Customer Reviews

Axis 0302004 M1011 Camera

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The only other IP camera I've owned has been the Axis 206 (both wireless and wired). Both had surprisingly good image quality for their size, although for the price one shouldn't be too surprised. Unfortunately, my wired 206 died about a year after I got it, after the warranty had expired. Very disappointing. But Axis is probably the only decent player in this particular price segment ("good performance but barely affordable"), so I went with the M1011 as a replacement.

The setup is as easy as the 206's was, and I was pleased to see they changed the Ethernet jack to point out the back instead of down like the 206's annoying jack. The lens is NOT adjustable (the 206's was), but the focal distance is good as is for my purposes. The image quality is acceptable but noticeably poorer than the 206's. I had heard this but found it hard to believe. Yet, there it is, a grainy, cross-hatched image of my dark driveway. The daylight image is also noticeably grainy, even at the motion JPEG setting. That's disappointing, but I guess not a deal breaker as long as the camera is reliable. Finally, the construction quality really isn't as good as the older cams. The mounting pedestal is noticeably flimsier and the case seems lighter and it seems to flex a bit when I plug in the cables. Again, as long as durability is good, this probably doesn't matter much and the clamp mount that comes with this camera (in addition to the pedestal) is a nice feature. The high point is the ease of setup and the variety of protocols the M1011 supports.

So overall I'm pleased. Still, I can't give this an unqualified recommendation. I hope Axis will work to improve ALL aspects of performance in their next generation of IP cams.

At first I was a little wary of buying a camera that can only produce 640x480 images, when I can buy a 10 megapixel point and shoot for much less, but I realized (duh!) that these cameras serve a completely different purpose. Not only are the images transmitted over my home network, but this camera is designed to take pictures 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I found the camera very easy to set up: the directions are clear and on a Mac you don't even have to muck about with IP addresses, it will show up automatically with Bonjour. There are plenty of configuration options, you can include a date and time stamp on the video, adjust the compression settings, change color calibration, and setup events that automatically email you or upload images and video to a remote server. You can also adjust the functionality of the status LED and improve the security of the web interface with IP address filtering.

Ultimately while the software aspects of the camera are acceptable, they aren't good either. Setting up an event server is not exactly easy, and an email notification that motion has occurred may not be enough. I would highly recommend pairing the camera with a purpose built software solution. I found a relatively new program called "Vitamin D" (google "Vitamin D Video") that seems to work really well.

Finally, I feel that in terms of value-for-money, it wouldn't hurt to make the camera a bit cheaper. In fact, it seems like they should sell these in a two-pack for residential customers (one for the front yard and one for the back) and offer a bit of discount for buying two.

I like that camera because of easy installation process. The only problem I have is no sound.. but it's my fault, I did not read product description.

I stream from that camera directly to Wowza Server. It works great. Camera use about 1200-1600kbps with default settings and good quality video. (don't expect too much, video quality is just OK).

Camera has IPv6 support.

Overall
This IP camera is great for streaming my fish tank using motion jpeg compression, when comparing this to other cameras I was impressed.

Cons
That said, I could not get H.264 compression streaming (this version takes up less bandwidth, 550kb/s vs 1 mb/s) to work over Internet after I got it working over the LAN, it just wouldn't show up whereas mjpg still would, go figure. e.g. rtsp://(ip/dns):554/axis-media/media.amp.
So another restriction was that in order to configure the port your stream goes through for its web server (defaults to 80), I had to have Windows to install software that allows you to configure the camera.
Its ethernet and power wired only, no wireless.
No vision at night.
No audio.

Pros
Decent price for what it does offer.
Password settings so only you can choose who views the stream.
Comes with its own web server that you can serve on your LAN or Internet easily.
Web server will just work and show up on Bonjour once ethernet and power are connected.
Direct url access so you can view your stream on VLC or embed on a website. http://(cameras ip/dns):80/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi for example. You can also add query string arguments, so that say ?width=640&height=320 would change the movie from the default height to a smaller height, or you might want to use less frames per second.

Axis cameras are very solid. The web interface is a bit over complex though. For instance, to add FTP uploads, you need to visit a number of pages. Compare this to the D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless N Network Camera where the FTP config is all on one page. Axis gives you more options, but sometimes more isn't better. The DCS-930L gives you a very similar product plus wireless for about half the price.

If you're interested in using it with a free web site that will take uploads from the camera, see my blog post on this at [...]

Purchased this to replace one of our IP cameras. Was a little cheaper and better quality than last years version (we have both). Good IP camera for the price.

This device does what it says, the main advantages are Axis' built-in software and reliability. Only four stars since it's a bit expensive. At this price, it should have included PoE and audio.

That Camera is Amazing, the AXIS products are the best !!!!

This is why they are the head of the Video IP technology.

I use Axis since 7 years ago, and every day they have a good improvements in each product.

Just try to better the prices, and you will take more market.

Thanks
Joao Nunes