Review (short) - Abus IPCA68500

chaosengine

Getting the hang of it
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I bought this camera just out of sheer curiosity, never had an Abus before, just serveral Dahua, one Hikvision and two D-Link cameras.
It's on sale for 219 EUR here in Germany and I've 30 days money-back guarantee to send it back without any reasons. :)

Key facts:
  • 1/1.8" Sony Exmor R™ STARVIS™ CMOS
  • 3840 x 2160 @ 25/30 fps (50/60 Hz)
  • 4.3-8.6mm motorized Tamron lens - F1.5 (Wide) / F2.4 (Tele)
  • 2x optical zoom
  • Horizontal angle of view: 48-95°
  • 1x Alarm input, 1x Alarm output, 1x Audio Out, 1x Audio In
  • VCA: Tripwire, Intrusion Detection, Human Detection, Object Counting
Link to manufacturer:
ABUS IP Tube 8 MPx (4K, 4.3 - 8.6 mm) (IPCA68500)
Link to datasheet (PDF):

The good:
  • Daytime picture quality
  • Does 4K@25fps
  • Motorized lens
  • Metal everywhere, built like a tank
  • Webgui, no IE plugin required, works fine with all browsers
  • Writes MKV files on SMB file shares
  • Supports 3 rtsp streams
  • DST working
  • SmartIR working
  • Low power consumption: 7.0W (IR off), 8.5W (IR on) - PoE
  • Close focus distance is 15cm
  • Made in Taiwan
The bad:
  • Auto focus not working good, at least you can switch to "Fixed focus mode" to prevent auto focus to become active again.
  • You can't define the steps for zoom or focus changes.
  • There are no sliders for zoom & focus, no numbers, just +/- buttons.
  • You can't mark an area to become focused.
  • Auto exposure settings in general, especially in IR (B/W) night mode (overexposed).
  • Poor resolution options: 4K, 720P or 656x368 (Stream 1), 720P or 656x368 (Stream 2 & 3).
  • ONVIF PullPointSubscription not working in Blue Iris. (I've asked BI support for help by email yesterday.)
  • ONVIF zoom & focus not working (ONVIF Device Test Tool: "Reason: The service is not supported").
  • ONVIF Device Manager not working. (The HTTP request is unauthorized...)
  • Tinycam not working (401).
  • You can't adjust IR light intensity (only on/off + SmartIR on/off).
  • You can't see what caused a motion event, there is no visualisation for events in general. You have to guess threshold and sensitivity settings for motion detection.
  • 8 seconds maximum length of a video clip.
  • No SNMP and syslog server supported
  • No RTMP, no Multicast supported
  • You can't see or change audio bitrate.
  • Telnet daemon always running, can't be turned off, unknown login & password.

Pics:
IMG_20200801_124140.jpg IMG_20200801_124147.jpg IMG_20200801_124221.jpg IMG_20200801_124250.jpg IMG_20200801_124325.jpg

Webgui video:

Short daytime video:

Sorry, I can't make any "person walks by" videos at the moment. I live in a rented apartment next to my workplace now. My other cameras are installed 650km away in a rural area.
 
Last edited:

chaosengine

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
131
Reaction score
71
Location
Germany
Night-time video B/W, Exposure max time 1/100, max gain 64x, BLC level 3, noise reduction "low", IR led on:

The best for last, "Night" mode, "Keep color mode in night" enabled, IR Led off, SmartIR disabled:
 
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