4K 8MP PoE IP Outdoor Vandal Proof Dome Camera for Existing System, 2.8mm Wide Angle, 65ft Night Vision, H.265, ONLY Compatible with Hik Vision Uniview NVR, NDAA Compliant

I had originally given this camera a 4-star rating but have changed it to a 5 as of 5-27-24.Here are some of the reasons:I found that if I dropped the image "Quality" setting from BEST to GOOD, it dramatically reduced network bandwidth without appreciable reduction in video quality. Before that change, the new cameras were pushing my server to over 80% CPU. Now it is back below 50% which is where I like to keep it.I now have three of these cameras running on my Blue Iris network along with more than 20 other cameras of various brands and ages. Everything is running smoothly on an older model Dell mini-tower.The third camera that I just installed replaced a camera of a well-known brand that cost about four times as much as these cameras, and that I thought was pretty good until I tried these. These are better in every respect and are smaller and less obvious mounted on the front of the house.These cameras give amazing sharp, full-color night vision of my driveway and out into the street from just the light of two low-wattage LED light bulbs on either side of the garage door. There's a little "ghosting" of moving people and animals, but the image is much better than several previous cameras that I've used.Two more improvements:Grass seemed "too green" and at night the image was too dark in some low-light areas to see much detail. Reducing the Contrast and Saturation settings to 99 in Image fixed both problems.By default OSD (On Screen Display) messages (such as date, time, camera name, etc.) can be displayed in the four corners of the image. I discovered that there's also a Custom option that lets you place them anywhere on the image. That can be helpful if the text is obscuring areas that are important to see clearly.My original review for my first camera follows below...==============================================================================I use Blue Iris to support a variety of cameras of different ages and from several vendors. I bought two of these cameras to experiment with 4K resolution. The images are excellent in all light conditions - better than some of my cameras costing three times as much. Audio is very sensitive and clear.The only problem I had is that one of the cameras was mounted on an exposed southwest wall with no overhead protection. During strong storms, rain would get into the tiny opening for the microphone causing complete loss of audio. After a day or two it would dry out and audio would work again. I exchanged that camera for a new one of the same type and built a small "cave" over the mic opening using stick epoxy. That solved the problem.One other surprise and something to consider before buying one: due to their high resolution, these cameras use a lot of resources including network bandwidth, processor load on the DVR and disk storage space. (update 5-27-24: I found a fix for this, see my new comments at the top of the review)I run all of my cameras at very low frame rates (typically 5 FPS) which greatly reduces the load and has been fine for all practical security needs. Even so, these cameras use about 4x the resources of my 4MP cameras.

Ive used Lorex security systems for 20+ years. I had a camera fail and replaced it with this unit. It functions well with the Lorex NVR and adds audio control at a lower price than Lorex. Neat!.

These are not 4k cameras, standard HD that is visibly inferior to all the other 3+ year old year old 4k cameras i have installed.

This camera enclosure is solidly built. It has many options I had to read up on before understanding that most were mutually exclusive to interface mode. TVI is probably the best, but I wont be using it because determining DVR equipment w/compatible features is just too complicated. The camera looks like it will be a really good solution for someone, but I couldn't even test it because it lacks connectors for normal RCA input analog video.I ordered this because we have a building prewired with coax for interior cameras. This was my attempt to save the effort of rewiring. However, we mostly needed external cameras, and the interior wiring channels weren't as hard to access as I expected. The availability of hybrid recorders isn't as good as pure IP NVRs.Purchasing more of these and the new hybrid DVR just didn't make sense when most of the cameras we use are now IP.

Buen producto

This is a review of the dome security camera branded "Real HD" and it is designated as model number IPC-Y8VD28A and it is advertised as 8 MegaPixels with 4K resolution. It just does not render detail like my other 8MP-4K cameras. You can really tell the difference when using a NVR to digitally "zoom" in on the video image. With my 8MP-4K cameras I can zoom in on a house for sale sign across the street and it is legible. With this "Real HD" IPC-Y8VD28A camera, I can zoom in on the sign but can't even make out that there are printed characters on the sign. That's a significant difference if you're trying to ID something or someone for a police report. This IPC-Y8VD28A performs more like my 5MP cameras.The "starlight" function of this "Real HD" IPC-Y8VD28A is great. It seems to need only a tiny bit of light to produce a bright color image. And it does perform like a wide angle 2.8mm lens. It truly spans a wide distance like my other 2.8mm cameras.I like the mounting surface of this camera because it has a recess that allows mounting to the underside of my soffits with provided space for the cable to route through a hole in the soffit to the attic without exposure of the cable to vandals. In other words, the cable exits the base dead center and there's about 3/8" space provided within the rim of the base for cable routing and that is good. Some other cameras do not provide any space at all for the cable. Instead they require a mounting junction box but they don't sell a mountine junction box to fit. I had to make my own spacer. (I use a 3/8" thick plastic kitchen cutting board to make a suitable spacer.) This "Real HD" camera would spare me that fabrication hassle but I have to choose the other cameras with a 8MP image and continue making my own mounting spacer for those cameras.This "Real HD" brand IPC-Y8VD28A camera does not come with any software setup utilities but you can use AJDevTools or some of the other search tools available at various places on the web. Actually, you don't need those utilities if you simply log in to the camera using the default IP and password indicated on the camera.This camera will accept a 6 character simple password. It defaults to 123456. Some cameras these days require more than 8 characters using upper case, lower case, numerals and special characters. That's too complicated for my 4 year old NVR. Besides, I don't need that complexity anyway because the internal IP segment of my NVR is unreachable from outside of the NVR. So all cameras connected to my NVR are protected so I don't need complex passwords in each of my cameras.This camera does seem to follow ONVIF requirements for my 4 year old NVR so I'm going to say that it is truly ONVIF compatible. My NVR accepts ONVIF cameras if I manually input the camera IP and the camera password into my NVR. I suppose some NVR's will automatically populate some cameras but mine only did that with the cameras that came with the NVR. Several of those original cameras have failed for one reason or another so I replace them with ONVIF cameras.So, for you, this "Real HD" brand IPC-Y8VD28A camera might work as a generic ONVIF if an only if you do the manual entry routine like I have to do.I wish this was a true 4K camera because except for that discrepancy, I loved this thing.

Good picture, hooks right up if you've got an existing DVR solution. Requires it's own power source, but is a really solid option if you're in the market for a 5MP camera to add to your system. I've got a Swann DVR, and it hooked right up, no issues.