Hikvision 4MP DS-2CD2142FWD-I HD WDR IP Network Dome 2.8mm Lens

This is the 5th Hikvision IP camera that I have purchased and this particular model has the best picture quality and functionality that I have seen so far. I'm going to tell you what you should know about this camera in a nutshell and Hikvision cameras in general.First and foremost, Amazon is not an Hikvision retailer so that Hikvision may or may not honor their warranty. Having said that, I never had a single issue with all 5 cameras (except one that I will explain later). The recent 4 cameras I got, two from CCTV and another two from NetView, they were all US version which allowed users to install firmware when they become available, whereas some other retailers from Amazon may sell you the Chinese version, or some call them gray market versions. This is what you need to watch out for.Gray market Hikvision cameras are fully functional when you receive them. There is nothing wrong with them except you can't upgrade the firmware. If you do upgrade them, like the mistake I made for my first camera, you will brick it (or break it). It would literally become unbootable and you can use it as a paper weight. Granted you pay less on the price but in return, you will be stuck with the default firmware. This is definitely everybody will need to think twice before placing their older. Usually, the Gray Market, or Chinese version of the camera will bear "CH" in the serial number. You, of course, will not see the serial number until you receive it, but you can contact the reseller before you place an order. My advice to you, pay a bit more to ensure you can enjoy the future firmware upgrade.Quality wise, this Dome camera (among with one bullet camera from Hikvision) is excellent. I'm referring to the housing, picture quality, and functionality. The camera does not come with the comprehensive user manual so you'll have to download the PDF from the company. Yet, if you want the basic features, you can get the camera up and running within 30 minutes. You'll need to spend a significant amount of time to fine-tune it if you really want to dig deep and explore its potential but you'll be surprise of what this little gem is capable of doing. I can spend days typing the functions but you'll probably get bored, so I will leave it as isCouple of things to keep in mind. To setup the camera, you will need to download a configuration tool called SADP (Mac and PC) to discover the camera in your network, the default IP is some silly 192.x.x.x segment but once you use the tool, you can modify it to your network segment anyway you like. Be sure to change the port that works for your router too. Generally, people use port 80 as the default unless you have already used it for something else. 8088, 8000, or 2000 work just fine for most cases if you want to remote access your camera from your workplace. Granted you will need to do a port forwarding from your router to define the port. For instance, if your IP camera IP is 10.1.1.12 and TCP port number is 8088, then you will have to "tell" your router the exact same thing. Therefore, if you attempt to access to your camera externally, you will have to do something like : http:// yourWANIP address:8088. It's also useful to assign a static IP address to your camera too so in case you need to restart your camera, it will stick with the static IP instead of something else.One thing that I really like about this camera, is that it has an internal MicroSD slot which you can record video continuously or by events. The max capacity is 128GB and it will overwrite the card when it's running out of space. This way, you can playback the recorded video anytime. The quality is just excellent. Of course, you can record it to a NAS or NVR too but that's a different story. In my case, I do both. I record it on the MicroSD since I have a 64GB sitting around, and I also record it to my QNAP NAS and retain the footage for 10 days before it's overwritten. You have all the flexibility as far as recording goesHikvision does make excellent cameras with reasonable price. it's hard to find good valued PoE cameras like Hikvision. I was a bit skeptical first but once I try their product, I just keep on coming back for more.If you find this review helpful, please give me a thumbs up and I will keep on writing. If not, just ignore me and don't rate it.... LOL. Jokes aside, if you have questions, drop me a line and I'd be more than happy to answer them if I know how. Cheers.Update: 6/1/2016It's been more than 10 days after I deployed this camera and it has given great service. I never lost any connectivity at any given point. The internal MicroSD card has been recording continuously without issues. All replayed video was playing so fluidly without stuttering. The camera received direct sunlight from around 3:00pm. Trust me, the temperature around that time was really hot and the unit continued to record well without issues. I didn't reach up and touch the camera, but I would assume it was operating in pretty high temperature too. so, in that sense, this camera is quiet reliable. I'm attaching an additional two clips snapped today, for your reference. Last but not least, I ordered another Hikvision camera from NetView, which made a total of 3 within the month. it tells you how happy I am with Hikvision and Netview.Update: 10/6/2016I have installed another one (same model) on the side corner of my house, so I can have a better view of the people's faces when they approach my house. The last screenshot provided is NOT in its highest resolution but will give you some idea of how vivid the picture is. The contrast is simply amazing. Oh yes, the other Hikvision cameras installed a while back ago. I have not yet, had the need to restart anyone of them for months. They are really reliable.

Cameras are functional but are not compatible with QNAP Surveillance Station software. The most recent firmware on HIKVision USA site is 5.3.6_151105 and these cameras come with 5.41. Beware that this firmware is not something that can be downgraded as HIKVision adjusted the values in 5.4 to prevent this process.I really wanted to make these cameras work as they are much cheaper than the retail versions and I ordered 21 in total for a large project. I did reach out to Netview several times looking for assistance on this and they were no help.UPDATE:I got a call from a very knowledgeable rep today that assisted me in working with the latest Firmware. Turns out the cameras are a Regional device, which is fine but needs to be configured with a different profile than the precanned Hikvision one. That said, it might seem Qnap needs to update there profiles to play more friendly with the latest firmware. All is well and I am now moving forward with these cameras.

I have ordered 11 of these cameras for a upgrade/replacement of a failing analog system. I am really impressed with the quality of these cameras. The have a lot of features that are hidden. The dome is secured using a hex bit and the dome has a cable to suspend it as you work on the camera so you wont drop the dome. The lens is very wide but does not distort the video at all.The IR being inside a dome scared me because most of the time when the ir is in a dome you get IR bounce back which RUINS the image. Not the case with these cameras the quality is very stunning even at night.This unit does have smart events (intrusion detection and line crossing). However the motion settings are very sensitive and you either have lots of false alarms or no detected motion events at night. I think it mostly has to do with the amount of noise in the video.For video you have two streams a main stream and sub stream. The quality is great at both day and night. The image is crisp and you can make out faces and license plates of vehicles about 50 feet away with digital zoom and the right settings. Very happy with this camera. So far 2 months without any issues.

Standard of measure against any other camera in my opinion. Tempered glass... IP66 or better rated. Includes template .. Screw key... And microfiber cloth for cleaning.Easy to setup and config if you are tech savvy and do your homework. Each new cam wants to be 192.168.1.54 or 64 if I recall. So just assign new IP in your DHCP pool as you go along... And recycle power on camera after IP reassign and you are good to go for next camera to power up.Hint:Use Chrome with IEtab extension installed to get live view working. They havent fixed it to work with Edge for some reason. It wants IE8 to get live view working if you are inside the html camera config area. IEtab extension fixes this short coming.FYI:You can use HIKViSIONS own network discovery free tool but be prepared for some STRANGE network behavior while that program is running. It pretty much hijacks your entire network like a wrench in a gear factory.Side Note:Get the WiFi Texas POE gbps rack injector for your cameras... Cheaper than a poe switch... You can thank me later :)

Very good price , easily installed and configured

Works great, easy installation and product aririved as described.

Received the camera in a timely fashion and it works just as good as the same model I purchased from a different seller just a month prior but for $20 more

Image quality is great. Field of view is narrow. Like many doma camera, suffers from glare / reflections / IR bleeding on the dome in IR operations at night. I could not find a position for the camara that avoided this outdoor... ended up using this one indoor. I don't think this issue is unique to this model. I do not use any of the supplied applications beyond the web management interface to setup it initially - I capture a RTSP stream from Zoneminder.

Very happy so far, set them up as stand alone cameras, no NVR. Easy setup