Q: I am leaning toward ReoLink's 12K cameras

 A lot depends on your lighting. Reolinks, as a rule, are not great at night vision, mainly due to limited config options. I do like their POE TrackMix model though. Two lenses, so you get a zoomed and a wide stream, plus the wide stream helps with tracking in the zoomed view. Better IR night vision than many of their models too.

Do not bother with high MP cameras. Even 4K is often overkill, but 4MP generally looks much better than 3MP due to the sensors involved. Cameras are focused on a targeted range. Adding pixels generally does not let you zoom in much farther, though they might give you a wider view at the target range. That target focus range is not always specified in the specs for fixed-focus models, but it can often be inferred from the DORI numbers. Autofocus can help here, but be aware that a bug or bird might cause the camera to refocus, and it might not focus where you want it to. So, it's best to get it to focus on the target area and lock it there unless it is a tracking model. Never try to cover more area than what your cameras can see without moving.

For choosing models, the same rules always apply. Sort the distances to the target for each camera and decide how much detail you want to see. Match that to the DORI numbers in specs. Then factor in the width of the view angle to cover that target area. Lastly, factor in the lighting needed. Especially for color night vision, you want to compare min lux values and see real video. Many push the specs by reducing the exposures down to the point of ghosting moving objects. Or claim with internal white light on. IR night vision is not as bad. In both cases, you generally want to run without the internal lights. Accent lights for color, or IR floods for IR, are the way to go to keep bugs from visiting your cameras. Oh, and they should support RSTP or, preferably, ONVIF, which most of them do. Ignore the NDAA compliance BS. Do not assume ANY camera is safe, and block them from accessing the internet.

For NVR, go with a PC and Blue Iris or Frigate. Blue Iris has an easier interface and has an extendable AI, but is Windows-only and $100 for up to 128 cameras. Frigate is free and runs on Linux, but can be challenging to set up for non-IT types. Both work with cameras that support RSTP or ONVIF.

Quick outdoor audio compare

Overview

Been seeing posts wanting cams with audio lately. My Ring compares playlist has some examples of the diff between a ColorVu and a Ring doorbell that contain audio but when outside doing a bit of weeding around the bird feeder and hearing coyotes playing near by I thought I'd grab the footage form 3 near by cameras to show the diff between them.

The 3 cameras are:

Dahua IPC-HDW4631C-A mounted under the window AC unit

Reolink RLC-511-5MP mounted on side window frame

Hikvision (ColorVu) DS-2CD2347G1-LU (far one) mounted on the soffit at the corner of the roof

The links to the videos are:

• The Dahua video
• The Reolink video
• The Hikvision/ColorVu video

If you watch the lower timestamp you should hear:

• Various bird calls and till 11:28:40
• @11:28:40 you should hear my footsteps and the hedge trimmer starting up.
• @11:29:37 you should hear me walking through the dried "weeds" crunching them and a jet passing overhead. Then me tossing the branches into a pile off screen.
• @11:29:58 I start using the hedge trimmer again.
• @11:30:07 I stop and you can hear what sounds like coyotes yapping a few hundred yards away.
•  @11:30:23 you should hear me say "listen to that" (meaning the coyotes) in a normal speaking voice.

It is totally calm so there is no wind noise to deal with. I should probably do another sample with speaking when there is wind and when the house main AC unit (around the far side of the house) is running. I'm amazed how loud that AC unit sounds on footage compared to when I'm in the yard.

Eval:Plate Recognizer in Blue Iris 5

Cams used in the post:

• DAH695 and DAH616: VIKVIZ (Dahua OEM) 6MP PoE IP Camera Outdoor, Bullet Security Camera Video Surveillance with 2.7-13.5mm 5X Optical Zoom,197ft Night Vision,Built-in Audio Input,SD Slot,H.265,Onvif,IP67 (IPC-HFW4631H-ZSA)
• Reo588: Reolink PoE Camera 5MP Super HD 4X Optical Zoom Outdoor Indoor IP Security IR Night Vision Motion Detection RLC-511

Caveats:

The LPR partnered with Blue Iris 5 is cloud based meaning it uploads triggered pic to a server which is hampered by timing of triggers on top of the quality of  the image sent. Positioning of the cam, lighting and speed of the vehicle will of course factor in. More here. A better solution, if you have the cash, might be OpenLPR which works on streaming video to a local server. Prices range from $5/cam/month to $1995/cam/month. Though I'm thinking the best solution is a cam designed for player reading that has LPR in the cam. That will set you back at least $500 though. Still could be cheaper in the long run and more practical than sending video to a server to process.

Note I and many others have been seeing the web server crash a lot with Blue Iris 5 Going to be waiting to upgrade any more servers till that gets sorts. But till then I though I'd look at the new AI built-ins.

You should turn off any overlays from the camera so the it does not see them as the plate number. And even then there might be issues.

Note only one of these is a license plate. And looking at the uploaded images it appears to have completely missed me going and returning twice today though the config looks unchanged from the last time it worked.

Setup:

BI5 plate recognizer setup instructions. Set up was quick and easy.

First look:

Given I'm just looking to log cars coming in my gate I figured their free tier might be enough. Gets a bit pricey for watching a neighborhood gate or parking lot.

Note the timestamps on the cam pics are UTC like the plate log.

The first thing that hit me was I need to dial my triggers way back so it will only be sending things that are probably cars to stay in the free range. Even though I thought I'd dialed it back pretty good I had 41 alerts in the first 2 1/2 hours I had it turned on. It did get the plate on my while I was pulling out with the trash but not when I pushed it back up the driveway.

First uploaded pic of me on the way out

Last uploaded pic of me with the cart

It did not get the one off a truck that pulled in to turn around after dark either. Though in that case it probably could not have been able to make out the plate since I could not. Should have uploaded a pic though. It think because it did not quite cross zones.

I think the dividing line was just this side of the tires.

So I adjusted the zones again (replaced right 1/3 of 2 full width zones with a third to trigger on people using the turnaround like the truck)  and turned it off for the night.

now with 3 zones. 2 on left 1 on right.

I might want to swap to the gate cam instead as it could see the plate on the truck well from its angle and distance. Though that also means it will be tough not to trip with passing traffic. Especially at night with headlights shining off the gate and trees.

Update 2/4/2020:

Totally missed a neighbor's visit both coming and going in the middle of the day. Plus even weirder it thinks it made out the cameras name as a plate on my work glove as I passed. Again times are UTC where local is UTC-6

Notice no car pics for 2/3 though it did see me.

Me carrying a chainsaw. I guess my movement triggered the LPR and the only text it found was the cameras name overlay.

The neighbor did trigger the BI motion detection 6 times. You can see the first image here along with the 6 clip blank clip icons o the left. (The blank icons is another random issue I've been seeing in BI5.)

Note I pixelated the plate here. It was perfectly clear.

It got me thinking the one trigger point might not be enough so I reduced the 3 zones I have and added 3 more to hopefully trigger earlier and more often in case they are getting dropped or something. Unfortunately all the zones you are not currently editing show up as the same color so they look like one but there are 6, A thru F.

Basically 4 strip zones to catch "vertical" movement and 2 block sections on right to catch going into turn around or on up drive.

With the crossings set up like this. (Note F was added between the road and A which starts at the gate.)

I also cranked the sensitivity a bit from min object size of 675 to 525 which should be about the size of a car at the gate.

One think I did not mention earlier is there is also a motion detector at the gate that triggers the driveway cams as well. It is a bit laggy but unaffected by the headlights going by. So at night I only use that to trigger the LPR by setting a separate profile and scheduling the switch.

Note no motion sensing selected but the LPR AI is configured for this profile as well.

Note the relative to sunrise/sunset option and you can click on "Days" button to select a group of days or a single day.

Update 2/7/2020:

Another gotcha. Not sure how but it appears my LPR config disappeared from both profiles. It posted a pic at 7:28 AM UTC (1:28 AM local the schedule is using) but when I looked to see how it did with today's FedEx delivery there was nothing. And when I checked my settings in BI5 I found the LPR disabled with no config info. The global profile override schedule was still in place. I then noticed the profile number was not in place on the frame as it had been when the schedule was working. Trying to go into the cameras motion detection config seemed to make the app unresponsive till I tried to close the app at which time the motion detection config dialog appeared.

Note blank clips and motion detection preview window

Restarting the console told me an update was ready so I let that install. After the profile indicator was back on the camera frame. The LPR config was still there. Makes me think a subsystem died or such. Note the clip images were still black so I did a DB repair which sorted that. However I found the active part of zone F was inverted. I'll have to keep a closer eye on this and see if there is some more monitoring I can setup.

Update 2/25/2020 New Issue.

Seem to have found a new issue with BI5. Looks like my motion detection quit working on all cams about 3 days ago. Not positive but I think a Blue Iris subsystem died without notification. This is VERY bad. Not only has no LPR posts been made for 3 days but no video was marked with motion events either from BI motion detection or by external triggers. Rebooted box and motion detection is working again but not sure how I can even monitor for this yet.

Update 3/13/2020 swapped out Reolink with Dahua

Moved the 2 Reolink to other locations / servers since BI5 does not seem to like them which seem to have sorted the corrupted and hung video issues. I also let me add trip line triggers from in cam detection to help reduce lag. Unfortunately it has not done much for improving detection as you can see here.

The shot on March 13, 2020, 12:03 a.m. UTC looks almost perfect those the plate was still not clear enough for it to work. 

I think that is about it for this LPR. There are some other options to try on my todo list.

A quick compare of focus

Compared in this post
Reolink PoE IP Camera Outdoor (Pack of 2) 5MP HD Video Surveillance Work with Google Assistant, Security IR Night Vision Motion Detection Audio SD Card Slot RLC-420-5MP

Reolink PoE Camera 5MP Super HD 4X Optical Zoom Outdoor Indoor Video Surveillance Work with Google Assistant, IP Security IR Night Vision Motion Detection with Phone App RLC-511

Amcrest ProHD Fixed Outdoor 3-Megapixel (2304 x 1296P) Wi-Fi Vandal Dome IP Security Camera - IP3M-956W

I wanted to do a quick compare of auto focus vs fixed and highlight depth of field. I was upgrading the bird feeder cams from a Escam Q900 and Amcrest IP3M-956 to a Reolink 5MP. I wanted to see if the auto focus RLC-511 or the static focus RLC-420-5MP would work better. While the bird feeder is the primary thing I want to monitor having coverage of the yard beyond is a definite plus. So I replaced the Escam with the 2 Reolink models and stuck some wet floor signs in the yard to get a better idea of focus / detail, randomly placed at 26, 32 and 45 feet. There is also a license plate one the fence just beyond the barn in the shadows but that turned out to be irrelevant for this test.

The 4 cams pointed at the feeder.

Note there is a 4th cam, a Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-I , looking down though it is mainly to cover the north end of the walkway.

The Amcrest IP3M-956 was OK but was really too close to the feeder for good focus and too low rez for good detail of the yard. Plus being an outdoor dome it needed cleaning a lot.

Full Amcrest shot

For a better look here is a cropped version

Cropped shot from Amcrest

Oddly the flower pot seems close to the center of focus. This would tend to indicate that despite being and "outdoor camera" it is probably focused for indoors. Thinking I need to go back and test my cameras for center of focus. The outdoor models generally seemed focused around 30 feet but I had not done any real testing.

Now compare that to the view from the RLC-511 that zoomed out all the way has almost the same view angle as the Amcrest.

Full RLC-511 shot at widest view angle.

Obviously just going from 3MP to 5MP helps a lot.

RLC-511 cropped view of shot.

Cropped you can the feeder is in center focus but even the first sign looks pretty good.

Here is the same view from the RLC-420-5MP. It is running a 3.6 mm lens so it is not quites as wides as the others so you would expect it to be just a touch sharper.

RLC-420-5MP full shot

In the cropped version the signs look noticeably clearer while the feeder has lost just a bit. Obviously the depth of field on the static is the around 26 feet the first sign is setting at.

Since I set these up for monitoring the feeder it is in the center of the field and close enough to cause the auto focus to focus on it. Not to mention get in close like this.

Though obviously I need to up the shutter speed. Unfortunately The Reolink cams only allow for changing the frames/second. So I'm putting this back on 30 fps from the 15 fps in the above shot. See the matching video here showing the auto focus recovery times after various amounts of zoom.

Amcrest and the similarly functional Dahua definitely have Reolink beat when it comes to exposure options. Note the Amcrest and Dahua interfaces are almost identical.

Amcrest manual exposure settings

Amcrest auto and semi auto exposure settings.

Auto focus on zoom can be a bit laggy as in the video above and even sometimes get stuck out of focus when things pass in front of it. Generally though it is not too bad as this video shows. And just for compare here is the matching video from the static focus RLC-420-5MP,

Answer to: I just want a decent system

The problem

Decent is pretty subjective. Kind of like asking what is the best way to get to work. You'll get answers from ride a bike to only a Karlmann King will get you there. Not only is it subjective relative to what they need and can afford it is subjective relative what they have actually tried model wise and using the resulting video. As one installer put it "I have to explain to my clients that if you have only ever ridden a horse and someone gives you a small compact car, you are gonna think it's awesome purely because you don't know you can get a Range Rover or a Truck for the same money."

But you still just want something for outdoors

If you just want to get 4 outdoor cams to cover the yard around your rectangular house you could start with this 4 4MP cam bundle from Reolink though I think it was like $50 cheaper last week. Still $341 is not bad to get you started. You can reuse the cams later with about any NVR. They are pretty decent for the money. And the NVR is speced for 8 cams so will probably cover you unless you need more features or go nuts buying cams like me. (60 cams as of this writing on 4 servers) Note though you might have a time getting non Reolink cams to work with it.

Better yet if you have a PC not doing much,  get the Reolink RLC-420 cams and a copy of Blue Iris. Note however Blue Iris 5 seems to have developed issues with some cams (including Reolinks) that Blue Iris 4 does not have.

But you still just want something for indoors

Now if you are looking indoors and wireless get some Wyze cams. Pretty much a toss if you want to upgrade later but you are talking about $100 for 4 plus some SD card you can probably reuse if need be. And they come in handy for monitoring things where you want a temp setup or need to get something in place quick. But you read this about the issues with wireless.

On the other hand a bit of research could save you time and money 

The above setups will help you get a feel for the low end. But if you want to do the research up front to get the most bang for your buck you can start reading my post "What is the best camera for X?" to sort what specs you need to be looking for the match what you want to monitor.

Reolink 511 vs Amcrest IP8M-2496 (5MP autofocus vs 8MP fixed)

I look like a bad cable might have killed the Amcrest IP8M-2496 I had pointed at the north yard. I was thinking I might want to swap it with a Reolink 511 anyway as I had a couple spares. With all the posts suggesting 4K (8MP) cams I thought this would be another good compare of 5MP autofocus vs 8MP. Or how rez does not make up for proper focus. Since the Amcrest died the shots are not exact compares but are from the same time on two consecutive night so damn close. Ignore the on screen times. The Reolink seems to be on PST. Bost cams were tweaked a bit to get the best looking video though not that far off default values.

The old cam is the Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) Outdoor Bullet POE IP Camera, 3840x2160, 131ft NightVision, 2.8mm Lens, IP67 Weatherproof, MicroSD Recording, White (IP8M-2496EW-28MM) which according to specs has a 112 degree horizontal view angle and 0.06 Lux/F1.6(Color,1/3s,30IRE) 0.3 Lux/F1.6( Color,1/30s,30IRE) low light rating. And went for about $110 new.

The replacement is the Reolink PoE Camera 5MP Super HD 4X Optical Zoom Outdoor Indoor Video Surveillance Work with Google Assistant, IP Security IR Night Vision Motion Detection with Phone App RLC-511 which claims a 90 degree horizontal view angle but give no low light info other the 0 Lux with IR on. And as I'm writing this is going for $71 on Amazon.

First at high noon. You can see the view is a bit wider in the Amcrest though not as clear. Especially in the shadows. Note the white dog in the Amcrest shot is not easier to see than the black dog in the Reolink shot.

Amcrest at noon

Reolink at noon

Zoomed in to roughly the same section of dirt.

The Amcrest zoomed in. Note the black dog behind the white one. You might not even notice it if not looking for it.

Reolink zoomed in a bit more than the Amcrest. The black dog is almost the same spot as in the Amcrest shot though facing the other way.

How about an early morning shot just as the cam flips to color mode? In this one it is a tougher call but the Amcrest might be a bit better.

Reolink early morning

Amcrest early morning

On IR the Amcrest is better close in but the Reolink kills it in the darker areas. Note there is an IR flood on the side of the house near the dog.

Amcrest IR shot. White dog in front of tree.

Reolink IR shot. White dog on walkway near IR flood.

As a compare and to kind of take the cams IRs out of the equation here is a shot from the Reolink with the cams IR LEDs off. I wish I'd saved a similar shot from the Amcrest when I installed the IR flood.

Cheap AND good the RLC-420-5MP

Reolink PoE IP Camera Outdoor (Pack of 2) 5MP HD Video Surveillance Work with Google Assistant, Security IR Night Vision Motion Detection Audio SD Card Slot RLC-420-5MP

This just place holder for something longer later but I stumbled upon these and I'm pretty impressed. As I'm writing this Amazon has these in 2 packs for just $95.99 PLUS 15% for an actual cost of just $40.80 per! Almost the same price as a Wyze V2 with an outdoor case on it. But here you get a 5MP POE camera that does RTSP native. And better night vision of course being a cam made for outdoors. It even records audio and has the on board SD card and can send to the Reolink cloud if you should want. Note Reolink has a model D400 that is the same cam with a bit fewer vertical pixels, 1440 vs 1920 for about $5 less but why? Both are the same 2560 pixels wide 80 degree view.

The only down side might be that there is no WiFi model. The closest Reolink WiFi models are:
The RLC-422W, a dome model with 4X zoom for about twice the price
The RLC-410W, a bullet model that is only 4 MP and about half again the price.

There is also a RLC-410-5MP which is a bullet version of the RLC-420-5MP for about the same price.

Here are a couple videos to show how it performs. Both show my dogs walking about 30 feet away. I would point out an addition IR flood should really be added here. The night video is just with the in cam IR LEDs.

RLC-420-5MP night shot example
RLC-420-5MP day shot example

Here are some sample shots as well. Note the date and time are obviously WAY off. Seems my ntp server crashed and the Reolink software does not support a backup.

Me standing by the fence about 30 feet away.

White dog on about 30 feet away. If you look close you can see his teeth.

Day shot on a sunny and very windy day.

Another day shot but on an overcast day.

Viewing the night sky in color with an Amcrest IP4M-1026, IP4M-1055E, Dahua and HikVision ColorVu

So called Starlight cams seem to be becoming a thing so I thought I'd see what is possible with a camera I already had. You can look at my video Night sky Aug 10th 2019 and Night sky Aug 9th 2019 to see what I'm talking about here. Update: added two Amcrest IP4M-1055E cams to get a 180 view of the southern sky.  Here is a sample sunrise video from the south east cam Sunrise 12/5/2019 at 60X

With a few simple tests the Amcrest IP4M-1026 seemed to have the best low light video and the widest view. Mainly I wanted to try and capture some of the neighborhood's fireworks displays.  My first test with pretty much default settings came out OK with lightning.  It seemed to me it switched to night view earlier than it needed so I played with the options to get the video linked above.

I was surprised how much I could make out by just moonlight. It basically looked like what I would see looking out the window.

Below are the setting I used. You might be able to tweak this a bit further with experimenting but I'm happy with the results.

Though the fireworks capture was pretty much a bust as they were a lot more subdued this year and the few that did make it into were mostly blocked by the trees. Thinking now I'll add another cam to close to double the 118 degree view. Note I also did a test with a GW5747MIC 5MP Optional TWO-Way Audio PoE IP Camera 1.9mm 160° Wide Angle Night Vision Sony Starvis HD 1920P Security Mini Dome 5 Megapixel Built-In Microphone and Micro SD slot, Audio in/out Recording but the view was not only no wider but not as good in low light.

Added video without the Moon to show when it is too dark to even see out you can still see the horizon glow of Austin, the planets, at least 1 star, the bard and trees. Here are compare pics from my cameras that catch bits of the same view all from the same time, 8/21/2019 at 10PM local despite what some of the on screen timestamps say.

Screen grab from the posted video

Snapshot directly from Blue Iris

Snap shot from Reolink RLC-411WS (5MP Version) of west end of barn in sky pic

Snapshot from RLC-511W across south deck. Note plane from video and above Amcrest snapshot is just above far horizon. 

Snapshot from Reolink RLC-511 (non WiFi) of mid drive. Ton of IR down here so any bits not lit are hard to see.

From Hikvision DS-2CD2035-I overlooking the pool area (not currently up). Note when the moon is up you can usually see the horizon in this view.

Just in case you think the Amcrest is optimized for night, here is a snapshot from high noon.

Amcrest IP4M-1026 snapshot of sky with sun skirting top of frame.

Other cams I'm looking at for really low light

Note these are based on specs and or videos but I have not tried them yet. The 0.5 lux Amcrest above blows the 0.01Lux GW Security cam away in real life.

• NiteColorcameras from Nelly's Security They are 4MP Hikvision ColorVu cams at twice the price of the Amcrest (~$200) but are rated at 0.0014 lux min illumination! Videos look great.
• Lorex 4K Ultra HD Resolution 8MP Motorized Varifocal Outdoor 4x Optical Zoom IP Camera, 250ft Night Vision has some interesting videos but is rated at 1 lux min for color so I have doubts. Plus even at Black Friday price it is $270. Normally $470 and the reviews do not seem good.
• Dahua has cams rated down to 0.002 lux. Price wise their 0.009 lux 5 MP N51BI22 will set you back $140 to $200 while  their 0.002 lux A42BJA2 4MP Outdoor HD Analog Eyeball Camera will run you $100 to $140 BUT it is analog.

Updates

Amcrest

Unfortunately this is what the Amcrest IP4M-1055E cam looking SE looks like. At first I thought it was just the fog we've had the last couple days. Then maybe dirt on the lens but it turned out to be condensation on the inside of the cam. I was planning on swapping one with a Dahua IPC-HDW4631C-A  anyway for a compare. Dahua claims a rating of  0.06Lux/F1.6( Color,1/3s,30IRE) 0.4Lux/F1.6( Color,1/30s,30IRE). Sellers are claiming as low as 0.002.

Dahua

I've received a IPC-HFW4631H-ZSA Without Dahua logo 6MP IP Camera 2.7-13.5mm Motorized Varifocal Lens Optical Zoom I'll be testing soon. It is going for $109 on Newegg and $118 on Amazon.  I should note I see a lot of people posting that the Dahua international OEMs are knock offs. They are definitely a lot cheaper. The "English" OEM is $180 on Amazon and Dahua labeled version of this cam from B&H is $288. 
I must say I'm impressed so far. I mainly got it to see how the zoom and autofocus compared but the low light is damn impressive. You can clearly make out Orion in the Dahua shot below while the Amcrest used above can only see a few stars. Sirius is easy to make out in both and Rigel can be dimly seen in the Amcrest shot. Once you know it is there you can sort of make out Orion in the Amcrest but it is fairly clear in the Dahua shot. Note this is about at moon rise.

Orion constellation clearly visible above weather station

The same shot from the Amcrest IP4M-1026

Here at there is about a half moon high in the sky but some clouds have rolled in too.

In this Dahua shot you can see the moon is just a light in the sky though Sirius is still visible.

The same shot from the Amcrest IP4M-1055E looking SE. The moon looks more like a sphere though the ground objects are basically silhouettes.

The same shot from the Amcrest IP4M-1055E looking SW. You can see Sirius and barn roof can be made out a bit better.

It is an overcast day but here is a day compare.

Dahua shot of sun through the clouds and birds in flight

Almost the same shot from the Amcrest IP4M-1055E looking SW

On the flip side though if you are thinking of monitoring your yard in color at night you should look at this video of the Dahua being manually switched from color to night / IR mode to get a feel for if you have enough light to make that viable. I'll be adding more videos to the Dahua playlist.

HikVision ColorVu

It is just amazing. See this post for more.