DS-2CD2732F-IS - PTZ not available?

[stu55y]

Hi all

This is my first venure into CCTV kit. I just unboxed a new DS-2CD2732F-IS dome camera and connected it up to my NVR (DS-7604NI-SE/P). I can view the video from the camera fine on the NVR and also via web/software interfaces on a pc, but when I try to adjust PTZ i get the message that the camera "does not support the function", which is obviously not the case.

Is there something simple/stupid I'm overlooking? Note that I have not done anything at all physically to set up the camera yet - I didn't want to fit it before confirming everything works.

Thanks
Stu

 

[icerabbit]

Hi Stu, Welcome to the forum. B Bad news unfortunately. I have several of these cameras and they are not PTZ aka Pan Tilt Zoom. You are not the first person to misunderstand hikvision's specs. The pan tilt rotation and zoom they list in the specs, is for the manual adjustment of lens when you first mount the camera on the wall, ceiling etc. It allows one to rotate the camera and level it for aiming, then rotating the lens to level the view, and zoom + focus to get the desired view port. Some cameras do not have zoom and focus, some don't have rotation, ... etc. Maybe in the future hikvision will release a camera that is PTZ. There are some out there from other brands, but they are several times the cost.

 

[nayr]

thats not a PTZ camera.. it has manually adjustable pan/tilt/zoom mounting but its not motor driven.

 

[stu55y]

Thanks guys, I guess I just learned my first lesson... the hard way! I agree that their marketing is perhaps slightly confusing on this point. I had just made the wrong assumption, perhaps based on the fact I have a relatively cheap indoor Foscam IP cam that is motorized on two axes.

thanks again
Stu

 

[fenderman]

Stu, while the camera is not ptz, its is far superior in every way to the foscam. One of the reasons the foscam's need pt is because they have a very narrow field of view. This camera can be adjusted to 2.8mm wide angle and can capture a significant area with good image quality. If you want a quality outdoor ptz you are looking at about 600 dollars for the dahua cams. Dont waste your money on cheaper brands that will just cause you trouble and eventually fail.

 

[icerabbit]

As much as I'm sure it is a disappointment to not have the PTZ as anticipated, I agree, it is a pretty good camera and good value, considering you get to tweak the view exactly to your liking ... in commercial lingo that would be you get 4 cameras in one! 2.8mm 4mm 6mm and 12mm. But wait there's more. As an added bonus. You also get all sizes in-between! /joking. But especially in the learning phase this can be an important learing tool, where you can experiment with one camera between tele and wide. For two of my cameras in particular I was going to go wide, just wasn't sure about extra wide 2.8 or 4 or? Then getting the details I wanted (car tags). Suspicion confirmed that despite the high resolution I needed a more cropped image and narrower FOV to get the vehicle detail I wanted. No harm. Just dial in more tele from 2.8 to 4 or 5 or so. Done. Should I add an extra camera in this area . I can just re-adjust these as needed. One extra wide. One extra tele. Without swapping cameras. And while PTZ is really cool. It requires one either to monitor and operate the camera live, or a pretty smart system to do the appropriate tracking automatically. Which is not something you find in a Foscam PTZ. Based on price of a Foscam and price of a hikvision dome one could indeed think it might be possible to stuff a PTZ inside the housing and that being this hikvision model; but the Foscam PTZ is a toy, when it comes to durability and image quality. I have two of those foscams, that I started with as a trial and use as pet cams. They stop recording once the SD card is full. Despite assurances that that was fixed with a previous firmware. Not to say you can't or won't have firmware issues with other brands, but all things considered, you have a far superior camera, and stay away from foscam And, you have found this forum full of helpful pros and amateurs, so drop a line before ordering the next camera (why is it that my firefox postings always get the line and paragraph marks stripped?! )