Just got my first IP Camera, some good time stamp info.

[saintjohnny]

Please only read this if you are a newbie, I'm basically stating the obvious for folks who are very new to IP cameras:

I received my first IP camera today (http://www.axis.com/products/cam_m1011w/index.htm, or cheapest on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Axis-0301-004-030 ... B001PF3SDA) and I had it up and running with VDV in less than a minute (though I am tech savy so this helps obviously), I can't believe I waited this long to take the plunge. So being new to IP cameras I know how little others can know based on how little I knew before today so here is what I learned:

You just plug it into your router and put it's IP address in the web browser to connect (find the IP address in the router status menus by connecting to your router via web browser) , then go through all the menus and see if there is anything you want to change even though it works by default out of the box. The only feature you really need to enable is the time stamp feature since some people claim video does not hold up in court without a time stamp though I have mixed feelings on that because I could make any time stamp I want on a video during or after the footage. Here is a screen shot showing the menu options for time stamps and the result on the video in VDV: http://i.imgur.com/3Y9Rc.png (scroll down to see the time stamp at the bottom of the screenshot).

After your initial setup, if you have a wireless IP camera you can unplug it from the router and go set it up in your window and plug in the power supply and it should be able to talk back to your router assuming you entered the wifi password credentials while it was wired up. Wireless saves running wires if you are in an apartment and don't feel like investing in running cables across the rooms professionally so it doesn't look horrid. Once I buy a house I will definitively go wired cameras so that I can do HD video with perfect quality. The beauty of VDV is that it doesn't see wireless "hiccups" and other video distortions as motion like most motion detection software I've seen, which creates many false positives.

I also enabled it so I could remotely view my driveway from my phone (port forwarding required) which is quicker than connecting via remote desktop into my computer from my phone if I just want to take a quick look for any reason, otherwise I just use VDV to email me when there is an issue.

I would like to get a HD camera next but I don't really need it myself so I'll end up getting one for one of my clients once my security company gets going. Thanks for reading.