Vivotek Outdoor Surveillance Network Camera - Monochrome

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Price: $745.16    

Product Feature

• A quality product by Vivotek

Product Description

Vivotek Surveillance/Network Camera - � Monochrome IP8372 Surveillance & Network Cameras

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Vivotek Outdoor Surveillance Network Camera - Monochrome Review

This is one of my harder reviews to write, because I really had high expectations for this camera.
The vendor did a great job of shipping and having the camera delivered before expected. - Thanks PCRush!

Now comes the technical details of why this may not be your best choice for a camera.
- If you are considering buying this camera because it has 5MP - i suggest you keep your money in your pocket, and look for a different model.

The camera has a 5MP sensor.
I was thinking more pixels = more details = better camera, and sure enough you get more detail with this camera in the 5mb mode
- if you like choppy video, and don't really care about real time surveillance this mode is high res.
The issue with the native 5MP setting; you are limited to 10 FPS - which is not useable for surveillance.
No matter how fast your network is you are limited by the firmware to the 10fps setting.

OK - So, you think maybe choosing a smaller setting would increase your FPS - yes it does but here is the BIG issue;
- Changing to a smaller resolution will reduce your Field of View.

Picture it this way. Draw a rectangle, now draw a smaller box or rectangle inside the larger rectangle, if you want faster FPS you have to use the smaller rectangle, and in the process you loose view of everything outside the smaller rectangle - it is a sensor crop, and renders from the smaller crop area to achieve usable FPS.
If you need higher FPS you need to limit the resolution, the camera has three 4:3 and two 16:9 pre-built settings to choose from, but all they do is CROP the sensor image, thus you loose horizontal and vertical optical viewing angle (FOV). Your lens FOV is reduced - and that sucks!!

In order to have decent FPS you have to use a F0V crop sensor setting and be stuck with limited FOV, and in my opinion you should just buy a decent 2MB camera in the first place. The cropping screen does not allow you to modify the crop size, but does allow you to move the crop area around to your liking.

Image Quality:
5MP image quality is great, but only delivers 10fps at best, and no way to increase it - it is set in the firmware.
Other settings provide better FPS but limit your Field of View as mentioned, and at the end of the day to get the best FPS you need to us either the cropped 720HD settings or maybe the 1080HD with even more crop - it's Silly!!

I suggest you buy a 1080HD camera in the first place. When finally adjusted to provide adequate FPS the camera has about the same detail of a GOOD 2mb Toshiba camera such as the IK-WR14A or the IK-WB81A.

The Toshiba bullet camera have the exact same hardware as this IP8372 Vivotek bullet cameras so if you decide to switch to a Toshiba model, your mount should fit!!,

Other issues:
Lens flare, this camera shows bad lens flare, more so than my other cameras mounted toward the setting sun. My Toshiba camera handles it much better and is only noticeable when the sun is almost parallel to the camera. This IP8372 shows large red halos and red rays that almost obscure the image for 15 minutes while the sun sets below the horizon.
I compare it to the Toshiba WR14A which is mounted in a worse configuration but handles flare much better.

Software:
The built in WEB browser software is near useless! Other than setting up the camera it fails at being anything other than admin software, to be fair, It operates and looks almost identical to the Toshiba WB81A software. I suggest for monitoring and alerts you get BlueIris.
Vivotek supplies a CD with a thick client software, but I have not installed it since I use BlueIris.

Overall, I am disappointed with the camera.
- limited FOV when you choose a setting other than the default and need better FPS you loose FOV, for me that is the biggest downfall.
- Adequate Night Vision, I can say the vivotek has good IR coverage, but the image quality is less that my other Toshiba Bullet.
- No way to create my own custom FOV, the crop area is set and you can not modify it.

- Too bad Vivotek does not allow a custom crop size for the FOV setting.
This camera when used in default 5mp mode, would be best used in situations where you need face recognition at an entrance area.
Otherwise the camera seem to work just fine, but again if you change from the default FOV you loose the optical angle of the lens.

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