ZoneMinder Forums

hello,
I am looking for a good quality-price ratio PTZ IP-camera, which is supported by Zone Minder and is suitable for outdoor environment. It should be capable for monitoring in dark. And the stream quality should be at least as good as this 2MP camera: http://88.196.58.108:7002/appletvid.html Actually this IQeye752 - 2.0MP would be a perfect choice(price is ~1300$), but the DPTZ is not supported by Zone Minder. I have buying a powerful computer in mind, so the storing and high resolution streaming is not a problem. Here is a list of compatible devices, but it is rather difficult to pick something suitable. Axis models should be good, but they are expensive. Please help me to choose something

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't DPTZ is just resizing the image and scrolling around the scaled (like you would to a hi-res jpeg image in a image view program)?

If so then the, IQeye752 might be able to still suit your needs. You can use Zonemider and record the camera images and keep the camera panned out at 100% to catch the full view of the camera. If there is an event that has occurred that is too small to see in the full pan view, you can look at the individual frames with a image viewer that supports zooming or you could use ffmpeg or other video tools to encode the event into a video that is cropped and enlarged at the area where the event took place.

If your PTZ needs requires looking actually changing the view point of the camera, then a DPTZ camera wouldn't work for your needs anyways.

As to your main question. I'm sorry, I don't know enough about the MegaPixel IP PTZ cameras to know which has the most bang for buck.

the digital ptz is a feature we have discussed a long time ago as it would be good to add, but as above zm will always need to record the whole image and digital ptz would be done on the playback images and live streams. It is something i could intehrate into zm4ms but im reluctant too as it would mean streaming the whole image and would be poor on low bandwidth links as most info would be discarded.

timcraig wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't DPTZ is just resizing the image and scrolling around the scaled (like you would to a hi-res jpeg image in a image view program)?

If so then the, IQeye752 might be able to still suit your needs. You can use Zonemider and record the camera images and keep the camera panned out at 100% to catch the full view of the camera. If there is an event that has occurred that is too small to see in the full pan view, you can look at the individual frames with a image viewer that supports zooming or you could use ffmpeg or other video tools to encode the event into a video that is cropped and enlarged at the area where the event took place.

If your PTZ needs requires looking actually changing the view point of the camera, then a DPTZ camera wouldn't work for your needs anyways.

As to your main question. I'm sorry, I don't know enough about the MegaPixel IP PTZ cameras to know which has the most bang for buck.

you are probably right about DPTZ. However, then it is rather useless option because it does not expand the surveillance area- I can zoom the image, but I can not make the camera coverage area larger. Without PTZ option I should buy two cameras. I browsed through the Axis products and looked for suitable outdoors PTZ camera. I found only one suitable camera- AXIS 225FD. The image quality is not as good as the IQ752's one, but 640x480 should be OK I guess. Or is there a similar ZoneMinder compatible outdoor camera which is capable of higher picture quality? However, the price is lower than the price of IQeye752(AXIS 225FD starts from 1000$). Or could somebody suggest something else?

Last but not least- isn't there a outdoor-case which is PTZ? I mean I could put the IQeye752 into that case and PTZ that case instead of camera?

I never install PTZ cams. (Well almost never, and only to compliment existing stationary cameras.) The problem is that someone always leaves them zoomed to the wrong spot when something bad happens. I always have enough coverage with stationary cameras.

have to agree, in most not all situations but ptz inthe right environment work very well, but are not a general purpose cam.
Future is 10ish mega pixel and digital ptz