Is this Amcrest ($140) and Lorex ($229) camera the same thing?

bobross

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I'm looking for a good 4K/30 color night vision dome camera. I have a Lorex setup (NR908x) NVR and 4K cameras. I currently have 4K 15fps cameras and am looking to upgrade to all 30fps.

These cameras seem to be the exact same thing except the Amcrest does not explicitly state "color night vision".

I mean for that much less I could go without color everything else being equal, any thoughts?

Lorex specs

Amcrest specs

Thank you,
Bob
 

wittaj

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Lorex and Amcrest are both made by Dahua but usually have things stripped from them compared to the Dahua counterpart.

Don't chase MP and FPS. As of right now, It is simple LOL - do not buy a 4MP camera that is anything other than a 1/1.8" sensor. Do not buy a 2MP camera that is anything other than a 1/2.8" sensor. Most 4k are on the same sensor as a 2MP and the 2MP will kick its butt all night long... These cameras are 8MP on a 1/2.8" sensor and will not perform well at night unless you like blur.

Keep in mind that these cameras, although are spec'd and capable of these various parameters, real world testing shows if you try to run these cameras at 30fps and high bitrates that you will max out the CPU in the camera and then the camera bugs out just long enough that you miss something. My car is rated for 6,000RPM redline, but I am not gonna run it in 3rd gear on the highway at 6,000RPM...same with these types of cameras - gotta keep them under rated capacity.

Look at all the threads where people came here with a jitter in the video or IVS missing motion and they were running 30FPS and when people tell them to drop the FPS and they dropped the FPS to 15FPS the camera became stable.

Movies for the big screen are shot at 24FPS, so I don't think we need 30FPS for our phones, tablet, and monitors at home LOL. 15FPS for surveillance is fine.

Plus I doubt your NVR is capable of passing that much data - NVRs from the box units like a Amcrest and Lorex cap out incoming bandwidth (which impacts the resolution and FPS of the cameras). The Lorex and Amcrest NVR maxes out at 80Mbps and truly only one or a couple cameras that will display 4K. My neighbors was limited to that and he is all upset it isn't 4K for all eight channels and he was capped out at 4096 bitrate on each camera so it was a pixelated mess. Your NVR in all likelihood will drop the resolution, FPS, or bitrate to what it can handle. He got a camera that could do 60FPS but the NVR couldn't handle it.

When we had a thief come thru here and get into a lot of cars, the police couldn't use one video or photo from anyone's system that had fixed 4k 2.8mm or 3.6mm fixed lens cams - those cams sure looks nice and gives a great wide angle view, but you cannot identify anyone at 15 feet out. At night you cannot even ID someone from 10 feet. Meanwhile, the perp didn't come to my house but walked past on the sidewalk at 80 feet from my house and my 2MP varifocal zoomed in to a point at the sidewalk was the money shot for the police that got my neighbors all there stolen stuff back.

In fact my system was the only one that gave the police useful information. Not even my other neighbors $1,300 4k Lorex system from Costco provided useful info - the cams just didn't cut it at night and motion was a blur. His system wasn't even a year old and after that event has started replacing with cameras purchased from @EMPIRETECANDY on this site based on my recommendation and seeing my results - fortunately those cams work with the Lorex NVR. He is still shocked a 2MP camera performs better than his 4k cameras... It is all about the amount of light needed and getting the right camera for the right location.
 
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mat200

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I'm looking for a good 4K/30 color night vision dome camera. I have a Lorex setup (NR908x) NVR and 4K cameras. I currently have 4K 15fps cameras and am looking to upgrade to all 30fps.

These cameras seem to be the exact same thing except the Amcrest does not explicitly state "color night vision".

I mean for that much less I could go without color everything else being equal, any thoughts?

Lorex specs

Amcrest specs

Thank you,
Bob

Hi @bobross

Hard to really find the "same" on Lorex branded cameras as the firmware is stripped of functionality.

iirc, some of the newer Amcrest IP PoE cameras have more features than the Lorex branded models.

Check the specs - and you can find "related" ( that is close ) models.

Note: the Amcrest 4K model has a 1/2.8" sensor.. which for a 8MP most of use would prefer a larger 1/1.8" sensor instead.





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sebastiantombs

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Don't chase megapixels unless you have a really BIG budget. General rule of thumb is that a 4MP camera will easily outperform an 8MP camera when they both have the same sensor size. Reason being that there are twice as many pixels in the 8MP versus the 4MP. This results in only half the available light getting to each pixel in an 8MP that a pixel in the 4MP "sees".

Don't believe all the marketing hype no matter who makes the camera. Don't believe those nice night time captures they all use. Look for videos, with motion, to determine low light performance. Any camera can be made to "see" color at night if the exposure time is long enough, as in half a second or longer. Rule of thumb, the shutter speed needs to be at 1/60 or higher to get night video without blurring.

The smaller the lux number the better the low light performance. 0.002 is better than 0.02
The smaller the "F" of the lens the better the low light performance. F1.4 is better than F1.8
The larger the sensor the better the low light performance. 1/1.8" is better (bigger) than 1/2.7"
The higher the megapixels for the same size sensor the worse the low light performance. A 4MP camera with a 1/1.8" sensor will perform better than a 8MP camera with that same 1/1.8" sensor.
 

pozzello

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OP says: "I currently have 4K 15fps cameras " which model? LNB8005c? or lnb811, maybe?

If you have Lorex NVR, you may wanna stick with Lorex cams for best compatibility.

The Lorex E861ab is a nice unit (other than the 2.8mm lens). It's equivalent to the Dahua HFW-1831se. The E861ab's don't gain anything other than i-frame interval and the 4th profile installing DH-hfw1830e fw, tho possible.

The Lorex E891ab's aren't bad either. Plenty available here & there ~$90. While they claim the same 1/1.8" sensor, they don't seem to do quite as well as the E861/DH-1831e, for some reason i have yet to pin down. No Dahua firmware has yet been found to work on the E891ab's.

Both of these are a step up from the LNB8005c in terms of low-light perf, due to the larger sensor (and other factors, like lens)
The LNB8005c (and almost identical LNB8111c) however, do benefit by flashing Dahua firmware (becoming a DH-IPC4830se with additional 'smart' features).

edit: i've been rambling about various bullets while you were looking at turrets. nm... :)
 
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