I recently received an AVN304 1.3 Mega IP Camera from AVTECH to play around with. I’ve been fiddling with it quite a lot over the last couple days and thought it was time to write something about it. I’d like to point out that I’m not some expert when it comes to Cameras; I’m just an everyday guy who likes to play around with new gadgets.

The AVN304

Unboxing

It comes in a regular sized camera box and is very well packed, keeping everything protected throughout shipment. The box includes the Camera, power adapter, a very nice mounting bracket, software CD (I never actually used this, so don’t know exactly what it contains), and installation guide.

The installation guide was easy to follow and covered more than you’ll ever need to know about getting the camera set up (as it is really quite easy).

The product box

Opening the box...

Hardware

The camera itself is solidly built and does not feel cheap. The components inside it are also very nice high quality.

It uses a Panasonic Live MOS Image Sensor which supports resolutions from QVGA (320 x 240) to SXGA (1280 x 1024). It has a white LED for illuminating dark areas and the lens has a nice wide viewing angle of 75° to get as much of the scene in as possible. Finally it has a built in microphone so you can record the sound as well. Of course there is more to it than just this, but you can go check the official specs to see more: http://www.avtech.com.tw/english/cctv_spec.aspx?ID=AVN304

All of the contents

Using the Mount

Merit of the Live MOS Chip

Installation

The installation guide isn’t overly important for this camera, it was actually extremely easy to get up and running. The time it took for me to go from plugging it into my network and watching the streaming video was approximately 3 minutes. It would have been a little shorter if I didn’t have to look through the installation guide for the default username and password to log in to the camera for the first time.

The software gives you some nice options for configuring the network as well as other handy things like quality, user accounts, DynDNS support (this is also covered quite extensively in the installation guide which is handy for new users to the DynDNS service), and a bunch more.

Usage

It couldn’t get much easier to use. You plug in the IP of the camera on your local network or the DynDNS url or however you had it setup remotely and log in. I would like to point out that every single time you log into the camera you need to fill out a captcha, this is pretty annoying and I did not think it was very necessary to have. [Update 07/04 - It has been brought to my attention that under "General -> Online Configuration" you are able to disable the captcha!]. Also when the stream starts you need to enter your username and password against for Quicktime, another annoyance but nothing deal breaking.

The interface is clean and easy to use. Some of the features are represented by icons with no text, but you quickly learn what they represent and it makes recognizing them a breeze afterwards.

You are able to adjust the focus depth by rotating the lens on the camera itself which is nice. I would have liked to have seen a remote way of adjusting this from the web management panel though. This again, like many of my critiques of the camera is quite minor as usually once you install it and adjust the focus it shouldn’t need to be touched again until it is moved.

Usage Overview

The Annoying Captcha

[Update 07/04 - It has been brought to my attention that under "General -> Online Configuration" you are able to disable the captcha!]

Tons of Configuration Options

Features

It incorporates some really nice features, some of these are:

Digital PTZ: Allows you to zoom in and then pan and tilt around.
White LED: Allows surveillance and recording even during the night.
Face Detection and Tracking: The camera can automatically detect faces and zoom in. You can also have it set to start recording only when faces are detected which I thought was a pretty nifty feature.
Digital Smart Zoom: Similar to above except instead of zooming in to faces, it will detect movement and zoom in to capture that. This could be quite handy when used for surveillance purposes.

Viewing

One of the great things about the AVN304 are the number of ways you are able to watch the video stream remotely. You can connect with just about any browser (though some of them do not support all of the features, Digital PTZ for example) or with a large selection of mobile devices (either through their native browser or the EagleEyes software provided by ACTECH.

Currently the handsets supported are iPad, iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Android. This should cover almost anyone who wants to watch their camera’s stream on the go.

Example Interface and Quality

Verdict

I’ve actually had a blast playing around with this camera. It has a lot more features than only the ones I’ve covered above, like the ability to send recordings to FTP servers. I’ve used it quite successfully broadcasting one of our local board game meetups over the net as well as just around the house for fun to get a feel for it. The quality of the picture is just superb, no problems with it whatsoever.

If you are in the market for a digital IP camera, the AVN304 is quite the contender and from my research it’s one of the best on the market today, and the price is reasonable for what you get. They offer a $4.99 version of their EagleEyes software which has a larger address book (20 entries compared to 2) and allows time search and playback. Personally I feel that the Plus version should be the only version and it should be free. After purchasing the camera the software to properly utilize it should be free, but this is minor enough and may change in the future.

The unit is selling for somewhere around $200 USD which is a pretty good deal considering the features included.

The Future

AVTECH isn’t stopping here, I had a quick chat with them about their plans for the next revision of this camera and they have lots of great ideas of what can be added. A few of these include an increase in the image sensor from one megapixel up to two, add UPnP (Port Mapping), push notifications and messages on devices, and a feature I think would be wonderful – two way audio.