Advice for tourism outdoor ip cam

[halfblack]

Hello,
I have to install an IP cam in my seaside restaurant to broadcast live streaming and I’d need your help because I would like to do it by myself.
I have a maximum budget of EUR 200/300 and would like a good resolution (2 / 3MP) to broadcast in HD with audio.
I searched the web and I selected these brands:

• Hikvision
• Dahua
• Foscam
• Axis (I think they are a bit expensive, but have an interesting partner program)

In particular I was watching Foscam FI9900P, Hikvision DS-2CD2032, Dahua IPC-HFW4421S.

What do you think?

Do you have other better models / brands?

What is the best IP cam type for outdoor / tourism? Bullet, box, dome or other?

The plug & play installation is really easy or it takes special technical knowledge?

Is it also possible to place a camera fixed underwater?

Do you know these cameras: Live Cams


Sorry for the ignorance, but where I come from is not much knowledge...
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[nayr]

I'd use the Ultra for a WebCam, it can see even better in the dark and unless you want your feed to be blacked out all night long it can be configured so the weather/water/etc is still visible.. It also produced a 2nd 1080p substream that can be optimized for online streaming through Youtube Live/uStream/Facebook Live/etc.

Dahua Ultra Starlight Varifocal Bullet (IPC-HFW8232E-Z)


for tourism, having a better view/camera than anyone else in the area will be a wise investment IMHO.. everyone will watch your camera since its the clearest and produces the best images

 

[hmjgriffon]

I'd use the Ultra for a WebCam, it can see even better in the dark and unless you want your feed to be blacked out all night long it can be configured so the weather/water/etc is still visible.. It also produced a 2nd 1080p substream that can be optimized for online streaming through Youtube Live/uStream/Facebook Live/etc.

Dahua Ultra Starlight Varifocal Bullet (IPC-HFW8232E-Z)


for tourism, having a better view/camera than anyone else in the area will be a wise investment IMHO.. everyone will watch your camera since its the clearest and produces the best images

He beat me to it, I was playing with my ultra last night out front in the middle of the night, it makes the outside look like the middle of the day, a cat from the neighborhood walked up and I don't think it even saw me in the dark until I moved and then it took off lol.

 

[halfblack]

I'd use the Ultra for a WebCam, it can see even better in the dark and unless you want your feed to be blacked out all night long it can be configured so the weather/water/etc is still visible.. It also produced a 2nd 1080p substream that can be optimized for online streaming through Youtube Live/uStream/Facebook Live/etc.

Dahua Ultra Starlight Varifocal Bullet (IPC-HFW8232E-Z)


for tourism, having a better view/camera than anyone else in the area will be a wise investment IMHO.. everyone will watch your camera since its the clearest and produces the best images

Thank you Nayr, I didn't know of this advanced feature, ‘starlight’, it’s very impressive!
Yes, I also think that I could give something extra with better image quality, especially at night.
I've tried looking on the web but it seems to me that the cheapest seller is Alibaba / Aliexpress (about 150-200 Euro). I'll try to look for a European retailer.
But the 'starlight' technology has it only Dahua? Hikvision, Axis or other good brands, does not do anything like this?

 

[nayr]

Hikvision has Darkfighters and im sure axis has something too.. but the'll cost more and both brands are inferior to Dahua IMHO.

If you find it through a local vendor be prepared to pay near double what you'll get it for import price

 

[halfblack]

Perfect, thank you Nayr.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I've compared a Hik Darkfighter and a Dahua Eco Starlight turret (HDW5231R-Z) side by side. I own both. For the money definitely go with the Dahua Eco Starlights. If the budget is greater, I'd still skip the Darkfighter and go with a Dahua Ultra Starlight series bullet. For your use requiring audio, I think you'd be better with an Ultra series bullet with external microphone for the better audio. The Eco turrets have audio built-in but it's not great. You should probably check out Italian laws quite carefully before broadcasting audio from a security camera live over the web. That's like waving a red cape in front of a lawyered-up bull in some jurisdictions.

 

[hmjgriffon]

I've compared a Hik Darkfighter and a Dahua Eco Starlight turret (HDW5231R-Z) side by side. I own both. For the money definitely go with the Dahua Eco Starlights. If the budget is greater, I'd still skip the Darkfighter and go with a Dahua Ultra Starlight series bullet. For your use requiring audio, I think you'd be better with an Ultra series bullet with external microphone for the better audio. The Eco turrets have audio built-in but it's not great. You should probably check out Italian laws quite carefully before broadcasting audio from a security camera live over the web. That's like waving a red cape in front of a lawyered-up bull in some jurisdictions.

There is a bullet version of the starlight fyi, of you want all the hookups but not the cost.

 

[Kawboy12R]

You mean Eco Starlight? Yep I did, but I didn't know the price premium over the Eco turret. I assumed there was a difference.

 

[hmjgriffon]

You mean Eco Starlight? Yep I did, but I didn't know the price premium over the Eco turret. I assumed there was a difference.

I'd have to check Andy's site buti think it's not much different.

 

[Kawboy12R]

If it is close then that is a really good option. If it is much more money, then I would personally go with the ultra.

 

[nayr]

its only a few dollars difference (~$10 IIRC); the bullet is so much larger than the turret they dont cost the same to ship out DHL.. otherwise they'd cost exactly the same.

thanks for the feedback @Kawboy12R; I was unaware anyone had compared the Dahua Eco Starlights to a Hik Darkfighter.. glad to hear you still prefer the Dahuas.

 

[halfblack]

Thank you @Kawboy12R, very interesting.
In fact I think it is more prudent to transmit audio only in the case of panoramic shots, however, I must learn about the italian law about it. I know that in Italy (everywhere?) can not transmit images though faces are recognizable...

 

[Kawboy12R]

I had the two side by side for a while in a dim but not dark environment. Both were locked at 1/60th exposure. B&W with no IR, just white light. IIRC the gain was backed down to about 80 from 100 on the Him. The Dahua gave crisper background for some reason but the Darkfighter seemed to give me better detail on my moving face up close. The Dahua gave better detail on the white writing on my shirt though. Short unscientific test and I moved the Dahua afterwards but the Eco Starlight cost me half what the Darkfighter did. It did great for the money difference. I don't have an Ultra to compare but if the Eco is a tossup then I expect the Ultra to have an advantage over the Hik.

 

[tangent]

Audio could be trouble unless the cam is positioned so all it picks up are distant ambient sounds and nobody's close enough to the cam for it to pick up conversation. But that would be hard to pull off.

Some consideration also needs to go into exactly how you put the camera on your website.
-If you try to just embed the live video directly on your website, you need to understand that for each person who connects at the same time you use more bandwidth. The video stream may not be in a format most people's browsers can handle without special plugins. You could also be exposing the camera in a way that poses a security risk. If you run it though a proxy you'd reduce the risk.
-The simplest thing you can do would be to set the camera to FTP a picture to your website at some interval say 1-5 minutes. People wouldn't get a live view with things moving just a static snapshot. This doesn't sound like what you want, I'm just mentioning it for its simplicity.
-You could use a third party service that rebroadcasts the feed from your camera like ustream or youtube live, but you would generally require something on site that's trans-coding the video into a different format and upload it. This is probably the best option if you want live video.

how fast is your internet connection?

 

[nayr]

transcoding to Youtube Live/ustream are not required; for my Live Sessions I just pass through both the audio and video unaltered.. my lil Rpi2 handles it with almost no measurable load.. as long as the camera is outputting encodings that Youtube will input no need for transcoding; but it does requrie software to relay the data to YT

 

[halfblack]

@tangent: This is another problem: where I live there is broadband, but not everywhere. Fortunately now it is developing the WiMax service that could cover certain areas not covered by Internet. The most important thing I think is the performance in upload, right?

@nayr: sorry, what is Rpi2 ?

My idea is to live stream directly on a web page. I found various online services (think like UStream), for example:
- We are making security cameras smart | Angelcam
- Embedding IP Camera Live Video Stream in web page - IPCamLive.com
with a monthly cost not too high, but I wonder if they are really necessary...

 

[nayr]

RaspberryPi2

 

[tangent]

@tangent: This is another problem: where I live there is broadband, but not everywhere. Fortunately now it is developing the WiMax service that could cover certain areas not covered by Internet. The most important thing I think is the performance in upload, right?
...
with a monthly cost not too high, but I wonder if they are really necessary...

services like this are the best way to handle this. depending on how fast/slow your internet is and the resolution/bitrate of your video stream as few as 2 simultaneous connections directly to the camera might be enough to cripple your ability to connect to the internet and do business critical things like process credit cards. There is a lot of variability here. The free tier of Angelcam displays ads. YouTube live is also an option.

There's also the security side of things, exposing the WAN IP address of your business on your website isn't the best idea. There are a lot of vulnerabilities in many cameras, directly exposing the cam to the net could put other devices on your network at risk.