySpy user manual for information about the built-in HTTPS feature.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a cryptographic protocol that provides secure communications on the internet. It uses two keys to encrypt data: a public key and a private key. URLs that require an SSL connection start with https:// insead of http:// and operate on port 443 instead of 80 by default. SSL increases security as it makes it impossible for someone intercepting the stream of data to decode any information from it.

SecuritySpy does not have built-in support for SSL, however Mac OS X comes with Apache, a fully-featured and powerful web server, that can be used to set up the secure communication between the internet and SecuritySpy. In this way, Apache will be acting as a secure “reverse proxy” web server for SecuritySpy. This post describes how to set this up.

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