Review on Amcrest Security Dual Band 4 Megapixel IP4M 1051W by Alex Reunion

From this camera you can expect a long list of features that a typical good IP camera has - video in different resolutions, mirror/mirror conversion, two-way audio, pan/tilt, alarms, including motion /audio/tampering detection, SD card, all kinds of network and system configurations... I doubt you'll find a common IP camera feature that this camera lacks. I want to focus on what sets this enterprise-class camera apart from the usual low-cost, consumer-class IP cameras. This is not my first IP camera. I already had a system of half a dozen network cameras in and outside my home, half cheap consumer IP cameras, half low end enterprise IP cameras from top brands like Axis, Samsung. As usual, my first concern with this camera is its ONVIF compatibility (ie future use and compatibility with my existing system). I've found that a camera's ONVIF compliance is usually a very good indicator of a product's quality. I would say that this camera's ONVIF compatibility is exceptional. Detecting and setting up the camera takes a few seconds. It supports RTSP over HTTP, so everything - video streaming, snapshots, ONVIF services (like camera configuration, pan/tilt...) and the web interface - only needs one port. Most cheap consumer cameras use up to three different ports, adding unnecessarily complex WAN access configuration (e.g. access outside the home LAN). I was surprised by the extensive support for PTZ presets - adding, deleting and editing presets. The pan/tilt operation is very sensitive. The camera supports SD cards. To my surprise, it supports ONVIF profile G for peripheral storage, which is usually only found in enterprise-class IP cameras. Video streaming supports three encoding methods: H.264, H.265 and JPEG. Cheap consumer IP cameras usually do not support JPEG, which can be useful in some cases. The encoding can easily be selected with an ONVIF compliant client application. H.265 is preferred, but some older Android devices or PCs may not support H.265, so you can choose H.264 or JPEG. The most impressive part is the 4MP H.265. The video of the IP camera often has some lag or judder at high resolution during many movements (e.g. during PTZ operations), which greatly increases the data rate in the nature of H.264/H.265, but that Video has a slight lag and remains smooth under all circumstances. This is my first camera to use a USB cable for power. Out of curiosity I connected it to my laptop and it works! Little happy surprise. The camera can be mounted on a tripod (my video was taken with the camera on a tripod). It can come in handy when you take it with you on the go. Thanks to its well thought-out swivel mount, it can be adapted to any location. I originally thought of comparing it to $1000+ enterprise cameras to find its cons versus cameras 10x more expensive to help this review look more balanced, but I'm not sure that would be a good thing . If cost isn't an issue for you, just pick a few big brands. I've only had this camera for a few weeks. I'll be back to let you know if I find any issues with this camera. A short video clip will show you how to set up and get started with the camera in less than a minute, as well as some basic functions with this camera (video streaming, pan/tilt, viewing and playing videos stored on an SD card. .. ). I also took a 4MP H.265 video from this camera using an app (Onvifer) to show the excellent video quality from this camera, but Revain only allows one video for review. I'll try to provide a way to download it later. One of the photos is a 4 MP camera shot.