G’day all 
I come in here in deep desperation: shopping is horrible these days, with this new thing, the ‘internet’ ( ;D). That problem happens when some things happen simultaneously:
- Normal, physical shops with ‘mum and dad’ who actually know what they sell have been abandoned. The choice these days is either the large retail chains that only sell the plastic crap for insane prices, or the ‘attic web shop’ that doesn’t even keep its own stock and hopes to make 2%, or the larger web shop that does the same (with or without stock). By any means it is virtually impossible these days to simply walk into a store that sells quality stuff, talk to a sales person > 25 years old who actually has the deep knowledge, get the products demonstrated to you in front of you, and then make an informed decision and buy – thus rewarding the retailer for his work. No, these days you are required to waste *your own time* and then still reward the web shop – who did practically nothing to earn your money – by buying from them (yes, this really makes me depressive. And I am an economist, so I look at this with economist’ glasses on – the whole traditional retail model, the very basis for its existence in the first place, is gone).
- You don’t know anything about the subject (me) and acquiring the knowledge, especially if you are non-technical (me ) easily takes you just as much time as you could devote to getting a PhD. Because then:
- You have to go visit uncle Google, open up 1600 tabs ‘because somewhere in those tabs hopefully you will find accessible, understandable, information’. That seldom is the case:
o Badly structured and written documents;
o Documents that leave vital background information out so you still feel like you’re dropping into a subject in the middle (or even at the end) instead of at the beginning;
o You quickly learn many of these ‘review sites’ are sponsored one way or the other, when you cross check them with customer comments on the Amazon’s of this world.
- So you think: ok, I email some of the ‘specialized web shops, send them my detailed *functional* requirement (not the *technical* one since I don’t know what tech specs I am looking for. But I do know *what I want to use it for*, so you hope the other side will translate that into tech requirements – that’s their work in return for getting the sales – so you think. Well, it *is* business economics 101 ;D).
- Of course, coincidentally, each shop only recommends their own brands, and of course, conveniently also the more expensive models. You then have to go to the manufacturers website who apparently fired his marketing staff ages ago () since all they present is some fancy words and next a technical sheet with – of course – technical stuff which I don’t understand, and of which I have no clue of what is relevant for me (and, actually, as an end user, shouldn’t need to know. An anology to explain: I don’t need to know which fuel injection system is in a BMW: I need to know the BMW can drive 200 km/h, be reliable, not consume too much gasoline, etc).
- Even more coincidentally, of course all shops recommend different brands and models, and when you cross-‘interogate’ them (= forward comments from shop A to shop B and ask to comment on it), you end up with shop A saying shop B is lying, shop B saying its better ‘because my IR is better – google for the proof’ (here we go again…), shop C saying not to bother with shop A altogether since they are ‘crooks, and so is their brand’ (this was an Axis shop), and so on.
So, why the deep desperation: here I am, after two months: Vivotek is better/no, Sony is better, look at the ‘lux’/no, Axis has superior IR/no, Hikvision is better price-quality. Can you imagine me wanting to drown myself in a bath full of beer? ().
So, finally I discovered this forum, and I decided to ask for help here. Would any of you knowledgeable people be willing to help me out? I’d be very grateful for it (and am more than willing to return the favor, for example buy you a nice cup of coffee/beer).
This is my functional requirement:
- I live in small town in a small country in western-europe. Crime goes up minute after minute.
- I have a garden behind my house, approx. 60 meters deep and 20 meters wide. It connects to the woods on the left and behind it.
- I collect Rottweilers (joke ) who often get restless in the middle of the night. I want to have outdoor IP-cams that monitor my garden: I connect them to my Synology NAS, and in that way, at least when somebody was walking in my garden in the middle of the night my Synology will activate the camera, record it, and send me an email which I will see in the morning. Then I know the next night my Rottweilers should be able to go outside in order to guard their – and my ( ;D) garden.
- The above is especially important since my most important assets, my Wife, my young Daughters and my Rottweilers live in this house too and I want them protected :-*
So, from the above comes:
- I’d like to have quality devices. I typically buy lasting material, not the throw away junk. Of course quality is more expensive than the throw away junk, but it appears to me some vendors might be overdoing it. So you see, outside the brands mentioned above, for example Ubiquity which is a market challenger in every way. I have their wireless access points, they are really great and fair priced. There’s not much to be found about their cams, and, as I wrote before: no way to see them live first in a store, so I’m not sure if they – or similar market challengers – could be a good alternative for the expensive A-brands.
- Motion detection (don’t record all day, only record when there is something to record; dominantly during the night (so easy schedule way to disable it, but it might be the Synology software (“Video Station 7”) takes care of this. I do have the Synology, but not yet a cam so I can not test the package to see this for myself).
- Sharp pictures: we sometimes see crime reports on TV where we then see the cam videos of the crime. Most of the times I think: ‘if you can’t see anything at all on the cam, then why bother having a cam?’ ( :-\).
- CLEAR night vision (here’s another dilemma: the better this vision, the more the price of the cam will skyrocket. Now I’ve read somewhere you can also use a ‘separate IR’ light for that, but if you, for example, look at the accessories for Axis, you will see such an IR light also easily costs 300 EUR, which, conveniently, is in line with the more expensive cam that also has the same better IR. So this setup doesn’t mitigate the costs it seems to me).
- Range? It seems 60 meters is not doable at all in a decent price range, but of course: as far and wide as possible.
- Fixed. That is: I’ve been told full automatic PTZ-cams are very expensive, and break down earlier than simply fixed cams. Now, my impression of a full PTZ cam would be that it is able to automatically notice movement somewhere in the back, and then automatically turn to that corner, and zoom in. If I am to take fixed cams I’d probably need two cams (on the left of the house, and one on the right, to fully cover the whole garden). But then again, what do I know ???
- Wired: by now I already know you better not take wireless.
- PoE: the less holes I have to drill in the wall the better (I rent this house, landlord ‘ll probably whine). Then again: a power cable AND a CAT6-cable or only a CAT6-cable: that doesn’t make that much difference for the size of the hole.
So, this is what I functionally think I need (of course, unless I left things out you experts will say ‘you want to want this too’. Blessed are the ignorant they see, although I fail to see why ;D). So, from that functional need, I am having a different time relating this to all the technical words in the spec sheets (like said: I am an economist, I’ve studied since I am non-technical, otherwise I’d have become an engineer), like ‘diafragma’, ‘lux’, ‘volt’, ‘video compression’, ‘frame rate’, ‘shutter time’, ‘IR-illumination’, etcetera.
What has been recommended to me by the very web shops that sell them is this:
- AXIS: P1425-LE (700 EUR), P1427-LE (800 EUR) and P3364-VE (1000 EUR…): http://www.axis.com/products/video/selector/comparison.php?q=90aeec1fea5f3c5c6e613726b90426a1
- SONY (according to that web shop ‘way, way, way better IR than Axis’): EB632R (850 EUR): http://www.pro.sony.eu/pro/lang/en/eu/product/video-security-ip-cameras-fixed/snc-eb632r/overview/
- And no specific models, but I was ‘free to browse their website for their current offerings – and don’t forget to order of course’ for the brands Vivotek and Hikvision.
Would anybody perhaps be so kind to help me out of my misery, as in: put me in the right direction for what I really need to look out for? Brand, tech specs for my requirements, and of course, if you would know, specific brand/model (as in: ‘look at this, it seems perfectly adequate for you and not insanely priced)?
I’d be in debt for help, and like said: I’m *more* than willing to return the favor by offering you a nice coffee/beer on my behalf
Thank you in advance very much for any help,
Bye
I come in here in deep desperation: shopping is horrible these days, with this new thing, the ‘internet’ ( ;D). That problem happens when some things happen simultaneously:
- Normal, physical shops with ‘mum and dad’ who actually know what they sell have been abandoned. The choice these days is either the large retail chains that only sell the plastic crap for insane prices, or the ‘attic web shop’ that doesn’t even keep its own stock and hopes to make 2%, or the larger web shop that does the same (with or without stock). By any means it is virtually impossible these days to simply walk into a store that sells quality stuff, talk to a sales person > 25 years old who actually has the deep knowledge, get the products demonstrated to you in front of you, and then make an informed decision and buy – thus rewarding the retailer for his work. No, these days you are required to waste *your own time* and then still reward the web shop – who did practically nothing to earn your money – by buying from them (yes, this really makes me depressive. And I am an economist, so I look at this with economist’ glasses on – the whole traditional retail model, the very basis for its existence in the first place, is gone).
- You don’t know anything about the subject (me
) and acquiring the knowledge, especially if you are non-technical (me ) easily takes you just as much time as you could devote to getting a PhD. Because then:- You have to go visit uncle Google, open up 1600 tabs ‘because somewhere in those tabs hopefully you will find accessible, understandable, information’. That seldom is the case:
o Badly structured and written documents;
o Documents that leave vital background information out so you still feel like you’re dropping into a subject in the middle (or even at the end) instead of at the beginning;
o You quickly learn many of these ‘review sites’ are sponsored one way or the other, when you cross check them with customer comments on the Amazon’s of this world.
- So you think: ok, I email some of the ‘specialized web shops, send them my detailed *functional* requirement (not the *technical* one since I don’t know what tech specs I am looking for. But I do know *what I want to use it for*, so you hope the other side will translate that into tech requirements – that’s their work in return for getting the sales – so you think. Well, it *is* business economics 101 ;D).
- Of course, coincidentally, each shop only recommends their own brands, and of course, conveniently also the more expensive models. You then have to go to the manufacturers website who apparently fired his marketing staff ages ago (
) since all they present is some fancy words and next a technical sheet with – of course – technical stuff which I don’t understand, and of which I have no clue of what is relevant for me (and, actually, as an end user, shouldn’t need to know. An anology to explain: I don’t need to know which fuel injection system is in a BMW: I need to know the BMW can drive 200 km/h, be reliable, not consume too much gasoline, etc).- Even more coincidentally, of course all shops recommend different brands and models, and when you cross-‘interogate’ them (= forward comments from shop A to shop B and ask to comment on it), you end up with shop A saying shop B is lying, shop B saying its better ‘because my IR is better – google for the proof’ (here we go again…), shop C saying not to bother with shop A altogether since they are ‘crooks, and so is their brand’ (this was an Axis shop), and so on.
So, why the deep desperation: here I am, after two months: Vivotek is better/no, Sony is better, look at the ‘lux’/no, Axis has superior IR/no, Hikvision is better price-quality. Can you imagine me wanting to drown myself in a bath full of beer? (
).So, finally I discovered this forum, and I decided to ask for help here. Would any of you knowledgeable people be willing to help me out? I’d be very grateful for it (and am more than willing to return the favor, for example buy you a nice cup of coffee/beer
).This is my functional requirement:
- I live in small town in a small country in western-europe. Crime goes up minute after minute.
- I have a garden behind my house, approx. 60 meters deep and 20 meters wide. It connects to the woods on the left and behind it.
- I collect Rottweilers (joke ) who often get restless in the middle of the night. I want to have outdoor IP-cams that monitor my garden: I connect them to my Synology NAS, and in that way, at least when somebody was walking in my garden in the middle of the night my Synology will activate the camera, record it, and send me an email which I will see in the morning. Then I know the next night my Rottweilers should be able to go outside in order to guard their – and my ( ;D) garden.
- The above is especially important since my most important assets, my Wife, my young Daughters and my Rottweilers live in this house too and I want them protected :-*
So, from the above comes:
- I’d like to have quality devices. I typically buy lasting material, not the throw away junk. Of course quality is more expensive than the throw away junk, but it appears to me some vendors might be overdoing it. So you see, outside the brands mentioned above, for example Ubiquity which is a market challenger in every way. I have their wireless access points, they are really great and fair priced. There’s not much to be found about their cams, and, as I wrote before: no way to see them live first in a store, so I’m not sure if they – or similar market challengers – could be a good alternative for the expensive A-brands.
- Motion detection (don’t record all day, only record when there is something to record; dominantly during the night (so easy schedule way to disable it, but it might be the Synology software (“Video Station 7”) takes care of this. I do have the Synology, but not yet a cam so I can not test the package to see this for myself).
- Sharp pictures: we sometimes see crime reports on TV where we then see the cam videos of the crime. Most of the times I think: ‘if you can’t see anything at all on the cam, then why bother having a cam?’ ( :-\).
- CLEAR night vision (here’s another dilemma: the better this vision, the more the price of the cam will skyrocket. Now I’ve read somewhere you can also use a ‘separate IR’ light for that, but if you, for example, look at the accessories for Axis, you will see such an IR light also easily costs 300 EUR, which, conveniently, is in line with the more expensive cam that also has the same better IR. So this setup doesn’t mitigate the costs it seems to me).
- Range? It seems 60 meters is not doable at all in a decent price range, but of course: as far and wide as possible.
- Fixed. That is: I’ve been told full automatic PTZ-cams are very expensive, and break down earlier than simply fixed cams. Now, my impression of a full PTZ cam would be that it is able to automatically notice movement somewhere in the back, and then automatically turn to that corner, and zoom in. If I am to take fixed cams I’d probably need two cams (on the left of the house, and one on the right, to fully cover the whole garden). But then again, what do I know ???
- Wired: by now I already know you better not take wireless.
- PoE: the less holes I have to drill in the wall the better (I rent this house, landlord ‘ll probably whine). Then again: a power cable AND a CAT6-cable or only a CAT6-cable: that doesn’t make that much difference for the size of the hole.
So, this is what I functionally think I need (of course, unless I left things out you experts will say ‘you want to want this too’. Blessed are the ignorant they see, although I fail to see why ;D). So, from that functional need, I am having a different time relating this to all the technical words in the spec sheets (like said: I am an economist, I’ve studied since I am non-technical, otherwise I’d have become an engineer
), like ‘diafragma’, ‘lux’, ‘volt’, ‘video compression’, ‘frame rate’, ‘shutter time’, ‘IR-illumination’, etcetera.What has been recommended to me by the very web shops that sell them is this:
- AXIS: P1425-LE (700 EUR), P1427-LE (800 EUR) and P3364-VE (1000 EUR…): http://www.axis.com/products/video/selector/comparison.php?q=90aeec1fea5f3c5c6e613726b90426a1
- SONY (according to that web shop ‘way, way, way better IR than Axis’): EB632R (850 EUR): http://www.pro.sony.eu/pro/lang/en/eu/product/video-security-ip-cameras-fixed/snc-eb632r/overview/
- And no specific models, but I was ‘free to browse their website for their current offerings – and don’t forget to order of course’ for the brands Vivotek and Hikvision.
Would anybody perhaps be so kind to help me out of my misery, as in: put me in the right direction for what I really need to look out for? Brand, tech specs for my requirements, and of course, if you would know, specific brand/model (as in: ‘look at this, it seems perfectly adequate for you and not insanely priced)?
I’d be in debt for help, and like said: I’m *more* than willing to return the favor by offering you a nice coffee/beer on my behalf
Thank you in advance very much for any help,
Bye