Noob here. Needing help picking a camera

There are clearly a professional or 2 posting intelligent comments, but, you’re leaving out the most important part, your budget. Forums seem to be flooded with people wanting everything for nothing and no shortage of “solutions “ provided.
 
We have gig service internet. On WiFi it’s usually about 650 speed. I think she would prefer 4K but we’re open to suggestions

There's more to the equation than that. First, 650 Mbps is likely your download speed. Upload bandwidth is generally much smaller. For example, my Comcast plan is 200Mbps download, 5Mbps upload. And even worse, some ISP (like mine) impose a monthly data cap; exceed the monthly limit and my ISP imposes a $10 per 50GB of extra usage (data hogs are punished via the pocketbook).

Here's a real world example that should help demonstrate the impact to monthly data:

I ran a YouTube live-view camera on my backyard pond for a couple years. Had a pond turtle that wanted to be famous.

During the first month I ran a Foscam 1080P camera 24/7. At about week three I decided to check my monthly bandwidth cap limit. To my surprise I was about a day away from exceeding the cap. Immediately shut it down and the following month I limited the camera to daytime hours, which kept me marginally safe from the extra fees. Had I ran a 4K camera I think this workaround would not have saved me.

So be careful running a 4K camera. That is to say, check your ISP to confirm your upload speeds and monthly cap limits are in your favor.

- Thomas
 
....... you’re leaving out the most important part, your budget. Forums seem to be flooded with people wanting everything for nothing and no shortage of “solutions “ provided.
Please can we have some sort of budget idea @NoobCamMan .
and is this live streaming a birdhouse or something?

Rough guide is decent cameras are $150USD and above.
 
There's more to the equation than that. First, 650 Mbps is likely your download speed. Upload bandwidth is generally much smaller. For example, my Comcast plan is 200Mbps download, 5Mbps upload. And even worse, some ISP (like mine) impose a monthly data cap; exceed the monthly limit and my ISP imposes a $10 per 50GB of extra usage (data hogs are punished via the pocketbook).

Here's a real world example that should help demonstrate the impact to monthly data:

I ran a YouTube live-view camera on my backyard pond for a couple years. Had a pond turtle that wanted to be famous.

During the first month I ran a Foscam 1080P camera 24/7. At about week three I decided to check my monthly bandwidth cap limit. To my surprise I was about a day away from exceeding the cap. Immediately shut it down and the following month I limited the camera to daytime hours, which kept me marginally safe from the extra fees. Had I ran a 4K camera I think this workaround would not have saved me.

So be careful running a 4K camera. That is to say, check your ISP to confirm your upload speeds and monthly cap limits are in your favor.

- Thomas

I have 1.2G down and I think it’s 35 or 50M upload when wired. WiFi I hit 650 down and mid 30s up. Have no data caps
 
Do keep in mind though what we pointed out about these cameras streaming data nonstop and not like a Netflix that buffers.

Even if you have full strength wifi (but probably not once you get thru a wall and distance), the signal strength will impact the ability to keep up with that demand.

And then the router will come into play as well if IT can stream 24/7 video without buffering.
 
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This one seems legit. Will this do RTMP


EmpireTech 4K 8MP Ultra Low Light Full-Color AI IP Camera Warm LED Bullet SMD 3.0 IP67 Weatherproof, Built-in Mic and Speaker,ePOE and POE, SMD Plus,Face Detection,Fixed Lens IPC-Color4K-X 3.6mm
 
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This one seems legit. Will this do RTMP


EmpireTech 4K 8MP Ultra Low Light Full-Color AI IP Camera Warm LED Bullet SMD 3.0 IP67 Weatherproof, Built-in Mic and Speaker,ePOE and POE, SMD Plus,Face Detection,Fixed Lens IPC-Color4K-X 3.6mm

Do you have enough light at night or be willing to have the LED of this camera on all night? This camera does not see infrared.

But if you have any light, it is great.
 
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We have some light where they are. Not a lot. They have EZVIZ 1080p “Hikvision” pointed at them now but those use IR. Camera would be mounted under that one possibly. Would the IR off the EZVIZ help?
 

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We have some light where they are. Not a lot. They have EZVIZ 1080p “Hikvision” pointed at them now but those use IR. Camera would be mounted under that one possibly. Would the IR off the EZVIZ help?

The 4K/X camera you are looking at cannot see infrared, so whether the EZVIZ infrared is on or not won't matter.

Now if you get a camera that can see infrared, then any additional IR is a benefit.
 
You might do well with some of the newer tech out there. If you can take a pic without IR and post it, that’ll help. These pics are kinda old of first gen night color; no illumination on any wavelengths, but you get the gist.

 
You might do well with some of the newer tech out there. If you can take a pic without IR and post it, that’ll help. These pics are kinda old of first gen night color; no illumination on any wavelengths, but you get the gist.



What does motion look like? Any camera can look good for a still image if the parameters are set up to favor a bright image.

Are these on auto/default settings and if not, what shutter speed?
 
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All default, plug and play. My average client won’t/can’t afford me being there night after night tweaking/playing with stuff. I’d rather install 10 several thousand dollar jobs than 1 $300k job.

I’ll nerd out with you guys at home or on the rare high dollar job that I’m not billing hourly!
 
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