Vivotek IP7330 – Low Cost Bullet Camera

The Vivotek IP7330 is a low cost bullet network IP camera loaded with features ideal for home or small business use. With an IP67 outdoor weatherproof housing, the IP7330 can be installed outdoors and protected from harsh weather elements including dust and rain. The built-in IR illuminators allow for viewing video even in no light. The illuminators allow video to be seen for up to 10 meters.

The IP7330 also supports power over ethernet allowing the camera to be installed in areas where running power would be difficult.

The Vivotek IP7330 boasts many additional features including built-in motion detection, tamper detection, HTTPS encryption, digital i/o for external alarm installation and simultaneous streaming.

The Vivotek IP7330 comes with free PC based recording software however Mac based recording software is also available.

For more information on the Vivotek IP7330, visit www.networkcamerastore.com or call (877) 638-2260.

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Y-cam Knight IR Wireless IP Camera

The Y-cam Knight comes loaded with features and is an ideal IP camera for any home or business application. With support for both PC and Mac operating systems,the Y-cam Knight allows for easily local and remote monitoring from your PC, Mac or mobile device.

Y-cam Knight Features

• IR Support for viewing video in complete darkness
• Wireless functionality
• 30fps video at 640×480 resolution
• Audio support with integrated microphone
• MPEG-4 / MJPEG video compression
• Includes free PC based recording software (supports up to 36 total Y-cam IP cameras)

For more information on the Y-cam Knight or Y-cam Cameras, visit www.networkcamerastore.com or call (877) 638-2260.

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Vivotek has recently released a video on their YouTube channel that demonstrates how you can access Vivotek IP camera and video server (video encoder) devices on an iPhone. Vivotek IP cameras and video servers can be configured to use MJPEG video compression. By doing so, access to these devices is then possible through multiple web browsers including the Safari web browser on the Apple iPhone. Once the IP camera or video server has been configured to use a MJPEG video feed and remote access has also been configure so that you gain access via the Internet, accessing live video is as easy as typing in the device’s IP address in the Safari browser. Be sure to check out the video posted below to see how easy it is to access live video from a Vivotek IP camera or video server on your iPhone.

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Y-cam has recently announced via their website that a new product firmware for the Y-cam SD range of IP camera devices includes support that will enable the Y-cam SD network cameras to fully function on a Mac based computer system. Firmware version 4.08, available now on the Y-cam website, has been designed to utilize the SD’s redesigned chipset and will now allow full Macintosh (Mac) computer compatibility for the entire SD range of Y-cam IP camera products. This latest firmware release allows QuickTime to be used to display video and audio with Adobe Flash being utilized for motion detection setup. With QuickTime Pro you can even record video locally to a Mac computer system. This latest firmware release comes as a welcome alternative to a network video surveillance market that has relied heavily on ActiveX controls and Windows based computer systems. Be sure to check out the entire range of Y-cam products listed on the Network Camera Store website and remember to download the latest Y-cam firmware release (www.y-cam.com) if you are a Y-cam SD IP camera owner already.

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Mobile Surveillance – IP Network Cameras

Mobile Surveillance – Video Servers & Video Encoders

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Mobile Surveillance

With today’s growing need for applications on the go it was only a matter of time before IP video surveillance joined the fray and allowed for mobile surveillance to occur. IP network cameras and video encoders are now starting to include 3GPP mobile surveillance support which will allow them to be accessed directly from a 3G or Smart Phone cell phone. Even sophisticated IP network video surveillance software allows for a stripped down version to be operated on today’s cell phones granting you with the ability to control multiple cameras at multiple locations no matter where you are currently located. Imagine being on the 2nd floor of a 40 floor hotel and being able to instantly see video from cameras located on the 35th floor while you continue to patrol the 2nd floor hallway. Or imagine being located in the middle of a large city yet still having access to hundreds of cameras located throughout the entire city without needing to visit each location or even a centralized monitoring location. As with all technological devices, proper configuration is required. This article is designed to help you to understand the basics of mobile surveillance and to help point you in the right direction for what you need to be able to achieve mobile surveillance.

Contiue reading Mobile Surveillance…

Mobile Surveillance Supported Devices at Network Camera Store

Please feel free to review some of the IP cameras and video servers or video encoders that allow for mobile surveillance capabilities.

IP Network Cameras

Video Severs and Video Encoders

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However, network cameras are oftened positioned farther away than a laptop normally would. The camera may be installed to view at an entrance or even across a parking lot. In these cases, the wireless connection is helpful for network cameras but not without its challenges. The further away your camera is from your wireless router, the lower the probability it can establish a connection. This is especially significant when the camera is separated from the wireless router by a wall or series of walls. Each of these walls reduces the strength of the wireless connection, decreasing the likelihood of a connection.

At the same time, the network camera generally needs more bandwidth than one’s laptop. Since the network camera is streaming video, it can easily require multiple megabits (1Mb/s – 4Mb/s) to send its video. By contrast normal web browsing only requires a fraction of this load. The way wireless networks works is that the further one is away from the wireless router, the less bandwidth is available (until at some point, no connection can be established). Since network cameras need more bandwidth than laptops, the range of how far a network camera can be positioned from a wireless router is usually much less.

Determining how far a wireless network camera can be positioned is difficult as it depends on the layout of your specific building and the other wireless networks operating in your vicinity. The best way to quickly and inexpensively do this is to take your laptop and see how well it works in the position where you are planning to put your camera. If the signal strength is high and you can watch video seamlessly from YouTube, you should be ok.

If you have a weak wireless connection for network cameras, there are 2 common options: (1) buy a more powerful antenna or (2) lower the video settings of the camera. Many network cameras allow you to attach an external antenna. These tend to increase throughput at a very small cost. The other option is to reduce your bandwidth demands. If you lower the frame rate and/or the resolution of the camera, this may allow you to establish a connection and transmit video even if it is not as high quality.

While wireless network camera setup can be tricky, it’s often the best (or only) way to transmit video from distant locations.

About the Author
John Honovich is the founder of IP Video Market Info. John researches and writes extensively for IP Video Market Info, providing analysis of new video surveillance technologies and emerging products.

As we see when we buy PC’s, more storage costs more money. With networked video, the costs for storage can add up quickly as video requires much more storage than traditional PC applications like word processing and PDF’s. It’s not uncommon for storage costs to be hundreds of dollars for each video surveillance camera used.

As we realize when we use mobile phones or try to download large files, often there is not enough bandwidth available for our needs. Making this more difficult, it’s often hard or not possible to substantially increase our bandwidth. This is a particular problem with video surveillance that routinely needs lots of bandwidth.

To reduce storage and bandwidth use, video applications use compression technologies or CODEC’s. Many CODEC’s exist including Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Flash Video and H.264. Newer CODECs tend to reduce storage and bandwidth at the expense of greater CPU use. This is usually worth it because CPUs are getting more powerful faster than other computing resources.

H.264 is the latest major CODEC delivering reduced bandwidth and storage consumption. Compared to the 2 other frequently used CODECs in video surveillance (MJPEG and MPEG-4), the savings can be significant. Relative to MJPEG, storage reduction averages 80% while compared to MPEG-4 it is approximately 30%. [Note: the exact details varies by manufacturer and implementation.]

The biggest benefit is likely for megapixel cameras. Up until 2008, megapixel cameras almost always used only MJPEG. Now, with H.264, megapixel camera storage and bandwidth costs are dropping significantly. Megapixel camera use is growing dramatically and is certainly being driven by the savings new H.264 versions provide.

About the Author
John Honovich is the founder of IP Video Market Info. John researches and writes extensively for IP Video Market Info, providing analysis of new video surveillance technologies and emerging products.

Today, most new IP cameras allow the addition of on-board storage. Most of the cameras support Compact Flash cards while a few are even adding hard drives inside of the camera. Currently, Compact Flash up to 32 GB is widely available. With Compact Flash getting cheaper and cheaper, soon you will be able to add hundreds of GB of storage inside your camera.

The two benefits of on-board storage is (1)that you can continue to record even if your network connection goes down and (2) you can eliminate using a separate recorder/server (as the recording is built into the camera). Cameras connected over wireless connections especially benefit from putting the storage on board. Plus, with small camera deployments, the savings from eliminating a separate recorder can be substantial.

At the same time, you should be aware of limitations of on-board storage. First, Compact Flash used in on-board storage costs a lot more per unit of storage than regular hard drive. Secondly, most video management systems do not support on-board storage (this will improve but be careful). Finally, if a thief gets to your camera, with on-board storage they can easily steal your recording.

On-board storage has great potential but make sure it’s right for your particular needs.

About the Author
John Honovich is the founder of IP Video Market Info. John researches and writes extensively for IP Video Market Info, providing analysis of new video surveillance technologies and emerging products.