Is 4xEM IPCAMWLPTZ (wireless cam with 10x zoom) reliable?

[etalk]

Larry:

Yes, it is much more like it this time. Much faster. Do you know if the wireless is being used or it is wireline?

If it is the wireless, that is very impressive.

One thing I really like to try is testing the tilt and pan on the tilt/pan 4-direction round control panel. Right now, the demo is not setup to let me use that control. I want to try that feature out before I make a purchase. I am really impressed so far, now that it has a much faster response time. I am wondering why that control is not enabled. The DCS-6620G live demo lets me control fully the camera, including tilt/pan features.

Thanks,

Peter N

[LarryL]

I believe it is the wireless demo. I think there would be privacy issues if they allowed you to PTZ. You would be able to zoom in on license plates.

They have the wired demo allowing you to PTZ which is in the lizard tank.

[etalk]

I've been testing/watching extensively the IPCAMWLPTZ wireless version the past day. So far so good, with quick focus and response.

However, I just noticed that the video streaming onto my Internet Explorer is jerky. For example, as a person is walking by and the clock is still ticking (on the upper right hand corner), few seconds of walking were captured very smoothly. Then followed a loss of frames or something, resulting in jerky effects, ie, smooth for few seconds, then missing some frames, then smooth again, then missing some frames, etc. It is very periodic, thus, I feel it is designed like that and that would not be as a result of Internet's traffic load.

Can anyone help explain this effect? Was that really loss of frames? Or is it a configuration on the device that we can adjust to have a smooth effect? I intend to send images to a remote ftp server. Thus, loss of frames will be an issue for me.

Thanks,

Peter N

[Administrator]

It could be loss of frames over the Internet. Like other posts under this topic have stated, you have to take into effect the Internet connection the camera is connected too and how many users are viewing the camera at the same time.

You can achieve a better framerate by lowering the quality of the video.

If you are FTPing snapshots to an FTP server you wont have a problem. How often will the snapshots be uploading to your FTP server?

Are you going to be recording video? If so, will it be to a remote location or to a PC within your local network?
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[etalk]

Wes:

Actually, what is your recommendation in terms of # snapshots being FTP'ed to the ftp server? My application for FTP is to be able to look at historical frames in case it is needed. I am thinking maybe 1 frame per sec. Would that be too much load for the camera?

Regarding the video recording, are you saying I can record video with the 4xEM cam? That would be cool if I could. Are you talking about recording .avi video clips to a remote/local PC? If I would record video, it would be to the same PC where the FTP server is, which could be a remote machine from where the camera is located.

Thanks,

Peter N

[Administrator]

My recommendation would be 1 snapshot every 30 to 60 seconds. One snapshot a second wouldn't overload the camera, from what I have seen, but it could overload your FTP server. I have been able to get one snapshot a second working with an FTP server. If you know web design you can even get a 1 frame per second movie going with javascript

You can record video with the 4XEM camera and you can record to a remote location. It is what I do for security at my house. That way if someone breaks in, they are caught on camera and they can't steal the evidence

You would use the software that comes with the camera to record your video. This would require the software to be installed on a PC at your FTP server location. If your FTP server is Windows based you could probably get away with using your FTP server as your recording PC. Also, if the camera is not made public you should be fine for FPS and quality.

The 4XEM recording software does not record in AVI format but it has an export feature that allows you to export recorded video to AVI.
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[etalk]

Hi Wes, and all who've been providing inputs to my questions:

Thanks for your inputs and responses. You've been very helpful.

It has been a long and painful 1.5 week, as I started looking for a Tilt+Pan+optical Zoom camera. After hours of viewing online live demos, day to day, from DCS-6620G and IPCAMWLPTZ, I am made to believe that the IPCAMWLPTZ is a better camera. Hopefully, my judgement is correct. I just placed an order for one IPCAMWLPTZ. For the next 1 week or so, I will be able to share more on how it performs, when I do extensive testing on it. Can't wait to receive my order and start playing with it ...

Thanks again and good day.

Peter N

[etalk]

Hi Wes:

Do you know whether the demo IPCAMWLPTZ wireless camera is placed indoor, behind a glass window? If it is placed behind glass window, that might explain why it has problem focus at times (only at night times), after a zoom in/out function.

At times (right now, as it is night in Canada), the IPCAMWLPTZ seems to have some tough time to focus, after a zoom in/out function. I wish the IPCAMWLPTZ demo allowed me to have more control (ie, Focus, Iris, etc). That way, I can try if adjusting the Focus/Iris functions would help the camera focus. I like the DCS-6620G demo, as I am allowed to try the focus and Iris functions. The DCS-6620G focus performance seems to work pretty well, at low light areas.

Thanks,

Peter

[etalk]

I decided to go with 4xEM IPCAMWLPTZ camera, and I am very happy I did. I have been using it since Saturday, and very impressed with its performance. Its low-light performance works much better than I expected. Its daylight performance is excellent. It responded very quickly (~1 sec, avg) to my commands (zooming, panning, tilting, etc) from 20 miles away over the internet, and through my work place's firewall. I tested its ftp feature for 1 day, it worked great. I tested at different fps, up to 30fps. Very smooth video streaming, even at 10fps, 64kbps video quality, from 20 miles away. The clock was ticking at every one sec, indicating no frame is lost. I can hear my mom's voice (24kbps or above is recommended) even 20 feet away from the camera. I've using the wirelesst and it is very stable. I only needed to reset once (pulled off the power supply, and plug back in. Didn't seem to have the same issue as the DCS-6620G!). I am not sure if the built-in webserver crashed or not; but I was not able to connect to the camera remotely (20 miles away) over the internet. Since then, it is running smoothly. I have been able to log in and out, testing, configuring, running multiple video streaming screens, while runing ftp at 1 snapshot every 3sec (ie, 20 snapshots per 1 minute). With all of that, it has not yet crashed. I've very happy with it so far.

The only thing that needs improvements on is its configuration GUI software. Some parts of it are not intuitive, and help system embedded with the software does not exist. Thus, for detail explanations of functions within the control software, one needs to use the User's Manual pdf file. Also, 4xEM needs to work on adding a feature that allows users to remotely perform a soft reset of the camera, without having to physically pull the power supply or press the reset button on the camera. It is a shame that this feature is not there with a $650 camera. The low-end Panasonic (BL-C30A, $300) does have this feature.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share my experiences with you. I hope you don't have to go through the same pain I did, spending 2 weeks not sure which one (DCS-6620G/IPCAMWLPTZ) I should go with. If you're looking for a network camera, you'll be happy with the 4xEM. The tech support is great too; they've been very responsive to my emails.

Good luck, and thanks all for providing your inputs.

Peter

[Administrator]

I'm happy to hear you like the 4XEM IPCAMWLPTZ. Yes its a shame there is no way to do a soft reset on the camera. One way to get around it (if you can connect to the camera) is go to the network configuration section and just click save. It will cause the camera to reboot. There are also devices you can get that will automatically reboot the camera if it finds the camera locking up. They go for about 100 bucks.

Feel free to write a review on our site for your WLPTZ let others know what you think! You can probably just copy and paste from this post and you mentioned many aspects of the camera you liked and disliked
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[etalk]

Hi Wes:

Thanks for the tip on rebooting. I didn't know about that undocumented feature. I will try it out the next time the camera locks up (if it ever would, let's hope it would not!).

By the way, what is that $100 device you're talking about?

Peter

[Administrator]

IT is made by Videogenix. It is called the iPulse Watchdog if I remember correctly. It connects to your camera through the IO ports on the back. If it detects the camera locked up it sends a signal to reboot the camera. It sounds like a handy device if you have your camera mounted on a pole or ceiling and you physically can;t get to it to reboot the camera.
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[etalk]

It was a hurry to give an excellent score (8 out of 10) in cnet.com, for this product. Last night I tried out their Smart VS-IP Surveillance System software that comes with the product, for the first time. The sw allows users to view multiple cameras (up to 16) and do video recording, very useful. Guess what, the camera was locked up. I was not able to log in the camera this AM. My wireless router sometimes shows the camera, and not some other times (ie, IP address of camera was sometimes shown in my router, some other time not). Since I started the Smart sw before I went to bed, I did not know when the camera became locked up. I can't confirm if it was because of the Smart sw or not, however, I am confident it was. I will do some more testings with the Smart, and post another message. I feel the sw has bugs and caused the camera locked up. This time, turning off the power was not good enough; I had to physically reset the camera through the camera reset button. Also, I can no longer launch the Smart sw anymore, regardless of how many I pressed the Smart application icon on the my PC desktop. Another thing, audio through the Smart is much worse than through the IE. There was a lot of clicking background noise, when my PC speakers were turned up max. When accessing the camera through IE, audio was excellent like noted in my earlier review.

Before I was using accesing the camera, using IE. That worked great, as I indicated in the previous review message. In fact, right now, I am just viewing the camera through IE. So far, so good.

I will provide updates once I found out more ...

Peter.

[aussie]

How do you find the Optical Zoom Peter? We are contemplating purchasing a few PTZ network cameras.

How is the quality? Speed? and Focus?

[etalk]

I was quite happy with, until I recently got a lockup on the camera with its Smart software (see my previous 2 posts in this forum). I had to perform a hard reset with the lockup.

I am now running the Smart software, with ftp enabled, continuously for few more days to see if I have another lockup. Also I just realized the Iris feature on my camera does not seem to work well. I will contact 4xEM tech support for verification if it is a defect on my camera.

Peter.