Replaced a Vivotek IP8332 with an EyeSurv ESIP-APEX3-DM3

[jasauders]

Hi friends. Before purchasing several of these EyeSurv cameras, I started with just one, just to see how it worked with Bluecherry (my NVR software) and how it in general worked. I was comparing the feeds of my Vivotek vs that of the EyeSurv I installed today. In both of these pictures, all camera settings are running stock settings, both using H264, both running with the same exterior lighting, etc. I was pretty happy with the results.




Initially I was a little spooked by the EyeSurv. Clearly I read the manual too fast, and picked the substream1 that I saw listed first. The quality was... meh. Then I realized the substream1 is the actual sub stream, while substream0 is the real 3mp main stream. Once I flipped that URL over in Bluecherry it was far better.

It's a bit late tonight to further tinker with the settings, but I'm sure I'll get to configuring the profiles this week. Best I got was date/time/ntp set up and set it to record with the NVR.

I think the only question I have that I didn't figure out yet is whether or not there's a "focus" on this camera. With my Vivoteks, I could pull the guts of the camera out of the bullet housing and twist the lens to focus it (which came in handy since when I got it years ago, it was a bit blurry). Typically do cameras with a "fixed" lens have the ability to still adjust the focus? Or does a fixed lens truly mean 100% fixed, zero adjustment? (compared to my original assumption that fixed meant it doesn't zoom in/out but still provides focal adjustment) I didn't think to try it when I was wiring things up, and my back is telling me I need to stay in couch mode for a bit.

Initial impressions though (based entirely on night mode... gotta wait until tomorrow for day mode)... I'm a happy camper, and a bit more amped up to order a few more EyeSurv cameras and throw them in the mix.

P.S. - For those curious about the placement, this particular camera is meant to be a "general purpose record everything in the car port/deck area" camera. The upcoming cameras will be better placed for driveway/rear door shots.

 

[nayr]

all lenses are adjustable, just depends on how much work your willing to put in it.. might find some hot glue or something to fix the focus but they have to be calibrated somehow at the factory.

anyone can show a still image that looks good in low light, the trick is motion.. how's the image look at say 1/30 or 1/60 fixed shutter?

 

[jasauders]

Ehh, couldn't tell you specifics. What I can tell you is playing back the feeds of me cleaning up all of my tools as I walked around the deck... it looked good. I mean, I didn't see any blur that would be concerning. As cars drive by on the street within the distant view of the camera they flowed better than they did with the Vivotek. I was even walking around the deck with my laptop in hand, client running, and it looked decent. All around, it's an improvement, but I'm sure I can get lost in tweaking the settings later this week.

 

[nayr]

as long as your testing it and happy with the results, just be weary playing with settings at night, still images can be deceiving.. always do a walk test and compare the results, dont want to wait til someone is stealing stuff to find out the faces are all washed out or too noisy.

 

[jasauders]

Oh yeah, I know. I only got the camera online last night when it was already dark and was amped up enough to see the results comparing my Vivotek feeds, I just had to share. I plan to enter recliner mode approximately 4ms after arriving home from work this evening, at which point the laptop will be firmly glued to my lap, feet up, and some tinkering can begin. The photos above were simply a stock-for-stock comparison of before/after.

And now that it's morning, here's a quick daytime result, again just initial comparison with no tweaks made. I saw someone walking by on the street in the distance, which suggested a similar finding as last night; i.e., pretty darn good!




On second thought, upon looking at these images, I doubt my wife is going to let me go a night with my feet up. I may have to clean up the mess I made on the deck tonight. Just look at that stuff... ha.

 

[Sean Nelson]

Nice improvement over the Vivotek at a far better price I assume! As far as focus, these are fixed focus so no need to focus them at all. I assume your vivotek was probably a Vari-Focal or perhaps had an adjustable back focus.

 

[jasauders]

As far as focus, these are fixed focus so no need to focus them at all. I assume your vivotek was probably a Vari-Focal or perhaps had an adjustable back focus.

Ah okay. Good to know! When I was looking at the night time shot I couldn't help but to think maybe I could adjust the focus a bit more (hence my curiosity), but upon looking at the image this morning (first time I saw a daylight image with it), it certainly is focused. If I light up my deck with all of the deck lights at night it's evident that a little bit more light helps (as opposed to our standard lights we keep on at night, which is what the night time screenshot above shows). It's still a considerable improvement over the IP8332 that was there before. I won't even bother showing you guys what my front IP8332 looks like at night. I have no additional lighting sources out front, and the IR ring on that thing is so bad the camera is next to useless at night.

Nice improvement over the Vivotek at a far better price I assume!

Granted, I bought the Vivotek's a few years ago when 1mp cameras were still a bit of cheddar... but yeah... they were about triple what I paid for the EyeSurv. The time stamp of the two screenshots is within a half hour, and it was rather gloomy this morning -- zero sun, all clouds, recently rained. So it's not even like I was comparing a gloomy weather Vivotek snapshot vs an amazing weather EyeSurv snapshot where the well lit surroundings would have contributed to the better EyeSurv picture. They were both comparable, weather wise, at a comparable time of day.

Keep your eye open for my order - I'll be picking up a few more once my wife gives me my allowance!

 

[Sean Nelson]

Ha sounds good.

 

[jasauders]

So, quick question about something I just noticed. I fired up Bluecherry and realized my porch light wasn't on, so I went out to turn it on. But I noticed something in the image where the EyeSurv was *just* relying on its onboard IR for light. There seems to be a little bit of a "glow" at the bottom of the image.

Here's without the deck lights on:


Here's with the deck lights on:


Here's a picture of the camera and the way it's (currently) mounted:


So it's entirely on its side with the lens physically tilted to hit that angle. What it's mounted to is a massive wooden beam. I could easily put it underneath the beam and aim it in the same general direction for nearly the same picture. I was already planning on doing that with a camera that I have yet to order with the goal is aiming it into the back yard.

I suppose I could put them side by side: One aiming to the deck/car port, one aiming about 120 degrees to the left from that to capture the shed/back yard.

Anyway, I posted the pictures questioning if the side-mounted stance of the camera may be a contributing factor to the dome glow I'm seeing. I've heard some reports of folks saying that some domes simply need to be ceiling mounted... makes me wonder if that'd benefit me here.

 

[nayr]

thats definitely IR bleed from the angle you have, see all those led's you have blocked off.. they are 'fogging' up the dome

your going to need to reposition the camera so your dont burry any of the IR like that, from the looks of it that camera would need to be rotated 90 degrees to accomplish that with this angle.

this is a problem with wall mounting domes, they designed it so it would not be a problem ceiling mounted, thats why there no led's above the ccd.

 

[jasauders]

I figured as such. I just felt compelled to relay my assumptions here in an effort to see if I was on the right track. I know this camera didn't exhibit any IR glare when I tested it, but when I tested it, I also held it up to the ceiling at night while it recorded for about 30 seconds. I also took various snapshots on my laptop (yep, while holding the camera up). This was at night, no lights on, strictly to test for IR glare. I was curious after reading some articles about Dahua domes where some reviewers said these cameras are designed very well in that the positioning of the lens vs the IR bulbs allows for a dome design that really didn't exhibit any IR glare. In my testing, I saw none whatsoever, but this was also the first time in the few days I ran it with this camera mounted that I didn't have those lights on.

It's a mega easy fix, though. I left plenty of extra cat6 in the ceiling. I can easily pull the camera down and position it under that same wooden beam you see it vertically mounted to. It may look a little goofy in that I'll literally have two domes right next to each other, but they'll be firing in opposite directions.

But hey, thanks for your 2c. Easy fix.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Nayr's is a good solution, but if you ever want to mount a dome with built-in IR and still want to use the IR (personally I don't- external illuminators, IR or white, give more light and solve other image quality and motion detection problems) and the needed angle points the internal IR into the base of the dome (some of yours are blocked) then you can get angled mounts for domes that'll push up the back of the dome so you can effectively point the lens more into the dome bubble rather than into the base. That won't solve the portion of your problem that is the IR reflection off the beam but will pretty much eliminate the internal reflection from the dome base and give full use of the internal IRs on the intended target.

 

[jasauders]

Thanks for the input. I'll keep that in mind. In this case, I can very easily yank the camera and "ceiling" mount it to the bottom of the very same wooden beam it's vertically mounted to. It's a big 6x6 or 8x8 something wooden beam with left/right/bottom fully exposed.

I was going to mount the next camera under it to fire out back and leave the deck/car port camera (the one in discussion here) vertically mounted, but I may have no choice but to stick them both on the underside and fire them in different directions.

Ah well. Worst case scenario, it's still *totally* do-able with ease. May look a little strange with two domes side by side, but I have the weekend to take a better look and let the ideas stew a bit.

P.S. - It would also be ridonkulously easy for me to just hack out a triangular block of wood to mount to the wooden beam and then mount the dome to it, effectively making my own "veritcal" mount if it came down to it.

P.S.v.2 - Thinking about this more, I might actually make my own wooden mount regardless. I have a ton of scrap wood... Just slap together a 2x4 L shape, attach the L shape to the beam, and ceiling mount the gizmo. Ceiling mounting the camera onto the roof itself would be kind of sketchy. It's a "metal shingle" style underside roof/ceiling. It's not great and getting these things out is ridiculous. I'd much rather leave them intact entirely and mount the camera via alternative means.

This is totally do-able. Easily. I got this. Thanks for getting the idea rolling!

 

[Kawboy12R]

Good luck and have fun! Getting things set up just the way you like 'em is half the fun. The other half is getting a perfect face shot of some jerk prowling the neighbourhood.

 

[jasauders]

Well, I made a little L shaped bracket out of wood, painted it, and mounted it this evening. Here's the current look:



Some take-away's/FYI's/whatever:

1) The strange look in the metal ceiling is... yep. duct tape. It's a temporary plug to cover the metal roofing I cut into to sink my previous Vivotek bullet cam into the ceiling as much as possible. Not too shabby given the minimal effort exerted. Someday I wouldn't mind replacing the whole ceiling since it's ridonkulous to work with it.
2) Yes - the camera mount is crooked. I found when I mounted the camera with the plate even, I still couldn't get the lens aiming up as high as I needed. A slight tilt brought it in range. I cut a slant in the bottom white piece mounted to the brown wooden beam to offset the obviousness of it.
3) The lone cable up top is for a 2nd camera that'll aim towards the back yard ("down" in the picture, if you will). ETA for that cam is Friday. I will likely make a similar, but slightly different L shaped wooden bracket to mount it on the other side of this wooden beam. The roof overhangs on the other side so that should be nice. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to run the cable yet... drilling right through the beam and encasing the cable in some sort of conduit (which I'll paint to match the wooden beam if so) is where I'm leaning.
4) After mounting this, I'm thinking I might get some brown paint and brush the bottom white segment to better match the beam it's attached to and leave the top piece white to match the ceiling. Haven't decided quite yet. Bigger priorities on the radar.

At any rate, it's mounted, I have the exact same view I had before, the dome's IR glare/fog/cloud looking effect is gone with the deck lights off, and uh, well I'm pretty darn happy with it.

P.S. - I'm not sure what Dahua this EyeSurv dome is modeled/branded after, but I read a review about two or three Dahua's that were identical or nearly identical in visual appearance, specs, etc etc., and they were listed to have "excellent" non-IR-glare. When I took the dome off (it's a chilly night), I breathed on it to give it some fog. I saw a ring appear from the rubber gasket on top of the lens (easily wiped away with a microfiber cloth), further suggesting what I read in the review to be true. With the lens relatively smack against the dome, it should indeed cut down on the IR glare. I mean, if it exists, I sure as heck can't see it, even after taking snapshots and zooming in looking for a pattern.