Parley
Known around here
...and he is walking towards the camera instead of going across. We also cannot see the pace which may or may not be slow.
Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"
- Thread starter mat200
- Start date
...and he is walking towards the camera instead of going across. We also cannot see the pace which may or may not be slow.
well i just put down a few hundred dollarydoos on a reolink pvr + 2 4k turrets..
coming from an old diy zoneminder/forscam setup i think it will be an improvement.
I dont need great nighttime clarity as i have a streetlight out the front and motion sensor lights.
has a 30 day money back so will see whats what and post some stuff here..
edit: im no longer interested in maintaining software like blueiris or zoneminder ect.. im trying to minimise my footprint at home.. do enough of this shite at work..
i see some of you guys really, really hate reolink lol, hope i wont be censored if i come back with a honest but good review..
coming from an old diy zoneminder/forscam setup i think it will be an improvement.
I dont need great nighttime clarity as i have a streetlight out the front and motion sensor lights.
has a 30 day money back so will see whats what and post some stuff here..
edit: im no longer interested in maintaining software like blueiris or zoneminder ect.. im trying to minimise my footprint at home.. do enough of this shite at work..
i see some of you guys really, really hate reolink lol, hope i wont be censored if i come back with a honest but good review..
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@brisvegas - we encourage you to try these out well within the 30 days so you can return (hopefully).
Except from Amazon, Reo will balk and fight and delay people trying to return, so start the process early!
Maybe you will be the first that can prove you can get acceptable images at night, but none of us are holding our breath that you will. Look at all the people in this thread and others where we have asked them to provide the best image they can at night and nobody has been up to the challenge.
You think you have enough light....these sensors need tons of light. And motion sensor lights are a bad for cameras - it will blind the camera just at the moment of a great capture.
Look at this freeze frame capture from a Reolink of a vehicle traveling maybe 10-15ish MPH:
They have incredible light. Looking at this picture one would think it was middle of the day because they have so much light, but it was middle of the night 1am. Look at all that blur. I can tell it is a white car, but cannot tell make/model or if it is even a 2 or 4 door.
And then of course this thread is filled with the ghost and invisible man images of captures with the camera in infrared and B/W.
We look forward to your review and proving that a Reolink can do better than the above image or any other night image people have posted in this thread....
Except from Amazon, Reo will balk and fight and delay people trying to return, so start the process early!
Maybe you will be the first that can prove you can get acceptable images at night, but none of us are holding our breath that you will. Look at all the people in this thread and others where we have asked them to provide the best image they can at night and nobody has been up to the challenge.
You think you have enough light....these sensors need tons of light. And motion sensor lights are a bad for cameras - it will blind the camera just at the moment of a great capture.
Look at this freeze frame capture from a Reolink of a vehicle traveling maybe 10-15ish MPH:
They have incredible light. Looking at this picture one would think it was middle of the day because they have so much light, but it was middle of the night 1am. Look at all that blur. I can tell it is a white car, but cannot tell make/model or if it is even a 2 or 4 door.
And then of course this thread is filled with the ghost and invisible man images of captures with the camera in infrared and B/W.
We look forward to your review and proving that a Reolink can do better than the above image or any other night image people have posted in this thread....
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- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,155
- 25,616
We welcome you to share with us low light image captures of moving objects ..
Here are some exports.. a couple of daylight. then the rest at night.
Day -
Night car -
Night sample i did of myself.. minor tuning of contrast/brightness ect.
Night - couple more.. i think i turned off the IR on the left cam..
so a review so far... the camera build quality is good. quality connectors, quality metal finish/manufacture.
nvr is good but basic. was plug and play, and really easy to setup.. interface is ok..
Web interface is average, PC client is by far the winner, Ive used quite a few enterprise cctv systems and this client runs rings around them.
mobile client is ok, push notifications are good, but still the interface is a bit busy.
quality.. look for $550 AUD delivered for a 2TB 8 chan 4K pvr + 2x 4K poe ipcams.. i really cant fault it at that price point. Miles ahead of my multitude of old chinese cams hooked into zoneminder install that I did probably 7 years ago.
Would appreciate any feedback on basic guides on finding a good brightness/contrast/saturation/sharpness tuning.
cheers....
Day -
Night car -
Night sample i did of myself.. minor tuning of contrast/brightness ect.
Night - couple more.. i think i turned off the IR on the left cam..
so a review so far... the camera build quality is good. quality connectors, quality metal finish/manufacture.
nvr is good but basic. was plug and play, and really easy to setup.. interface is ok..
Web interface is average, PC client is by far the winner, Ive used quite a few enterprise cctv systems and this client runs rings around them.
mobile client is ok, push notifications are good, but still the interface is a bit busy.
quality.. look for $550 AUD delivered for a 2TB 8 chan 4K pvr + 2x 4K poe ipcams.. i really cant fault it at that price point. Miles ahead of my multitude of old chinese cams hooked into zoneminder install that I did probably 7 years ago.
Would appreciate any feedback on basic guides on finding a good brightness/contrast/saturation/sharpness tuning.
cheers....
- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,155
- 25,616
Thanks @brisvegas
Definitely try to tune the camera .. currently the low light image capture of a moving subject I am unable to see an ID'able imagine ...
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Mark_M
Known around here
I will grant that $550AUD is pretty good for 4 cameras and a 4ch NVR.
Quality of the camera isn't much. I can't identify your face at all.
Your street lights and motion sensor lights still are not enough for the weak light sensitivity of the imaging sensor. You can turn up the gain, but gain isn't a brightness knob that magically makes it better.
Break out the surface mount soldering work station, replace that imaging sensor and processor in each camera with a better one. I cannot guarantee that it will ever work again though.
Over all, that isn't bad for the price.
But it is bad at being able to identify detail.
Expensive cameras are expensive for a reason.... because they perform better.
Each to their own on what they consider acceptable.
i think its more their 265 compression algorithm/hardware then it is the sensor. oddly enough VLC hates the recordings, yet the native windows player has zero issues.
when i cast it to my 4k tv there are a couple of frames that would be a better ID, but yeah still not great with moving objects at night..
yeah to be honest im torn.. i do like quality gear.. but my place is locked up tight.. alarmed up the wazoo.. and in a really good neighborhood.
im looking at nearly 4x the price for a hikvision 8mp equiv system with an NVR.. so yeah nah.. in my case i think i might stick with the reo...
thoughts on this price point.. surely it beats the likes of swann ect?.. ive never seen even daylight stuff that is usable with that brand.
out of the box tuning was hopeless though.. IR was washed out with the cams that close, so its why i turned it off on the left cam. sharpness was too high.. their compression was noisy AF with high sharpness..
here is one grab from nvr_left_1 above..
when i turned around.. so i was still moving, but not laterally. - however out of the box it was a 1/10. the default tune of the camera is just shit.
to keep it or not..?
im probably just going to keep it.. i still get notifications even at night with person recognition. to me i cant justify the 4x price for the possibility of a clear ID (hoodies/hats anyone?)..
when i cast it to my 4k tv there are a couple of frames that would be a better ID, but yeah still not great with moving objects at night..
yeah to be honest im torn.. i do like quality gear.. but my place is locked up tight.. alarmed up the wazoo.. and in a really good neighborhood.
im looking at nearly 4x the price for a hikvision 8mp equiv system with an NVR.. so yeah nah.. in my case i think i might stick with the reo...
thoughts on this price point.. surely it beats the likes of swann ect?.. ive never seen even daylight stuff that is usable with that brand.
out of the box tuning was hopeless though.. IR was washed out with the cams that close, so its why i turned it off on the left cam. sharpness was too high.. their compression was noisy AF with high sharpness..
here is one grab from nvr_left_1 above..
when i turned around.. so i was still moving, but not laterally. - however out of the box it was a 1/10. the default tune of the camera is just shit.
to keep it or not..?
im probably just going to keep it.. i still get notifications even at night with person recognition. to me i cant justify the 4x price for the possibility of a clear ID (hoodies/hats anyone?)..
That is way too expensive for an 8MP on a less than ideal MP/sensor ratio. At night a 2MP would kick its butt all night long.
Sadly even the Hik and Dahua of the world make some lower grade budget cams to compete with the lower end consumer grade cameras.
Look for MP/sensor ratio of the following:
2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor
4MP on the 1/1.8" sensor
8MP on the 1/1.2" sensor
Chase sensor size, not MP. I have filled this forum with proof that a 2MP can provide the money shot of perps at night LOL.
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- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,155
- 25,616
HI @brisvegas
I would try to look for a larger sensor model ..
Perhaps you only need one top rated camera to cover your front door area?
Perhaps you can use more affordable models for the other views?
- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,155
- 25,616
If you need a low light image capture, I would get a better kit .. ( asking intruders to stand still for a good photo normally does not cut it .. )
ill ask them to remove their hoodies and caps too.. ill get a sign.. 
Compliments of @mat200 over in this thread:
If you look closely .. you will see .. something there .. is it a ghost? a spirit? a fog cloud? ..
this camera has more ambient light .. so getting a better shot ..
Clearly a student hurrying to go to school ..
in the shop ..
The Thieves even brought more lights to help the Reolinks out ..
If you look closely .. you will see .. something there .. is it a ghost? a spirit? a fog cloud? ..
this camera has more ambient light .. so getting a better shot ..
Clearly a student hurrying to go to school ..
in the shop ..
The Thieves even brought more lights to help the Reolinks out ..
Just another new member and thread started getting burned by the Reolinks...
ipcamtalk.com
Another reolink headache
Hey guys. New to the site, new to BI, and to security cameras as a whole. I just built a new 12th gen intel pc solely for BI. And in order to help the project along, my wife decided to surprise me by ordering a few cameras. Well, she ended up ordering a few reolink 811a, and 822a 4k poe...
Mark_M
Known around here
First imagine initially looks just like IR glare from the adjacent wall. But no, there is some ghosting on the person.Compliments of @mat200 over in this thread:
If you look closely .. you will see .. something there .. is it a ghost? a spirit? a fog cloud? ..
this camera has more ambient light .. so getting a better shot ..
Clearly a student hurrying to go to school ..
in the shop ..
The Thieves even brought more lights to help the Reolinks out ..
The other cameras which are positioned better do show more ghosting.
Someone is bound to complain that it's just the angle!!
and the cameras are mounted too high.
I know I said I'd test but believe me I've been crazy busy lol.. The latest firmware is supposed to help but just because my cams are behind the NVR no way to enable the feature.. So I just got a PoE switch and will reconfigure/connect everything and hopefully there's an improvement WRT the ghosting..
I'm also adding lights around the house + flood lights (100W leds) that I will trigger if I want crystal pictures (fingers crossed)
Daytime faces are typically ok but of course it's a dramatically different amount of lumens
Sorry anyone who has been waiting on me, bad timing with kids sick, no medicine available, car accident and other crap
I am just coming back now after some time away. If you are happy with the footage, then go for it and keep it.
The question is, how much is the security system worth if you cannot recognise someone or if it cannot be legally used to identify a criminal?
A $550 system is worthless and a waste of $550 if you can't identify a total stranger from the footage. Not talking about identifying someone you know as that is easy, I mean a total stranger and enough to say "That is 100% the person on my camera footage".
Everyone has to decide for themselves if the camera system is just as a gimmick or if it is a real tool for security.
Reolink are nice on the outside, all metal and nicely sealed and they have good images in high light situations. They could potentially be quite good cameras with some additional firmware tweaks and a more updated server software on the camera firmware, even using the same sensors they use now. I replaced all my Reolinks with Dahua's over a year ago because the Reolinks did not hold up in court. I had footage, that was still light enough to record in colour, rejected because it just was not clear enough.
As a note, even the person who made the video that prompted this thread, who is definitely a Reolink fan, has noted how horrible they are with night vision on several occasions in videos since this thread was started.
YMMV on this, the above is obviously just my personal experience even though it does match with many others
The question is, how much is the security system worth if you cannot recognise someone or if it cannot be legally used to identify a criminal?
A $550 system is worthless and a waste of $550 if you can't identify a total stranger from the footage. Not talking about identifying someone you know as that is easy, I mean a total stranger and enough to say "That is 100% the person on my camera footage".
Everyone has to decide for themselves if the camera system is just as a gimmick or if it is a real tool for security.
Reolink are nice on the outside, all metal and nicely sealed and they have good images in high light situations. They could potentially be quite good cameras with some additional firmware tweaks and a more updated server software on the camera firmware, even using the same sensors they use now. I replaced all my Reolinks with Dahua's over a year ago because the Reolinks did not hold up in court. I had footage, that was still light enough to record in colour, rejected because it just was not clear enough.
As a note, even the person who made the video that prompted this thread, who is definitely a Reolink fan, has noted how horrible they are with night vision on several occasions in videos since this thread was started.
YMMV on this, the above is obviously just my personal experience even though it does match with many others
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- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,155
- 25,616
Reolink, low light issues as shown in LifeHackster's "Reolink RLC-823A Review - 4K IP Camera that has Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Spotlights and Motion Tracking"
ipcamtalk.com
Reolink, low light issues as shown in LifeHackster's "Reolink RLC-823A Review - 4K IP Camera that has Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Spotlights and Motion Tracking"
I will review and high light some of the image capture issues Reolink has in low light conditions from the following youtube video: ( commentary below ) Reolink RLC-823A Review - 4K IP Camera that has Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Spotlights and Motion Tracking LifeHackster Feb 5, 2022 ref: update: One...
