Anpviz 6MP PoE PTZ Camera Outdoor, 5X Optical Zoom 2.7~13.5mm Lens, Pan Tilt Zoom IP Security Camera with Human Vehicle Detection, Spotlight&Sound Alarm, SD Card Slot, IP66, NDAA Compliant (U Series)

UPDATED: ========= It has been about 3 months and still liking this camera. In fact I have bought several more. Nice thing is you can set them up in conjunction with other cameras and have them turn to look in a given direction if there is movement in a different spot from where this camera is generally parked (you need good DVR software to do that - I am using BlueIris). This camera has turned out to be better than I anticipated. The LED light is also very useful. I have one mounted at the back of my house zoomed in to an area, and if someone walks through that area, it fires the LED spot which is an added layer of deterrent to potential intruders. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I bought one of these turret PTZ cameras to try out. I install a lot of these cameras and having a turret camera with the option to spin around and cover more than one area can be beneficial in some applications. This camera uses the standard operating system used by Anpviz in most of their cameras (which is a robust Linux-based kernel - that is, very reliable). This is not the case is some of the other Anpviz PTZ cameras I have used, but this one does use the same basic OS which is good. PROS ==== Image quality on this camera is very good as it offers a pixel depth (6MP) beyond what the typical security camera application will need. Night vision image is also very good. It also features a nice bring LED light that augments the night vision. It has the ability to perform intelligent object detection for humans, cars, motorbikes etc. All the standard image turning features are available on this camera (again a function of the Anpviz camera OS) Audio input is supported and it works ok. As is the case with many of these cameras, do not expect great things from the small mic used in all these cameras however. Autofocus on the lens works well. The zoom is only a 5X zoom so it is fine for basic zoom features. If you want to get more close up detail this camera is not for you, but, that is not the price bracket this camera is in either. The camera has onboard storage but I did not test this since I use a PC-based video management system with my cameras so I do not use any of the onboard storage card features. CONS ==== Unlike more expensive PTZ cameras, this model does not support autotracking of a recognized object. The build quality on this camera is good from a software perspective, but the housing and gears are plastic. If you are going to use this camera "parked" at a particular preset location, with occasional panning to another preset (when triggered by another camera for example) then this unit would be fine. If this camera is going to be used to do constant panning, then I would choose a different unit since the gears in this unit will likely wear out over time. Again this camera is more intended to offer PTZ functions in a compact package for periodic panning and zooming around. SUMMARY ======== If you need a compact turret camera with PTZ options, this camera is not a bad choice. If you are in need of something with greater magnification, and you plan to do a lot of panning, I would choose one of Anpviz other more high end PTZ cameras (they have several).

The #Anpviz 6MP PTZ camera is my first camera with PTZ support. I have used several other Anpviz cameras, mostly their 5MP dome cameras and recently an 8MP model. This 6MP PTZ camera is very similar to the other cameras from Anpviz I have used. In short, I am happy with the camera: PTZ makes setup easier for me and the video quality is very good. Installation I install my cameras in the soffit of my house. I was concerned that the extra weight from a PTZ mechanism would cause an issue, however the camera does not feel much heavier than other models and is able to be installed like the others. Installation requires 4 screws and running cat5/6 cable to the camera, with power provided via PoE. I have never tested Anpviz DC power jacks on this or any of their cameras. The camera comes with a bracket to mount the camera on the side of a wall. I did not mount the camera that way, so I cannot say if it works well or not. Software The software included on the camera seems identical to other Anpviz cameras and is easy to use. They provide a lot of options, many of which I do not use. More advance users may find use for the advance options and could likely provide more information. For simple monitoring of your home, I am more than happy with the results. Picture Quality When I first installed the camera a large fog spot was on the lens, and I was unable to wipe it off. I contacted customer support, and they asked that I leave the camera on for a day. The fog went away by the next day and the picture quality is now as good as any of my other cameras. I have never had this happen with other Anpviz cameras, so it might have been the weather conditions on the day I installed. I do like that the camera comes with a motion light. It really helps the picture when viewing motion at night. It also helps when we walk outside in the night, so it is an added bonus. PTZ Support This is my first camera with PTZ support. While my planned use case does not need PTZ support, I find it very helpful for adjusting high cameras. For me, this make adjusting the camera much easier. I used the built-in software for the PTZ control and have even added a few presets. I have not tried to set the camera to use a PTZ tour, enabling me to view multiple angles from the same camera. In short, PTZ works as expected and made setup much easier for me.

Let me say from the start, that I am not an IT professional. I am just a retired lay person with a surveillance camera hobby. I think it all started several years back when our house was broken into. Not much cash was taken, but some items of sentimental and monetary value were. They were never recovered. This is a good camera. The overall performance is good. I like it a lot. It has tons of features and I have tried to take advantage of as many of them as possible. It was not an easy task, but it was worth it. The feature I liked the most was Intelligent Detect. It seemed to work flawlessly. You could set it to detect humans, cars, bicycles, motorcycles and that is what it would detect, nothing extraneous. It could email snap shots of what it detected as well as video. You could set it to send emails and you could set it to use an FTP server to send video to a user created folder. If I had had this camera when my house was broken into, they would have caught the guy. Now, it took me hours to figure out how to set all of this up. The star of this entire process was Anpviz Support team. I sent them at least fifteen emails with questions and every time there would be a response waiting in my email inbox the next morning with pictures and instructions on what to do. Anybody who says they are not getting good service through Anpviz Support must be approaching it wrong. My wife came home the other night after dark. She told me that when she walked by the camera the lights came on. She asked me if that was what was supposed to happen. I told her that it was. What she didn’t see is how it turned on color night vision and took a snap shot, a feature I wish was available on all of my cameras. The flip side of that is that some of these features have limited instructions, and it’s hard to intuitively figure out exactly what should go where in the set up. There could be improvements made in that area: Better instructions out of the box for all features. The elephant in the room though, is that the camera’s web version is not the best. The live view and playback can sometimes be pixelated and intermittent when using it as a standalone. The best way to use the camera is with an NVR, which is what I am doing. That way, you can use Intelligent Detect, FTP, PTZ and playback features of the camera and get good video by taking advantage of the NVR’s superior processing power. I haven’t covered everything, but for the price, I think this is a good buy. The picture is good (when using an NVR), the night vision is good, and email and FTP features are great. As far as PTZ is concerned, it seemed to work ok. I used it more for helping with directional positioning during installation. Overall, I give the camera a rating of four stars. Its performance when connected to an NVR is excellent.

Update3: Dropping the rating to 3 stars. Despite having an uninterruptable power supply, ALL of my Ampviz cameras end up losing the time and going back to 2018. From this point, they synchronize at such a slow rate, that it may be a year before they are current again. None of my cameras from other brands are doing this. Update2: I like this camera more and more. I have added another 2 of them. The night view is very good. With just 5% of the LED light, images are in color and are clear. At that level it is just a little bit more than a small landscape light. If there is a nearby landscape light already, then 3% LED is enough. The white light is not something I have had on any other camera, but is is a useful addition. The other thing to like about these cameras is they work everywhere. I was able to set it up without issue using a Chromebook. The live view works without any added plugins. I sadly have some cameras whose config is tied to a specific version of browser, which is no longer supported, and they required plugins. I have an old computer for those, but maybe not for much longer. Not sure what the issue with the disappearing substream was. It seemed to be specific with one of the DVRs previously, but I also saw issues on other devices. When set to a more standard size, everyone seems happy with it. Probably not the camera's fault, but an easy fix if needed. Set to 640x480 or similar. The oversaturation I saw on the first of these I bought did not exist on the more recent ones. I will likely replace a few more of my cameras with this one. Fingers crossed that I don't incur bandwidth issues. This requires a bit more than the older ones. But if I do, perhaps it is just time to address that. The PTZ does not seem to have zoom-specific speed, at least by default. It probably should, but with 5x, it is a minor issue. -- original issue OK, many people might not know or care what multicast is, but I happen to. Update1: I solved my issue by using the network differently. I use the DVRs to do more of the multicasting, so there is less need for the cameras to do that. I also found that the peculiarity with the image disappearing was related to a specific DVR. Reducing the resolution of the substream image solved that issue. Now I am pretty happy with these cameras. The bandwidth used is somewhat high relative to others for similar settings. But those settings aren't particularly objective, so I would not fault it for having a higher bandwidth, only note it for reference. It reduces bandwidth requirements when a camera is talking to multiple DVRs. My other cameras do support multicast, so I had assumed these would too. There seems to be another issue when forwarding video from one DVR to another. Only one of these cameras will be displayed at a time. Show one, the other goes dark, and vice versa. So either way I go on this, I would run out of bandwidth, or not be able to see the video from more than one of them. I don't see this issue with any other of my cameras (of several different brands), so it appears to be a bit of a miss here on networking issues. The colors are a bit over saturated by default, but otherwise, the camera works fine. Too bad about the networking.

Initial thoughts, I don't like this camera...BUT, I'm going to keep it. I never had a product that left me sooooo conflicted before. Issues, Anpviz took what should have been a great camera from Dahua slapped their name on it, and watered down the firmware and capabilities for whatever reason. I'm not a camera guru, but I've bought quite a few security cameras and set them up in complicated systems. Let me first say, I took a flawlessly working camera down and put this in the EXACT same position. This camera by far has been the hardest to setup due to: 1/ The camera has a "pulse/refresh" issue is the best way to describe it, where every 2 to 3 seconds you can see the camera slightly refresh or pulse. It is even more noticeable with a passing car, you'll see the car seemingly skip a frame. I know there are a few things within a NVR system that could cause that, but I eliminated all of those things and the issue still remained....and I didn't have this issue on the camera I removed from the same position. 2/ The camera has an issue with the PTZ memory, or return, or something. I haven't pinpointed why/where/how it is failing, but I have one preset (haven't noticed it happening with the other presets because I've been so focused on getting this to work at my bare minimum requirements and this issue is on the home/1 preset) and every once in a while I come back and look at the camera has moved slightly down. When I press the preset it is supposed to be on I see no adjustment...which it should. I have to go to another preset and come back for it to be in the position it needs to be. And then a few hours later it will be off again. I thought I was going crazy at first, but nope, it's the camera. I tried calling the preset from the software BI and the camera's admin interface and it is the same thing. 3/ The camera's "Intelligent Detection"/AI just isn't working as it should. It isn't seeing people the way it should. 4/ Something is going on where it is losing presets all together. There have been times where I saved a preset and come back and the preset is gone. 5/ There are some features that don't play well together and don't make sense how they interact. One example is the Day Shutter Mode and the Night Shutter Mode. If you have night setup as color instead of B/W with infrared, you can't set up Night Shutter Mode, you are forced to use the Day Shutter Mode which removes your ability to get granular with your lighting situation at night. 6/ The noise reduction is terrible. You have to trade off, smearing when cars drive by fast, or grains in the pic. The good, the colors are bright and sharp, the overall picture seems great...although I'm not wearing my glasses lol. So all of this begs the question, if so much seems so bad, why am I leaning towards keeping it. Simple, the form factor. Most other PTZ POE ONVIF cameras are either bigger or they come with a dome where the infrared will mess up the night shot, constant cleaning of the dome, and a few other issues. I bought this for one VERY specific issue, and it should be able to manage that issue....but it would have been great if it worked as flawlessly as my other cameras. I will probably come back to update.